illustration: "'are you related to governor mckinley?'"] coffee and repartee by john kendrick bangs illustrated new york and london harper & brothers publishers 1899 harper's "black and white" series. illustrated. 32mo, cloth, 50 cents each. in the vestibule limited. lowell. by g. w. curtis. by brander matthews. george william curtis. by this picture and that. a john white chadwick. comedy. by brander matthews. slavery and the slave trade the decision of the court. in africa. by henry m. a comedy. by brander matthews. stanley. a family canoe trip. by whittier: notes of his life florence w. snedeker. and of his friendships. by annie fields. three weeks in politics. by john kendrick bangs. the japanese bride. by naomi tamura. coffee and repartee. by john kendrick bangs. giles corey, yeoman. by mary e. wilkins. travels in america 100 years ago. by thomas twining. seen from the saddle. by isa carrington cabell. the work of washington irving. by charles dudley by w. d. howells. warner. farces: a letter of introduction.--the edwin booth. by laurence albany depot.--the garroters.--five hutton. o'clock tea.--the mouse-trap.--a likely story.--evening dress.--the phillips brooks. by rev. unexpected guests. arthur brooks, d.d. a little swiss sojourn. the rivals. by françois coppée. my year in a log cabin. published by harper & brothers, new york. copyright, 1893, by harper & brothers. _all rights reserved._ to f. s. m. illustrations page "'are you related to governor mckinley?'" _frontispiece_ "alarmed the cook" 5 "'what are the first symptoms of insanity?'" 13 "'reading webster's dictionary'" 17 "'i stuck to the pigs'" 23 the conspirators 25 "'weren't your ears long enough?'" 33 "'the corks popped to some purpose last night'" 37 "'if you could spare so little as one flame'" 43 the school-master as a cooler 47 "'reading the sunday newspapers'" 51 bobbo 55 wooing the muse 67 "'he gave up jokes'" 71 "'a little garden of my own, where i could raise an occasional can of tomatoes'" 75 "'a hind-quarter of lamb gambolling about its native heath'" 77 "'the gladsome click of the lawn-mower'" 80 "'you don't mean to say that you write for the papers?'" 85 "'we wooed the self-same maid'" 87 curing insomnia 91 "holding his plate up to the light" 97 "'i believe you'd blow out the gas in your bed-room'" 101 "'his fairy stories were told him in words of ten syllables'" 105 "'i thought my father a mean-spirited assassin'" 109 "'mrs. s. brought him to the point of proposing'" 115 "'hoorah!' cried the idiot, grasping mr. pedagog by the hand" 119 [illustration: coffee and repartee] i the guests at mrs. smithers's high-class boarding-house for gentlemen had assembled as usual for breakfast, and in a few moments mary, the dainty waitress, entered with the steaming coffee, the mush, and the rolls. the school-master, who, by-the-way, was suspected by mrs. smithers of having intentions, and who for that reason occupied the chair nearest the lady's heart, folded up the morning paper, and placing it under him so that no one else could get it, observed, quite genially for him, "it was very wet yesterday." "i didn't find it so," observed a young man seated half-way down the table, who was by common consent called the idiot, because of his "views." "in fact, i was very dry. curious thing, i'm always dry on rainy days. i am one of the kind of men who know that it is the part of wisdom to stay in when it rains, or to carry an umbrella when it is not possible to stay at home, or, having no home, like ourselves, to remain cooped up in stalls, or stalled up in coops, as you may prefer." "you carried an umbrella, then?" queried the landlady, ignoring the idiot's shaft at the size of her "elegant and airy apartments" with an ease born of experience. "yes, madame," returned the idiot, quite unconscious of what was coming. "whose?" queried the lady, a sarcastic smile playing about her lips. "that i cannot say, mrs. smithers," replied the idiot, serenely, "but it is the one you usually carry." "your insinuation, sir," said the school-master, coming to the landlady's rescue, "is an unworthy one. the umbrella in question is mine. it has been in my possession for five years." "then," replied the idiot, unabashed, "it is time you returned it. don't you think men's morals are rather lax in this matter of umbrellas, mr. whitechoker?" he added, turning from the school-master, who began to show signs of irritation. "very," said the minister, running his finger about his neck to make the collar which had been sent home from the laundry by mistake set more easily--"very lax. at the last conference i attended, some person, forgetting his high office as a minister in the church, walked off with my umbrella without so much as a thank you; and it was embarrassing too, because the rain was coming down in bucketfuls." "what did you do?" asked the landlady, sympathetically. she liked mr. whitechoker's sermons, and, beyond this, he was a more profitable boarder than any of the others, remaining home to luncheon every day and having to pay extra therefor. "there was but one thing left for me to do. i took the bishop's umbrella," said mr. whitechoker, blushing slightly. "but you returned it, of course?" said the idiot. "i intended to, but i left it on the train on my way back home the next day," replied the clergyman, visibly embarrassed by the idiot's unexpected cross-examination. "it's the same way with books," put in the bibliomaniac, an unfortunate being whose love of rare first editions had brought him down from affluence to boarding. "many a man who wouldn't steal a dollar would run off with a book. i had a friend once who had a rare copy of _through africa by daylight_. it was a beautiful book. only twenty-five copies printed. the margins of the pages were four inches wide, and the title-page was rubricated; the frontispiece was colored by hand, and the seventeenth page had one of the most amusing typographical errors on it--" "was there any reading-matter in the book?" queried the idiot, blowing softly on a hot potato that was nicely balanced on the end of his fork. [illustration: "alarmed the cook"] "yes, a little; but it didn't amount to much," returned the bibliomaniac. "but, you know, it isn't as reading-matter that men like myself care for books. we have a higher notion than that. it is as a specimen of book-making that we admire a chaste bit of literature like _through africa by daylight_. but, as i was saying, my friend had this book, and he'd extra-illustrated it. he had pictures from all parts of the world in it, and the book had grown from a volume of one hundred pages to four volumes of two hundred pages each." "and it was stolen by a highly honorable friend, i suppose?" queried the idiot. "yes, it was stolen--and my friend never knew by whom," said the bibliomaniac. "what?" asked the idiot, in much surprise. "did you never confess?" it was very fortunate for the idiot that the buckwheat cakes were brought on at this moment. had there not been some diversion of that kind, it is certain that the bibliomaniac would have assaulted him. "it is very kind of mrs. smithers, i think," said the school-master, "to provide us with such delightful cakes as these free of charge." "yes," said the idiot, helping himself to six cakes. "very kind indeed, although i must say they are extremely economical from an architectural point of view--which is to say, they are rather fuller of pores than of buckwheat. i wonder why it is," he continued, possibly to avert the landlady's retaliatory comments--"i wonder why it is that porous plasters and buckwheat cakes are so similar in appearance?" "and so widely different in their respective effects on the system," put in a genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed, seated next to the idiot. "i fail to see the similarity between a buckwheat cake and a porous plaster," said the school-master, resolved, if possible, to embarrass the idiot. "you don't, eh?" replied the latter. "then it is very plain, sir, that you have never eaten a porous plaster." to this the school-master could find no reasonable reply, and he took refuge in silence. mr. whitechoker tried to look severe; the gentleman who occasionally imbibed smiled all over; the bibliomaniac ignored the remark entirely, not having as yet forgiven the idiot for his gross insinuation regarding his friend's _édition de luxe_ of _through africa by daylight_; mary, the maid, who greatly admired the idiot, not so much for his idiocy as for the aristocratic manner in which he carried himself, and the truly striking striped shirts he wore, left the room in a convulsion of laughter that so alarmed the cook below-stairs that the next platterful of cakes were more like tin plates than cakes; and as for mrs. smithers, that worthy woman was speechless with wrath. but she was not paralyzed apparently, for reaching down into her pocket she brought forth a small piece of paper, on which was written in detail the "account due" of the idiot. "i'd like to have this settled, sir," she said, with some asperity. "certainly, my dear madame," replied the idiot, unabashed--"certainly. can you change a check for a hundred?" no, mrs. smithers could not. "then i shall have to put off paying the account until this evening," said the idiot. "but," he added, with a glance at the amount of the bill, "are you related to governor mckinley, mrs. smithers?" "i am not," she returned, sharply. "my mother was a partington." "i only asked," said the idiot, apologetically, "because i am very much interested in the subject of heredity, and you may not know it, but you and he have each a marked tendency towards high-tariff bills." and before mrs. smithers could think of anything to say, the idiot was on his way down town to help his employer lose money on wall street. ii "do you know, i sometimes think--" began the idiot, opening and shutting the silver cover of his watch several times with a snap, with the probable, and not altogether laudable, purpose of calling his landlady's attention to the fact--of which she was already painfully aware--that breakfast was fifteen minutes late. "do you, really?" interrupted the school-master, looking up from his book with an air of mock surprise. "i am sure i never should have suspected it." "indeed?" returned the idiot, undisturbed by this reflection upon his intellect. "i don't really know whether that is due to your generally unsuspicious nature, or to your shortcomings as a mind-reader." "there are some minds," put in the landlady at this point, "that are so small that it would certainly ruin the eyes to read them." "i have seen many such," observed the idiot, suavely. "even our friend the bibliomaniac at times has seemed to me to be very absent-minded. and that reminds me, doctor," he continued, addressing himself to the medical boarder. "what is the cause of absent-mindedness?" "that," returned the doctor, ponderously, "is a very large question. absent-mindedness, generally speaking, is the result of the projection of the intellect into surroundings other than those which for want of a better term i might call the corporeally immediate." "so i have understood," said the idiot, approvingly. "and is absent-mindedness acquired or inherent?" here the idiot appropriated the roll of his neighbor. "that depends largely upon the case," replied the doctor, nervously. "some are born absent-minded, some achieve absent-mindedness, and some have absent-mindedness thrust upon them." "as illustrations of which we might take, for instance, i suppose," said the idiot, "the born idiot, the borrower, and the man who is knocked silly by the pole of a truck on broadway." "precisely," replied the doctor, glad to get out of the discussion so easily. he was a very young doctor, and not always sure of himself. "or," put in the school-master, "to condense our illustrations, if the idiot would kindly go out upon broadway and encounter the truck, we should find the three combined in him." the landlady here laughed quite heartily, and handed the school-master an extra strong cup of coffee. "there is a great deal in what you say," said the idiot, without a tremor. "there are very few scientific phenomena that cannot be demonstrated in one way or another by my poor self. it is the exception always that proves the rule, and in my case you find a consistent converse exemplification of all three branches of absent-mindedness." "he talks well," said the bibliomaniac, _sotto voce_, to the minister. "yes, especially when he gets hold of large words. i really believe he reads," replied mr. whitechoker. [illustration: "'what are the first symptoms of insanity?'"] "i know he does," said the school-master, who had overheard. "i saw him reading webster's dictionary last night. i have noticed, however, that generally his vocabulary is largely confined to words that come between the letters a and f, which shows that as yet he has not dipped very deeply into the book." "what are you murmuring about?" queried the idiot, noting the lowered tone of those on the other side of the table. "we were conversing--ahem! about--" began the minister, with a despairing glance at the bibliomaniac. "let me say it," interrupted the bibliomaniac. "you aren't used to prevarication, and that is what is demanded at this time. we were talking about--ah--about--er--" "tut! tut!" ejaculated the school-master. "we were only saying we thought the--er--the--that the--" "what _are_ the first symptoms of insanity, doctor?" observed the idiot, with a look of wonder at the three shuffling boarders opposite him, and turning anxiously to the physician. "i wish you wouldn't talk shop," retorted the doctor, angrily. insanity was one of his weak points. "it's a beastly habit," said the school-master, much relieved at this turn of the conversation. "well, perhaps you are right," returned the idiot. "people do, as a rule, prefer to talk of things they know something about, and i don't blame you, doctor, for wanting to keep out of a medical discussion. i only asked my last question because the behavior of the bibliomaniac and mr. whitechoker and the school-master for some time past has worried me, and i didn't know but what you might work up a nice little practice among us. it might not pay, but you'd find the experience valuable, and i think unique." "it is a fine thing to have a doctor right in the house," said mr. whitechoker, kindly, fearing that the doctor's manifest indignation might get the better of him. "that," returned the idiot, "is an assertion, mr. whitechoker, that is both true and untrue. there are times when a physician is an ornament to a boarding-house; times when he is not. for instance, on wednesday morning if it had not been for the surgical skill of our friend here, our good landlady could never have managed properly to distribute the late autumn chicken we found upon the menu. tally one for the affirmative. on the other hand, i must confess to considerable loss of appetite when i see the doctor rolling his bread up into little pills, or measuring the vinegar he puts on his salad by means of a glass dropper, and taking the temperature of his coffee with his pocket thermometer. nor do i like--and i should not have mentioned it save by way of illustrating my position in regard to mr. whitechoker's assertion--nor do i like the cold, eager glitter in the doctor's eyes as he watches me consuming, with some difficulty, i admit, the cold pastry we have served up to us on saturday mornings under the wholly transparent _alias_ of 'hot bread.' i may have very bad taste, but, in my humble opinion, the man who talks shop is preferable to the one who suggests it in his eyes. some more iced potatoes, mary," he added, calmly. [illustration: "'reading webster's dictionary'"] "madame," said the doctor, turning angrily to the landlady, "this is insufferable. you may make out my bill this morning. i shall have to seek a home elsewhere." "oh, now, doctor!" began the landlady, in her most pleading tone. "jove!" ejaculated the idiot. "that's a good idea, doctor. i think i'll go with you; i'm not altogether satisfied here myself, but to desert so charming a company as we have here had never occurred to me. together, however, we can go forth, and perhaps find happiness. shall we put on our hunting togs and chase the fiery, untamed hall-room to the death this morning, or shall we put it off until some pleasanter day?" "put it off," observed the school-master, persuasively. "the idiot was only indulging in persiflage, doctor. that's all. when you have known him longer you will understand him better. views are as necessary to him as sunlight to the flowers; and i truly think that in an asylum he would prove a delightful companion." "there, doctor," said the idiot; "that's handsome of the school-master. he couldn't make more of an apology if he tried. i'll forgive him if you will. what say you?" and strange to say, the doctor, in spite of the indignation which still left a red tinge on his cheek, laughed aloud and was reconciled. as for the school-master, he wanted to be angry, but he did not feel that he could afford his wrath, and for the first time in some months the guests went their several ways at peace with each other and the world. iii there was a conspiracy in hand to embarrass the idiot. the school-master and the bibliomaniac had combined forces to give him a taste of his own medicine. the time had not yet arrived which showed the idiot at a disadvantage; and the two boarders, the one proud of his learning, and the other not wholly unconscious of a bookish life, were distinctly tired of the triumphant manner in which the idiot always left the breakfast-table to their invariable discomfiture. it was the school-master's suggestion to put their tormentor into the pit he had heretofore digged for them. the worthy instructor of youth had of late come to see that while he was still a prime favorite with his landlady, he had, nevertheless, suffered somewhat in her estimation because of the apparent ease with which the idiot had got the better of him on all points. it was necessary, he thought, to rehabilitate himself, and a deep-laid plot, to which the bibliomaniac readily lent ear, was the result of his reflections. they twain were to indulge in a discussion of the great story of _robert elsmere_, which both were confident the idiot had not read, and concerning which they felt assured he could not have an intelligent opinion if he had read it. so it happened upon this bright sunday morning that as the boarders sat them down to partake of the usual "restful breakfast," as the idiot termed it, the bibliomaniac observed: "i have just finished reading _robert elsmere_." "have you, indeed?" returned the school-master, with apparent interest. "i trust you profited by it?" "on the contrary," observed the bibliomaniac. "my views are much unsettled by it." "i prefer the breast of the chicken, mrs. smithers," observed the idiot, sending his plate back to the presiding genius of the table. "the neck of a chicken is graceful, but not too full of sustenance." "he fights shy," whispered the bibliomaniac, gleefully. "never mind," returned the school-master, confidently; "we'll land him yet." then he added, aloud: "unsettled by it? i fail to see how any man with beliefs that are at all the result of mature convictions can be unsettled by the story of _elsmere_. for my part i believe, and i have always said--" "i never could understand why the neck of a chicken should be allowed on a respectable table anyhow," continued the idiot, ignoring the controversy in which his neighbors were engaged, "unless for the purpose of showing that the deceased fowl met with an accidental rather than a natural death." "in what way does the neck demonstrate that point?" queried the bibliomaniac, forgetting the conspiracy for a moment. "by its twist or by its length, of course," returned the idiot. "a chicken that dies a natural death does not have its neck wrung; nor when the head is removed by the use of a hatchet, is it likely that it will be cut off so close behind the ears that those who eat the chicken are confronted with four inches of neck." [illustration: "'i stuck to the pigs'"] "very entertaining indeed," interposed the school-master; "but we are wandering from the point the bibliomaniac and i were discussing. is or is not the story of _robert elsmere_ unsettling to one's beliefs? perhaps you can help us to decide that question." "perhaps i can," returned the idiot; "and perhaps not. it did not unsettle my beliefs." "but don't you think," observed the bibliomaniac, "that to certain minds the book is more or less unsettling?" "to that i can confidently say no. the certain mind knows no uncertainty," replied the idiot, calmly. "very pretty indeed," said the school-master, coldly. "but what was your opinion of mrs. ward's handling of the subject? do you think she was sufficiently realistic? and if so, and elsmere weakened under the stress of circumstances, do you think--or don't you think--the production of such a book harmful, because--being real--it must of necessity be unsettling to some minds?" [illustration: the conspirators] "i prefer not to express an opinion on that subject," returned the idiot, "because i never read _robert els_--" "never read it?" ejaculated the school-master, a look of triumph in his eyes. "why, everybody has read _elsmere_ that pretends to have read anything," asserted the bibliomaniac. "of course," put in the landlady, with a scornful laugh. "well, i didn't," said the idiot, nonchalantly. "the same ground was gone over two years before in burrows's great story, _is it, or is it not?_ and anybody who ever read clink's books on the _non-existent as opposed to what is_, knows where burrows got his points. burrows's story was a perfect marvel. i don't know how many editions it went through in england, and when it was translated into french by madame tournay, it simply set the french wild." "great scott!" whispered the bibliomaniac, desperately, "i'm afraid we've been barking up the wrong tree." "you've read clink, i suppose?" asked the idiot, turning to the school-master. "y--yes," returned the school-master, blushing deeply. the idiot looked surprised, and tried to conceal a smile by sipping his coffee from a spoon. "and burrows?" "no," returned the school-master, humbly. "i never read burrows." "well, you ought to. it's a great book, and it's the one _robert elsmere_ is taken from--same ideas all through, i'm told--that's why i didn't read _elsmere_. waste of time, you know. but you noticed yourself, i suppose, that clink's ground is the same as that covered in _elsmere_?" "no; i only dipped lightly into clink," returned the school-master, with some embarrassment. "but you couldn't help noticing a similarity of ideas?" insisted the idiot, calmly. the school-master looked beseechingly at the bibliomaniac, who would have been glad to fly to his co-conspirator's assistance had he known how, but never having heard of clink, or burrows either, for that matter, he made up his mind that it was best for his reputation for him to stay out of the controversy. "very slight similarity, however," said the school-master, in despair. "where can i find clink's books?" put in mr. whitechoker, very much interested. the idiot conveniently had his mouth full of chicken at the moment, and it was to the school-master who had also read him that they all--the landlady included--looked for an answer. "oh, i think," returned that worthy, hesitatingly--"i think you'll find clink in any of the public libraries." "what is his full name?" persisted mr. whitechoker, taking out a memorandum-book. "horace j. clink," said the idiot. "yes; that's it--horace j. clink," echoed the school-master. "very virile writer and a clear thinker," he added, with some nervousness. "what, if any, of his books would you specially recommend?" asked the minister again. the idiot had by this time risen from the table, and was leaving the room with the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed. the school-master's reply was not audible. "i say," said the genial gentleman to the idiot, as they passed out into the hall, "they didn't get much the best of you in that matter. but, tell me, who was clink, anyhow?" "never heard of him before," returned the idiot. "and burrows?" "same as clink." "know anything about _elsmere_?" chuckled the genial gentleman. "nothing--except that it and 'pigs in clover' came out at the same time, and i stuck to the pigs." and the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed was so pleased at the plight of the school-master and of the bibliomaniac that he invited the idiot up to his room, where the private stock was kept for just such occasions, and they put in a very pleasant morning together. iv the guests were assembled as usual. the oatmeal course had been eaten in silence. in the idiot's eye there was a cold glitter of expectancy--a glitter that boded ill for the man who should challenge him to controversial combat--and there seemed also to be, judging from sundry winks passed over the table and kicks passed under it, an understanding to which he and the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed were parties. as the school-master sampled his coffee the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed broke the silence. "i missed you at the concert last night, mr. idiot," said he. "yes," said the idiot, with a caressing movement of the hand over his upper lip; "i was very sorry, but i couldn't get around last night. i had an engagement with a number of friends at the athletic club. i meant to have dropped you a line in the afternoon telling you about it, but i forgot it until it was too late. was the concert a success?" "very successful indeed. the best one, in fact, we have had this season, which makes me regret all the more deeply your absence," returned the genial gentleman, with a suggestion of a smile playing about his lips. "indeed," he added, "it was the finest one i've ever seen." "the finest one you've what?" queried the school-master, startled at the verb. "the finest one i've ever seen," replied the genial gentleman. "there were only ten performers, and really, in all my experience as an attendant at concerts, i never saw such a magnificent rendering of beethoven as we had last night. i wish you could have been there. it was a sight for the gods." "i don't believe," said the idiot, with a slight cough that may have been intended to conceal a laugh--and that may also have been the result of too many cigarettes--"i don't believe it could have been any more interesting than a game of pool i heard at the club." "it appears to me," said the bibliomaniac to the school-master, "that the popping sounds we heard late last night in the idiot's room may have some connection with the present mode of speech these two gentlemen affect." "let's hear them out," returned the school-master, "and then we'll take them into camp, as the idiot would say." "i don't know about that," replied the genial gentleman. "i've seen a great many concerts, and i've heard a great many good games of pool, but the concert last night was simply a ravishing spectacle. we had a cuban pianist there who played the orchestration of the first act of _parsifal_ with surprising agility. as far as i could see, he didn't miss a note, though it was a little annoying to observe how he used the pedals." "too forcibly, or how?" queried the idiot. "not forcibly enough," returned the imbiber. "he tried to work them both with one foot. it was the only thing to mar an otherwise marvellous performance. the idea of a man trying to display wagner with two hands and one foot is irritating to a musician with a trained eye." [illustration: "'weren't your ears long enough?'"] "i wish the doctor would come down," said mrs. smithers, anxiously. "yes," put in the school-master; "there seems to be madness in our midst." "well, what can you expect of a cuban, anyhow?" queried the idiot. "the cuban, like the spaniard or the italian or the african, hasn't the vigor which is necessary for the proper comprehension and rendering of wagner's music. he is by nature slow and indolent. if it were easier for a spaniard to hop than to walk, he'd hop, and rest his other leg. i've known italians whose diet was entirely confined to liquids, because they were too tired to masticate solids. it is the ease with which it can be absorbed that makes macaroni the favorite dish of the italians, and the fondness of all latin races for wines is entirely due, i think, to the fact that wine can be swallowed without chewing. this indolence affects also their language. the italian and the spaniard speak the language that comes easy--that is soft and dreamy; while the germans and russians, stronger, more energetic, indulge in a speech that even to us, who are people of an average amount of energy, is sometimes appalling in the severity of the strain it puts upon the tongue. so, while i do not wonder that your cuban pianist showed woful defects in his use of the pedals, i do wonder that, even with his surprising agility, he had sufficient energy to manipulate the keys to the satisfaction of so competent a witness as yourself." "it was too bad; but we made up for it later," asserted the other. "there was a young girl there who gave us some of mendelssohn's songs without words. her expression was simply perfect. i wouldn't have missed it for all the world; and now that i think of it, in a few days i can let you see for yourself how splendid it was. we persuaded her to encore the songs in the dark, and we got a flash-light photograph of two of them." "oh! then it was not on the piano-forte she gave them?" said the idiot. "oh no; all labial," returned the genial gentleman. here mr. whitechoker began to look concerned, and whispered something to the school-master, who replied that there were enough others present to cope with the two parties to the conversation in case of a violent outbreak. "i'd be very glad to see the photographs," replied the idiot. "can't i secure copies of them for my collection? you know i have the complete rendering of 'home, sweet home' in kodak views, as sung by patti. they are simply wonderful, and they prove what has repeatedly been said by critics, that, in the matter of expression, the superior of patti has never been seen." "i'll try to get them for you, though i doubt it can be done. the artist is a very shy young girl, and does not care to have her efforts given too great a publicity until she is ready to go into music a little more deeply. she is going to read the 'moonlight sonata' to us at our next concert. you'd better come. i'm told her gestures bring out the composer's meaning in a manner never as yet equalled." [illustration: "'the corks popped to some purpose last night'"] "i'll be there; thank you," returned the idiot. "and the next time those fellows at the club are down for a pool tournament i want you to come up and hear them play. it was extraordinary last night to hear the balls dropping one by one--click, click, click--as regularly as a metronome, into the pockets. one of the finest shots, i am sorry to say, i missed." "how did it happen?" asked the bibliomaniac. "weren't your ears long enough?" "it was a kiss shot, and i couldn't hear it," returned the idiot. "i think you men are crazy," said the school-master, unable to contain himself any longer. "so?" observed the idiot, calmly. "and how do we show our insanity?" "seeing concerts and hearing games of pool." "i take exception to your ruling," returned the imbiber. "as my friend the idiot has frequently remarked, you have the peculiarity of a great many men in your profession, who think because they never happened to see or do or hear things as other people do, they may not be seen, done, or heard at all. i _saw_ the concert i attended last night. our musical club has rooms next to a hospital, and we have to give silent concerts for fear of disturbing the patients; but we are all musicians of sufficient education to understand by a glance of the eye what you would fail to comprehend with fourteen ears and a microphone." "very well said," put in the idiot, with a scornful glance at the school-master. "and i literally heard the pool tournament. i was dining in a room off the billiard-hall, and every shot that was made, with the exception of the one i spoke of, was distinctly audible. you gentlemen, who think you know it all, wouldn't be able to supply a bureau of information at the rate of five minutes a day for an hour on a holiday. let's go up-stairs," he added, turning to the imbiber, "where we may discuss our last night's entertainment apart from this atmosphere of rarefied learning. it makes me faint." and the imbiber, who was with difficulty keeping his lips in proper form, was glad enough to accept the invitation. "the corks popped to some purpose last night," he said, later on. "yes," said the idiot; "for a conspiracy there's nothing so helpful as popping corks." v "when you get through with the fire, mr. pedagog," observed the idiot, one winter's morning, noticing that the ample proportions of the school-master served as a screen to shut off the heat from himself and the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed, "i wish you would let us have a little of it. indeed, if you could conveniently spare so little as one flame for my friend here and myself, we'd be much obliged." "it won't hurt you to cool off a little, sir," returned the school-master, without moving. "no, i am not so much afraid of the injury that may be mine as i am concerned for you. if that fire should melt our only refrigerating material, i do not know what our good landlady would do. is it true, as the bibliomaniac asserts, that mrs. smithers leaves all her milk and butter in your room overnight, relying upon your coolness to keep them fresh?" "i never made any such assertion," said the bibliomaniac, warmly. "i am not used to having my word disputed," returned the idiot, with a wink at the genial old gentleman. "but i never said it, and i defy you to prove that i said it," returned the bibliomaniac, hotly. "you forget, sir," said the idiot, coolly, "that you are the one who disputes my assertion. that casts the burden of proof on your shoulders. of course if you can prove that you never said anything of the sort, i withdraw; but if you cannot adduce proofs, you, having doubted my word, and publicly at that, need not feel hurt if i decline to accept all that you say as gospel." "you show ridiculous heat," said the school-master. "thank you," returned the idiot, gracefully. "and that brings us back to the original proposition that you would do well to show a little yourself." "good-morning, gentlemen," said mrs. smithers, entering the room at this moment. "it's a bright, fresh morning." "like yourself," said the school-master, gallantly. "yes," added the idiot, with a glance at the clock, which registered 8.45--forty-five minutes after the breakfast hour--"very like mrs. smithers--rather advanced." to this the landlady paid no attention; but the school-master could not refrain from saying, "advanced, and therefore not backward, like some persons i might name." "very clever," retorted the idiot, "and really worth rewarding. mrs. smithers, you ought to give mr. pedagog a receipt in full for the past six months." "mr. pedagog," returned the landlady, severely, "is one of the gentlemen who always have their receipts for the past six months." "which betrays a very saving disposition," accorded the idiot. "i wish i had all i'd received for six months. i'd be a rich man." [illustration: "'if you could spare so little as one flame'"] "would you, now?" queried the bibliomaniac. "that is interesting enough. how men's ideas differ on the subject of wealth! here is the idiot would consider himself rich with $150 in his pocket--" "do you think he gets as much as that?" put in the school-master, viciously. "five dollars a week is rather high pay for one of his--" "very high indeed," agreed the idiot. "i wish i got that much. i might be able to hire a two-legged encyclopædia to tell me everything, and have over $4.75 a week left to spend on opera, dress, and the poor but honest board mrs. smithers provides, if my salary was up to the $5 mark; but the trouble is men do not make the fabulous fortunes nowadays with the ease with which you, mr. pedagog, made yours. there are, no doubt, more and greater opportunities to-day than there were in the olden time, but there are also more men trying to take advantage of them. labor in the business world is badly watered. the colleges are turning out more men in a week nowadays than the whole country turned out in a year forty years ago, and the quality is so poor that there has been a general reduction of wages all along the line. where does the struggler for existence come in when he has to compete with the college-bred youth who, for fear of not getting employment anywhere, is willing to work for nothing? people are not willing to pay for what they can get for nothing." "i am glad to hear from your lips so complete an admission," said the school-master, "that education is downing ignorance." "i am glad to know of your gladness," returned the idiot. "i didn't quite say that education was downing ignorance. i plead guilty to the charge of holding the belief that unskilled omniscience interferes very materially with skilled sciolism in skilled sciolism's efforts to make a living." "then you admit your own superficiality?" asked the school-master, somewhat surprised by the idiot's command of syllables. "i admit that i do not know it all," returned the idiot. "i prefer to go through life feeling that there is yet something for me to learn. it seems to me far better to admit this voluntarily than to have it forced home upon me by circumstances, as happened in the case of a college graduate i know, who speculated on wall street, and lost the hundred dollars that were subsequently put to a good use by the uneducated me." "from which you deduce that ignorance is better than education?" queried the school-master, scornfully. "for an omniscient," returned the idiot, "you are singularly near-sighted. i have made no such deduction. i arrive at the conclusion, however, that in the chase for the gilded shekel the education of experience is better than the coddling of alma mater. in the satisfaction--the personal satisfaction--one derives from a liberal education, i admit that the sons of alma mater are the better off. i never could hope to be so self-satisfied, for instance, as you are." [illustration: the school-master as a cooler] "no," observed the school-master, "you cannot raise grapes on a thistle farm. any unbiassed observer looking around this table," he added, "and noting mr. whitechoker, a graduate of yale; the bibliomaniac, a son of dear old harvard; the doctor, an honor man of williams; our legal friend here, a graduate of columbia--to say nothing of myself, who was graduated with honors at amherst--any unbiassed observer seeing these, i say, and then seeing you, wouldn't take very long to make up his mind as to whether a man is better off or not for having had a collegiate training." "there i must again dispute your assertion," returned the idiot. "the unbiassed person of whom you speak would say, 'here is this gray-haired amherst man, this book-loving cambridge boy of fifty-seven years of age, the reverend graduate of yale, class of '55, and the other two learned gentlemen of forty-nine summers each, and this poor ignoramus of an idiot, whose only virtue is his modesty, all in the same box.' and then he would ask himself, 'in what way have these sons of amherst, yale, harvard, and so forth, the better of the unassuming idiot?'" "the same box?" said the bibliomaniac. "what do you mean by that?" "just what i say," returned the idiot. "the same box. all boarding, all eschewing luxuries of necessity, all paying their bills with difficulty, all sparsely clothed; in reality, all keeping lent the year through. 'verily,' he would say, 'the idiot has the best of it, for he is young.'" and leaving them chewing the cud of reflection, the idiot departed. "i thought they were going to land you that time," said the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed, later; "but when i heard you use the word 'sciolism,' i knew you were all right. where did you get it?" "my chief got it off on me at the office the other day. i happened in a mad moment to try to unload some of my original observations on him apropos of my getting to the office two hours late, in which it was my endeavor to prove to him that the truly safe and conservative man was always slow, and so apt to turn up late on occasions. he hopped about the office for a minute or two, and then he informed me that i was an 18-karat sciolist. i didn't know what he meant, and so i looked it up." "and what did he mean?" "he meant that i took the cake for superficiality, and i guess he was right," replied the idiot, with a smile that was not altogether mirthful. vi "good-morning!" said the idiot, cheerfully, as he entered the dining-room. to this remark no one but the landlady vouchsafed a reply. "i don't think it is," she said, shortly. "it's raining too hard to be a very good morning." "that reminds me," observed the idiot, taking his seat and helping himself copiously to the hominy. "a friend of mine on one of the newspapers is preparing an article on the 'antiquity of modern humor.' with your kind permission, mrs. smithers, i'll take down your remark and hand it over to mr. scribuler as a specimen of the modern antique joke. you may not be aware of the fact, but that jest is to be found in the rare first edition of the _tales of bobbo_, an italian humorist, who stole everything he wrote from the greeks." [illustration: "'reading the sunday newspapers'"] "so?" queried the bibliomaniac. "i never heard of bobbo, though i had, before the auction sale of my library, a choice copy of the _tales of poggio_, bound in full crushed levant morocco, with gilt edges, and one or two other italian _joe millers_ in tree calf. i cannot at this moment recall their names." "at what period did bobbo live?" inquired the school-master. "i don't exactly remember," returned the idiot, assisting the last potato on the table over to his plate. "i don't know exactly. it was subsequent to b.c., i think, although i may be wrong. if it was not, you may rest assured it was prior to b.c." "do you happen to know," queried the bibliomaniac, "the exact date of this rare first edition of which you speak?" "no; no one knows that," returned the idiot. "and for a very good reason. it was printed before dates were invented." the silence which followed this bit of information from the idiot was almost insulting in its intensity. it was a silence that spoke, and what it said was that the idiot's idiocy was colossal, and he, accepting the stillness as a tribute, smiled sweetly. "what do you think, mr. whitechoker," he said, when he thought the time was ripe for renewing the conversation--"what do you think of the doctrine that every day will be sunday by-and-by?" "i have only to say, sir," returned the dominie, pouring a little hot water into his milk, which was a bit too strong for him, "that i am a firm believer in the occurrence of a period when sunday will be to all practical purposes perpetual." "that is my belief, too," observed the school-master. "but it will be ruinous to our good landlady to provide us with one of her exceptionally fine sunday breakfasts every morning." "thank you, mr. pedagog," returned mrs. smithers, with a smile. "can't i give you another cup of coffee?" "you may," returned the school-master, pained at the lady's grammar, but too courteous to call attention to it save by the emphasis with which he spoke the word "may." "that's one view to take of it," said the idiot. "but in case we got a sunday breakfast every day in the week, we, on the other hand, would get approximately what we pay for. you may fill my cup too, mrs. smithers." "the coffee is all gone," returned the landlady, with a snap. "then, mary," said the idiot, gracefully, turning to the maid, "you may give me a glass of ice-water. it is quite as warm, after all, as the coffee, and not quite so weak. a perpetual sunday, though, would have its drawbacks," he added, unconscious of the venomous glances of the landlady. "you, mr. whitechoker, for instance, would be preaching all the time, and in consequence would soon break down. then the effect upon our eyes from habitually reading the sunday newspapers day after day would be extremely bad; nor must we forget that an eternity of sundays means the elimination 'from our midst,' as the novelists say, of baseball, of circuses, of horse-racing, and other necessities of life, unless we are prepared to cast over the puritanical view of sunday which now prevails. it would substitute dr. watts for 'annie rooney.' we should lose 'ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay' entirely, which is a point in its favor." "i don't know about that," said the genial old gentleman. "i rather like that song." "did you ever hear me sing it?" asked the idiot. "never mind," returned the genial old gentleman, hastily. "perhaps you are right, after all." [illustration: bobbo] the idiot smiled, and resumed: "our shops would be perpetually closed, and an enormous loss to the shopkeepers would be sure to follow. mr. pedagog's theory that we should have sunday breakfasts every day is not tenable, for the reason that with a perpetual day of rest agriculture would die out, food products would be killed off by unpulled weeds; in fact, we should go back to that really unfortunate period when women were without dress-makers, and man's chief object in life was to christen animals as he met them, and to abstain from apples, wisdom, and full dress." "the idiot is right," said the bibliomaniac. "it would not be a very good thing for the world if every day were sunday. wash-day is a necessity of life. i am willing to admit this, in the face of the fact that wash-day meals are invariably atrocious. contracts would be void, as a rule, because sunday is a _dies non_." "a what?" asked the idiot. "a non-existent day in a business sense," put in the school-master. "of course," said the landlady, scornfully. "any person who knows anything knows that." "then, madame," returned the idiot, rising from his chair, and putting a handful of sweet crackers in his pocket--"then i must put in a claim for $104 from you, having been charged, at the rate of one dollar a day for 104 _dies nons_ in the two years i have been with you." "indeed!" returned the lady, sharply. "very well. and i shall put in a counterclaim for the lunches you carry away from breakfast every morning in your pockets." "in that event we'll call it off, madame," returned the idiot, as with a courtly bow and a pleasant smile he left the room. "well, i call him 'off,'" was all the landlady could say, as the other guests took their departure. and of course the school-master agreed with her. vii "our streets appear to be as far from perfect as ever," said the bibliomaniac with a sigh, as he looked out through the window at the great pools of water that gathered in the basins made by the sinking of the belgian blocks. "we'd better go back to the cowpaths of our fathers." "there is a great deal in what you say," observed the school-master. "the cowpath has all the solidity of mother earth, and none of the distracting noises we get from the pavements that obtain to-day. it is porous and absorbs the moisture. the belgian pavement is leaky, and lets it run into our cellars. we might do far worse than to go back--" "excuse me for having an opinion," said the idiot, "but the man of enterprise can't afford to indulge in the luxury of the somnolent cowpath. it is too quiet. it conduces to sleep, which is a luxury business men cannot afford to indulge in too freely. man must be up and doing. the prosperity of a great city is to my mind directly due to its noise and clatter, which effectually put a stop to napping, and keep men at all times wide awake." "this is a welsh-rabbit idea, i fancy," said the school-master, quietly. he had overheard the idiot's confidences, as revealed to the genial imbiber, regarding the sources of some of his ideas. "not at all," returned the idiot. "these ideas are beef--not welsh-rabbit. they are the result of much thought. if you will put your mind on the subject, you will see for yourself that there is more in my theory than there is in yours. the prosperity of a locality is the greater as the noise in its vicinity increases. it is in the quiet neighborhood that man stagnates. where do we find great business houses? where do we find great fortunes made? where do we find the busy bees who make the honey that enables posterity to get into society and do nothing? do we pick up our millions on the cowpath? i guess not. do we erect our most princely business houses along the roads laid out by our bovine sister? i think not. does the man who goes from the towpath to the white house take the short cut? i fancy not. he goes over the block pavement. he seeks the home of the noisy, clattering street before he lands in the shoes of washington. the man who sticks to the cowpath may be able to drink milk, but he never wears diamonds." "all that you say is very true, but it is not based on any fundamental principle. it is so because it happens to be so," returned the school-master. "if it were man's habit to have the streets laid out on the old cowpath principle in his cities he would be quite as energetic, quite as prosperous, as he is now." "no fundamental principle involved? there is the fundamental principle of all business success involved," said the idiot, warming up to his subject. "what is the basic quality in the good business man? alertness. what is 'alertness?' wide-awakeishness. in this town it is impossible for a man to sleep after a stated hour, and for no other reason than that the clatter of the pavements prevents him. as a promoter of alertness, where is your cowpath? the cowpaths of the catskills, and we all know the mountains are riddled by 'em, didn't keep rip van winkle awake, and i'll wager mr. whitechoker here a year's board that there isn't a man in his congregation who can sleep a half-hour--much less twenty years--with broadway within hearing distance. "i tell you, mr. pedagog," he continued, "it is the man from the cowpath who gets buncoed. it's the man from the cowpath who can't make a living even out of what he calls his 'new york store.' it is the man from the cowpath who rejoices because he can sell ten dollars' worth of sheep's-wool for five dollars, and is happy when he goes to meeting dressed up in a four-dollar suit of clothes that has cost him twenty." "your theory, my young friend," observed the school-master, "is as fragile as this cup"--tapping his coffee-cup. "the countryman of whom you speak is up and doing long before you or i or your successful merchant, who has waxed great on noise as you put it, is awake. if the early bird catches the worm, what becomes of your theory?" "the early bird does get the bait," replied the idiot. "but he does not catch the fish, and i'll offer the board another wager that the belgian block merchant is wider awake at 8 a.m., when he first opens his eyes, than his suburban brother who gets up at five is all day. it's the extent to which the eyes are opened that counts, and as for your statement that the fact that prosperity and noisy streets go hand in hand is true only because it happens to be so, that is an argument which may be applied to any truth in existence. i am because i happen to be, not because i am. you are what you are because you are, because if you were not, you would not be what you are." "your logic is delightful," said the school-master, scornfully. "i strive to please," replied the idiot. "but i do agree with the bibliomaniac that our streets are far from perfection," he added. "in my opinion they should be laid in strata. on the ground-floor should be the sewers and telegraph pipes; above this should be the water-mains, then a layer for trucks, then a broad stratum for carriages, above which should be a promenade for pedestrians. the promenade for pedestrians should be divided into four sections--one for persons of leisure, one for those in a hurry, one for peddlers, and one for beggars." "highly original," said the bibliomaniac. "and so cheap," added the school-master. "in no part of the world," said the idiot, in response to the last comment, "do we get something for nothing. of course this scheme would be costly, but it would increase prosperity--" "ha! ha!" laughed the school-master, satirically. "laugh away, but you cannot gainsay my point. our prosperity would increase, for we should not be always excavating to get at our pipes; our surface cars with a clear track would gain for us rapid transit, our truck-drivers would not be subjected to the temptations of stopping by the way-side to overturn a coupé, or to run down a pedestrian; our fine equipages would in consequence need fewer repairs; and as for the pedestrians, the beggars, if relegated to themselves, would be forced out of business as would also the street-peddlers. the men in a hurry would not be delayed by loungers, beggars, and peddlers, and the loungers would derive inestimable benefit from the arrangement in the saving of wear and tear on their clothes and minds by contact with the busy world." "it would be delightful," acceded the school-master, "particularly on sundays, when they were all loungers." "yes," replied the idiot. "it would be delightful then, especially in summer, when covered with an awning to shield promenaders from the sun." mr. pedagog sighed, and the bibliomaniac, wearily declining a second cup of coffee, left the table with the doctor, earnestly discussing with that worthy gentleman the causes of weakmindedness. viii "there's a friend of mine up near riverdale," said the idiot, as he unfolded his napkin and let his bill flutter from it to the floor, "who's tried to make a name for himself in literature." "what's his name?" asked the bibliomaniac, interested at once. "that's just the trouble. he hasn't made it yet," replied the idiot. "he hasn't succeeded in his courtship of the muse, and beyond himself and a few friends his name is utterly unknown." "what work has he tried?" queried the school-master, pouring unadmonished two portions of skimmed milk over his oatmeal. "a little of everything. first he wrote a novel. it had an immense circulation, and he only lost $300 on it. all of his friends took a copy--i've got one that he gave me--and i believe two hundred newspapers were fortunate enough to secure the book for review. his father bought two, and tried to obtain the balance of the edition, but didn't have enough money. that was gratifying, but gratification is more apt to deplete than to strengthen a bank account." "i had not expected so extraordinarily wise an observation from one so unusually unwise," said the school-master, coldly. "thank you," returned the idiot. "but i think your remark is rather contradictory. you would naturally expect wise observations from the unusually unwise; that is, if your teaching that the expression 'unusually unwise' is but another form of the expression 'usually wise' is correct. but, as i was saying, when the genial instructor of youth interrupted me with his flattery," continued the idiot, "gratification is gratifying but not filling, so my friend concluded that he had better give up novel-writing and try jokes. he kept at that a year, and managed to clear his postage-stamps. his jokes were good, but too classic for the tastes of the editors. editors are peculiar. they have no respect for age--particularly in the matter of jests. some of my friend's jokes had seemed good enough for plutarch to print when he had a publisher at his mercy, but they didn't seem to suit the high and mighty products of this age who sit in judgment on such things in the comic-paper offices. so he gave up jokes." [illustration: wooing the muse] "does he still know you?" asked the landlady. "yes, madame," observed the idiot. "then he hasn't given up all jokes," she retorted, with fine scorn. "tee-he-hee!" laughed the school-master. "pretty good, mrs. smithers--pretty good." "yes," said the idiot. "that is good, and, by jove! it differs from your butter, mrs. smithers, because it's entirely fresh. it's good enough to print, and i don't think the butter is." "what did your friend do next?" asked mr. whitechoker. "he was employed by a funeral director in philadelphia to write obituary verses for memorial cards." "and was he successful?" "for a time; but he lost his position because of an error made by a careless compositor in a marble-yard. he had written, "'here lies the hero of a hundred fights- approximated he a perfect man; he fought for country and his country's rights, and in the hottest battles led the van.'" "fine in sentiment and in execution!" observed mr. whitechoker. "truly so," returned the idiot. "but when the compositor in the marble-yard got it engraved on the monument, my friend was away, and when the army post that was to pay the bill received the monument, the quatrain read, "'here lies the hero of a hundred flights- approximated he a perfect one; he fought his country and his country's rights, and in the hottest battles led the run.'" "awful!" ejaculated the minister. "dreadful!" said the landlady, forgetting to be sarcastic. "what happened?" asked the school-master. "he was bounced, of course, without a cent of pay, and the company failed the next week, so he couldn't make anything by suing for what they owed him." "mighty hard luck," said the bibliomaniac. "very; but there was one bright side to the case," observed the idiot. "he managed to sell both versions of the quatrain afterwards for five dollars. he sold the original one to a religious weekly for a dollar, and got four dollars for the other one from a comic paper. then he wrote an anecdote about the whole thing for a sunday newspaper, and got three dollars more out of it." "and what is your friend doing now?" asked the doctor. "oh, he's making a mint of money now, but no name." "in literature?" "yes. he writes advertisements on salary," returned the idiot. "he is writing now a recommendation of tooth-powder in indian dialect." "why didn't he try writing an epic?" said the bibliomaniac. [illustration: "'he gave up jokes'"] "because," replied the idiot, "the one aim of his life has been to be original, and he couldn't reconcile that with epic poetry." at which remark the landlady stooped over, and recovering the idiot's bill from under the table, called the maid, and ostentatiously requested her to hand it to the idiot. he, taking a cigarette from his pocket, thanked the maid for the attention, and rolling the slip into a taper, thoughtfully stuck one end of it into the alcohol light under the coffee-pot, and lighting the cigarette with it, walked nonchalantly from the room. ix "i've just been reading a book," began the idiot. "i thought you looked rather pale," said the school-master. "yes," returned the idiot, cheerfully, "it made me feel pale. it was about the pleasures of country life; and when i contrasted rural blessedness as it was there depicted with urban life as we live it, i felt as if my youth were being thrown away. i still feel as if i were wasting my sweetness on the desert air." "why don't you move?" queried the bibliomaniac, suggestively. "if i were purely selfish i should do so at once, but i am, like my good friend mr. whitechoker, a slave to duty. i deem it my duty to stay here to keep the school-master fully informed in the various branches of knowledge which are day by day opened up, many of which seem to be so far beyond the reach of one of his conservative habits; to assist mr. whitechoker in his crusades against vice at this table and elsewhere; to give the bibliomaniac the benefit of my advice in regard to those precious little tomes he no longer buys--to make life worth the living for all of you, to say nothing of enabling mrs. smithers to keep up the extraordinarily high standard of this house by means of the hard-earned stipend i pay to her every monday morning." "every monday?" queried the school-master. "every monday," returned the idiot. "that is, of course, every monday that i pay. the things one gets to eat in the country, the air one breathes, the utter freedom from restraint, the thousand and more things one enjoys in the suburbs that are not attainable here--it is these that make my heart yearn for the open." [illustration: "'a little garden of my own, where i could raise an occasional can of tomatoes'"] "well, it's all rot," said the school-master, impatiently. "country life is ideal only in books. books do not tell of running for trains through blinding snowstorms; writers do not expatiate on the delights of waking on cold winter nights and finding your piano and parlor furniture afloat because of bursted pipes, with the plumber, like sheridan at winchester, twenty miles away. they are dumb on the subject of the ecstasy one feels when pushing a twenty-pound lawn-mower up and down a weed patch at the end of a wearisome hot summer's day. they are silent--" "don't get excited, mr. pedagog, please," interrupted the idiot. "i am not contemplating leaving you and mrs. smithers, but i do pine for a little garden of my own, where i could raise an occasional can of tomatoes. i dream sometimes of getting milk fresh from the pump, instead of twenty-four hours after it has been drawn, as we do here. in my musings it seems to me to be almost idyllic to have known a spring chicken in his infancy; to have watched a hind-quarter of lamb gambolling about its native heath before its muscles became adamant, and before chopped-up celery tops steeped in vinegar were poured upon it in the hope of hypnotizing boarders into the belief that spring lamb and mint-sauce lay before them. what care i how hard it is to rise every morning before six in winter to thaw out the boiler, so long as the night coming finds me seated in the genial glow of the gas log! what man is he that would complain of having to bale out his cellar every week, if, on the other hand, that cellar gains thereby a fertility that keeps its floor sheeny, soft, and green--an interior tennis-court--from spring to spring, causing the gladsome click of the lawn-mower to be heard within its walls all through the still watches of the winter day? i tell you, sir, it is the life to lead, that of our rural brother. i do not believe that in this whole vast city there is a cellar like that--an in-door garden-patch, as it were." [illustration: "'a hind-quarter of lamb gambolling about its native heath'"] "no," returned the doctor; "and it is a good thing there isn't. there is enough sickness in the world without bringing any of your _rus_ ideas _in urbe_. i've lived in the country, sir, and i assure you it is not what it is written up to be. country life is misery, melancholy, and malaria." "you must have struck a profitable section, doctor," returned the idiot, taking possession of three steaming buckwheat cakes to the dismay of mr. whitechoker, who was about to reach out for them himself. "and i should have supposed that your good business sense would have restrained you from leaving." "then the countryman is poor--always poor," continued the doctor, ignoring the idiot's sarcastic comments. "ah! that accounts for it," observed the idiot. "i see why you did not stay; for what shall it profit a man to save a patient if practice, like virtue, is to be its own reward?" "your suggestion, sir," retorted the doctor, "betrays an unhealthy frame of mind." "that's all right, doctor," returned the idiot; "but please do not diagnose the case any further. i can't afford an expert opinion as to my mental condition. but to return to our subject: you two gentlemen appear to have had unhappy experiences in country life--quite different from those of a friend of mine who owns a farm. he doesn't have to run for trains; he is independent of plumbers, because the only pipes in his house are for smoking purposes. the farm produces corn enough to keep his family supplied all the year round and to sell a balance at a profit. oats and wheat are harvested to an extent which keeps the cattle and declares dividends besides. he never suffers from the cold or heat. he is never afraid of losing his house or barns by fire, because the whole fire department of the neighboring village is, to a man, in love with the house-keeper's daughter, and is always on hand in force. the chickens are the envy and pride of the county, and there are so many of them that they have to take turns in going to roost. the pigs are the most intelligent of their kind, and are so happy they never grunt. in fact, everything is lovely and cheap, the only thing that hangs high being the goose." [illustration: "'the gladsome click of the lawn-mower'"] "quite an ideal, no doubt," put in the school-master, scornfully. "i suppose his is one of those model farms with steam-pipes under the walks to melt the snow in winter, and of course there is a vein of coal growing right up into his furnace ready to be lit." "yes," observed the bibliomaniac; "and no doubt the chickens lay eggs in every style--poached, fried, scrambled, and boiled. the weeds in the garden grow so fast, i suppose, that they pull themselves up by the roots; and if there is anything left undone at the end of the day i presume tramps in dress suits, and courtly in manner, spring out of the ground and finish up for him." "i'll bet he's not on good terms with his neighbors if he has everything you speak of in such perfection. these farmers get frightfully jealous of each other," asserted the doctor, with a positiveness that seemed to be born of experience. "he never quarrelled with one of them in his life," returned the idiot. "he doesn't know them well enough to quarrel with them; in fact, i doubt if he ever sees them at all. he's very exclusive." "of course he is a born farmer to get everything the way he has it," suggested mrs. smithers. "no, he isn't. he's a broker," said the idiot, "and a very successful one. i see him on the street every day." "does he employ a man to run the farm?" asked the clergyman. "no," returned the idiot, "he has too much sense and too few dollars to do any such foolish thing as that." "it must be one of those self-winding stock farms," put in the school-master, scornfully. "but i don't see how he can be a successful broker and make money off his farm at the same time. your statements do not agree, either. you said he never had to run for trains." "well, he never has," returned the idiot, calmly. "he never goes near his farm. he doesn't have to. it's leased to the husband of the house-keeper whose daughter has a crush on the fire department. he takes his pay in produce, and gets more than if he took it in cash on the basis of the new york vegetable market." "then you have got us into an argument about country life that ends--" began the school-master, indignantly. "that ends where it leaves off," retorted the idiot, departing with a smile on his lips. "he's an idiot from idaho," asserted the bibliomaniac. "yes; but i'm afraid idiocy is a little contagious," observed the doctor, with a grin and sidelong glance at the school-master. x "good-morning, gentlemen," said the idiot, as he seated himself at the breakfast-table and glanced over his mail. "good-morning yourself," returned the poet. "you have an unusually large number of letters this morning. all checks, i hope?" "yes," replied the idiot. "all checks of one kind or another. mostly checks on ambition--otherwise, rejections from my friends the editors." "you don't mean to say that you write for the papers?" put in the school-master, with an incredulous smile. "i try to," returned the idiot, meekly. "if the papers don't take 'em, i find them useful in curing my genial friend who imbibes of insomnia." "what do you write--advertisements?" queried the bibliomaniac. "no. advertisement writing is an art to which i dare not aspire. it's too great a tax on the brain," replied the idiot. "tax on what?" asked the doctor. he was going to squelch the idiot. "the brain," returned the latter, not ready to be squelched. "it's a little thing people use to think with, doctor. i'd advise you to get one." then he added, "i write poems and foreign letters mostly." "i did not know that you had ever been abroad," said the clergyman. [illustration: "'you don't mean to say that you write for the papers?'"] "i never have," returned the idiot. "then how, may i ask," said mr. whitechoker, severely, "how can you write foreign letters?" "with my stub pen, of course," replied the idiot. "how did you suppose--with an oyster-knife?" the clergyman sighed. "i should like to hear some of your poems," said the poet. "very well," returned the idiot. "here's one that has just returned from the _bengal monthly_. it's about a writer who died some years ago. shakespeare's his name. you've heard of shakespeare, haven't you, mr. pedagog?" he added. then, as there was no answer, he read the verse, which was as follows: settled. yes! shakespeare wrote the plays--'tis clear to me. lord bacon's claim's condemned before the bar. he'd not have penned, "what fools these mortals be!" but--more correct--"what fools these mortals are!" "that's not bad," said the poet. [illustration: "'we wooed the self-same maid'"] "thanks," returned the idiot. "i wish you were an editor. i wrote that last spring, and it has been coming back to me at the rate of once a week ever since." "it is too short," said the bibliomaniac. "it's an epigram," said the idiot. "how many yards long do you think epigrams should be?" the bibliomaniac scorned to reply. "i agree with the bibliomaniac," said the school-master. "it is too short. people want greater quantity." "well, here is quantity for you," said the idiot. "quantity as she is not wanted by nine comic papers i wot of. this poem is called: "the turning of the worm. "'how hard my fate perhaps you'll gather in, my dearest reader, when i tell you that i entered into this fair world a twin- the one was spare enough, the other fat. "'i was, of course, the lean one of the two, the homelier as well, and consequently in ecstasy o'er jim my parents flew, and good of me was spoken accident'ly. "'as boys, we went to school, and jim, of course, was e'er his teacher's favorite, and ranked among the lads renowned for moral force, whilst i was every day right soundly spanked. "'jim had an angel face, but there he stopped. i never knew a lad who'd sin so oft and look so like a branch of heaven lopped from off the parent trunk that grows aloft. "'i seemed an imp--indeed 'twas often said that i resembled much beelzebub. my face was freckled and my hair was red- the kind of looking boy that men call scrub. "'kind deeds, however, were my constant thought; in everything i did the best i could; i said my prayers thrice daily, and i sought in all my ways to do the right and good. "'on saturdays i'd do my monday's sums, while jim would spend the day in search of fun; he'd sneak away and steal the neighbors' plums, and, strange to say, to earth was never run. "'whilst i, when study-time was haply through, would seek my brother in the neighbor's orchard; would find the neighbor there with anger blue, and as the thieving culprit would be tortured. "'the sums i'd done he'd steal, this lad forsaken, then change my work, so that a paltry four would be my mark, whilst he had overtaken the maximum and all the prizes bore. "'in later years we loved the self-same maid; we sent her little presents, sweets, bouquets, for which, alas! 'twas i that always paid; and jim the maid now honors and obeys. "'we entered politics--in different roles, and for a minor office each did run. 'twas i was left--left badly at the polls, because of fishy things that jim had done. "'when jim went into business and failed, i signed his notes and freed him from the strife which bankruptcy and ruin hath entailed on them that lead a queer financial life. "'then, penniless, i learned that jim had set aside before his failure--hard to tell!- a half a million dollars on his pet- his mrs. jim--the former lovely nell. "'that wearied me of jim. it may be right for one to bear another's cross, but i quite fail to see it in its proper light, if that's the rule man should be guided by. "'and since a fate perverse has had the wit to mix us up so that the one's deserts upon the shoulders of the other sit, no matter how the other one it hurts, "'i am resolved to take some mortal's life; just when, or where, or how, i do not reck, so long as law will end this horrid strife and twist my dear twin brother's sinful neck.'" "there," said the idiot, putting down the manuscript. "how's that?" "i don't like it," said mr. whitechoker. "it is immoral and vindictive. you should accept the hardships of life, no matter how unjust. the conclusion of your poem horrifies me, sir. i--" [illustration: curing insomnia] "have you tried your hand at dialect poetry?" asked the doctor. "yes; once," said the idiot. "i sent it to the _great western weekly_. oh yes. here it is. sent back with thanks. it's an octette written in cigar-box dialect." "in wh-a-at?" asked the poet. "cigar-box dialect. here it is: "'o manuel garcia alonzo, colorado especial h. clay, invincible flora alphonzo, cigarette panatella el rey, victoria reina selectas- o twofer madura grandé- o conchas oscuro perfectas, you drive all my sorrows away.'" "ingenious, but vicious," said the school-master, who does not smoke. "again thanks. how is this for a sonnet?" said the idiot: "'when to the sessions of sweet silent thought i summon up remembrance of things past, i sigh the lack of many a thing i sought, and with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: then can i drown an eye, unused to flow, for precious friends hid in death's dateless night, and weep afresh love's long since cancel'd woe, and moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: then can i grieve at grievances foregone, and heavily from woe to woe tell o'er the sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, which i now pay as if not paid before. but if the while i think of thee, dear friend! all losses are restored and sorrows end.'" "it is bosh!" said the school-master. the poet smiled quietly. "perfect bosh!" repeated the school-master. "and only shows how in weak hands so beautiful a thing as the sonnet can be made ridiculous." "what's wrong with it?" asked the idiot. "it doesn't contain any thought--or if it does, no one can tell what the thought is. your rhymes are atrocious. your phraseology is ridiculous. the whole thing is bad. you'll never get anybody to print it." "i do not intend to try," said the idiot, meekly. "you are wise," said the school-master, "to take my advice for once." "no, it is not your advice that restrains me," said the idiot, dryly. "it is the fact that this sonnet has already been printed." "in the name of letters, where?" cried the school-master. "in the collected works of william shakespeare," replied the idiot, quietly. the poet laughed; mrs. smithers's eyes filled with tears; and the school-master for once had absolutely nothing to say. xi "do you believe, mr. whitechoker," said the idiot, taking his place at the table, and holding his plate up to the light, apparently to see whether or not it was immaculate, whereat the landlady sniffed contemptuously--"do you believe that the love of money is the root of all evil?" "i have always been of that impression," returned mr. whitechoker, pleasantly. "in fact, i am sure of it," he added. "there is no evil thing in this world, sir, that cannot be traced back to a point where greed is found to be its main-spring and the source of its strength." "then how do you reconcile this with the scriptural story of the forbidden fruit? do you think the apples referred to were figures of speech, the true import of which was that adam and eve had their eyes on the original surplus?" "well, of course, there you begin to--ah--you seem to me to be going back to the--er--the--ah--" "original root of all evil," prompted the idiot, calmly. "precisely," returned mr. whitechoker, with a sigh of relief. "mrs. smithers, i think i'll have a dash of hot-water in my coffee this morning." then, with a nervous glance towards the idiot, he added, addressing the bibliomaniac, "i think it looks like rain." "referring to the coffee, mr. whitechoker?" queried the idiot, not disposed to let go of his victim quite so easily. "ah--i don't quite follow you," replied the minister, with some annoyance. "you said something looked like rain, and i asked you if the thing you referred to was the coffee, for i was disposed to agree with you," said the idiot. "i am sure," put in mrs. smithers, "that a gentleman of mr. whitechoker's refinement would not make any such insinuation, sir. he is not the man to quarrel with what is set before him." [illustration: "holding his plate up to the light"] "i ask your pardon, madam," returned the idiot, politely. "i hope that i am not the man to quarrel with my food, either. indeed, i make it a rule to avoid unpleasantness of all sorts, particularly with the weak, under which category we find your coffee. i simply wish to know to what mr. whitechoker refers when he says 'it looks like rain.'" "i mean, of course," said the minister, with as much calmness as he could command--and that was not much--"i mean the day. the day looks as if it might be rainy." "any one with a modicum of brain knows what you meant, mr. whitechoker," volunteered the school-master. "certainly," observed the idiot, scraping the butter from his toast; "but to those who have more than a modicum of brains my reverend friend's remark was not entirely clear. if i am talking of cotton, and a gentleman chooses to state that it looks like snow, i know exactly what he means. he doesn't mean that the day looks like snow, however; he refers to the cotton. mr. whitechoker, talking about coffee, chooses to state that it looks like rain, which it undoubtedly does. i, realizing that, as mrs. smithers says, it is not the gentleman's habit to attack too violently the food which is set before him, manifest some surprise, and, giving the gentleman the benefit of the doubt, afford him an opportunity to set himself right." "change the subject," said the bibliomaniac, curtly. "with pleasure," answered the idiot, filling his glass with cream. "we'll change the subject, or the object, or anything you choose. we'll have another breakfast, or another variety of biscuits _frappé_--anything, in short, to keep peace at the table. tell me, mr. pedagog," he added, "is the use of the word 'it,' in the sentence 'it looks like rain,' perfectly correct?" "i don't know why it is not," returned the school-master, uneasily. he was not at all desirous of parleying with the idiot. "and is it correct to suppose that 'it' refers to the day--is the day supposed to look like rain?--or do we simply use 'it' to express a condition which confronts us?" "it refers to the latter, of course." "then the full text of mr. whitechoker's remark is, i suppose, that 'the rainy condition of the atmosphere which confronts us looks like rain?'" "oh, i suppose so," sighed the school-master, wearily. "rather an unnecessary sort of statement that!" continued the idiot. "it's something like asserting that a man looks like himself, or, as in the case of a child's primer-"'see the cat?' "'yes, i see the cat.' "'what is the cat?' "'the cat is a cat. scat cat!'" at this even mrs. smithers smiled. "i don't agree with mr. pedagog," put in the bibliomaniac, after a pause. here the school-master shook his head warningly at the bibliomaniac, as if to indicate that he was not in good form. "so i observe," remarked the idiot. "you have upset him completely. see how mr. pedagog trembles?" he added, addressing the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed. [illustration: "'i believe you'd blow out the gas in your bed-room'"] "i don't mean that way," sneered the bibliomaniac, bound to set mr. whitechoker straight. "i mean that the word 'it,' as employed in that sentence, stands for day. the day looks like rain." "did you ever see a day?" queried the idiot. "certainly i have," returned the bibliomaniac. "what does it look like?" was the calmly put question. the bibliomaniac's impatience was here almost too great for safety, and the manner in which his face colored aroused considerable interest in the breast of the doctor, who was a good deal of a specialist in apoplexy. "was it a whole day you saw, or only a half-day?" persisted the idiot. "you may think you are very funny," retorted the bibliomaniac. "i think you are--" "now don't get angry," returned the idiot. "there are two or three things i do not know, and i'm anxious to learn. i'd like to know how a day looks to one to whom it is a visible object. if it is visible, is it tangible? and, if so, how does it feel?" "the visible is always tangible," asserted the school-master, recklessly. "how about a red-hot stove, or manifest indignation, or a view from a mountain-top, or, as in the case of the young man in the novel who 'suddenly waked,' and, 'looking anxiously about him, saw no one?'" returned the idiot, imperturbably. "tut!" ejaculated the bibliomaniac. "if i had brains like yours, i'd blow them out." "yes, i think you would," observed the idiot, folding up his napkin. "you're just the man to do a thing like that. i believe you'd blow out the gas in your bedroom if there wasn't a sign over it requesting you not to." and filling his match-box from the landlady's mantel supply, the idiot hurried from the room, and soon after left the house. xii "if my father hadn't met with reverses--" the idiot began. "did you really have a father?" interrupted the school-master. "i thought you were one of these self-made idiots. how terrible it must be for a man to think that he is responsible for you!" "yes," rejoined the idiot; "my father finds it rather hard to stand up under his responsibility for me; but he is a brave old gentleman, and he manages to bear the burden very well with the aid of my mother--for i have a mother, too, mr. pedagog. a womanly mother she is, too, with all the natural follies, such as fondness for and belief in her boy. why, it would soften your heart to see how she looks on me. she thinks i am the most everlastingly brilliant man she ever knew--excepting father, of course, who has always been a hero of heroes in her eyes, because he never rails at misfortune, never spoke an unkind word to her in his life, and just lives gently along and waiting for the end of all things." [illustration: "'his fairy stories were told him in words of ten syllables'"] "do you think it is right in you to deceive your mother in this way--making her think you a young napoleon of intellect when you know you are an idiot?" observed the bibliomaniac, with a twinkle in his eye. "why certainly i do," returned the idiot, calmly. "it's my place to make the old folks happy if i can; and if thinking me nineteen different kinds of a genius is going to fill my mother's heart with happiness, i'm going to let her think it. what's the use of destroying other people's idols even if we do know them to be hollow mockeries? do you think you do a praiseworthy act, for instance, when you kick over the heathen's stone gods and leave him without any at all? you may not have noticed it, but i have--that it is easier to pull down an idol than it is to rear an ideal. i have had idols shattered myself, and i haven't found that the pedestals they used to occupy have been rented since. they are there yet and empty--standing as monuments to what once seemed good to me--and i'm no happier nor no better for being disillusioned. so it is with my mother. i let her go on and think me perfect. it does her good, and it does me good because it makes me try to live up to that idea of hers as to what i am. if she had the same opinion of me that we all have she'd be the most miserable woman in the world." "we don't all think so badly of you," said the doctor, rather softened by the idiot's remarks. "no," put in the bibliomaniac. "you are all right. you breathe normally, and you have nice blue eyes. you are graceful and pleasant to look upon, and if you'd been born dumb we'd esteem you very highly. it is only your manners and your theories that we don't like; but even in these we are disposed to believe that you are a well-meaning child." "that is precisely the way to put it," assented the school-master. "you are harmless even when most annoying. for my own part, i think the most objectionable feature about you is that you suffer from that unfortunately not uncommon malady, extreme youth. you are young for your age, and if you only wouldn't talk, i think we should get on famously together." "you overwhelm me with your compliments," said the idiot. "i am sorry i am so young, but i cannot be brought to believe that that is my own fault. one must live to attain age, and how the deuce can one live when one boards?" as no one ventured to reply to this question, the force of which very evidently, however, was fully appreciated by mrs. smithers, the idiot continued: [illustration: "'i thought my father a mean-spirited assassin'"] "youth is thrust upon us in our infancy, and must be endured until such a time as fate permits us to account ourselves cured. it swoops down upon us when we have neither the strength nor the brains to resent it. of course there are some superior persons in this world who never were young. mr. pedagog, i doubt not, was ushered into this world with all three sets of teeth cut, and not wailing as most infants are, but discussing the most abstruse philosophical problems. his fairy stories were told him, if ever, in words of ten syllables; and his father's first remark to him was doubtless an inquiry as to his opinion on the subject of latin and greek in our colleges. it's all right to be this kind of a baby if you like that sort of thing. for my part, i rejoice to think that there was once a day when i thought my father a mean-spirited assassin, because he wouldn't tie a string to the moon and let me make it rise and set as suited my sweet will. babies of mr. pedagog's sort are fortunately like angel's visits, few and far between. in spite of his stand in the matter, though, i can't help thinking there was a great deal of truth in a rhyme a friend of mine got off on youth. it fits the case. he said: "'youth is a state of being we attain in early years; to some 'tis but a crime- and, like the mumps, most agèd men complain, it can't be caught, alas! a second time."' "your rhymes are interesting, and your reasoning, as usual, is faulty," said the school-master. "i passed a very pleasant childhood, though it was a childhood devoted, as you have insinuated, to serious rather than to flippant pursuits. i wasn't particularly fond of tag and hide-and-seek, nor do i think that even as an infant i ever cried for the moon." "it would have expanded your chest if you had, mr. pedagog," observed the idiot, quietly. "so it would, but i never found myself short-winded, sir," retorted the school-master, with some acerbity. "that is evident; but go on," said the idiot. "you never passed a childish youth nor a youthful childhood, and therefore what?" "therefore, in my present condition, i am normally contented. i have no youthful follies to look back upon, no indiscretions to regret; i never knowingly told a lie, and--" "all of which proves that you never were young," put in the idiot; "and you will excuse me if i say it, but my father is the model for me rather than so exalted a personage as yourself. he is still young, though turned seventy, and i don't believe on his own account there ever was a boy who played hookey more, who prevaricated oftener, who purloined others' fruits with greater frequency than he. he was guilty of every crime in the calendar of youth; and if there is one thing that delights him more than another, it is to sit on a winter's night before the crackling log and tell us yarns about his youthful follies and his boyhood indiscretions." "but is he normally a happy man?" queried the school-master. "no." "ah!" "no. he's an _ab_normally happy man, because he's got his follies and indiscretions to look back upon and not forward to." "ahem!" said mrs. smithers. "dear me!" ejaculated mr. whitechoker. mr. pedagog said nothing, and the breakfast-room was soon deserted. xiii there was an air of suppressed excitement about mrs. smithers and mr. pedagog as they sat down to breakfast. something had happened, but just what that something was no one as yet knew, although the genial old gentleman had a sort of notion as to what it was. "pedagog has been good-natured enough for an engaged man for nearly a week now," he whispered to the idiot, who had asked him what he supposed was up, "and i have a half idea that mrs. s. has at last brought him to the point of proposing." "it's the other way, i imagine," returned the idiot. "you don't really think she has rejected him, do you?" queried the genial old gentleman. "oh no; not by a great deal. i mean that i think it very likely that he has brought her to the point. this is leap-year, you know," said the idiot. "well, if i were a betting man, which i haven't been since night before last, i'd lay you a wager that they're engaged," said the old gentleman. "i'm glad you've given up betting," rejoined the idiot, "because i'm sure i'd take the bet if you offered it--and then i believe i'd lose." "we are to have philadelphia spring chickens this morning, gentlemen," said mrs. smithers, beaming upon all at the table. "it's a special treat." "which we all appreciate, my dear mrs. smithers," observed the idiot, with a courteous bow to his landlady. "and, by the way, why is it that philadelphia spring chickens do not appear until autumn, do you suppose? is it because philadelphia spring doesn't come around until it is autumn everywhere else?" "no, i think not," said the doctor. "i think it is because philadelphia spring chickens are not sufficiently hardened to be able to stand the strain of exportation much before september, or else philadelphia people do not get so sated with such delicacies as to permit any of the crop to go into other than philadelphia markets before that period. for my part, i simply love them." [illustration: "'mrs. s. brought him to the point of proposing'"] "so do i," said the idiot; "and if mrs. smithers will pardon me for expressing a preference for any especial part of the _pièce de résistance_, i will state to her that if, in helping me, she will give me two drumsticks, a pair of second joints, and plenty of the white meat, i shall be very happy." "you ought to have said so yesterday," said the school-master, with a surprisingly genial laugh. "then mrs. smithers could have prepared an individual chicken for you." "that would be too much," returned the idiot, "and i should really hesitate to eat too much spring chicken. i never did it in my life, and don't know what the effect would be. would it be harmful, doctor?" "i really do not know how it would be," answered the doctor. "in all my wide experience i have never found a case of the kind." "it's very rarely that one gets too much spring chicken," said mr. whitechoker. "i haven't had any experience with patients, as my friend the doctor has; but i have lived in many boarding-houses, and i have never yet known of any one even getting enough." "well, perhaps we shall have all we want this morning," said mrs. smithers. "i hope so, at any rate, for i wish this day to be a memorable one in our house. mr. pedagog has something to tell you. john, will you announce it now?" "did you hear that?" whispered the idiot. "she called him 'john.'" "yes," said the genial old gentleman. "i didn't know pedagog had a first name before." "certainly, my dear--that is, my very dear mrs. smithers," stammered the school-master, getting red in the face. "the fact is, gentlemen--ahem!--i--er--we--er--that is, of course--er--mrs. smithers has er--ahem!--mrs. smithers has asked me to be her--i--er--i should say i have asked mrs. smithers to be my husb--my wife, and--er--she--" "hoorah!" cried the idiot, jumping up from the table and grasping mr. pedagog by the hand. "hoorah! you've got in ahead of us, old man, but we are just as glad when we think of your good-fortune. your gain may be our loss--but what of that where the happiness of our dear landlady is at stake?" mrs. smithers glanced coyly at the idiot and smiled. "thank you," said the school-master. "you are welcome," said the idiot. "mrs. smithers, you will also permit me to felicitate you upon this happy event. i, who have so often differed with mr. pedagog upon matters of human knowledge, am forced to admit that upon this occasion he has shown such eminently good sense that you are fortunate, indeed, to have won him." "again i thank you," said the school-master. "you are a very sensible person yourself, my dear idiot; perhaps my failure to appreciate you at times in the past has been due to your brilliant qualities, which have so dazzled me that i have been unable to see you as you really are." "here are the chickens," said mrs. smithers. "ah!" ejaculated the idiot. "what lucky fellows we are, to be sure! i hope, mrs. smithers, now that mr. pedagog has cut us all out, you will at least be a sister to the rest of us, and let us live at home." [illustration: "'hoorah!' cried the idiot, grasping mr. pedagog by the hand"] "there is to be no change," said mrs. smithers--"at least, i hope not, except that mr. pedagog will take a more active part in the management of our home." "i don't envy him that," said the idiot. "we shall be severe critics, and it will be hard work for him to manage affairs better than you did, mrs. smithers." "mary, get me a larger cup for the idiot's coffee," said mrs. smithers. "let's all retire from business," suggested the idiot, after the other guests had expressed their satisfaction with the turn affairs had taken. "let's retire from business, and change the smithers home for boarders into an educational institution." "for what purpose?" queried the bibliomaniac. "everything is so lovely now," explained the idiot, "that i feel as though i never wanted to leave the house again, even to win a fortune. if we turn it into a college and instruct youth, we need never go outside the front door excepting for pleasure." "where will the money and the instructors come from?" asked mr. whitechoker. "money? from pupils; and after we get going maybe somebody will endow us. as for instructors, i think we know enough to be instructors ourselves," replied the idiot. "for instance: pedagog's university. john pedagog, president; alonzo b. whitechoker, chaplain; mrs. smithers-pedagog, matron. for professor of belles-lettres, the bibliomaniac, assisted by the poet; medical lectures by dr. capsule; chemistry taught by our genial friend who occasionally imbibes; chair in general information, your humble servant. why, we would be overrun with pupils and money in less than a year." "a very good idea," returned mr. pedagog. "i have often thought that a nice little school could be started here to advantage, though i must confess that i had different ideas on the subject of the instructors. you, my dear idiot, would be a great deal more useful as a professor emeritus." "hm!" said the idiot. "it sounds mighty well--i've no doubt i should like it. what is a professor emeritus, mr. pedagog?" "he is a professor who is paid a salary for doing nothing." the whole table joined in a laugh, the idiot included. "by jove! mr. pedagog," he said, as soon as he could speak, "you are just dead right about that. that's the place of places for me. salary and nothing to do! oh, how i'd love it!" the rest of the breakfast was eaten in silence. the spring chickens were too good and too plentiful to admit of much waste of time in conversation. at the conclusion of the meal the idiot rose from the table, and, after again congratulating mr. pedagog and his fiancée, announced that he was going to see his employer. "on sunday?" queried mrs. smithers. "yes; i want him to write me a recommendation as a man who can do nothing beautifully." "and why, pray?" asked mr. pedagog. "i'm going to apply to the trustees of columbia college the first thing to-morrow morning for an emeritus professorship, for if anybody can do nothing and draw money for it gracefully i'm the man. wall street is too wearing on my nerves," he replied. and in a moment he was gone. "i _like_ him," said mrs. smithers. "so do i," said mr. pedagog. "he isn't half the idiot he thinks he is." the end by lilian bell a little sister to the wilderness. a novel. new edition. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, uncut edges and gilt top, $1 25. the story is a pathetic one in many ways, for it portrays so strongly human lowliness and degradation. the writer is well acquainted with the life and habits and dialect of the west tennessee bottoms, and her story is written from the heart and with rare sympathy. the lonely dyke roads, the cheerless homes, the shabby "store," the emotional methodist meeting, which lasts a week, having two sessions daily--all these are vividly sketched. mag, the heroine, is a well-drawn character. camden, the hero, is forceful and earnest. the story is valuable because it shows so forcefully the peculiar phases of the life and human character of these people. the writer has a natural and fluent style, and her dialect has the double excellence of being novel and scanty. the scenes are picturesque and diversified.--_churchman_, n. y. from a girl's point of view. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, uncut edges and gilt top, $1 25. the under side of things. a novel. with a portrait of the author. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, uncut edges and gilt top, $1 25. the love affairs of an old maid. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, uncut edges and gilt top, $1 25. new york and london: harper & brothers, publishers _the above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by mail by the publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price._ the odd number series 16mo, cloth, ornamental the gulistan: being the rose-garden of shaikh sa'di. translated by sir edwin arnold. $1 00. the new god. by richard voss. translated by mary a. robinson. $1 25. the green book. by maurus jókai. translated by mrs. waugh. $1 50. black diamonds. by maurus jókai. translated by frances a. gerard. $1 50. doña perfecta. by b. pérez galdós. translated by mary j. serrano. $1 00. parisian points of view. by ludovic halévy. translated by edith v. b. matthews. $1 00. dame care. by hermann sudermann. translated by bertha overbeck. $1 00. tales of two countries. by alexander kielland. translated by william archer. $1 00. ten tales by françois coppée. translated by walter learned. illustrated. $1 25. modern ghosts. by guy de maupassant and others. translated. $1 00. the house by the medlar tree. by giovanni verga. translated by mary a. craig. $1 00. pastels in prose. translated by stuart merrill. illustrated by h. w. mcvickar. $1 25. maría: a south american romance. by jorge isaacs. translated by rollo ogden. $1 00. the odd number. tales by guy de maupassant. translated by jonathan sturges. $1 00. harper & brothers, publishers new york and london _any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, canada, or mexico, on receipt of the price._ note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 18881-h.htm or 18881-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/8/8/18881/18881-h/18881-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/8/8/18881/18881-h.zip) the idiot by john kendrick bangs author of "coffee and repartee" "the water ghost, and others" "three weeks in politics" etc. illustrated new york harper & brothers publishers 1895 copyright, 1895, by harper & brothers. all rights reserved. to william k. otis illustrations "certainly. i asked for another cup" "the nuisance of having to pay" "she could not possibly get aboard again" "demands tickets for two" "they are given to rehearsing at all hours" "'ha! ha! i have him now!'" "has your friend completed his article on old jokes?" they departed "you fish all day, and have no luck" he could be heard throwing things about "he was not murdered" "superintendent smithers has not absconded" the inspired boarder paid his bill "i know you can't, because it isn't there" "you can make yourself heard in san francisco" the prophetograph "i grasped it in my two hands" "piano-playing isn't always music" "the moon itself will be used" "declines to be ridden" "the bibliomaniac would be raising bulbs" "didn't know enough to choose his own face" "janitors have to be seen to" "my eloquence floated up the air-shaft" the idiot i for some weeks after the happy event which transformed the popular mrs. smithers into the charming mrs. john pedagog all went well at that lady's select home for single gentlemen. it was only proper that during the honey-moon, at least, of the happy couple hostilities between the idiot and his fellow-boarders should cease. it was expecting too much of mankind, however, to look for a continued armistice, and the morning arrived when nature once more reasserted herself, and trouble began. just what it was that prompted the remark no one knows, but it happened that the idiot did say that he thought that, after all, life on a canal-boat had its advantages. mr. pedagog, who had come into the dining-room in a slightly irritable frame of mind, induced perhaps by mrs. pedagog's insistence that as he was now part proprietor of the house he should be a little more prompt in making his contributions towards its maintenance, chose to take the remark as implying a reflection upon the way things were managed in the household. "humph!" he said. "i had hoped that your habit of airing your idiotic views had been put aside for once and for all." "very absurd hope, my dear sir," observed the idiot. "views that are not aired become musty. why shouldn't i give them an atmospheric opportunity once in a while?" "because they are the sort of views to which suffocation is the most appropriate end," snapped the school-master. "any man who asserts, as you have asserted, that life on a canal-boat has its advantages, ought to go further, and prove his sincerity by living on one." "i can't afford it," said the idiot, meekly. "it isn't cheap by any manner of means. in the first place, you can't live happily on a canal-boat unless you can afford to keep horses. in fact, canal-boat life is a combination of the most expensive luxuries, since it combines yachting and driving with domesticity. nevertheless, if you will put your mind on it, you will find that with a canal-boat for your home you can do a great many things that you can't do with a house." "i decline to put my mind on a canal-boat," said mr. pedagog, sharply, passing his coffee back to mrs. pedagog for another lump of sugar, thereby contributing to that good lady's discomfiture, since before their marriage the mere fact that the coffee had been poured by her fair hand had given it all the sweetness it needed; or at least that was what the school-master had said, and more than once at that. "you are under no obligation to do so," the idiot returned. "though if i had a mind like yours i'd put it on a canal-boat and have it towed away somewhere out of sight. these other gentlemen, however, i think, will agree with me when i say that the mere fact that a canal-boat can be moved about the country, and is in no sense a fixture anywhere, shows that as a dwelling-place it is superior to a house. take this house, for instance. this neighborhood used to be the best in town. it is still far from being the worst neighborhood in town, but it is, as it has been for several years, deteriorating. the establishment of a turkish bath on one corner and a grocery-store on the other has taken away much of that air of refinement which characterized it when the block was devoted to residential purposes entirely. now just suppose for a moment that this street were a canal, and that this house were a canal-boat. the canal could run down as much as it pleased, the neighborhood could deteriorate eternally, but it could not affect the value of this house as the home of refined people as long as it was possible to hitch up a team of horses to the front stoop and tow it into a better locality. i'd like to wager every man at this table that mrs. pedagog wouldn't take five minutes to make up her mind to tow this house up to a spot near central park, if it were a canal-boat and the streets were water instead of a mixture of water, sand, and belgian blocks." "no takers," said the bibliomaniac. "tutt-tutt-tutt," ejaculated mr. pedagog. [illustration: "the nuisance of having to pay"] "you seem to lose sight of another fact," said the idiot, warming up to his subject. "if man had had the sense in the beginning to adopt the canal-boat system of life, and we were used to that sort of thing, it would not be so hard upon us in summer-time, when we have to live in hotels in order that we and our families may reap the benefits of a period of country life. we could simply drive off to that section of the country where we desired to be. hotels would not be needed if a man could take his house along with him into the fields, and one phase of life which has more bad than good in it would be entirely obliterated. there is nothing more disturbing to the serenity of a domestic man's mind than the artificial manner of living that prevails in most summer hotels. the nuisance of having to pay bills every monday morning under the penalty of losing one's luggage would be obviated, and all the comforts of home would be directly within reach. the trouble incident upon getting the trunks packed and the children ready for a long day's journey by rail, and the fatigue arising from such a journey, would be reduced to a minimum. the troubles attendant upon going into a far country, and leaving one's house in the sole charge of a lot of servants for a month or two every year, would be done away with entirely; and if at any time it became necessary to discharge one of these servants, she could be put off the boat in an instant, and then the boat could be pushed out into the middle of the canal, so that the discharged domestic could not possibly get aboard again and take her revenge by smashing your crockery and fixtures. that is one of the worst features of living in a stationary house. you are entirely at the mercy of vindictive servants. they know precisely where you live, and you cannot escape them. they can come back when there is no man around, and raise several varieties of ned with your wife and children. with a movable house, such as the canal-boat would be, you could always go off and leave your family in perfect safety." [illustration: "she could not possibly get aboard again"] "how about safety in a storm?" asked the bibliomaniac. "safety in a storm?" echoed the idiot. "that seems an absurd sort of a question to one who knows anything about canal-boats. i, for one, never heard of a canal-boat being seriously damaged in a storm as long as it was anchored in the canal proper. it certainly isn't any more dangerous to be in a canal-boat in a storm than it is to be in a house that offers resistance to the winds, and is shaken from roof to cellar at every blast. more houses have been blown from their foundations than canal-boats sunk, provided ordinary care has been taken to protect them." "and you think the canal-boat would be healthy?" asked the doctor. "how about dampness and all that?" "that is a professional question," returned the idiot, "which i think you could answer better than i. i don't see why a canal-boat shouldn't be healthy, however. the dampness would not amount to very much. it would be outside of one's dwelling, and not within it, as is the case with so many houses. a canal-boat having no cellar could not have a damp one, and if by some untoward circumstance it should spring a leak, the water could be pumped out at once and the leak plugged up. however this might be, i'll offer another wager to this board on that point, and that is that more people die in houses than on canal-boats." "we'd rather give you our money right out," retorted the doctor. "thank you," said the idiot. "but i don't need money. i don't like money. money is responsible for more extravagance than any other commodity in existence. besides, it and i are not intimate enough to get along very well together, and when i have any i immediately do my level best to rid myself of it. but to return to our canal-boat, i note a look of disapproval in mr. whitechoker's eyes. he doesn't seem to think any more of my scheme than do the rest of you--which i regret, since i believe that he would be the gainer if land edifices were supplanted by the canal system as proposed by myself. take church on a rainy morning, for instance. a great many people stay at home from church on rainy mornings just because they do not want to venture out in the wet. suppose we all lived in canal-boats? would not people be deprived of this flimsy pretext for staying at home if their homes could be towed up to the church door? or, better yet, granting that the churches followed out the same plan, and were themselves constructed like canal-boats, how easy it would be for the sexton to drive the church around the town and collect the absentees. in the same manner it would be glorious for men like ourselves, who have to go to their daily toil. for a consideration, mrs. pedagog could have us driven to our various places of business every morning, returning for us in the evening. think how fine it would be for me, for instance, instead of having to come home every night in an overcrowded elevated train or on a cable-car, to have the office-boy come and announce, 'mrs. pedagog's select home for gentlemen is at the door, mr. idiot.' i could step right out of my office into my charming little bedroom up in the bow, and the time usually expended on the cars could be devoted to dressing for tea. then we could stop in at the court-house for our legal friend; and as for doctor capsule, wouldn't he revel in driving this boarding-house about town on his daily rounds among his patients?" "what would become of my office hours?" asked the doctor. "if this house were whirling giddily all about the city from morning until night, i don't know what would become of my office patients." "they might die a little sooner or live a little longer, that is all," said the idiot. "if they weren't able to find the house at all, however, i think it would be better for us, for much as i admire you, doctor, i think your office hours are a nuisance to the rest of us. i had to elbow my way out of the house this morning between a double line of sufferers from mumps and influenza, and other pleasingly afflicted patients of yours, and i didn't like it very much." "i don't believe they liked it much either," returned the doctor. "one man with a sprained ankle told me about you. you shoved him in passing." "well, you can apologize to him in my behalf," returned the idiot; "but you might add that he must expect very much the same treatment whenever he and a boy with mumps stand between me and the door. sprained ankles aren't contagious, and i preferred shoving him to the other alternative." the doctor was silent, and the idiot rose to go. "where will the house be this evening about six-thirty, mrs. pedagog?" he asked, as he pushed his chair back from the table. "where? why, here, of course," returned the landlady. "why, yes--of course," observed the idiot, with an impatient gesture. "how foolish of me! i've really been so wrapped up in my canal-boat ideal that i came to believe that it might possibly be real and not a dream, after all. i almost believed that perhaps i should find that the house had been towed somewhere up into westchester county on my return, so that we might all escape the city's tax on personal property, which i am told is unusually high this year." with which sally the idiot kissed his hand to mr. pedagog and retired from the scene. ii "let's write a book," suggested the idiot, as he took his place at the board and unfolded his napkin. "what about?" asked the doctor, with a smile at the idea of the idiot's thinking of embarking on literary pursuits. "about four hundred pages long," said the idiot. "i feel inspired." "you are inspired," said the school-master. "in your way you are a genius. i really never heard of such a variegated idiot as you are in all my experience, and that means a great deal, i can tell you, for in the course of my career as an instructor of youth i have encountered many idiots." "were they idiots before or after having drank at the fount of your learning?" asked the idiot, placidly. mr. pedagog glared, and the idiot was apparently satisfied. to make mr. pedagog glare appeared to be one of the chiefest of his ambitions. "you will kindly remember, mr. idiot," said mrs. pedagog at this point, "that mr. pedagog is my husband, and such insinuations at my table are distinctly out of place." "i ask your pardon, mrs. pedagog," rejoined the offender, meekly. "nevertheless, as apart from the question in hand as to whether mr. pedagog inspires idiocy or not, i should like to get the views of this gathering on the point you make regarding the table. _is_ this your table? is it not rather the table of those who sit about it to regale their inner man with the good things under which i remember once or twice in my life to have heard it groan? to my mind, the latter is the truth. it is _our_ table, because we buy it, and i am forced to believe that some of us pay for it. i am prepared to admit that if mr. brief, for instance, is delinquent in his weekly payments, his interest in the table reverts to you until he shall have liquidated, and he is not privileged to say a word that you do not approve of; but i, for instance, who since january 1st have been compelled to pay in advance, am at least sole lessee, and for the time being proprietor of the portion for which i have paid. you have sold it to me. i have entered into possession, and while in possession, as a matter of right and not on sufferance, haven't i the privilege of freedom of speech?" "you certainly exercise the privilege whether you have it or not," snapped mr. pedagog. "well, i believe in exercise," said the idiot. "exercise brings strength, and if exercising the privilege is going to strengthen it, exercise it i shall, if i have to hire a gymnasium for the purpose. but to return to mrs. pedagog's remark. it brings up another question that has more or less interested me. because mrs. smithers married mr. pedagog, do we lose all of our rights in mr. pedagog? before the happy event that reduced our number from ten to nine--" "we are still ten, are we not?" asked mr. whitechoker, counting the guests. "not if mr. pedagog and the late mrs. smithers have become one," said the idiot. "but, as i was saying, before the happy event that reduced our number from ten to nine we were permitted to address our friend pedagog in any terms we saw fit, and whenever he became sufficiently interested to indulge in repartee we were privileged to return it. have we relinquished that privilege? i don't remember to have done so." "it's a question worthy of your giant intellect," said mr. pedagog, scornfully. "for myself, i do not at all object to anything you may choose to say to me or of me. your assaults are to me as water is to a duck's back." "i am sorry," said the idiot. "i hate family disagreements, and here we have mrs. pedagog taking one side and mr. pedagog the other. but whatever decision may ultimately be reached, of one thing mrs. pedagog must be assured. i on principle side against mr. pedagog, and if it be the wish of my good landlady that i shall refrain from playing intellectual battledore and shuttlecock with her husband, whom we all revere, i certainly shall refrain. hereafter if i indulge in anything that in any sense resembles repartee with our landlord, i wish it distinctly understood that an apology goes with it." "that's all right, my boy," said the school-master. "you mean well. you are a little new, that's all, and we all understand you." "i don't understand him," growled the doctor, still smarting under the recollection of former breakfast-table discomfitures. "i wish we could get him translated." "if you prescribed for me once or twice i think it likely i should be translated in short order," retorted the idiot. "i wonder how i'd go translated into french?" "you couldn't be expressed in french," put in the lawyer. "it would take some barbarian tongue to do you justice." "very well," said the idiot. "proceed. do me justice." "i can't begin to," said mr. brief, angrily. "that's what i thought," said the idiot. "that's the reason why you always do me such great injustice. you lawyers always have to be doing something, even if it is only holding down a chair so that it won't blow out of your office window. if you haven't any justice to mete out, you take another tack and dispense injustice with lavish hand. however, i'll forgive you if you'll tell me one thing. what's libel, mr. brief?" "none of your business," growled the lawyer. "a very good general definition," said the idiot, approvingly. "if there's any business in the world that i should hate to have known as mine it is that of libel. i think, however, your definition is not definite. what i wanted to know was just how far i could go with remarks at this table and be safe from prosecution." "nobody would ever prosecute you, for two reasons," said the lawyer. "in a civil action for money damages a verdict against you for ten cents wouldn't be worth a rap, because the chances are you couldn't pay. in a criminal action your conviction would be a bad thing, because you would be likely to prove a corrupting influence in any jail in creation. besides, you'd be safe before a jury, anyhow. you are just the sort of idiot that the intelligent jurors of to-day admire, and they'd acquit you of any crime. a man has a right to a trial at the hands of a jury of his peers. i don't think even in a jury-box twelve idiots equal to yourself could be found, so don't worry." "thanks. have a cigarette?" said the idiot, tossing one over to the lawyer. "it's all i have. if i had a half-dollar i should pay you for your opinion; but since i haven't, i offer you my all. the temperature of my coffee seems to have fallen, mrs. pedagog. will you kindly let me have another cup?" "certainly," said mrs. pedagog. "mary, get the idiot another cup." mary did as she was told, placing the empty bit of china at mrs. pedagog's side. "it is for the idiot, mary," said mrs. pedagog, coldly. "take it to him." "empty, ma'am?" asked the maid. "certainly, mary," said the idiot, perceiving mrs. pedagog's point. "i asked for another cup, not for more coffee." [illustration: "certainly. i asked for another cup"] mrs. pedagog smiled quietly at her own joke. at hair-splitting she could give the idiot points. "i am surprised that mary should have thought i wanted more coffee," continued the idiot, in an aggrieved tone. "it shows that she too thinks me out of my mind." "you are not out of your mind," said the bibliomaniac. "it would be a good thing if you were. in replenishing your mental supply you might have the luck to get better quality." "i probably should have the luck," said the idiot. "i have had a great store of it in my life. from the very start i have had luck. when i think that i was born myself, and not you, i feel as if i had had more than my share of good-fortune--more luck than the law allows. how much luck does the law allow, mr. brief?" "bosh!" said mr. brief, with a scornful wave of his hand, as if he were ridding himself of a troublesome gnat. "don't bother me with such mind-withering questions." "all right," said the idiot. "i'll ask you an easier one. why does not the world recognize matrimony?" mr. whitechoker started. here, indeed, was a novel proposition. "i--i--must confess," said he, "that of all the idiotic questions i--er--i have ever had the honor of hearing asked that takes the--" "cake?" suggested the idiot. "--palm!" said mr. whitechoker, severely. "well, perhaps so," said the idiot. "but matrimony is the science, or the art, or whatever you call it, of making two people one, is it not?" "it certainly is," said mr. whitechoker. "but what of it?" "the world does not recognize the unity," said the idiot. "take our good proprietors, for instance. they were made one by yourself, mr. whitechoker. i had the pleasure of being an usher at the ceremony, yielding the position of best man gracefully, as is my wont, to the bibliomaniac. he was best man, but not the better man, by a simple process of reasoning. now no one at this board disputes that mr. and mrs. pedagog are one, but how about the world? mr. pedagog takes mrs. pedagog to a concert. are they one there?" "why not?" asked mr. brief. "that's what i want to know--why not? the world, as represented by the ticket-taker at the door, says they are not--or implies that they are not, by demanding tickets for two. they attempt to travel out to niagara falls. the railroad people charge them two fares; the hackman charges them two fares; the hotel bills are made out for two people. it is the same wherever they go in the world, and i regret to say that even in our own home there is a disposition to regard them as two. when i spoke of there being nine persons here instead of ten, mr. whitechoker himself disputed my point--and yet it was not so much his fault as the fault of mr. and mrs. pedagog themselves. mrs. pedagog seems to cast doubt upon the unity by providing two separate chairs for the two halves that make up the charming entirety. two cups are provided for their coffee. two forks, two knives, two spoons, two portions of all the delicacies of the season which are lavished upon us out of season--generally after it--fall to their lot. they do not object to being called a happy _couple_, when they should be known as a happy single. now what i want to know is why the world does not accept the shrinkage which has been pronounced valid by the church and is recognized by the individual? can any one here tell me that?" [illustration: "demands tickets for two"] no one could, apparently. at least no one endeavored to. the idiot looked inquiringly at all, and then, receiving no reply to his question, he rose from the table. "i think," he said, as he started to leave the room--"i think we ought to write that book. if we made it up of the things you people don't know, it would be one of the greatest books of the century. at any rate, it would be great enough in bulk to fill the biggest library in america." iii "i wish i were beginning life all over again," said the idiot one spring morning, as he took his accustomed place at mrs. pedagog's table. "i wish you were," said mr. pedagog from behind his newspaper. "then your parents would have you shut up in a nursery, and it is even conceivable that you would be receiving those disciplinary attentions with a slipper that you seem to me so frequently to deserve, were you at this present moment in the nursery stage of your development." "my!" ejaculated the idiot. "what a wonder you are, mr. pedagog! it is a good thing you are not a justice in a criminal court." "and what, may i venture to ask," said mr. pedagog, glancing at the idiot over his spectacles--"what has given rise to that extraordinary remark, the connection of which with anything that has been said or done this morning is distinctly not apparent?" "i only meant that a man who was so given over to long sentences as you are would probably make too severe a judge in a criminal court," replied the idiot, meekly. "do you make use of the same phraseology in the class-room that you dazzle us with, i should like to know?" "and why not, pray?" said mr. pedagog. "no special reason," said the idiot; "only it does seem to me that an instructor of youth ought to be more careful in his choice of adverbs than you appear to be. of course doctor bolus here is under no obligation to speak more grammatically or correctly than he does. people call him in to prescribe, not to indulge in rhetorical periods, and he can write his prescriptions in a sort of intuitive latin and nobody be the wiser, but you, who are said to be sowing the seeds of knowledge in the brain of youth, should be more careful." "hear the grammarian talk!" returned mr. pedagog. "listen to this embryonic samuel johnson the second. what have i said that so offends the linguistic taste of lindley murray, jun.?" "nothing," returned the idiot. "i cannot say that you have said anything. i never heard you say anything in my life; but while you can no doubt find good authority for making use of the words 'distinctly not apparent,' you ought not to throw such phrases around carelessly. the thing which is distinct is apparent, therefore to say 'distinctly not apparent' to a mind that is not given to analysis sounds strange. you might as well say of a beautiful girl that she is plainly pretty, meaning of course that she is evidently pretty; but those who are unacquainted with the idiomatic peculiarities of your speech might ask you if you meant that she was pretty in a plain sort of way. suppose, too, you were writing a novel, and, in a desire to give your reader a fair idea of the personal appearance of a homely but good creature, you should say, 'it cannot be denied that rosamond follansbee was pretty plain?' it wouldn't take a very grave error of the types to change your entire meaning. to save a line on a page, for instance, it might become necessary to eliminate a single word; and if that word should chance to be the word 'plain' in the sentence i have given, your homely but good person would be set down as being undeniably pretty. which shows, it seems to me, that too great care cannot be exercised in the making of selections from our vocabu--" "you are the worst i _ever_ knew!" snapped mr. pedagog. "which only proves," observed the idiot, "that you have not heeded the scriptural injunction that you should know thyself. are those buckwheat cakes or doilies?" whether the question was heard or not is not known. it certainly was not answered, and silence reigned for a few minutes. finally mrs. pedagog spoke, and in the manner of one who was somewhat embarrassed. "i am in an embarrassing position," said she. "good!" said the idiot, _sotto-voce_, to the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed. "there is hope for the landlady yet. if she can be embarrassed she is still human--a condition i was beginning to think she wotted not of." "she whatted what?" queried the genial gentleman, not quite catching the idiot's words. "never mind," returned the idiot. "let's hear how she ever came to be embarrassed." "i have had an application for my first-floor suite, and i don't know whether i ought to accept it or not," said the landlady. "she has a conscience, too," whispered the idiot; and then he added, aloud, "and wherein lies the difficulty, mrs. pedagog?" "the applicant is an actor; junius brutus davenport is his name." "a tragedian or a comedian?" asked the bibliomaniac. "or first walking gentleman, who knows every railroad tie in the country?" put in the idiot. "that i do not know," returned the landlady. "his name sounds familiar enough, though. i thought perhaps some of you gentlemen might know of him." "i have heard of junius brutus," observed the doctor, chuckling slightly at his own humor, "and i've heard of davenport, but junius brutus davenport is a combination with which i am not familiar." "well, i can't see why it should make any difference whether the man is a tragedian, or a comedian, or a familiar figure to railroad men," said mr. whitechoker, firmly. "in any event, he would be an extremely objec--" "it makes a great deal of difference," said the idiot. "i've met tragedians, and i've met comedians, and i've met new york central stars, and i can assure you they each represent a distinct type. the tragedians, as a rule, are quiet meek individuals, with soft low voices, in private life. they are more timid than otherwise, though essentially amiable. i knew a tragedian once who, after killing seventeen indians, a road-agent, and a gross of cowboys between eight and ten p.m. every night for sixteen weeks, working six nights a week, was afraid of a mild little soft-shell crab that lay defenceless on a plate before him on the evening of the seventh night of the last week. tragedians make agreeable companions, i can tell you; and if j. brutus davenport is a tragedian, i think mrs. pedagog would do well to let him have the suite, provided, of course, that he pays for it in advance." "i was about to observe, when our friend interrupted me," said mr. whitechoker, with dignity, "that in any event an actor at this board would be to me an extremely objec--" "now the comedians," resumed the idiot, ignoring mr. whitechoker's remark--"the comedians are very different. they are twice as bloodthirsty as the murderers of the drama, and, worse than that, they are given to rehearsing at all hours of the day and night. a tragedian is a hard character only on the stage, but the comedian is the comedian always. if we had one of those fellows in our midst, it would not be very long before we became part of the drama ourselves. mrs. pedagog would find herself embarrassed once an hour, instead of, as at present, once a century. mr. whitechoker would hear of himself as having appeared by proxy in a roaring farce before our comedian had been with us two months. the wise sayings of our friend the school-master would be spoken nightly from the stage, to the immense delight of the gallery gods, and to the edification of the orchestra circle, who would wonder how so much information could have got into the world and they not know it before. the out-of-town papers would literally teem with witty extracts from our comedian's plays, which we should immediately recognize as the dicta of my poor self." [illustration: "they are given to rehearsing at all hours"] "all of which," put in mr. whitechoker, "but proves the truth of my assertion that such a person would be an extremely objec--" "then, as i said before," continued the idiot, "he is continually rehearsing, and his objectionableness as a fellow-boarder would be greater or less, according to his play. if he were impersonating a shiftless wanderer, who shows remarkable bravery at a hotel fire, we should have to be prepared at any time to hear the fire-engines rushing up to the front door, and to see our comedian scaling the fire-escape with mrs. pedagog and her account-books in his arms, simply in the line of rehearsal. if he were impersonating a detective after a criminal masquerading as a good citizen, the school-master would be startled some night by a hoarse voice at his key-hole exclaiming: 'ha! ha! i have him now. there is no escape save by the back window, and that's so covered o'er with dust 'twere suffocation sure to try it.' i hesitate to say what would happen if he were a tank comedian." [illustration: "'ha! ha! i have him now!'"] "perhaps," said mr. whitechoker, with a trifle more impatience than was compatible with his calling--"perhaps you will hesitate long enough for me to state what i have been trying to state ever since this soliloquy of yours began--that in any event, whether this person be a tragedian, or a comedian, or a walking gentleman, or a riding gentleman in a circus, i object to his being admitted to this circle, and i deem it well to say right here that as he comes in at the front door i go out at the back. as a clergyman, i do not approve of the stage." "that ought to settle it," said the idiot. "mr. whitechoker is too good a friend to us all here for us to compel him to go out of that back door into the rather limited market-garden mrs. pedagog keeps in the yard. my indirect plea for the admission of mr. junius brutus davenport was based entirely upon my desire to see this circle completed or nearer completion than it is at present. we have all the professions represented here but the stage, and why exclude it, granting that no one objects? the men whose lives are given over to the amusement of mankind, and who are willing to place themselves in the most outrageous situations night after night in order that we may for the time being seem to be lifted out of the unpleasant situations into which we have got ourselves, are in my opinion doing a noble work. the theatre enables us to woo forgetfulness of self successfully for a few brief hours, and i have seen the time when an hour or two of relief from actual cares has resulted in great good. nevertheless, the gentleman is not elected; and if mrs. pedagog will kindly refill my cup, i will ask you to join me in draining a toast to the health of the pastor of this flock, whose conscience, paradoxical as it may seem, is the most frequently worn and yet the least thread-bare of the consciences represented at this table." this easy settlement of her difficulty was so pleasing to mrs. pedagog that the idiot's request was graciously acceded to, and mr. whitechoker's health was drank in coffee, after which the idiot requested the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed to join him privately in eating buckwheat cakes to the health of mr. davenport. "i haven't any doubt that he is worthy of the attention," he said; "and if you will lend me the money to buy the tickets, i'll take you around to the criterion to-night, where he is playing. i don't know whether he plays hamlet or a hole in the roof; but, at any rate, we can have a good time between the acts." iv "i see the men are at work on the pavements this morning," said the school-master, gazing out through the window at a number of laborers at work in the street. "yes," said the idiot, calmly, "and i think mrs. pedagog ought to sue the department of public works for libel. if she hasn't a case no maligned person ever had." "what are you saying, sir?" queried the landlady, innocently. "i say," returned the idiot, pointing out into the street, "that you ought to sue the department of public works for libel. they've got their sign right up against your house. _no thorough fare_ is what it says. that's libel, isn't it, mr. brief?" "it is certainly a fatal criticism of a boarding-house," observed mr. brief, with a twinkle in his eye, "but mrs. pedagog could hardly secure damages on that score." "i don't know about that," returned the idiot. "as i understand it, it is an old maxim of the law that the greater the truth the greater the libel. mrs. pedagog ought to receive a million----by-the-way, what have we this morning?" "we have steak and fried potatoes, sir," replied mrs. pedagog, frigidly. "and i desire to add, that one who criticises the table as much as you do would do well to get his meals outside." "that, mrs. pedagog, is not the point. the difficulty i find here lies in getting my meals inside," said the idiot. "mary, you may bring in the mush," observed mrs. pedagog, pursing her lips, as she always did when she wished to show that she was offended. "yes, mary," put in the school-master; "let us have the mush as quickly as possible--and may it not be quite such mushy mush as the remarks we have just been favored with by our talented friend the idiot." "you overwhelm me with your compliments, mr. pedagog," replied the idiot, cheerfully. "a flatterer like you should live in a flat." "has your friend completed his article on old jokes yet?" queried the bibliomaniac, with a smile and some apparent irrelevance. [illustration: "has your friend completed his article on old jokes?"] "yes and no," said the idiot. "he has completed his labors on it by giving it up. he is a very thorough sort of a fellow, and he intended to make the article comprehensive, but he found he couldn't, because, judging from comments of men like you, for instance, he was forced to conclude that there never was a _new_ joke. but, as i was saying the other morning----" "do you really remember what you say?" sneered mr. pedagog. "you must have a great memory for trifles." "sir, i shall never forget you," said the idiot. "but to revert to what i was saying the other morning, i'd like to begin life all over again, so that i could prepare myself for the profession of architecture. it's the greatest profession in the world, and one which is surest to bring immortality to its successful follower. a man may write a splendid book, and become a great man for a while and within certain limits, but the chances are that some other man will come along later and supplant him. then the book's sale will die out after a time, and with this will come a diminution of its author's reputation, in extent anyway. an actor or a great preacher becomes only a name after his death, but the architect who builds a cathedral or a fine public building really erects a monument to his own memory." "he does if he can build it so that it will stay up," said the bibliomaniac. "i think you, however, are better off as you are. if you had a more extended reputation or a lasting name you would probably be locked up in some retreat; or if you were not, posterity would want to know why." "i am locked up in a retreat of nature's making," said the idiot, with a sigh. "nature has set around me certain limitations which, while they are not material, might as well be so as far as my ability to soar above them is concerned--and it's well she has. if it were otherwise, my life would not be safe or bearable in this company. as it is, i am happy and not at all afraid of the effects your jealousy of me might entail if i were any better than the rest of you." "i like that," said mr. pedagog. "i thought you would," said the idiot. "that's why i said it. i aim to please, and for once seem to have hit the bull's-eye. mary, kindly break open this biscuit for me." "have you ideas on the subject of architecture that you so desire to become an architect?" queried mr. whitechoker, who was always full of sympathy for aspiring natures. "a few," said the idiot. mr. pedagog laughed outright. "let's test his ideas," he said, in an amused way. "take a cathedral, for instance. suppose, mr. idiot, a man should come to you and say: 'idiot, we have a fund of $800,000 in our hands, actual cash. we think of building a cathedral, and we think of employing you to draw up our plans. give us some idea of what we should do.' do you mean to tell me that you could say anything reasonable or intelligent to that man?" "well, that depends upon what you call reasonable and intelligent. i have never been able to find out what you mean by those terms," the idiot answered, slowly. "but i could tell him something that i consider reasonable and intelligent." "from your own point of view, then, as to reasonableness and intelligence, what should you say to him?" "i'd make him out a plan providing for the investment of his $800,000 in five-per-cent, gold bonds, which would bring him in an income of $40,000 a year; after which i should call his attention to the fact that $40,000 a year would enable him to take 10,000 poor children out of this sweltering city into the country, to romp and drink fresh milk and eat wholesome food for two weeks every summer from now until the end of time, which would build up a human structure that might be of more benefit to the world than any pile of bricks, marble, and wrought-iron i or any other architect could conceive of," said the idiot. "the structure would stand up, too." "you call that architecture, do you?" said mr. pedagog. "yes," said the idiot, "of the renaissance order. but that, of course, you term idiocy--and maybe it is. i like to be that kind of an idiot. i do not claim to be able to build a cathedral, however. i don't suppose i could even build a boarding-house like this, but what i should like to do in architecture would be to put up a $5000 dwelling-house for $5000. that's a thing that has never been done, and i think i might be able to do it. if i did, i'd patent the plan and make a fortune. then i should like to know enough about the science of planning a building to find out whether my model hotel is practicable or not." "you have a model hotel in your mind, eh?" said the bibliomaniac. "it must be a very small hotel if it's in his mind," said the doctor. "that's tantamount to saying that it isn't anywhere," said mr. pedagog. "well, it's a great hotel just the same," said the idiot. "although i presume it would be expensive to build. it would have movable rooms, in the first place. each room would be constructed like an elevator, with appliances at hand for moving it up and down. the great thing about this would be that persons could have a room on any floor they wanted it, so long as they got the room in the beginning. a second advantage would lie in the fact, that if you were sleeping in a room next door to another in which there was a crying baby, you could pull the rope and go up two or three flights until you were free from the noise. then in case of fire the room in which the fire started could be lowered into a sliding tank large enough to immerse the whole thing in, which i should have constructed in the cellar. if the whole building were to catch fire, there would be no loss of life, because all the rooms could be lowered to the ground-floor, and the occupants could step right out upon solid ground. then again, if you were down on the ground-floor, and desired to get an extended view of the surrounding country, it would be easy to raise your room to the desired elevation. why, there's no end to the advantages to be gained from such an arrangement." "it's a fine idea," said mr. pedagog, "and one worthy of your mammoth intellect. it couldn't possibly cost more than a million of dollars to erect such a hotel, could it?" "no," said the idiot. "and that is cheap alongside some of the hotels they are putting up nowadays." "it could be built on less than four hundred acres of ground, too, i presume?" said the bibliomaniac, with a wink at the doctor. "certainly," said the idiot, meekly. "and if anybody fell sick in one of the rooms," said the doctor, "and needed a change of air, you could have a tower over each, i suppose, so that the room could be elevated high enough to secure the different quality in the ether?" "undoubtedly," said the idiot. "although that would add materially to the expense. a scarlet-fever patient, however, in a hotel like that could very easily be isolated from the rest of the house by the maintenance of what might be called the hospital floor." "superb!" said the doctor. "i wonder you haven't spoken to some architectural friend about it." "i have," said the idiot. "you must remember that young fellow with a black mustache i had here to dinner last saturday night." "yes, i remember him," said the doctor. "is he an architect?" "he is--and a good one. he can take a brown-stone dwelling and turn it into a colonial mansion with a pot of yellow paint. he's a wonder. i submitted the idea to him." "and what was his verdict?" "i don't like to say," said the idiot, blushing a little. "ha! ha!" laughed mr. pedagog. "i shouldn't think you would like to say. i guess we know what he said." "i doubt it," said the idiot; "but if you guess right, i'll tell you." "he said you had better go and live in a lunatic asylum," said mr. pedagog, with a chuckle. "not he," returned the idiot, nibbling at his biscuit. "on the contrary. he advised me to stop living in one. he said contact with the rest of you was affecting my brain." this time mr. pedagog did not laugh, but mistaking his coffee-cup for a piece of toast, bit a small section out of its rim; and in the midst of mrs. pedagog's expostulation, which followed the school-master's careless error, the idiot and the genial old gentleman departed, with smiles on their faces which were almost visible at the back of their respective necks. [illustration: they departed] v "hullo!" said the idiot, as he began his breakfast. "this isn't friday morning, is it? i thought it was tuesday." "so it is tuesday," put in the school-master. "then this fish is a little extra treat, is it?" observed the idiot, turning with a smile to the landlady. "fish? that isn't fish, sir," returned the good lady. "that is liver." "oh, is it?" said the idiot, apologetically. "excuse me, my dear mrs. pedagog. i thought from its resistance that it was fried sole. have you a hatchet handy?" he added, turning to the maid. "my piece is tender enough. i can't see what you want," said the school-master, coldly. "i'd like your piece," replied the idiot, suavely. "that is, if it really is tender enough." "don't pay any attention to him, my dear," said the school-master to the landlady, whose ire was so very much aroused that she was about to make known her sentiments on certain subjects. "no, mrs. pedagog," said the idiot, "don't pay any attention to me, i beg of you. anything that could add to the jealousy of mr. pedagog would redound to the discomfort of all of us. besides, i really do not object to the liver. i need not eat it. and as for staying my appetite, i always stop on my way down-town after breakfast for a bite or two anyhow." there was silence for a moment. "i wonder why it is," began the idiot, after tasting his coffee--"i wonder why it is friday is fish-day all over the world, anyhow? do you happen to be learned enough in piscatorial science to enlighten me on that point, doctor?" "no," returned the physician, gruffly. "i've never looked into the matter." "i guess it's because friday is an unlucky day," said the idiot. "just think of all the unlucky things that may happen before and after eating fish, as well as during the process. in the first place, before eating, you go off and fish all day, and have no luck--don't catch a thing. you fall in the water perhaps, and lose your watch, or your fish-hook catches in your coat-tails, with the result that you come near casting yourself instead of the fly into the brook or the pond, as the case may be. perhaps the hook doesn't stop with the coat-tails, but goes on in, and catches you. that's awfully unlucky, especially when the hook is made of unusually barby barbed wire. [illustration: "you fish all day, and have no luck"] "then, again, you may go fishing on somebody else's preserves, and get arrested, and sent to jail overnight, and hauled up the next morning, and have to pay ten dollars fine for poaching. think of mr. pedagog being fined ten dollars for poaching! awfully unfortunate!" "kindly leave me out of your calculations," returned mr. pedagog, with a flush of indignation. "certainly, if you wish it," said the idiot. "we'll hand mr. brief over to the police, and let _him_ be fined for poaching on somebody else's preserves--although that's sort of impossible, too, because mrs. pedagog never lets us see preserves of any kind." "we had brandied peaches last sunday night," said the landlady, indignantly. "oh yes, so we did," returned the idiot. "that must have been what the bibliomaniac had taken," he added, turning to the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed. "you know, we thought he'd been--ah--he'd been absorbing." "to what do you refer?" asked the bibliomaniac, curtly. "to the brandied peaches," returned the idiot. "do not press me further, please, because we like you, old fellow, and i don't believe anybody noticed it but ourselves." "noticed what? i want to know what you noticed and when you noticed it," said the bibliomaniac, savagely. "i don't want any nonsense, either. i just want a plain statement of facts. what did you notice?" "well, if you must have it," said the idiot, slowly, "my friend who imbibes and i were rather pained on sunday night to observe that you--that you had evidently taken something rather stronger than cold water, tea, or mr. pedagog's opinions." "it's a libel, sir!--a gross libel!" retorted the bibliomaniac. "how did i show it? that's what i want to know. how--did--i--show--it? speak up quick, and loud too. how did i show it?" "well, you went up-stairs after tea." "yes, sir, i did." "and my friend who imbibes and i were left down in the front hall, and while we were talking there you put your head over the banisters and asked, 'who's that down there?' remember that?" "yes, sir, i do. and you replied, 'mr. auburnose and myself.'" "yes. and then you asked, 'who are the other two?'" "well, i did. what of it?" "mr. auburnose and i were there alone. that's what of it. now i put a charitable construction on the matter and say it was the peaches, when you fly off the handle like one of mrs. pedagog's coffee-cups." "sir!" roared the bibliomaniac, jumping from his chair. "you are the greatest idiot i know." "sir!" returned the idiot, "you flatter me." but the bibliomaniac was not there to hear. he had rushed from the room, and during the deep silence that ensued he could be heard throwing things about in the chamber overhead, and in a very few moments the banging of the front door and scurrying down the brown-stone steps showed that he had gone out of doors to cool off. [illustration: he could be heard throwing things about] "it is too bad," said the idiot, after a while, "that he has such a quick temper. it doesn't do a bit of good to get mad that way. he'll be uncomfortable all day long, and over what? just because i attempted to say a good word for him, and announce the restoration of my confidence in his temperance qualities, he cuts up a high-jinks that makes everybody uncomfortable. "but to resume about this fish business," continued the idiot. "fish--" "oh, fish be hanged!" said the doctor, impatiently. "we've had enough of fish." "very well," returned the idiot; "as you wish. hanging isn't the best treatment for fish, but we'll let that go. i never cared for the finny tribe myself, and if mrs. pedagog can be induced to do it, i for one am in favor of keeping shad, shark, and shrimps out of the house altogether." vi the idiot was unusually thoughtful--a fact which made the school-master and the bibliomaniac unusually nervous. their stock criticism of him was that he was thoughtless; and yet when he so far forgot his natural propensities as to meditate, they did not like it. it made them uneasy. they had a haunting fear that he was conspiring with himself against them, and no man, not even a callous school-master or a confirmed bibliomaniac, enjoys feeling that he is the object of a conspiracy. the thing to do, then, upon this occasion, seemed obviously to interrupt his train of thought--to put obstructions upon his mental track, as it were, and ditch the express, which they feared was getting up steam at that moment to run them down. "you don't seem quite yourself this morning, sir," said the bibliomaniac. "don't i?" queried the idiot. "and whom do i seem to be?" "i mean that you seem to have something on your mind that worries you," said the bibliomaniac. "no, i haven't anything on my mind," returned the idiot. "i was thinking about you and mr. pedagog--which implies a thought not likely to use up much of my gray matter." "do you think your head holds any gray matter?" put in the doctor. "rather verdant, i should say," said mr. pedagog. "green, gray, or pink," said the idiot, "choose your color. it does not affect the fact that i was thinking about the bibliomaniac and mr. pedagog. i have a great scheme in hand, which only requires capital and the assistance of those two gentlemen to launch it on the sea of prosperity. if any of you gentlemen want to get rich and die in comfort as the owner of your homes, now is your chance." "in what particular line of business is your scheme?" asked mr. whitechoker. he had often felt that he would like to die in comfort, and to own a little house, even if it had a large mortgage on it. "journalism," said the idiot. "there is a pile of money to be made out of journalism, particularly if you happen to strike a new idea. ideas count." "how far up do your ideas count--up to five?" questioned mr. pedagog, with a tinge of sarcasm in his tone. "i don't know about that," returned the idiot. "the idea i have hold of now, however, will count up into the millions if it can only be set going, and before each one of those millions will stand a big capital s with two black lines drawn vertically through it--in other words, my idea holds dollars, but to get the crop you've got to sow the seed. plant a thousand dollars in my idea, and next year you'll reap two thousand. plant that, and next year you'll have four thousand, and so on. at that rate millions come easy." "i'll give you a dollar for the idea," said the bibliomaniac. "no, i don't want to sell. you'll do to help develop the scheme. you'll make a first-rate tool, but you aren't the workman to manage the tool. i will go as far as to say, however, that without you and mr. pedagog, or your equivalents in the animal kingdom, the idea isn't worth the fabulous sum you offer." "you have quite aroused my interest," said mr. whitechoker. "do you propose to start a new paper?" "you are a good guesser," replied the idiot. "that is a part of the scheme--but it isn't the idea. i propose to start a new paper in accordance with the plan which the idea contains." "is it to be a magazine, or a comic paper, or what?" asked the bibliomaniac. "neither. it's a daily." "that's nonsense," said mr. pedagog, putting his spoon into the condensed-milk can by mistake. "there isn't a single scheme in daily journalism that hasn't been tried--except printing an evening paper in the morning." "that's been tried," said the idiot. "i know of an evening paper the second edition of which is published at mid-day. that's an old dodge, and there's money in it, too--money that will never be got out of it. but i really have a grand scheme. so many of our dailies, you know, go in for every horrid detail of daily events that people are beginning to tire of them. they contain practically the same things day after day. so many columns of murder, so many beautiful suicides, so much sport, a modicum of general intelligence, plenty of fires, no end of embezzlements, financial news, advertisements, and head-lines. events, like history, repeat themselves, until people have grown weary of them. they want something new. for instance, if you read in your morning paper that a man has shot another man, you know that the man who was shot was an inoffensive person who never injured a soul, stood high in the community in which he lived, and leaves a widow with four children. on the other hand, you know without reading the account that the murderer shot his victim in self-defence, and was apprehended by the detectives late last night; that his counsel forbid him to talk to the reporters, and that it is rumored that he comes of a good family living in new england. "if a breach of trust is committed, you know that the defaulter was the last man of whom such an act would be suspected, and, except in the one detail of its location and sect, that he was prominent in some church. you can calculate to a cent how much has been stolen by a glance at the amount of space devoted to the account of the crime. loaf of bread, two lines. thousand dollars, ten lines. hundred thousand dollars, half-column. million dollars, a full column. five million dollars, half the front page, wood-cut of the embezzler, and two editorials, one leader and one paragraph. "and so with everything. we are creatures of habit. the expected always happens, and newspapers are dull because the events they chronicle are dull." "granting the truth of this," put in the school-master, "what do you propose to do?" "get up a newspaper that will devote its space to telling what hasn't happened." "that's been done," said the bibliomaniac. "to a much more limited extent than we think," returned the idiot. "it has never been done consistently and truthfully." "i fail to see how a newspaper can be made to prevaricate truthfully," asserted mr. whitechoker. to tell the truth, he was greatly disappointed with the idea, because he could not in the nature of things become one of its beneficiaries. [illustration: "he was not murdered"] "i haven't suggested prevarication," said the idiot. "put on your front page, for instance, an item like this: 'george bronson, colored, aged twenty-nine, a resident of thompson street, was caught cheating at poker last night. he was not murdered.' there you tell what has not happened. there is a variety about it. it has the charm of the unexpected. then you might say: 'curious incident on wall street yesterday. so-and-so, who was caught on the bear side of the market with 10,000 shares of j. b. & s. k. w., paid off all his obligations in full, and retired from business with $1,000,000 clear.' or we might say, 'superintendent smithers, of the st. goliath's sunday-school, who is also cashier in the forty-eighth national bank, has not absconded with $4,000,000.'" [illustration: "superintendent smithers has not absconded"] "oh, that's a rich idea," put in the school-master. "you'd earn $1,000,000 in libel suits the first year." "no, you wouldn't, either," said the idiot. "you don't libel a man when you say he hasn't murdered anybody. quite the contrary, you call attention to his conspicuous virtue. you are in reality commending those who refrain from criminal practice, instead of delighting those who are fond of departing from the paths of christianity by giving them notoriety." "but i fail to see in what respect mr. pedagog and i are essential to your scheme," said the bibliomaniac. "i must confess to some curiosity on my own part on that point," added the school-master. "why, it's perfectly clear," returned the idiot, with a conciliating smile as he prepared to depart. "you both know so much that isn't so, that i rather rely on you to fill up." vii a new boarder had joined the circle about mrs. pedagog's breakfast-table. he had what the idiot called a three-ply name--which was richard henderson warren--and he was by profession a poet. whether it was this that made it necessary for him to board or not, the rewards of the muse being rather slender, was known only to himself, and he showed no disposition to enlighten his fellow-boarders on the subject. his success as a poet mrs. pedagog found it hard to gauge; for while the postman left almost daily numerous letters, the envelopes of which showed that they came from the various periodicals of the day, it was never exactly clear whether or not the missives contained remittances or rejected manuscripts, though the fact that mr. warren was the only boarder in the house who had requested to have a waste-basket added to the furniture of his room seemed to indicate that they contained the latter. to this request mrs. pedagog had gladly acceded, because she had a notion that therein at some time or another would be found a clew to the new boarder's past history--or possibly some evidence of such duplicity as the good lady suspected he might be guilty of. she had read that byron was profligate, and that poe was addicted to drink, and she was impressed with the idea that poets generally were bad men, and she regarded the waste-basket as a possible means of protecting herself against any such idiosyncrasies of her new-found genius as would operate to her disadvantage if not looked after in time. this waste-basket she made it her daily duty to empty, and in the privacy of her own room. half-finished "ballads, songs, and snatches" she perused before consigning them to the flames or to the large jute bag in the cellar, for which the ragman called two or three times a year. once mrs. pedagog's heart almost stopped beating when she found at the bottom of the basket a printed slip beginning, "_the editor regrets that the enclosed lines are unavailable_," and closing with about thirteen reasons, any one or all of which might have been the main cause of the poet's disappointment. had it not been for the kindly clause in the printed slip that insinuated in graceful terms that this rejection did not imply a lack of literary merit in the contribution itself, the good lady, knowing well that there was even less money to be made from rejected than from accepted poetry, would have been inclined to request the poet to vacate the premises. the very next day, however, she was glad she had not requested the resignation of the poet from the laureateship of her house; for the same basket gave forth another printed slip from another editor, begging the poet to accept the enclosed check, with thanks for his contribution, and asking him to deposit it as soon as practicable--which was pleasing enough, since it implied that the poet was the possessor of a bank account. now mrs. pedagog was consumed with curiosity to know for how large a sum the check called--which desire was gratified a few days later, when the inspired boarder paid his week's bill with three one-dollar bills and a check, signed by a well-known publisher, for two dollars. [illustration: the inspired boarder paid his bill] by the boarders themselves the poet was regarded with much interest. the school-master had read one or two of his effusions in the fireside corner of the journal he received weekly from his home up in new england--effusions which showed no little merit, as well as indicating that mr. warren wrote for a literary syndicate; mr. whitechoker had known of him as the young man who was to have written a christmas carol for his sunday-school a year before, and who had finished and presented the manuscript shortly after new-year's day; while to the idiot, mr. warren's name was familiar as that of a frequent contributor to the funny papers of the day. "i was very much amused by your poem in the last number of the _observer_, mr. warren," said the idiot, as they sat down to breakfast together. "were you, indeed?" returned mr. warren. "i am sorry to hear that, for it was intended to be a serious effort." "of course it was, mr. warren, and so it appeared," said the school-master, with an indignant glance at the idiot. "it was a very dignified and stately bit of work, and i must congratulate you upon it." "i didn't mean to give offence," said the idiot. "i've read so much of yours that was purely humorous that i believe i'd laugh at a dirge if you should write one; but i really thought your lines in the _observer_ were a burlesque. you had the same thought that rossetti expresses in 'the woodspurge': 'the wind flapped loose, the wind was still, shaken out dead from tree to hill; i had walked on at the wind's will, i sat now, for the wind was still.' that's rossetti, if you remember. slightly suggestive of 'blow ye winds of the morning! blow! blow! blow!' but more or less pleasing." "i recall the poem you speak of," said warren, with dignity; "but the true poet, sir--and i hope i have some claim to be considered as such--never so far forgets himself as to burlesque his masters." "well, i don't know what to call it, then, when a poet takes the same thought that has previously been used by his masters and makes a funny poem--" "but," returned the poet, warmly, "it was not a funny poem." "it made me laugh," retorted the idiot, "and that is more than half the professedly funny poems we get nowadays can do. therefore i say it was a funny poem, and i don't see how you can deny that it was a burlesque of rossetti." "well, i do deny it _in toto_." "i don't know anything about denying it _in toto_," rejoined the idiot, "but i'd deny it in print if i were you. i know plenty of people who think it was a burlesque, and i overheard one man say--he is a rossetti crank--that you ought to be ashamed of yourself for writing it." "there is no use of discussing the matter further," said the poet. "i am innocent of any such intent as you have ascribed to me, and if people say i have burlesqued rossetti they say what is not true." "did you ever read that little poem of swinburne's called 'the boy at the gate'?" asked the idiot, to change the subject. "i have no recollection of it," said the poet, shortly. "the name sounds familiar," put in mr. whitechoker, anxious not to be left out of a literary discussion. "i have read it, but i forget just how it goes," vouchsafed the school-master, forgetting for a moment the robert elsmere episode and its lesson. "it goes something like this," said the idiot: "sombre and sere the slim sycamore sighs; lushly the lithe leaves lie low o'er the land; whistles the wind with its whisperings wise, grewsomely gloomy and garishly grand. so doth the sycamore solemnly stand, wearily watching in wondering wait; so it has stood for six centuries, and still it is waiting the boy at the gate." "no; i never read the poem," said mr. whitechoker, "but i'd know it was swinburne in a minute. he has such a command of alliterative language." "yes," said the poet, with an uneasy glance at the idiot. "it is swinburnian; but what was the poem about?" "'the boy at the gate,'" said the idiot. "the idea was that the sycamore was standing there for centuries waiting for the boy who never turns up." "it really is a beautiful thought," put in mr. whitechoker. "it is, i presume, an allegory to contrast faithful devotion and constancy with unfaithfulness and fickleness. such thoughts occur only to the wholly gifted. it is only to the poetic temperament that the conception of such a thought can come coupled with the ability to voice it in fitting terms. there is a grandeur about the lines the idiot has quoted that betrays the master-mind." "very true," said the school-master, "and i take this opportunity to say that i am most agreeably surprised in the idiot. it is no small thing even to be able to repeat a poet's lines so carefully, and with so great lucidity, and so accurately, as i can testify that he has just done." "don't be too pleased, mr. pedagog," said the idiot, dryly. "i only wanted to show mr. warren that you and mr. whitechoker, mines of information though you are, have not as yet worked up a corner on knowledge to the exclusion of the rest of us." and with these words the idiot left the table. "he is a queer fellow," said the school-master. "he is full of pretence and hollowness, but he is sometimes almost brilliant." "what you say is very true," said mr. whitechoker. "i think he has just escaped being a smart man. i wish we could take him in hand, mr. pedagog, and make him more of a fellow than he is." later in the day the poet met the idiot on the stairs. "i say," he said, "i've looked all through swinburne, and i can't find that poem." "i know you can't," returned the idiot, "because it isn't there. swinburne never wrote it. it was a little thing of my own. i was only trying to get a rise out of mr. pedagog and his reverence with it. you have frequently appeared impressed by the undoubtedly impressive manner of these two gentlemen. i wanted to show you what their opinions were worth." [illustration: "i know you can't, because it isn't there"] "thank you," returned the poet, with a smile. "don't you want to go into partnership with me and write for the funny papers? it would be a splendid thing for me--your ideas are so original." "and i can see fun in everything, too," said the idiot, thoughtfully. "yes," returned the poet. "even in my serious poems." which remark made the idiot blush a little, but he soon recovered his composure and made a firm friend of the poet. the first fruits of the partnership have not yet appeared, however. as for messrs. whitechoker and pedagog, when they learned how they had been deceived, they were so indignant that they did not speak to the idiot for a week. viii it was sunday morning, and mr. whitechoker, as was his wont on the first day of the week, appeared at the breakfast table severe as to his mien. "working on sunday weighs on his mind," the idiot said to the bibliomaniac, "but i don't see why it should. the luxury of rest that he allows himself the other six days of the week is surely an atonement for the hours of labor he puts in on sunday." but it was not this that on sunday mornings weighed on the mind of the reverend mr. whitechoker. he appeared more serious of visage then because he had begun to think of late that his fellow-boarders lived too much in the present, and ignored almost totally that which might be expected to come. he had been revolving in his mind for several weeks the question as to whether it was or was not his christian duty to attempt to influence the lives of these men with whom the chances of life had brought him in contact. he had finally settled it to his own satisfaction that it was his duty so to do, and he had resolved, as far as lay in his power, to direct the conversation at sunday morning's breakfast into spiritual rather than into temporal matters. so, as mrs. pedagog was pouring the coffee, mr. whitechoker began: "do you gentlemen ever pause in your every-day labors and thought to let your minds rest upon the future--the possibilities it has in store for us, the consequences which--" "no mush, thank you," said the idiot. then turning to mr. whitechoker, he added: "i can't answer for the other gentlemen at this board, but i can assure you, mr. whitechoker, that i often do so. it was only last night, sir, that my genial friend who imbibes and i were discussing the future and its possibilities, and i venture to assert that there is no more profitable food for reflection anywhere in the larders of the mind than that." "larders of the mind is excellent," said the school-master, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. "perhaps you would not mind opening the door to your mental pantry, and letting us peep within at the stores you keep there. i am sure that on the subject in hand your views cannot fail to be original as well as edifying." "i am also sure," said mr. whitechoker, somewhat surprised to hear the idiot speak as he did, having sometimes ventured to doubt if that flippant-minded young man ever reflected on the serious side of life--"i am also sure that it is most gratifying to hear that you have done some thinking on the subject." "i am glad you are gratified, mr. whitechoker," replied the idiot, "but i am far from taking undue credit to myself because i reflect upon the future and its possibilities. i do not see how any man can fail to be interested in the subject, particularly when he considers the great strides science has made in the last twenty years." "i fail to see," said the school-master, "what the strides of science have to do with it." "you fail to see so often, mr. pedagog," returned the idiot, "that i would advise your eyes to make an assignment in favor of your pupils." "i must confess," put in mr. whitechoker, blandly, "that i too am somewhat--er--somewhat--" "somewhat up a tree as to science's connection with the future?" queried the idiot. "you have my meaning, but hardly the phraseology i should have chosen," replied the minister. "my style is rather epigrammatic," said the idiot, suavely. "i appreciate the flattery implied by your noticing it. but science has everything to do with it. it is science that is going to make the future great. it is science that has annihilated distance, and the annihilation has just begun. twenty years ago it was hardly possible for a man standing on one side of the street to make himself heard on the other, the acoustic properties of the atmosphere not being what they should be. to-day you can stand in the pulpit of your church, and by means of certain scientific apparatus make yourself heard in boston, new orleans, or san francisco. has this no bearing on the future? the time will come, mr. whitechoker, when your missionaries will be able to sit in their comfortable rectories, and ring up the heathen in foreign climes, and convert them over the telephone, without running the slightest danger of falling into the soup, which expression i use in its literal rather than in its metaphorical sense." [illustration: "you can make yourself heard in san francisco"] "but--" interrupted mr. whitechoker. "now wait, please," said the idiot. "if science can annihilate degrees of distance, who shall say that before many days science may not annihilate degrees of time? if san francisco, thousands of miles distant, can be brought within range of the ear, why cannot 1990 be brought before the mind's eye? and if 1990 can be brought before the mind's eye, what is to prevent the invention of a prophetograph which shall enable us to cast a horoscope which shall reach all around eternity and half-way back, if not further?" [illustration: the prophetograph] "you do not understand me," said mr. whitechoker. "when i speak of the future, i do not mean the temporal future." "i know exactly what you mean," said the idiot. "i've dealt in futures, and i am familiar with all kinds. it is you, sir, that do not understand me. my claim is perfectly plausible, and in its results is bound to make the world better. do you suppose that any man who, by the aid of my prophetograph, sees that on a certain date in the future he will be hanged for murder is going to fail to provide himself with an alibi in regard to that particular murder, and must we not admit that having provided himself with that alibi he will of necessity avoid bloodshed, and so avoid the gallows? that's reasonable. so in regard to all the thousand and one other peccadilloes that go to make this life a sinful one. science, by a purely logical advance along the lines already mapped out for itself, and in part already traversed, will enable men to avoid the pitfalls and reap only the windfalls of life; we shall all see what terrible consequences await on a single misstep, and we shall not make the misstep. can you still claim that science and the future have nothing to do with each other?" "you are talking of matters purely temporal," said mr. whitechoker. "i have reference to our spiritual future." "and the two," observed the idiot, "are so closely allied that we cannot separate them. the proverb about looking after the pennies and letting the pounds take care of themselves applies here. i believe that if i take care of my temporal future--which, by-the-way, does not exist--my spiritual future will take care of itself; and if science places the hereafter before us--and you admit that even now it is before us--all we have to do is to take advantage of our opportunities, and mend our lives accordingly." "but if science shows you what is to come," said the school-master, "it must show your fate with perfect accuracy, or it ceases to be science, in which event your entertaining notions as to reform and so on are entirely fallacious." "not at all," said the idiot. "we are approaching the time when science, which is much more liberal than any other branch of knowledge, will sacrifice even truth itself for the good of mankind." "you ought to start a paradox company," suggested the doctor. "either that or make himself the nucleus of an insane asylum," observed the school-master, viciously. "i never knew a man with such maniacal views as those we have heard this morning." "there is a great deal, mr. pedagog, that you have never known," returned the idiot. "stick by me, and you'll die with a mind richly stored." whereat the school-master left the table with such manifest impatience that mr. whitechoker was sorry he had started the conversation. the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed and the idiot withdrew to the latter's room, where the former observed: "what are you driving at, anyhow? where did you get those crazy ideas?" "i ate a welsh-rarebit last night, and dreamed 'em," returned the idiot. "i thought as much," said his companion. "what deuced fine things dreams are, anyhow!" ix breakfast was very nearly over, and it was of such exceptionally good quality that very few remarks had been made. finally the ball was set rolling by the lawyer. "how many packs of cigarettes do you smoke a day?" he asked, as the idiot took one from his pocket and placed it at the side of his coffee-cup. "never more than forty-six," said the idiot. "why? do you think of starting a cigarette stand?" "not at all," said mr. brief. "i was only wondering what chance you had to live to maturity, that's all. your maturity period will be in about eight hundred and sixty years from now, the way i calculate, and it seemed to me that, judging from the number of cigarettes you smoke, you were not likely to last through more than two or three of those years." "oh, i expect to live longer than that," said the idiot. "i think i'm good for at least four years. don't you, doctor?" "i decline to have anything to say about your case," retorted the doctor, whose feeling towards the idiot was not surpassingly affectionate. "in that event i shall probably live five years more," said the idiot. the doctor's lip curled, but he remained silent. "you'll live," put in mr. pedagog, with a chuckle. "the good die young." "how did you happen to keep alive all this time then, mr. pedagog?" asked the idiot. "i have always eschewed tobacco in every form, for one thing," said mr. pedagog. "i am surprised," put in the idiot. "that's really a bad habit, and i marvel greatly that you should have done it." the school-master frowned, and looked at the idiot over the rims of his glasses, as was his wont when he was intent upon getting explanations. "done what?" he asked, severely. "chewed tobacco," replied the idiot. "you just said that one of the things that has kept you lingering in this vale of tears was that you have always chewed tobacco. i never did that, and i never shall do it, because i deem it a detestable diversion." "i didn't say anything of the sort," retorted mr. pedagog, getting red in the face. "i never said that i chewed tobacco in any form." "oh, come!" said the idiot, with well-feigned impatience, "what's the use of talking that way? we all heard what you said, and i have no doubt that it came as a shock to every member of this assemblage. it certainly was a shock to me, because, with all my weaknesses and bad habits, i think tobacco-chewing unutterably bad. the worst part of it is that you chew it in every form. a man who chews chewing-tobacco only may some time throw off the habit, but when one gets to be such a victim to it that he chews up cigars and cigarettes and plugs of pipe tobacco, it seems to me he is incurable. it is not only a bad habit then; it amounts to a vice." mr. pedagog was getting apoplectic. "you know well enough that i never said the words you attribute to me," he said, sternly. "really, mr. pedagog," returned the idiot, with an irritating shake of his head, as if he were confidentially hinting to the school-master to keep quiet--"really you pain me by these futile denials. nobody forced you into the confession. you made it entirely of your own volition. now i ask you, as a man and brother, what's the use of saying anything more about it? we believe you to be a person of the strictest veracity, but when you say a thing before a tableful of listeners one minute, and deny it the next, we are forced to one of two conclusions, neither of which is pleasing. we must conclude that either, repenting your confession, you sacrifice the truth, or that the habit to which you have confessed has entirely destroyed your perception of the moral question involved. undue use of tobacco has, i believe, driven men crazy. opium-eating has destroyed all regard for truth in one whose word had always been regarded as good as a government bond. i presume the undue use of tobacco can accomplish the same sad result. by-the-way, did you ever try opium?" "opium is ruin," said the doctor, mr. pedagog's indignation being so great that he seemed to be unable to find the words he was evidently desirous of hurling at the idiot. "it is, indeed," said the idiot. "i knew a man once who smoked one little pipeful of it, and, while under its influence, sat down at his table and wrote a story of the supernatural order that was so good that everybody said he must have stolen it from poe or some other master of the weird, and now nobody will have anything to do with him. tobacco, however, in the sane use of it, is a good thing. i don't know of anything that is more satisfying to the tired man than to lie back on a sofa, of an evening, and puff clouds of smoke and rings into the air. one of the finest dreams i ever had came from smoking. i had blown a great mountain of smoke out into the room, and it seemed to become real, and i climbed to its summit and saw the most beautiful country at my feet--a country in which all men were happy, where there were no troubles of any kind, where no whim was left ungratified, where jealousies were not, and where every man who made more than enough to live on paid the surplus into the common treasury for the use of those who hadn't made quite enough. it was a national realization of the golden rule, and i maintain that if smoking were bad nothing so good, even in the abstract form of an idea, could come out of it." "that's a very nice thought," said the poet. "i'd like to put that into verse. the idea of a people dividing up their surplus of wealth among the less successful strugglers is beautiful." "you can have it," said the idiot, with a pleased smile. "i don't write poetry of that kind myself unless i work hard, and i've found that when the poet works hard he produces poems that read hard. you are welcome to it. another time i was dreaming over my cigar, after a day of the hardest kind of trouble at the office. everything had gone wrong with me, and i was blue as indigo. i came home here, lit a cigar, and threw myself down upon my bed and began to puff. i felt like a man in a deep pit, out of which there was no way of getting. i closed my eyes for a second, and to all intents and purposes i lay in that pit. and then what did tobacco do for me? why, it lifted me right out of my prison. i thought i was sitting on a rock down in the depths. the stars twinkled tantalizingly above me. they invited me to freedom, knowing that freedom was not attainable. then i blew a ring of smoke from my mouth, and it began to rise slowly at first, and then, catching in a current of air, it flew upward more rapidly, widening constantly, until it disappeared in the darkness above. then i had a thought. i filled my mouth as full of smoke as possible, and blew forth the greatest ring you ever saw, and as it started to rise i grasped it in my two hands. it struggled beneath my weight, lengthened out into an elliptical link, and broke, and let me down with a dull thud. then i made two rings, grasping one with my left hand and the other with my right--" [illustration: "i grasped it in my two hands"] "and they lifted you out of the pit, i suppose?" sneered the bibliomaniac. "i do not say that they did," said the idiot, calmly. "but i do know that when i opened my eyes i wasn't in the pit any longer, but up-stairs in my hall-bedroom." "how awfully mysterious!" said the doctor, satirically. "well, i don't approve of smoking," said mr. whitechoker. "i agree with the london divine who says it is the pastime of perdition. it is not prompted by natural instincts. it is only the habit of artificial civilization. dogs and horses and birds get along without it. why shouldn't man?" "hear! hear!" cried mr. pedagog, clapping his hands approvingly. "where? where?" put in the idiot. "that's a great argument. dog's don't put up in boarding-houses. is the boarding-house, therefore, the result of a degraded, artificial civilization? i have seen educated horses that didn't smoke, but i have never seen an educated horse, or an uneducated one, for that matter, that had even had the chance to smoke, or the kind of mouth that would enable him to do it in case he had the chance. i have also observed that horses don't read books, that birds don't eat mutton-chops, that dogs don't go to the opera, that donkeys don't play the piano--at least, four-legged donkeys don't--so you might as well argue that since horses, dogs, birds, and donkeys get along without literature, music, mutton-chops, and piano-playing--" "you've covered music," put in the lawyer, who liked to be precise. "true; but piano-playing isn't always music," returned the idiot. "you might as well argue because the beasts and the birds do without these things man ought to. fish don't smoke, neither do they join the police-force, therefore man should neither smoke nor become a guardian of the peace." [illustration: "piano-playing isn't always music"] "nevertheless it is a pastime of perdition," insisted mr. whitechoker. "no, it isn't," retorted the idiot. "smoking is the business of perdition. it smokes because it has to." "there! there!" remonstrated mr. pedagog. "you mean hear! hear! i presume," said the idiot. "i mean that you have said enough!" remarked mr. pedagog, sharply. "very well," said the idiot. "if i have convinced you all i am satisfied, not to say gratified. but really, mr. pedagog," he added, rising to leave the room, "if i were you i'd give up the practice of chewing--" "hold on a minute, mr. idiot," said mr. whitechoker, interrupting. he was desirous that mr. pedagog should not be further irritated. "let me ask you one question. does your old father smoke?" "no," said the idiot, leaning easily over the back of his chair--"no. what of it?" "nothing at all--except that perhaps if he could get along without it you might," suggested the clergyman. "he couldn't get along without it if he knew what good tobacco was," said the idiot. "then why don't you introduce him to it?" asked the minister. "because i do not wish to make him unhappy," returned the idiot, softly. "he thinks his seventy years have been the happiest years that any mortal ever had, and if now in his seventy-first year he discovered that during the whole period of his manhood he had been deprived through ignorance of so great a blessing as a good cigar, he'd become like the rest of us, living in anticipation of delights to come, and not finding approximate bliss in living over the past. trust me, my dear mr. whitechoker, to look after him. he and my mother and my life are all i have." the idiot left the room, and mr. pedagog put in a greater part of the next half-hour in making personal statements to the remaining boarders to the effect that the word he used was eschewed, and not the one attributed to him by the idiot. strange to say, most of them were already aware of that fact. x "the progress of invention in this country has been very remarkable," said mr. pedagog, as he turned his attention from a scientific weekly he had been reading to a towering pile of buckwheat cakes that mary had just brought in. "an englishman has just discovered a means by which a ship in distress at sea can write for help on the clouds." "extraordinary!" said mr. whitechoker. "it might be more so," observed the idiot, coaxing the platterful of cakes out of the school-master's reach by a dexterous movement of his hand. "and it will be more so some day. the time is coming when the moon itself will be used by some enterprising american to advertise his soap business. i haven't any doubt that the next fifty years will develop a stereopticon by means of which a picture of a certain brand of cigar may be projected through space until it seems to be held between the teeth of the man in the moon, with a printed legend below it stating that this is _tooforfivers best, rolled from hand-made tobacco, warranted not to crock or fade, and for sale by all tobacconists at eighteen for a dime_." [illustration: "the moon itself will be used"] "you would call that an advance in invention, eh?" asked the school-master. "why not?" queried the idiot. "do you consider the invention which would enable man to debase nature to the level of an advertising medium an advance?" "i should not consider the use of the moon for the dissemination of good news a debasement. if the cigars were good--and i have no doubt that some one will yet invent a cheap cigar that is good--it would benefit the human race to be acquainted with that fact. i think sometimes that the advertisements in the newspapers and the periodicals of the day are of more value to the public than the reading-matter, so-called, that stands next to them. i don't see why you should sneer at advertising. i should never have known you, for instance, mr. pedagog, had it not been for mrs. pedagog's advertisement offering board and lodging to single gentlemen for a consideration. nor would you have met mrs. smithers, now your estimable wife, yourself, had it not been for that advertisement. why, then, do you sneer at the ladder upon which you have in a sense climbed to your present happiness? you are ungrateful." "how you do ramify!" said mr. pedagog. "i believe there is no subject in the world which you cannot connect in some way or another with every other subject in the world. a discussion of the merits of shakespeare's sonnets could be turned by your dexterous tongue in five minutes into a quarrel over the comparative merits of cider and cod-liver oil as beverages, with you, the chances are, the advocate of cod-liver oil as a steady drink." "well, i must say," said the idiot, with a smile, "it has been my experience that cod-liver oil is steadier than cider. the cod-liver oils i have had the pleasure of absorbing have been evenly vile, while the ciders that i have drank have been of a variety of goodness, badness, and indifferentness which has brought me to the point where i never touch it. but to return to inventions, since you desire to limit our discussion to a single subject, i think it is about the most interesting field of speculation imaginable." "there you are right," said mr. pedagog, approvingly. "there is absolutely no limit to the possibilities involved. it is almost within the range of possibilities that some man may yet invent a buckwheat cake that will satisfy your abnormal craving for that delicacy, which the present total output of this table seems unable to do." here mr. pedagog turned to his wife, and added: "my dear, will you request the cook hereafter to prepare individual cakes for us? the idiot has so far monopolized all that have as yet appeared." "it appears to me," said the idiot at this point, "that _you_ are the ramifier, mr. pedagog. nevertheless, ramify as much as you please. i can follow you--at a safe distance, of course--in the discussion of anything, from edison to flapjacks. i think your suggestion regarding individual cakes is a good one. we might all have separate griddles, upon which gladys, the cook, can prepare them, and on these griddles might be cast in bold relief the crest of each member of this household, so that every man's cake should, by an easy process in the making, come off the fire indelibly engraved with the evidence of its destiny. mr. pedagog's iron, for instance, might have upon it a school-book rampant, or a large head in the same condition. mr. whitechoker's cake-mark might be a pulpit rampant, based upon a vestryman dormant. the doctor might have a lozengy shield with a suitable tincture, while my genial friend who occasionally imbibes could have a barry shield surmounted by a small effigy of gambrinus." "you appear to know something of heraldry," said the poet, with a look of surprise. "i know something of everything," said the idiot, complacently. "it's a pity you don't know everything about something," sneered the doctor. "i would suggest," said the school-master, dryly, "that a little rampant jackass would make a good crest for your cakes." "that's a very good idea," said the idiot. "i do not know but that a jackass rampant would be about as comprehensive of my virtues as anything i might select. the jackass is a combination of all the best qualities. he is determined. he minds his own business. he doesn't indulge in flippant conversation. he is useful. has no vices, never pretends to be anything but a jackass, and most respectfully declines to be ridden by tom, dick, and harry. i accept the suggestion of mr. pedagog with thanks. but we are still ramifying. let us get back to inventions. now i fully believe that the time is coming when some inventive genius will devise a method whereby intellect can be given to those who haven't any. i believe that the time is coming when the secrets of the universe will be yielded up to man by nature." [illustration: "declines to be ridden"] "and then?" queried mr. brief. "then some man will try to improve on the secrets of the universe. he will try to invent an apparatus by means of which the rotation of the world may be made faster or slower, according to his will. if he has but one day, for instance, in which to do a stated piece of work, and he needs two, he will put on some patent brake and slow the world up until the distance travelled in one hour shall be reduced one-half, so that one hour under the old system will be equivalent to two; or if he is anticipating some joy, some diversion in the future, the same smart person will find a way to increase the speed of the earth so that the hours will be like minutes. then he'll begin fooling with gravitation, and he will discover a new-fashioned lodestone, which can be carried in one's hat to counter-act the influence of the centre of gravity when one falls out of a window or off a precipice, the result of which will be that the person who falls off one of these high places will drop down slowly, and not with the rapidity which at the present day is responsible for the dreadful outcome of accidents of that sort. then, finally--" "you pretend to be able to penetrate to the finality, do you?" asked the clergyman. "why not? it is as easy to imagine the finality as it is to go half-way there," returned the idiot. "finally he will tackle some elementary principle of nature, and he'll blow the world to smithereens." there was silence at the table. this at least seemed to be a tenable theory. that man should have the temerity to take liberties with elementary principles was quite within reason, man being an animal of rare conceit, and that the result would bring about destruction was not at all at variance with probability. "i believe it's happened once or twice already," said the idiot. "do you really?" asked mr. pedagog, with a show of interest. "upon what do you base this belief?" "well, take africa," said the idiot. "take north america. what do we find? we find in the sands of the sahara a great statue, which we call the sphinx, and about which we know nothing, except that it is there and that it keeps its mouth shut. we find marvellous creations in engineering that to-day surpass anything that we can do. the sphinx, when discovered, was covered by sand. now i believe that at one time there were people much further advanced in science than ourselves, who made these wonderful things, who knew how to do things that we don't even dream of doing, and i believe that they, like this creature i have predicted, got fooling with the centre of gravity, and that the world slipped its moorings for a period of time, during which time it tumbled topsy-turvey into space, and that banks and banks of sand and water and ice thrown out of position simply swept on and over the whole surface of the globe continuously until the earth got into the grip of the rest of the universe once more and started along in a new orbit. we know that where we are high and dry to-day the ocean must once have rolled. we know that where the world is now all sunshine and flowers great glaciers stood. what caused all this change? nothing else, in my judgment, than the monkeying of man with the forces of nature. the poles changed, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit that, if the north pole were ever found and could be thawed out, we should find embedded in that great sea of ice evidences of a former civilization, just as in the saharan waste evidences of the same thing have been found. i know of a place out west that is literally strewn with oyster-shells, and yet no man living has the slightest idea how they came there. it may have been the massachusetts bay of a pre-historic time, for all we know. it may have been an antediluvian coney island, for all the world knows. who shall say that this little upset of mine found here an oyster-bed, shook all the oysters out of their bed into space, and left their clothes high and dry in a locality which, but for those garments, would seem never to have known the oyster in his prime? off in westchester county, on the top of a high hill, lies a rock, and in the uppermost portion of that rock is a so-called pot-hole, made by nothing else than the dropping of water of a brook and the swirling of pebbles therein. it is now beyond the reach of anything in the shape of water save that which falls from the heavens. it is certain that this pot-hole was never made by a boy with a watering-pot, by a hired man with a hose, by a workman with a drill, or by any rain-storm that ever fell in westchester county. there must at some time or another have been a stream there; and as streams do not flow uphill and bore pot-holes on mountain-tops, there must have been a valley there. some great cataclysm took place. for that cataclysm nature must be held responsible mainly. but what prompted nature to raise hob with westchester county millions of years ago, and to let it sleep like rip van winkle ever since? nature isn't a freak. she is depicted as a woman, but in spite of that she is not whimsical. she does not act upon impulses. there must have been some cause for her behavior in turning valleys into hills, in transforming huge cities into wastes of sand, and oyster-beds into shell quarries; and it is my belief that man was the contributing cause. he tapped the earth for natural gas; he bored in and he bored out, and he bored nature to death, and then nature rose up and smote him and his cities and his oyster-beds, and she'll do it again unless we go slow." "there is a great deal in what you say," said mr. whitechoker. "very true," said mrs. pedagog. "but i wish he'd stop saying it. the last three dozen cakes have got cold as ice while he was talking, and i can't afford such reckless waste." "nor we, mrs. pedagog," said the idiot, with a pleasant smile; "for, as i was saying to the bibliomaniac this morning, your buckwheat cakes are, to my mind, the very highest development of our modern civilization, and to have even one of them wasted seems to me to be a crime against nature herself, for which a second, third, or fourth shaking up of this earth would be an inadequate punishment." this remark so pleased mrs. pedagog that she ordered the cook to send up a fresh lot of cakes; and the guests, after eating them, adjourned to their various duties with light hearts, and digestions occupied with work of great importance. xi "i wonder what would have happened if columbus had not discovered america?" said the bibliomaniac, as the company prepared to partake of the morning meal. "he would have gone home disappointed," said the idiot, with a look of surprise on his face, which seemed to indicate that in his opinion the bibliomaniac was very dull-witted not to have solved the problem for himself. "he would have gone home disappointed, and we would now be foreigners, like most other americans. mr. pedagog would doubtless be instructing the young scions of the aristocracy of tipperary, mr. whitechoker would be archbishop of canterbury, the bibliomaniac would be raising bulbs in holland, and----" [illustration: "the bibliomaniac would be raising bulbs"] "and you would be wandering about with the other wild men of borneo at the present time," put in the school-master. "no," said the idiot. "not quite. i should be dividing my time up between holland, france, switzerland, and spain." "you are an international sort of idiot, eh?" queried the lawyer, with a chuckle at his own wit. "say rather a cosmopolitan idiot," said the idiot. "among my ancestors i number individuals of various nations, though i suppose that if we go back far enough we were all in the same boat as far as that is concerned. one of my great-great-grandfathers was a scotchman, one of them was a dutchman, another was a spaniard, a fourth was a frenchman. what the others were i don't know. it's a nuisance looking up one's ancestors, i think. they increase so as you go back into the past. every man has had two grandfathers, four great-grandfathers, eight great-great-grandfathers, sixteen great-great-great-grandfathers, thirty-two fathers raised to the fourth power of great-grandness, and so on, increasing in number as you go further back, until it is hardly possible for any one to throw a brick into the pages of history without hitting somebody who is more or less responsible for his existence. i dare say there is a streak of julius cã¦sar in me, and i haven't a doubt that if our friend mr. pedagog here were to take the trouble to investigate, he would find that cã¦sar and cassius and brutus could be numbered among his early progenitors--and now that i think of it, i must say that in my estimation he is an unusually amiable man, considering how diverse the nature of these men were. think of it for a minute. here a man unites in himself cã¦sar and cassius and brutus, two of whom killed the third, and then, having quarrelled together, went out upon a battle-field and slaughtered themselves, after making extemporaneous remarks, for which this miserable world gives shakespeare all the credit. it's worse than the case of a friend of mine, one of whose grandfathers was french and the other german." "how did it affect him?" asked mr. whitechoker. "it made him distrust himself," said the idiot, with a smile, "and for that reason he never could get on in the world. when his teutonic nature suggested that he do something, his gallic blood would rise up and spoil everything, and _vice versa_. he was eternally quarrelling with himself. he was a victim to internal disorder of the worst sort." "and what, pray, finally became of him?" asked the clergyman. "he shot himself in a duel," returned the idiot, with a wink at the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed. "it was very sad." "i've known sadder things," said mr. pedagog, wearily. "your elaborate jokes, for instance. they are enough to make strong men weep." "you flatter me, mr. pedagog," said the idiot. "i have never in all my experience as a cracker of jests made a man laugh until he cried, but i hope to some day. but, really, do you know i think columbus is an immensely overrated man. if you come down to it, what did he do? he went out to sea in a ship and sailed for three months, and when he least expected it ran slam-bang up against the western hemisphere. it was like shooting at a barn door with a gatling gun. he was bound to hit it sooner or later." "you don't give him any credit for tenacity of purpose or good judgment, then?" asked mr. brief. "of course i do. plenty of it. he stuck to his ship like a hero who didn't know how to swim. his judgment was great. he had too much sense to go back to spain without any news of something, because he fully understood that unless he had something to show for the trip, there would have been a great laugh on queen isabella for selling her jewels to provide for a ninety-day yacht cruise for him and a lot of common sailors, which would never have done. so he kept on and on, and finally some unknown lookout up in the bow discovered america. then columbus went home and told everybody that if it hadn't been for his own eagle eye emigration wouldn't have been invented, and world's fairs would have been local institutions. then they got up a parade in which the king and queen graciously took part, and columbus became a great man. meanwhile the unknown lookout who did discover the land was knocking about the town and thinking he was a very lucky fellow to get an extra glass of grog. it wasn't anything more than the absolute justice of fate that caused the new land to be named america and not columbia. it really ought to have been named after that fellow up in the bow." "but, my dear idiot," put in the bibliomaniac, "the scheme itself was columbus's own. he evolved the theory that the earth is round like a ball." "to quote mr. pedagog--" began the idiot. "you can't quote me in your own favor," snapped the school-master. "wait until i have finished," said the idiot. "i was only going to quote you by saying 'tutt!' that's all; and so i repeat, in the words of mr. pedagog, tutt, tutt! evolved the theory? why, man, how could he help evolving the theory? there was the sun rising in the east every morning and setting in the west every night. what else was there to believe? that somebody put the sun out every night, and sneaked back east with it under cover of darkness?" "but you forget that the wise men of the day laughed at his idea," said mr. pedagog, surveying the idiot after the fashion of a man who has dealt an adversary a stinging blow. "that only proves what i have always said," replied the idiot. "wise men can't find fun in anything but stern facts. wise men always do laugh at truth. whenever i advance some new proposition, you sit up there next to mrs. pedagog and indulge in tutt-tutterances of the most intolerant sort. if you had been one of the wise men of columbus's time there isn't any doubt in my mind that when columbus said the earth was round, you'd have remarked tutt, tutt, in spanish." there was silence for a minute, and then the idiot began again. "there's another point about this whole business that makes me tired," he said. "it only goes to prove the conceit of these europeans. here was a great continent inhabited by countless people. a european comes over here and is said to be the discoverer of america and is glorified. statues of him are scattered broad-cast all over the world. pictures of him are printed in the newspapers and magazines. a dozen different varieties of portraits of him are printed on postage-stamps as big as circus posters--and all for what? because he discovered a land that millions of indians had known about for centuries. on the other hand, when columbus goes back to spain several of the native americans trust their precious lives to his old tubs. one of these savages must have been the first american to discover europe. where are the statues of the indian who discovered europe? where are the postage-stamps showing how he looked on the day when europe first struck his vision? where is anybody spending a billion of dollars getting up a world's fair in commemoration of lo's discovery of europe?" "he didn't know it was europe," said the bibliomaniac. "columbus didn't know this was america," retorted the idiot. "in fact, columbus didn't know anything. he didn't know any better than to write a letter to queen isabella and mail it in a keg that never turned up. he didn't even know how to steer his old boat into a real solid continent, instead of getting ten days on the island. he was an awfully wise man. he saw an island swarming with indians, and said, 'why, this must be india!' and worst of all, if his pictures mean anything, he didn't even know enough to choose his face and stick to it. don't talk columbus to me unless you want to prove that luck is the greatest factor of success." [illustration: "didn't know enough to choose his own face"] "ill-luck is sometimes a factor of success," said mr. pedagog. "you are a success as an idiot, which appears to me to be extremely unfortunate." "i don't know about that," said the idiot. "i adapt myself to my company, and of course--" "then you are a school-master among school-masters, a lawyer among lawyers, and so forth?" queried the bibliomaniac. "what are you when your company is made up of widely diverse characters?" asked mr. brief before the idiot had a chance to reply to the bibliomaniac's question. "i try to be a widely diverse character myself." "and, trying to sit on many stools, fall and become just an idiot," said mr. pedagog. "that's according to the way you look at it. i put my company to the test in the crucible of my mind. i analyze the characters of all about me, and whatever quality predominates in the precipitate, that i become. thus in the presence of my employer and his office-boy i become a mixture of both--something of the employer, something of an office-boy. i run errands for my employer, and boss the office-boy. with you gentlemen i go through the same process. the bibliomaniac, the school-master, mr. brief, and the rest of you have been cast into the crucible, and i have tried to approximate the result." "and are an idiot," said the school-master. "it is your own name for me, gentlemen," returned the idiot. "i presume you have recognized your composite self, and have chosen the title accordingly." * * * * * "you were a little hard on me this morning, weren't you?" asked the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed, that evening, when he and the idiot were discussing the morning's chat. "i didn't like to say anything about it, but i don't think you ought to have thrown me into the crucible with the rest." "i wish you had spoken," said the idiot, warmly. "it would have given me a chance to say that the grain of sense that once or twice a year leavens the lump of my idiocy is directly due to the ingredient furnished by yourself. here's to you, old man. if you and i lived alone together, what a wise man i should be!" and then the genial old gentleman went to the cupboard and got out a bottle of port-wine that he had been preserving in cobwebs for ten years. this he opened, and as he did so he said, "i've been keeping this for years, my boy. it was dedicated in my youth to the thirst of the first man who truly appreciated me. take it all." "i'll divide with you," returned the idiot, with a smile. "for really, old fellow, i think you--ah--i think you appreciate yourself as much as i do." xii "i wonder what it costs to run a flat?" said the idiot, stirring his coffee with the salt-spoon--a proceeding which seemed to indicate that he was thinking of something else. "don't you keep an expense account?" asked the bibliomaniac, slyly. "hee-hee!" laughed mrs. pedagog. "first-rate joke," said the idiot, with a smile. "but really, now, i should like to know for how little an apartment could be run. i am interested." mrs. pedagog stopped laughing at once. the idiot's words were ominous. she did not always like his views, but she did like his money, and she was not at all anxious to lose him as a boarder. "it's very expensive," she said, firmly. "i shouldn't ever advise any one to undertake living in a flat. rents are high. butcher bills are enormous, because the butchers have to pay commissions, not only to the cook, so that she'll use twice as much lard as she can, and give away three or four times as much to the poor as she ought, but janitors have to be seen to, and elevator-boys, and all that. groceries come high for the same reason. oh, no! flat life isn't the life for anybody, i say. give me a good, first-class boarding-house. am i not right, john?" [illustration: "janitors have to be seen to"] "yes, indeed," said mr. pedagog. "every time. i lived in a flat once, and it was an awful nuisance. above me lived a dancing-master who gave lessons at every hour of the day in the room directly over my study, so that i was always being disturbed at my work, while below me was a music-teacher who was practising all night, so that i could hardly sleep. worst of all, on the same floor with me was a miserable person of convivial tendencies, who always mistook my door for his when he came home after midnight, and who gave some quite estimable people two floors below to believe that it was i, and not he, who sang comic songs between three and four o'clock in the morning. there has not been too much love lost between the idiot and myself, but i cannot be so vindictive as to recommend him to live in a flat." "i can bear testimony to the same effect," put in mr. brief, who was two weeks in arrears, and anxious to conciliate his landlady. "testimony to the effect that mr. pedagog sang comic songs in the early morning?" said the idiot. "nonsense! i don't believe it. i have lived in this house for two years with mr. pedagog, and i've never heard him raise his voice in song yet." "i didn't mean anything of the sort," retorted mr. brief. "you know i didn't." "don't apologize to me," said the idiot. "apologize to mr. pedagog. he is the man you have wronged." "what did he say?" put in mr. pedagog, with a stern look at mr. brief. "i didn't hear what he said." "i didn't say anything," said the lawyer, "except that i could bear testimony to the effect that your experience with flat life was similar to mine. this young person, with his customary nerve, tries to make it appear that i said you sang comic songs in the early morning." "i try to do nothing of the sort," said the idiot. "i simply expressed my belief that in spite of what you said mr. pedagog was innocent, and i do so because my experience with him has taught me that he is not the kind of man who would do that sort of thing. he has neither time, voice, nor inclination. he has an ear--two of them, in fact--and an impressionable mind, but--" "oh, tutt!" interrupted the school-master. "when i need a defender, you may spare yourself the trouble of flying to my rescue." "i know i _may_," said the idiot, "but with me it's a question of can and can't. i'm willing to attack you personally, but while i live no other shall do so. wherefore i tell mr. brief plainly, and to his face, that if he says you ever sang a comic song he says what is not so. you might hum one, but sing it--never!" "we were talking of flats, i believe," said mr. whitechoker. "yes," said the idiot, "and these persons have changed it from flat talk to sharp talk." "well, anyhow," put in mr. brief, "i lived in a flat once, and it was anything but pleasant. i lost a case once for the simple and only reason that i lived in a flat. it was a case that required a great deal of strategy on my part, and i invited my client to my home to unfold my plan of action. i got interested in the scheme as i unfolded it, and spoke in my usual impassioned manner, as though addressing a jury, and, would you believe it, the opposing counsel happened to be visiting a friend on the next floor, and my eloquence floated up through the air-shaft, and gave our whole plan of action away. we were routed on the point we had supposed would pierce the enemy's armor and lay him at our feet, for the wholly simple reason that that abominable air-shaft had made my strategic move a matter of public knowledge." [illustration: "my eloquence floated up the air-shaft"] "that's a good idea for a play," said the idiot. "a roaring farce could be built up on that basis. villain and accomplice on one floor, innocent victim on floor above. plot floats up air-shaft. innocent victim overhears; villain and accomplice say 'ha ha' for three acts and take a back seat in the fourth, with a grand transformation showing the conspirators in the county jail as a finale. write it up with lots of live-stock wandering in and out, bring in janitors and elevator-boys and butchers, show up some of the humors of flat life, if there be any such, call it _a hole in the flat_, and put it on the stage. nine hundred nights is the very shortest run it could have, which at fifty dollars a night for the author is $45,000 in good hard dollars. mr. poet, the idea is yours for a fiver. say the word." "thanks," said the poet, with a smile; "i'm not a dramatist." "then i'll have to do it myself," said the idiot. "and if i do, good-bye shakespeare." "that's so," said mr. pedagog. "nothing could more effectually ruin the dramatic art than to have you write a play. people, seeing your work, would say, here, this will never do. the stage must be discouraged at all costs. a hypocrite throws the ministry into disgrace, an ignoramus brings shame upon education, and an unpopular lawyer gives the bar a bad name. i think you are just the man to ruin shakespeare." "then i'll give up my ambition to become a playwright and stick to idiocy," said the idiot. "but to come back to flats. your feeling in regard to them is entirely different from that of a friend of mine, who has lived in one for ten years. he thinks flat life is ideal. his children can't fall down-stairs, because there aren't any stairs to fall down. his roof never leaks, because he hasn't any roof to leak; and when he and his family want to go off anywhere, all he has to do is to lock his front door and go. burglars never climb into his front window, because they are all eight flights up. damp cellars don't trouble him, because they are too far down to do him any injury, even if they overflow. the cares of house-keeping are reduced to a minimum. his cook doesn't spend all her time in the front area flirting with the postman, because there isn't any front area to his flat; and in a social way his wife is most delightfully situated, because most of her friends live in the same building, and instead of having to hire a carriage to go calling in, all she has to do is to take the elevator and go from one floor to another. if he pines for a change of scene, he is high enough up in the air to get it by looking out of his windows, over the tops of other buildings, into the green fields to the north, or looking westward into the state of new jersey. instead of taking a drive through the park, or a walk, all he and his wife need to do is to take a telescope and follow some little sylvan path with their eyes. then, as for expense, he finds that he saves money by means of a co-operative scheme. for instance, if he wants shad for dinner, and he and his wife cannot eat a whole one, he goes shares on the shad and its cost with his neighbors above and below." "yes, and his neighbors above and below borrow tea and eggs and butter and ice and other things whenever they run short, so that in that way he loses all he saves," said mr. pedagog, resolved not to give in. "he does if he isn't smart," said the idiot. "i thought of that myself, and asked him about it, and he told me that he kept account of all that, and always made it a point after some neighbor had borrowed two pounds of butter from him to send in before the week was over and borrow three pounds of butter from the neighbor. so far his books show that he is sixteen pounds of butter, seven pounds of tea, one bottle of vanilla extract, and a ton of ice ahead of the whole house. he is six eggs and a box of matches behind in his egg and match account, but under the circumstances i think he can afford it." "but," said mrs. pedagog, anxious to know the worst, "why--er--why are you so interested?" "well," said the idiot, slowly, "i--er--i am contemplating a change, mrs. pedagog--a change that would fill me--i say it sincerely, too--with regret if--" the idiot paused a minute, and his eye swept fondly about the table. his voice was getting a little husky too, mr. whitechoker noticed. "it would fill me with regret, i say, if it were not that in taking up house-keeping i am--i am to have the assistance of a better-half." "what??" cried the bibliomaniac. "you? you are going to be--to be married?" "why not?" said the idiot. "imitation is the sincerest flattery. mr. pedagog marries, and i am going to flatter him as sincerely as i can by following in his footsteps." "may i--may we ask to whom?" asked mrs. pedagog, softly. "certainly," said the idiot. "to mr. barlow's daughter. mr. barlow is--or was--my employer." "was? is he not now? are you going out of business?" asked mr. pedagog. "no; but, you see, when i went to see mr. barlow in the matter, he told me that he liked me very much, and he had no doubt i would make a good husband for his daughter, but, after all, he added that i was nothing but a confidential clerk on a small salary, and he thought his daughter could do better." "she couldn't find a better fellow, mr. idiot," said mrs. pedagog, and mr. pedagog rose to the occasion by nodding his entire acquiescence in the statement. "thank you very much," said the idiot. "that was precisely what i told mr. barlow, and i suggested a scheme to him by which his sole objection could be got around." "you would start in business for yourself?" said mr. whitechoker. "in a sense, yes," said the idiot. "only the way i put it was that a good confidential clerk would make a good partner for him, and he, after thinking it over, thought i was right." "it certainly was a characteristically novel way out of the dilemma," said mr. brief, with a smile. "i thought so myself, and so did he, so it was all arranged. on the 1st of next month i enter the firm, and on the 15th i am--ah--to be married." the company warmly congratulated the idiot upon his good-fortune, and he shortly left the room, more overcome by their felicitations than he had been by their arguments in the past. the few days left passed quickly by, and there came a breakfast at mrs. pedagog's house that was a mixture of joy and sadness--joy for his happiness, sadness that that table should know the idiot no more. among the wedding-gifts was a handsomely bound series of volumes, including a cyclopã¦dia, a dictionary, and a little tome of poems, the first output of the poet. these came together, with a card inscribed, "from your friends of the breakfast table," of whom the idiot said, when mrs. idiot asked for information: "they, my dear, next to yourself and my parents, are the dearest friends i ever had. we must have them up to breakfast some morning." "breakfast?" queried mrs. idiot. "yes, my dear," he replied, simply. "i should be afraid to meet them at any other meal. i am always at my best at breakfast, and they--well, they never are." the end * * * * * by john kendrick bangs mr. bonaparte of corsica. mr. bangs is probably the generator of more hearty, healthful, purely good-humored laughs than any other half-dozen men of our country to-day.--_interior_, chicago. the idiot. "the idiot," continues to be as amusing and as triumphantly bright in the volume called after his name as in "coffee and repartee."--_evangelist_, n. y. the water ghost, and others. the funny side of the ghost genre is brought out with originality, and, considering the morbidity that surrounds the subject, it is a wholesome thing to offer the public a series of tales letting in the sunlight of laughter.--_hartford courant_. three weeks in politics. the funny story is most graphically told, and he who can read this narrative of a campaigner's trials without laughing must be a stoic indeed.--_philadelphia bulletin_. coffee and repartee. is delightfully free from conventionality; is breezy, witty, and possessed of an originality both genial and refreshing.--_saturday evening gazette_, boston. transcriber's note minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end. conversation _what to say and how to say it_ conversation _what to say and how to say it_ by mary greer conklin funk & wagnalls company new york and london 1912 copyright, 1912, by funk & wagnalls company all rights reserved for all countries [_printed in the united states of america_] published november, 1912 in loving memory to a. e. c. whose delightful conversation stimulated my youth and in grateful acknowledgment of their severe criticism and friendly aid to charles townsend copeland assistant professor of english at harvard college and frank wilson cheney hersey instructor in english at harvard college preface "the best book that was ever written upon good breeding," said dr. johnson to boswell, "the best book, i tell you, _il cortegiano_ by castiglione, grew up at the little court of urbino, and you should read it." _il cortegiano_ was first published by the aldine press at venice, in 1528. before the close of the century more than one hundred editions saw the light; french, spanish, english, and german versions followed each other in rapid succession, and the _cortegiano_ was universally acclaimed as the most popular prose work of the italian renaissance. "have you read castiglione's _cortegiano_?" asks the courtier malpiglio, in tasso's dialog. "the beauty of the book is such that it deserves to be read in all ages; as long as courts endure, as long as princes reign and knights and ladies meet, as long as valor and courtesy hold a place in our hearts, the name of castiglione will be held in honor." in his _book of the courtier_, castiglione said very little about perfection of speech; he discust only the standard of literary language and the prescribed limits of the "vulgar tongue," or the italian in which petrarch and boccaccio had written. what he says about grace, however, applies also to conversation: "i say that in everything it is so hard to know the true perfection as to be well-nigh impossible; and this because of the variety of opinions. thus there are many who will like a man who speaks much, and will call him pleasing; some will prefer modesty; some others an active and restless man; still others one who shows calmness and deliberation in everything; and so every man praises or decries according to his mind, always clothing vice with the name of its kindred virtue, or virtue with the name of its kindred vice; for example, calling an impudent man frank, a modest man dull, an ignorant man good, a knave discreet, and so in all things else. yet i believe that there exists in everything its own perfection, altho concealed; and that this can be determined through rational discussion by any having knowledge of the thing in hand." if this superb courtier could not reach decisions regarding perfection in matters of culture and polish, i could scarcely hope to have entirely reconciled the contending phases of conversation, even if i have succeeded in impressing positively the evident faults to be avoided, and the avowed graces of speech to be attained. with castiglione as a model i can only say regarding conversation what he said about the perfect courtier: "i praise the kind of courtier that i most esteem, and approve him who seems to me nearest right, according to my poor judgment.... i only know that it is worse not to wish to do well than not to know how." those heretofore interested in agreeable speech will at once recognize my obligation to the few men and women who have written entertainingly on conversation, and from whom i have often quoted. my excuse for offering a new treatment is that i may perhaps have succeeded in bringing the subject more within the reach of the general public, and to have written more exhaustively. the deductions i have made are the result of an affectionate interest in my subject and of notes taken during a period of many years. if the book affords readers one-half the pleasure and stimulus it has brought to me, my labors will be happily rewarded. beyond my chief critics, to whom i dedicate this volume, i express my gratitude to mrs. fannie bloomfield zeisler, the pianiste, and to dr. henrietta becker von klenze, formerly of the university of chicago, whose interest in all i have ever attempted to do has been an unfailing support, and whose suggestions have added value to this work; to dr. gustavus howard maynadier, of harvard college, for friendly assistance in many ways; and to mr. george benson weston, of harvard college, who has been kind enough to read the manuscript, and by whose knowledge of the literature of many languages i have greatly profited. boston, massachusetts, august, 1912. contents chapter i _introductory_ what conversation is and what it is not page what is the aim of conversation?--the talk of coleridge and macaulay--browning's delightful conversation--why we go into society--the elements of good conversation--what it is not--genius and scholarship not essential to good conversation 21 chapter ii discussion _versus_ controversy dr. johnson's and robert louis stevenson's opinion of discussion--politeness and discussion--the hostess in discussion--flat contradiction in discussion--polemical squabbles--brilliant discussion in france--the secret of delightful conversation in france--leading the talk--topics for discussion--gladstone's conversation 35 chapter iii gossip gossip in literature--gossip comes from being of one kindred under god--gossip and the misanthrope--personal history of people we know and people we don't know--gossip of books of biography--interest in others gives fellowship and warmth to life--essential difference between slander and innocent gossip--the psychology of the slanderer--the apocryphal slanderer--"talking behind another's back"--personal chat the current coin of conversation 63 chapter iv what should guests talk about at dinner? guests' talk during the quarter of an hour before dinner--what guests may talk about--talking to one's dinner-companion--guests' duty to host and hostess--the dominant note in table-talk--general and _tête-à-tête_ conversation between guests--the raconteur at dinner 89 chapter v talk of host and hostess at dinner the amalgam for combining guests--hosts' talk during the quarter of an hour before dinner--seating guests to enhance conversation--number of guests for the best conversation--directing the conversation at dinner--drawing guests out--signaling for conversation--general and _tête-à-tête_ conversation--putting strangers at ease--steering talk away from offensive topics--the gracious host and hostess--an ideal dinner party 111 chapter vi interruption in conversation its deadening effect on conversation--habitual interruption--nervous interruption--glib talkers--interrupting by over-accuracy--interruptions outside the conversation-circle--children and their interruption--good talk at table--anecdotes of children's appreciation of good conversation--the hostess who is "mistress of herself tho china fall" 133 chapter vii power of fitness, tact, and nicety in business words. why cultivating the social instinct adds strength to business persuasion--secret of the ability to use tactful and vivid words in business--essential training necessary to the nice use of words--business success depends upon nicety and tact more than on any quality of force 161 chapter viii conclusion conversation is reciprocal--good conversationalists cannot talk to the best advantage without confederates--as in whist it is the combination which effects what a single whist-playing genius cannot accomplish--good conversation does not mark a distinction among subjects; it denotes a difference in talkability--the different degrees of talkability--imperturbable glibness impedes good conversation--ease with which one may improve one's conversational powers 175 chapter i _introductory_ what conversation is and what it is not _what is the aim of conversation?--the talk of coleridge and macaulay--browning's delightful conversation--why we go into society--the elements of good conversation--what it is not--genius and scholarship not essential to good conversation._ chapter i _introductory_ what conversation is and what it is not good conversation is more easily defined by what it is not than by what it is. to come to any conclusions on this subject, one should first determine: what is the aim of conversation? should the intention be to make intercourse with our fellows a free school in which to acquire information; should it be to disseminate knowledge; or should the object be to divert and to amuse? it might seem that any person with a good subject must talk well and be interesting. alas! highly cultivated people are sometimes the most silent. or, if they talk well, they are likely to talk _too_ well to be good conversationalists, as did coleridge and macaulay, who talked long and hard about interesting subjects, but were nevertheless recorded as bores in conversation because they talked _at_ people instead of talking _with_ them. in society browning was delightful in his talk. he would not discuss poetry, and was as communicative on the subject of a sandwich or the adventures of some woman's train at the last drawing-room as on more weighty subjects. tho to some he may have seemed obscure in his art, all agreed that he was simple and natural in his discourse. whatever he talked about, there could not be a moment's doubt as to his meaning. from these facts concerning three men of genius, it can be inferred that we do not go into society to get instruction gratis; that good conversation is not necessarily a vehicle of information; that to be natural, easy, gay, is the catechism of good talk. no matter how learned a man is, he is often thrown with ordinary mortals; and the ordinary mortals have as much right to talk as the extraordinary ones. one can conceive, on the other hand, that when geniuses have leisure to mix in society their desire is to escape from the questions which daily burden their minds. if they prefer to confine themselves to an interchange of ideas apart from their special work, they have a right to do so. in this shrinking of people of genius from discussing the very subjects with regard to which their opinion is most valuable, there is no doubt a great loss to the world. but unless they themselves bring forth the topic of their art, it must remain in abeyance. society has no right to force their mentioning it. this leads us, then, to the conclusion that the aim of conversation is to distract, to interest, to amuse; not to teach nor to be taught, unless incidentally. in good conversation people give their charm, their gaiety, their humor, certainly--and their wisdom, if they will. but conversation which essentially entertains is not essentially nonsense. some one has drawn this subtle distinction: "i enter a room full of pleasant people as i go to see a picture, or listen to a song, or as i dance--that i may amuse myself, and invigorate myself, and raise my natural spirits, and laugh dull care away. true, there must be ideas, as in all amusements worthy of the name there is a certain seriousness impossible to define; only they must be kept in the background." the aim and design of conversation is, therefore, pleasure. this agreed, we can determine its elements. conversation, above all, is dialog, not monolog. it is a partnership, not an individual affair. it is listening as well as talking. monopolizing tyrants of society who will allow no dog to bark in their presence are not conversationalists; they are lecturers. there are plenty of people who, as mr. benson says, "possess every qualification for conversing except the power to converse." there are plenty of people who deliver one monolog after another and call their talk conversation. the good conversationalists are not the ones who dominate the talk in any gathering. they are the people who have the grace to contribute something of their own while generously drawing out the best that is in others. they hazard topics for discussion and endeavor each to give to the other the chance of enlarging upon them. conversation is the interchange of ideas; it is the willingness to communicate thought on all subjects, personal and universal, and in turn to listen to the sentiments of others regarding the ideas advanced. good conversation is the nimbleness of mind to take the chance word or the accidental subject and play upon it, and make it pass from guest to guest at dinner or in the drawing-room. it is the discussion of any topic whatever, from religion to the fashions, and the avoidance of any phase of any subject which might stir the irascible talker to controversy. as exprest by cowper in his essay, "conversation": "ye powers who rule the tongue, if such there are, and make colloquial happiness your care, preserve me from the thing i dread and hate- a duel in the form of a debate." wearing one's heart on one's sleeve is good for one conversationally. ready conversers are people who give their thought to others in abundance; who make others feel a familiar heartbeat. no one can approach so near to us as the sincere talker, with his sympathy and his willing utterances. luther, who stands out as one of the giants of the renaissance, came into close human touch with his friends in talk; in conversation with him they could always feel his fierce and steady pulse. another element of successful conversation is good-humored tolerance, the willingness to bear rubs unavoidably occasioned. the talker who cavils at anything that is said stops conversation more than if he answered only yes or no to all remarks addrest to him. still another element of good conversation is the right sort of gossip; gossip which is contemporary and past history of people we know and of people we don't know; gossip which is in no way a temptation to detract. raillery may also become a legitimate part of good conversation, if the ridicule is like a good parody of good literature--in no way malignant or commonplace. "shop," if nicely adjusted to the conversational conditions, may have its rightful share in interesting talk. friends often meet together just to talk things over, to get each other's point of view, to hear each other tell of his own affairs, of his work and of his progress. "shop" talk was sometimes the essence of those famous conversations of the seventeenth century coffee-house. anecdotes are a natural part of conversation, but they become the bane of talk unless kept in strict restraint. there are times when good conversation is momentary silence rather than speech. it is only the haranguers who feel it their duty to break in with idle and insincere chatter upon a pleasant and natural pause. a part of the good fellowship of acceptable conversation is what one might call "interest questions." "interest questions" are just what the words imply, and have about them no suspicion of the inquisitive and impertinent catechizing which only fools, and not even knaves, indulge in. the negative phase of conversation may largely grow out of a discussion of the positive. by discovering what conversation is, we find, in a measure, what it is not. it is not monolog nor monopolizing; it is not lecturing nor haranguing; it is not detracting gossip; it is not ill-timed "shop" talk; it is not controversy nor debate; it is not stringing anecdotes together; it is not inquisitive nor impertinent questioning. there are still other things which conversation is not: it is not cross-examining nor bullying; it is not over-emphatic, nor is it too insistent, nor doggedly domineering, talk. nor is good conversation grumbling talk. no one can play to advantage the conversational game of toss and catch with a partner who is continually pelting him with grievances. it is out of the question to expect everybody, whether stranger or intimate, to choke in congenial sympathy with petty woes. the trivial and perverse annoyances of one's own life are compensating subjects for conversation only when they lead to a discussion of the phase of character or the fling of fate on which such-and-such incidents throw light, because the trend of the thought then encourages a tossing back of ideas. perhaps the most important thing which good conversation is not, is this: it is not talking for effect, or hedging. there are two kinds of hedging in conversation: one which comes from failing to follow the trend of the discussion; another which is the result of talking at random merely to make bulk. the first is tolerable; the last is contemptible. the moment one begins to talk for effect, or to hedge flippantly, he is talking insincerely. and when a good converser runs against this sort of talker, his heart calls out, with carlyle, for an empty room, his tobacco, and his pipe. it is maintained by some one that there are three kinds of a bore: the person who tells the plot of a play, the one who tells the story of a novel, and the one who tells his dreams. this may be going too far with regard to dreams; for dreams, if handled in the right way, are easily made a part of interesting talk. but in sophisticated society books and plays are discust only by talking about the prevailing idea round which the story centers. they are criticized, not outlined. the most learned and cultivated talkers do not attempt the difficult and unrewarded feat of giving a concise summary of plots. good conversation, then, is the give and take of talk. a person who converses well also listens well. the one is inseparable from the other. anything can be talked about in cultivated society provided the subjects are handled with humanity and discrimination. even the weather and the three dreadful d's of conversation, dress, disease, and domestics, may be made an acceptable part of talk if suited to the time, the place, and the situation. nor is genius or scholarship essential to good conversation. the qualities most needed are tact, a sincere desire to please, and an appreciation of the truth that the man who never says a foolish thing in conversation will never say a wise one. chapter ii discussion _versus_ controversy _dr. johnson's and robert louis stevenson's opinion of discussion--politeness and discussion--the hostess in discussion--flat contradiction in discussion--polemical squabbles--brilliant discussion in france--the secret of delightful conversation in france--leading the talk--topics for discussion--gladstone's conversation._ chapter ii discussion _versus_ controversy many people object to discussion, but they are invariably those on the midway rounds of the conversational ladder; people to whom the joy of the amicable intellectual tussle is unknown, and to whom the highest standards of the art of talking do not appeal. where there is much intellectual activity discussion is sure to arise, for the simple reason that people will not think alike. polite discussion is the most difficult and the most happy attainment of society as it is of literature; and why should oral discussion be less attractive than written? dr. johnson used to express unbounded contempt for all talk that was not discussion; and robert louis stevenson has given us frankly his view: "there is a certain attitude, combative at once and deferential, eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at once the talkable man. it is not eloquence, nor fairness, nor obstinacy, but a certain proportion of all these that i love to encounter in my amicable adversaries. they must not be pontiffs holding doctrine, but huntsmen questing after elements of truth. neither must they be boys to be instructed, but fellow-students with whom i may argue on equal terms." from mr. john b. yeats, one of the many irishmen who have written tellingly on this interesting subject of human intercourse, we have: "conversation is an art, as literature is, as painting is, as poetry is, and subject to the same laws from which nothing human is excluded, not even argument. there is literature which argues, and painting which argues, and poetry which argues, so why not conversation which argues? only argument is the most difficult to mold into the most blessed shape of art." some people conceive an everlasting opposition between politeness and earnest discussion. politeness consists, they think, in always saying, "yes, yes," or at most a non-committal "indeed?" to every word addrest to them. this is apt to be our american vice of conversation, where, for lack of courage in taking up discussion, talk often falls into a series of anecdotes. in germany the tendency is to be swept away in discussion to the point of a verbal dispute. there is no greater bore in society than the person who agrees with everybody. discussion is the arena in which we measure the strength of one another's minds and run a friendly tilt in pleasing self-assertiveness; it is the common meeting-ground where it is understood that barnabas will take gentle reproof from paul, and paul take gentle reproof from barnabas. those who look upon any dissent from their views as a personal affront to be visited with signs of resentment are no more fit for brilliant talk than they are fit for life and its vicissitudes. "whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul in peace," it is true; but he also keeps himself dead to all human intercourse and as colorless in the world as an oyster. "too great a desire to please," says stevenson, "banishes from conversation all that is sterling.... it is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity." this is equivalent to telling the individual who treads too nicely and fears a shock that he had pleased us better had he pleased us less, which is the subtle observation of mr. price collier writing in the _north american review_: "it is perhaps more often true of women than of men that they conceive affability as a concession. at any rate, it is not unusual to find a hostess busying herself with attempts to agree with all that is said, with the idea that she is thereby doing homage to the effeminate categorical imperative of etiquette, when in reality nothing becomes more quickly tiresome than incessant affirmatives, no matter how pleasantly they are modulated. nor can one avoid one of two conclusions when one's talk is thus negligently agreed to: either the speaker is confining herself entirely to incontradictable platitudes, or the listener has no mind of her own; and in either case silence were golden. in this connection it were well to recall the really brilliant epigram of the abbé de saint-réal, that '_on s'ennuie presque toujours avec ceux que l'on ennuie._' for not even a lover can fail to be bored at last by the constant lassitude of assent expressing itself in twin sentiments to his own. 'coquetting with an echo,' carlyle called it. for, tho it may make a man feel mentally masterful at first, it makes him feel mentally maudlin at last; and, as the abbé says, to be bored one's self is a sure sign that one's companion is also weary." tho polite dissent is desirable in discussion, flat contradiction is contemptible. dean swift affirms that a person given to contradiction is more fit for bedlam than for conversation. in discussion, far more than in lighter talk, decency as well as honor commands that each partner to the conversational game conform to the niceties and fairness of it. "i don't think so," "it isn't so," "i don't agree with you at all," are too flat and positive for true delicacy and refinement in conversation. "i have been inclined to think otherwise," "i should be pleased to hear your reasons," "aren't you mistaken?" are more acceptable phrases with which to introduce dissent. in french society a discrepancy of views is always manifested by some courtesy-phrase, such as "_mais, ne pensez-vous pas_" or "_je vous demande pardon_"--the urbane substitutes for "no, you are wrong," "no, it isn't." our own benjamin franklin, whose appreciation of the conversational art in france won completely the hearts of the french people, tells us in his autobiography that in later life he found it necessary to throw off habits acquired in youth: "i continued this positive method for some years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence: never using when i advanced anything that might possibly be disputed, the words 'certainly,' 'undoubtedly,' or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather say, 'it appears to me,' or 'i should think it so-and-so, for such-and-such a reason,' or 'i imagine it to be so,' or it is so 'if i am not mistaken.'" unyielding obstinacy in discussion is deadening to conversation, and yet the extreme contrary is crippling. open resentment of any attempt at warmth of speech is paralysis and torpor to talk. when one meets a hostess, or a conversational partner, "whose only pleasure is to be displeased," one is reminded of the railway superintendent who kept the wires hot with fault-finding messages bearing his initials "h. f. c." until he came to be known along the road as "hell for certain." people of a resentful turn of mind, whose every sentence is a wager, and who convert every word into a missile, are fit for polemical squabbles, but not for polite discussion. those raucous persons who, when their opponents attempt to speak, cry out against it as a monstrous unfairness, are very well adapted to association with kilkenny cats, but not with human beings. it is in order to vanquish by this means one who might otherwise outmatch them entirely that they thus seek to reduce their opponent to a mere interjection. "a man of culture," says mr. robert waters, "is not intolerant of opposition. he frankly states his views on any given subject, without hesitating to say wherein he is ignorant or doubtful, and he is ready for correction and enlightenment wherever he finds it." such a man never presses his hearers to accept his views; he not only tolerates but considers opposed opinions and listens attentively and respectfully to them. hazlitt said of the charming discussion of northcote, the painter: "he lends an ear to an observation as if you had brought him a piece of news, and enters into it with as much avidity and earnestness as if it interested only himself personally." of all the tenets of good conversation to which the french give heed, their devotion to listening is the most notable. from this judiciously receptive attitude springs their uninterrupting shrug of assent or disapproval. but listening is only one of their many established conversational dicta: "the conversation of parisians is neither dissertation nor epigram; they have pleasantry without buffoonery; they associate with skill, with genius, and with reason, maxims and flashes of wit, sharp satire, and severe ethics. they run through all subjects that each may have something to say; they exhaust no subject for fear of tiring their hearer; they propose their themes casually and they treat them rapidly; each succeeding subject grows naturally out of the preceding one; each talker delivers his opinion and supports it briefly; no one attacks with undue heat the supposition of another, nor defends obstinately his own; they examine in order to enlighten, and stop before the discussion becomes a dispute." such was rousseau's description of parisian conversation; and some one else has declared that the french are the only nation in the world who understand a _salon_ whether in upholstery or talk. "every britisher," said novalis more than a hundred years ago, "is an island"; and heine once defined silence as "a conversation with englishmen." we americans, tho not so reserved in talk as our english brothers, are less respectful to conversational amenities; and both of us are far behind the french in the gracious art of verbal expression. not only is the spoken english of the cultured irish the most cosmopolitan and best modulated of any english in the world, but the conversation of cultivated irishmen more adequately approaches the perfection of the french. it is as illuminating to study the best models in human intercourse as to study the best models in literature, or painting, or any other art. one of the distinct elements in french conversation is that it is invariably kept general; and by general i mean including in the talk all the conversational group as opposed to _tête-à-tête_ dialog. many people disagree with the french in this. addison declared that there is no such thing as conversation except between two persons; and ralph waldo emerson and walter savage landor said something of the same sort. shelley was distinctly a _tête-à-tête_ talker, as mr. benson, the present-day essayist, in some of his intimate discourses, proclaims himself to be. but burke and browning, the best conversationalists in the history of the anglo-saxon race, like all the famous women of the french _salon_, from mme. roland to mme. de staël, kept pace with any number of interlocutors on any number of subjects, from the most abstruse science to the lightest _jeu d'esprit_. good talk between two is no doubt a duet of exquisite sympathy; but true conversation is more like a fugue in four or eight parts than like a duet. furthermore, general and _tête-à-tête_ conversation have both their place and occasion. at a dinner-table in france private chats are very quickly dispelled by some thoughtful moderator. dinner guests who devote themselves to each other alone are not tolerated by the french hostess as by the english and american. because _tête-à-tête_ conversation is considered good form so generally among english-speaking peoples, i have in other essays adapted my comments on this subject to our customs; but talk which is distributed among several who conform to the courtesies and laws of good conversation is the best kind of talk. in general talk every one ought to have a voice. it is the undue humility of some and the arrogance and polemical tendency of others that prevent good general conversation. people have only to begin with three axioms: the first, that everybody is entitled, and often bound, to form his own opinion; second, that everybody is equally entitled to express that opinion; and third, that everybody's opinion is entitled to a hearing and to consideration, not only on the ground of courtesy, but because any opinion honestly and independently formed is worth something and contributes to the discussion. another principle of french conversation is that it is kept personal, in the sense, i mean, that the personality of the speakers suffuses it. "the theme being taken," as stevenson says, "each talker plays on himself as on an instrument, affirming and justifying himself." this counter-assertion of personality, to all appearances, is combat, but at bottom is amicable. an issue which is essentially general and impersonal is lost in the accidental conflicts of personalities, because the quality which plays the most important part is presence of mind, not correct reasoning. a conversationalist whose argument is wholly fallacious will often, by exercise of verbal adroitness, dispose of an objection which is really fatal. the full swing of the personalities of the speakers in a conversation is what makes the flint strike fire. it is only from heated minds that the true essence of conversation springs; and it is in talk which glances from one to another of a group, more than in dialog, that this personality is reflected. "it is curious to note," says an editorial in _the spectator_, "how very much dialog there is in the world, and how little true conversation; how very little, that is, of the genuine attempt to compare the different bearing of the same subject on the minds of different people. it is the rarest thing in the world to come, even in the best authors, on a successful picture of the different views taken by different minds on the same subject, and the grounds of the difference." quite as noticeable an element in french conversation is the attitude of the conversers to their subject. they never try to settle matters as if their decisions were the last court of appeal, and as if they must make frantic effort to carry their side of the question to victory. they discuss for the pleasure of discussing; not for the pleasure of vanquishing, nor even of convincing. they discuss, merely; they do not debate, nor do they enter into controversy. one of the greatest conversational charms of the french is their amenity in leading talk. this grows out of a universal eagerness in france to take pains in conversation and to learn its unwritten behests. the uninitiated suspect little of the insight and care which matures even the natural conversational ability of a madame de staël or a francisque sarcey. the initiated know that the same principles which make the french prodigious conversationalists make them capable and charming hosts and hostesses. the talker who can follow in conversation knows how to lead, and vice versa. without a leader or "moderator," as the admirable scotch word has it, conversation is apt to become either tepid or demoralized; and often, for the want of proper and sophisticated leading, discussion that would otherwise be brilliant deteriorates into pandemonium. as paradoxical as it sounds on first thought, it is nevertheless true that thoroughly good conversation is impossible where there is too much talk. some sort of order must be imperceptibly if not unconsciously maintained, or the sentences clash in general conversation. leading conversation is the adroit speech which checks the refractory conversationalist and changes imperceptibly the subject when it is sufficiently threshed or grows over-heated; it is guiding the talk without palpable break into fresh fields of thought; it is the tact with which, unperceived, the too slow narration of a guest is hurried by such courteous interpolations as "so you got to the inn, and what then?" or, "did the marriage take place after all?"; it is the art with which the skilful host or hostess sees that all are drawn into the conversational group; it is the watchfulness that sends the shuttle of talk in all directions instead of allowing it to rebound between a few; it is the interest with which a host or hostess solicits the opinions of guests, and develops whatever their answers may vaguely suggest; it is the care with which an accidentally interrupted speech of a guest is resuscitated; it is the consideration which puts one who arrives late in touch with the subject which was being discust just before his appearance. it is this concern for conversational cues which gives any host or hostess an almost unbounded power in social intercourse; for he is the best talker who can lead others to talk well. it goes without saying that a people who have assimilated all the foregoing tenets of good conversation are never disjointed in their talk. their consummate art of listening is responsible for their skill in following the logical trend of the discourse. this may be considered a national trait. in decent french society there are no abrupt transitions of thought in the different speeches. the speech of each speaker grows naturally out of what some one of his conversational partners has just been saying, or it is duly prefaced by an introductory sentence connecting it with a certain preceding speech. they know that, once embarked, no converser can tell where the give and take of talk will carry him; but they also know that this does not necessitate awkward and direct changes of subject. the weakness of inattention and of unconscious shunting in conversation is virtually unknown in good society in france. is it any wonder that in a country where conversation is considered an art capable of cultivation and having certain fixt principles, so many french women of humble birth, like sophie arnould and julie lespinasse, have earned their way to fame by their conversational powers? is it any wonder that in france polite discussion is made the most exhilarating and delightful exercise in the world? one reason there is so little acceptable conversational discussion is the indisposition of people in society to say what they think; their unwillingness to express their whole minds on any one subject. it is this element of unfettered expression or revelation which makes literature entertaining; why then withhold thought too cautiously from conversation? the habit of evasion is cowardly as well as unsocial; and nothing so augments conversation as being pleasantly downright; letting people know where to find you. the most preposterous views get respect if uttered intrepidly. sincere speech is necessary to good conversation of any kind, and especially is it essential to discussion. one of the stupidest of conversational sins is quibbling--talking insincerely, just for the sake of using words, and shifting the point at issue to some incidental, subordinate argument on which the decision does not at all depend. it is the intellectually honest person who sparkles in discussion. another reason why discussion is waning is the disrespect we feel for great subjects. we only mention them, or hint at them; and this cannot lead to very brilliant talk. tho prattle and persiflage have their place in conversation, talkers of the highest order tire of continually encouraging chit-chat. "what a piece of business; monstrous! i have not read it; impossible to get a box at the opera for another fortnight; how do you like my dress? it was immensely admired yesterday at the b----s; how badly your cravat is tied! did you know that ---lost heavily by the crash of thursday? that dear man's death gave me a good fit of crying; do you travel this summer? is blank really a man of genius? it is incomprehensible; they married only two years ago." this sort of nimble talk is all very well; but because one likes sillibub occasionally is no proof that one is willing to discard meat entirely. conversational topics can be too trivial for recreation as well as too serious; and even important subjects can be handled in a light way if necessary. "clever people are the best encyclopedias," said goethe; and the great premier gladstone was a charming man in society, though he never talked on any but serious subjects. he was noted for his ability to pump people dry without seeming in the least to probe. "true conversation is not content with thrust and parry, with mere sword-play of any kind, but should lay mind to mind and show the real lines of agreement and the real lines of divergence. yet this is the very kind of conversation which seems to me so very rare." in order that a great subject shall be a good topic of conversation, it must provoke an enthusiasm of belief or disbelief; people must have decided opinions one way or the other. i believe with stevenson that theology, of all subjects, is a suitable topic for conversational discussion, and for the reason he gives: that religion is the medium through which all the world considers life, and the dialect in which people express their judgments. try to talk for any length of time with people to whom you must not mention creeds, morals, politics, or any other vital interest in life, and see how inane and fettered talk becomes. the tranquil and yet spirited discussion of great subjects is the most stimulating of all talk. the thing to be desired is not the avoidance of discussion but the encouragement of it according to its unwritten codes and precepts. "the first condition of any conversation at all," says professor mahaffy of dublin, "is that people should have their minds so far in sympathy that they are willing to talk upon the same subject, and to hear what each member of the company thinks about it. the higher condition which now comes before us is, that the speaker, apart from the matter of the conversation, feels an interest in his hearers as distinct persons, whose opinions and feelings he desires to know.... sympathy, however, should not be excessive in quality, which makes it demonstrative. we have an excellent word which describes the over-sympathetic person, and marks the judgment of society, when we say that he or she is _gushing_. to be too sympathetic makes discussion, which implies difference of opinion, impossible." those who try to discover how far conversation is advanced by sympathy and hindered by over-sympathy; those who attempt to detect to what extent wholesome discussion is degraded by acrid controversy, need not be afraid of vigorous intellectual buffeting. discussion springs from human nature when it is under the influence of strong feeling, and is as much an ingredient of conversation as the vocalizing of sounds is a part of the effort of expressing thought. chapter iii gossip _gossip in literature--gossip comes from being of one kindred under god--gossip and the misanthrope--personal history of people we know and people we don't know--gossip of books of biography--interest in others gives fellowship and warmth to life--essential difference between slander and innocent gossip--the psychology of the slanderer--the apocryphal slanderer--"talking behind another's back"--personal chat the current coin of conversation._ chapter iii gossip it seems strange that, in all the long list of brilliant dissertations on every subject under the sun, no english essayist should have yielded a word under the seductive title of "gossip." even leigh hunt, who wrote vivaciously and exquisitely on so many light topics, was not attracted by the enticing possibilities of this subject to which both the learned and the unlearned are ready at all times to bestow a willing ear or eye. one usually conceives gossip as something to which one lends only one's ear, and never one's eye; but what are "plutarch's lives" but the right sort of gossip? that so many literary men and women have vaguely suspected the alluring tone-color of the word "gossip" is proved by: _a gossip in romance_, robert louis stevenson; _gossip in a library_, edmund william gosse; _gossip of the caribbees_, william r. h. trowbridge, jr.; _gossip from paris during the second empire_, anthony north peet; _gossip in the first decade of victoria's reign_, jane west; _gossip of the century_, julia clara byrne; _gossiping guide to wales_, askew roberts and edward woodall; _gossip with girls and maidens betrothed and free_, blanche st. john bellairs. yet no one has ever thought of writing about gossip for its own sweet sake. among every-day words perhaps the word "gossip" is more to be reckoned with than any other in our language. the child who runs confidingly to mother to report his grievance is a gossip; he is also an historian. certainly gossip is in its tone familiar and personal; it is the familiar and personal touch which makes _plutarch's lives_ interesting. at the root of the word "gossip," say etymologists, there lies an honest saxon meaning, "god's sib"--"of one kindred under god." it would be only a misanthrope who would assert that he has no interest in his fellows. he is invariably a selfish person who shuns personality in talk and refuses to know anything about people; who says: "what is it to me whether this person has heard slezak in _tannhäuser_; what do i care whether mrs. so-and-so has visited the french play; what concern is it of mine if mr. millions of eighty marries miss beautiful of eighteen; what is it to me whether you have watched the agonies of a furnishing party at marshall field's and have observed the bridegroom of tender years victimized by his wife and mother-in-law with their appeals to his excellent taste; of what interest to me are the accounts of the dissolute excesses which interspersed the wild outbreaks of religious fanaticism of henry the third of france?" this selfish person is also very stupid, for nothing so augments conversation as a normal interest in other people. "i shook him well from side to side until his face was blue. come, tell me how you live, i cried, and what it is you do." this plan of alice's _through the looking glass_ ballad singer for shaking conversation out of people, tho somewhat too strenuous, is less fatiguing than sherlock holmes's inductive methods. like sherlock without his excuse, the kind and generous must confess to a colossal interest in the affairs of others. gossip is the dialog of the drama of mankind; and we have a right to introduce any innocent and graceful means of thawing their stories from the actors, and of unraveling dramatic knots. people with keen judgment of men and things gather the harvest of a quiet eye; they see in the little world of private life histories as wonderful and issues as great as those that get our attention in literature, or in the theater, or in public life. personal gossip in its intellectual form has a charm not unhealthy; and it gives new lights on character more often favorable than unfavorable. there is no difference, between enjoying this personal talk and enjoying _the mill on the floss_ or books of biography. boswell, in his _life of johnson_, and mrs. thrale, in her _letters_, were inveterate gossips about the great man. and what an incomparable little tattler was fanny burney--madame d'arblay! lord william lennox, in his _drafts on my memory_, is full of irrepressible and fascinating _memorabilia_, from the story of general bullard's salad-dressing to important dramatic history connected with the theater of his time. the _spectator_ was the quintessence of gossip in an age of gossip and good conversation. we could go a great deal further back to the gossips of theocritus, who are as living and life-like as if we had just met them in the park. all biography is a putting together of trifles which in the aggregate make up the engrossing life-stories of men and women of former and contemporary preeminence. it is to the gossips of all ages that we owe much of value in literary history. without the personal interest in the affairs of others which makes gossip possible, there would be no fellowship or warmth in life; social intercourse and conversation would be inhuman and lifeless. mr. benson in his essay "conversation" tells us that an impersonal talker is likely to be a dull dog. mr. henry van dyke says that the quality of talkability does not mark a distinction among things; that it denotes a difference among people. and chateaubriand, in his _mémoirs d'outre-tombe_, confides to us that he has heard some very pleasant reports become irksome and malicious in the mouths of ill-disposed verbal historians. one can interest one's self in the dramatic incidents in the lives of one's acquaintances without ventilating or vilifying their character. gossip is capable of a more genial purpose than traducing people. it is the malignity which turns gossip into scandal against which temperate conversationalists revolt; the sort of thing which sheridan gibbeted in his celebrated play, _the school for scandal_: "give me the papers, (lisp)--how bold and free! last night lord l. was caught with lady d.! . . . . . . . . "so strong, so swift, the monster there's no gagging: cut scandal's head off, still the tongue is wagging." but this is scandal, not gossip, and scandal comes from people incapable of anything better either in mind or conversation. among those who understand the art of conversation, libelous talk is rarely heard; with those who cultivate it to perfection, never. it is the first commandment of the slanderer to repeat promptly all the vitriolic talk he hears, but to keep strictly to himself all pleasant words or kindly gossip. those who draw no distinction between scandal and gossip should reflect that gossip may be good-natured and commendatory as well as hostile and adverse. in the published letters of the late james russell lowell is an account of his meeting professor mahaffy of trinity college, dublin, who is known to be one of the most agreeable of men. they met at the house of a friend in birmingham, england, and when lowell took leave of mr. mahaffy he said to his host: "well, that's one of the most delightful fellows i ever met, and i don't mind if you tell him so!" when lowell's remark was repeated to mr. mahaffy, he exclaimed, "poor lowell! to think that he can never have met an irishman before!" and this was gossip as surely as the inimical prattle about lord and lady byron was gossip. no, indeed, slander and libelous talk are not necessary ingredients of gossip. people who take malicious pleasure in using speech for malign purposes suffer from a mental disorder which does not come under the scope of conversation. regarding the mental deficiencies of those who love to wallow in the mire of salacious news about others, the psychologists have come to some interesting conclusions. to them it seems that there is an essential identity between the gossip and the genius. in both, the mental processes work with the same tendency to reproduce every fragment of past experience, because both think by what is known as "total recall." from the thought of one thing their minds pass to all sorts of remote connections, sane and silly, rational and grotesque, relevant and irrelevant. the essential difference between the gossip mind and the genius mind is the power of genius to distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy, the trivial and the relevant, the true and the false. the thoughts of the gossip, so the psychologists tell us, have connection but not coherence; the thoughts of the genius have coherence and likewise connection and unity. thus we discover that scandal-mongers are at fault in the mind more than in the heart; and that it behooves people who do not wish to have themselves voted mentally defective to draw a distinction between scandal and innocent gossip. as i have already said, there is nothing so interesting as the dramatic incidents in the lives of human beings. despite the nature-study enthusiasts who seem to refuse mankind a place in nature, "the proper study of mankind is man" and will forever remain so. but this does not mean that mental weaklings should be allowed to discover and talk about only salacious episodes in the history of their acquaintances. the vicious scandal-monger who defames another, or hears him defamed or scandalized, and then runs to him with enlarged and considerably colored tales of what was said about him, is the poison of the serpent and should not be tolerated in society. a sanitarium for mental delinquents is the only proper place for such a person. and let me add that the apocryphal slanderer, the person who never says but hints all sorts of malicious things, is the worst sort of scandal-monger. the cultivated conversationalist who talks gossip in its intellectual form does not indulge in oblique hints and insinuations. he says what he has to say intrepidly because he says it discriminatingly. keen judgment which discovers the fundamental distinction between scandal and suitable personality in talk raises gossip to the perfection of an art and the dignity of a science. undiscriminating people, therefore, had better leave personalities alone and stick to the more general and less resilient topics of conversation. good gossip is attainable only by minds that are capable of much higher talk than gossip. cultivated, well-poised, well-disposed persons need never be afraid of indulging their conversation to a certain extent with gossip, because they indulge it in the right way. and provided their personal and familiar talk is listened to by equally cultivated, well-poised, and well-disposed people, their gossip need not necessarily be limited to the mention of only pleasant and complimentary history; no more, indeed, than plutarch found it necessary to tell of the glory of demosthenes without mention that there were those who whispered graft and bribery in connection with his name. there are a few very good and very dull people who try to stop all adverse criticism. all raillery strikes them as cruel. they would like to see every parody murdered by the common hangman. even the best of comedy is constitutionally repellent to them. they want only highly colored characters from which every mellow shade of fault has been obliterated. one cannot say that they have a real love of human nature, because they do not know what human nature is. they are ready to take up arms with it at every turn. such people cannot see that ridicule, or gossip, can be either innocent or malignant; that history can be either prejudiced or unbiased. with many, refusing to hear adverse criticism is a mere pose, while with others it is cynicism. in intercourse with the uneducated, any well-bred person is properly shocked by their pleasure in detraction and in bad news of all sorts. but the detestable people who seek every occasion to vilify, and who wish to hear only harm of the world, are so exceptional as to be negligible. these rare villains are eliminated when one speaks of inability to distinguish between detraction and adverse criticism. those who can praise well are always adepts at criticizing adversely. they never carry their criticism too far, nor give purposely an acrid touch to it. there is a grim tradition that a person should never say anything behind another's back which he would not say before his face. this is all very well so far as it relates to venomous tales repeated purposely to injure; but how colorless are the people who never have critical opinions on anything or anybody; or people who, having them, never express them! criticism and cavil are two very different things. absence of criticism is absence of the power of distinction. this age of science has taught people to look truth straight in the face and learn to discriminate. that person to whom everything is sweet does not know what sweet is. the sophisticated world, unlike the unsophisticated, is not afraid of "passing remarks." there is no doubt that criticism, whether it comes directly or roundabout, adds a terror to life as soon as one goes below a certain level of cultivation. the uneducated are frightened at the mere thought of criticism; the cultivated are not. perhaps the reason for this difference is that ordinary people have a brutal and entirely uncritical criticism to fear. in that society sensitiveness is not very common. they are not dishonorable; they are merely hardy and can see no distinctions. it is not given to these people to praise rationally and to censure discriminatingly. vilifying remarks are made and repeated among them which clever people would be incapable of uttering. the educated not only use a softened mode of speech, but they avoid repeating remarks, unless with a discerning wish to be helpful to others. the cultivated who have brought life to a far higher point than the uncultivated have protected their liberty by a social rule. they say what they like, and it does not get to the ears of the person about whom they have said it. and if it did it wouldn't much matter. criticism which is critically given is usually critically received. the maliciousness of adverse criticism seldom lies in the person who voices it, but in the person who carries a tale. the moment sophisticated people learn that one among them has venomously repeated an adversely critical remark, they immediately know that that person is not to the manner born. there is no surer proof. if the born advocate is not always a saint, the born critic is not always a sinner. robert louis stevenson understood the importance of the personal touch in conversation when he wrote: "so far as conversational subjects are truly talkable, more than half of them may be reduced to three: that i am i, that you are you, and that there are other people dimly understood to be not quite the same as either." so, also, did mr. j. m. barrie, when he told us that his beloved margaret ogilvy, in spite of no personal interest in gladstone, "had a profound faith in him as an aid to conversation. if there were silent men in the company, she would give him to them to talk about precisely as she would divide a cake among children." it is often hinted by men that women are made good conversationalists by a sense of irresponsibility. but i am inclined to think that a little gossip now and then is relished by the best of men as well as women. the tendency to gossip with which men constantly credit women, and in which tendency the men themselves keep pace, helps both men and women very effectually to good conversation. "it is more important," says stevenson again, "that a person should be a good gossip and talk pleasantly and smartly of common friends and the thousand and one nothings of the day and hour, than speak with the tongues of men and angels.... talk is the creature of the street and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its last resort is still in a discussion on morals. that is the heroic form of gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pretensions; but still gossip because it turns on personalities." gossip, we must admit, has a perennial interest for all of us. personal chat is the current coin of conversational capital. society lives by gossip as it lives by bread. the most absurd rule in the world is to avoid personalities in conversation. to annihilate gossip would be to cut conversational topics in half. there is musical gossip, art gossip, theatrical gossip, literary gossip, and court gossip; there is political gossip, and fashionable gossip, and military gossip; there is mercantile gossip and commercial gossip of all kinds; there is physicians' gossip and professional gossip of every sort; there is scientists' gossip; and there is the gossip of the schools indulged in by masters and students all over the educational world. of all the gossip in the world the most prodigious and prolific is religious gossip. archbishops, bishops, deans, rectors, and curates are discussed unreservedly; and the questions put and answered are not whether they are apostolic teachers, but whether they are high, low, broad, or no church; whether they wear scarlet or black, intone or read, say "shibboleth" or "sibboleth." the roots of gossip are deep in human interest; and, despite the nearly universal opinion of moralists, great reputations are more often built out of gossip than destroyed by it. discriminating people do not create enemies by personalities, nor separate friends, because they gossip with a heart full of love, with charity for all, and with malice toward none. gossip as a legitimate part of conversation is defended by one of the greatest of present-day scholars; and i cannot do better than to quote, in closing, what mr. mahaffy has said about it: "the topic which ought to be always interesting is the discussion of human character and human motives. if the novel be so popular a form of literature, how can the novel in real life fail to interest an intelligent company? people of serious temper and philosophic habit will be able to confine themselves to large ethical views and the general dealings of men; but to average people, both men and women, and perhaps most of all to busy men who desire to find in society relaxation from their toil, that lighter and more personal kind of criticism on human affairs will prevail which is known as gossip. it is idle to deny that there is no kind of conversation more fascinating than this. but its immorality may easily become such as to shock honest minds, and the man who indulges in it too freely at the expense of others will probably have to pay the cost of it himself in the long run; for those who hear him will fear him, and will retire into themselves in his presence. on the other hand, nothing is more honorable than to stand forth as the defender or the palliator of the faults imputed to others, and nothing is easier than to expand such a defense into general considerations as to the purity of human motives, which will raise the conversation from its unwholesome grounds into the upper air." chapter iv what should guests talk about at dinner? _guests' talk during the quarter of an hour before dinner--what guests may talk about--talking to one's dinner-companion--guests' duty to host and hostess--the dominant note in table-talk--general and_ tête-à-tête _conversation between guests--the raconteur at dinner._ chapter iv what should guests talk about at dinner? "good talk is not to be had for the asking. humors must first be accorded in a kind of overture for prolog; hour, company, and circumstances be suited; and then at a fit juncture, the subject, the quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood." stevenson knew as well as alice in wonderland that something has to open the conversation. "you can't even drink a bottle of wine without opening it," argued alice; and every dinner guest, during the quarter of an hour before dinner, has felt the sententiousness of her remark. someone in writing about this critical period so conversationally difficult has contended that no person in his senses would think of wasting good talk in the drawing-room before dinner, but professor mahaffy thinks otherwise: "in the very forefront there stares us in the face that awkward period which even the gentle menander notes as the worst possible for conversation, the short time during which people are assembling, and waiting for the announcement of dinner. if the witty man were not usually a selfish person, who will not exhibit his talent without the reward of full and leisurely appreciation, this is the real moment to show his powers. a brilliant thing said at the very start which sets people laughing, and makes them forget that they are waiting, may alter the whole complexion of the party, may make the silent and distant people feel themselves drawn into the sympathy of common merriment, and thaw the iciness which so often fetters anglo-saxon society. but as this faculty is not given to many, so the average man may content himself with having something ready to tell, and this, if possible, in answer to the usual question exprest or implied: is there any news this afternoon? there are few days that the daily paper will not afford to the intelligent critic something ridiculous either in style or matter which has escaped the ordinary public; some local event, nay, even some local tragedy, may suggest a topic not worth more than a few moments of attention, which will secure the interest of minds vacant, and perhaps more hungry to be fed than their bodies. here then, if anywhere in the whole range of conversation, the man or woman who desires to be agreeable may venture to think beforehand, and bring with them something ready, merely as the first kick or starting point to make the evening run smoothly." however this may be, it is only with that communicative feeling which comes after eating and drinking that talkers warm up to discriminating discussion; and in the drawing-room just before dinner, one can scarcely expect the conversation to turn on anything but trifles. at the moment a man presents his arm to the woman he is to take in to dinner, he must have something ready in the way of a remark, for if he goes in in silence, he is lost. there are a thousand and one nothings he may say at this time. i know a clever man who talks interestingly for fifteen minutes about the old-fashioned practice of offering a woman the hand to lead her in to dinner, and whether or not that custom was more courteous and graceful than our modern way of proceeding. the question is often asked, "what should guests talk about at a dinner?" i restrict my interrogation to guests, because there is a distinction between the directing of a dinner-guest's conversation and the guiding of the talk by host or hostess into necessary or interesting channels. dinners, especially in diplomatic circles, are as often given to bring about dexterously certain ends in view as they are given for mere pleasure; and when this is the case it is necessary as well as gracious to steer conversation along the paths that it should go. a guest's first duty is to his dinner-companion, the person with whom, according to the prearranged plan of the hostess, he enters the dining-room and by whom he finds himself seated at table. his next duty is to his hosts. he has also an abstract conversational duty to his next nearest neighbor at table. it is every guest's duty, too, to keep his ears open and be ready to join in general talk should the host or hostess attempt to draw all their guests into any general discussion. the best answer to the question, "what should guests at dinner talk about?" is, anything and everything, provided the talk is tinctured with tact, discretion, and discrimination. to one's dinner-companion, if he happens to be a familiar acquaintance, one can even forget to taboo dress, disease, and domestics. one might likewise, with discretion, set at liberty the usually forbidden talk of "shop," on condition that such intimate conversation is to one's dinner-companion alone and is not dragged into the general flights of the table-talk. while one talks to one's dinner-companion in a low voice, however, it needs nice discrimination not to seem to talk under one's breath, or to say anything to a left-hand neighbor which would not be appropriate for a right-hand neighbor to hear. when in general talk, the habit some supposedly well-bred persons have of glancing furtively at any one guest to interrogate telepathically another's opinion of some remark is bad taste beyond the power of censure or the possibility of forgiveness. at large, formal dinners, on the order of banquets, it would be impossible for all guests to include a host or hostess in their conversational groups from any and every part of the table; only those guests seated near them can do this. but at small, informal dinners all guests should, whenever possible, consider it their duty to direct much of their conversation to their host and hostess. i have seen guests at small dinners of no more than six or eight covers go through the various courses of a three hours' dining, ignoring their host and hostess in the entire table-talk, while conversing volubly with others. there is something more due a host and hostess than mere greetings on entering and leave-takings on departing. if the dinner-party is so large that all guests cannot show them at the table the attention due them, the delinquent ones can at least seek an opportunity in the drawing-room, after guests have left the dining-room, to pay their host and hostess the proper courtesy. hosts should never be made to feel that it is to their cook they owe their distinction, and to their table alone that guests pay visits. to say that the dominant note in table-talk should be light and humorous is going too far; but conversation between dinner-companions should tend strongly to the humorous, to the light, to the small change of ideas. there should be an adroit intermixing of light and serious talk. i noted once with keen interest a shrewd mingling of serious talk and small talk at a dinner given to a distinguished german scientist. a clever woman of my acquaintance found herself the one selected to entertain at table this foreigner and scholar. when she was presented in the drawing-room to the eminent man who was to take her in to dinner, her hostess opened the conversation by informing the noted guest that his new acquaintance, just that morning, had had conferred upon her the degree of doctor of philosophy, which was the reason she had been assigned as dinner-companion to so profound a man. the foreigner followed the conversational cue, recounting to his companion his observations on the number of american women seeking higher education, _et cetera_. such a conversational situation was little conducive to small talk; but on the way from the drawing-room to the dining-table, this clever woman directed the talk into light vein by assuring the scholar and diplomat that there was nothing dangerous about her even if she did possess a university degree; that she would neither bite nor philosophize on all occasions; that she was quite as full of life and frolic as if she had never seen a university. you can imagine the effect of this vivacity upon the profoundest of men, and you can see how this clever woman's ability at small talk made a comrade of a notable academician. as the dinner progressed the talk between these two wavered from jest to earnest in a most charming manner. apropos of a late book on some serious subject not expurgated for babes and sucklings, but written for thinking men and women, the german scientist asked if he might present his companion with a copy, provided he promised to glue carefully together the pages unfit for frolicking feminine minds. two days later she received the book with some of the margins pasted--which pages, of course, were the first ones she read. when making an attempt to sparkle in small talk, dinner-guests should remember that the line of demarcation between light talk and buffoonery may become dangerously delicate. one can talk lightly, but nicely; while buffoonery is just what the lexicographers define it to be: "amusing others by clownish tricks and by commonplace pleasantries." gentle dulness ever loved a joke; and the fact that very often humorists, paid so highly in literature to perform, will not play a single conversational trick, is the best proof that they have the good sense to vote their hosts and companions capable of being entertained by something nobler than mere pleasantry. "when wit," says sydney smith, "is combined with sense and information; when it is in the hands of one who can use it and not abuse it (and one who can despise it); who can be witty and something more than witty; who loves decency and good nature ten thousand times better than wit,--wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of conversation." opinions as to what good nature is would perhaps vary. "you may be good-natured, sir," said boswell to doctor johnson, "but you are not good-humored." the speech of men and women is diverse and variously characteristic. all people say "good morning," but no two of god's creatures say it alike. their words range from a grunt to gushing exuberance; and one is as objectionable as the other. even weighty subjects can be talked about in tones of badinage and good breeding. plato in his wonderful conversations always gave his subject a fringe of graceful wit, but beneath the delicate shell there was invariably a hard nut to be cracked. if good nature above all is sincere, it will escape being gushing. the hypocrisy which says, "my dear mrs. so-and-so, i'm perfectly delighted to see you; do sit right down on this bent pin!" is not good nature; it is pure balderdash. thoughtful dinner-guests take pains not to monopolize the conversation. they bring others of the company into their talk, giving them opportunities of talking in their turn, and listening themselves while they do so: "you, mr. brown, will agree with me in this"; or, "mr. black, you have had more experience in such cases than i have; what is your opinion?" the perfection of this quality of conversational charm consists in that rare gift, the art of drawing others out, and is as valuable and graceful in guests as in hosts. the french have some dinner-table conventions which to us seem strange. at any small dining of eight or ten people the talk is always supposed to be general. the person who would try to begin a _tête-à-tête_ conversation with the guest sitting next to him at table would soon find out his mistake. general conversation is as much a part of the repast as the viands; and wo to the unwary mortals who, tempted by short distances, start to chatter among themselves. a diner-out must be able to hold his own in a conversation in which all sorts of distant, as well as near, contributors take part. of course, this implies small dinners; but english-speaking people, even in small gatherings, do not attempt general conversation to such an extent. they consider it a difficult matter to accomplish the diagonal feat of addressing guests at too great a distance. dinner-companions, however, should be alert to others of the conversational group. a guest can as easily lead the talk into general paths as can a host or hostess. indeed, it is gracious for him to do this, tho it is not his duty. the duty lies entirely with a host or hostess. at any time through the dinner a guest can help to make conversation general: if some one has just told in a low voice, to a right-hand or left-hand neighbor alone, some clever impersonal thing, or a good anecdote, or some interesting happening suitable to general table-talk, the guest can get the attention of all present by addressing some one at the furthest point of the table from him: "mr. snow, miss frost has just told me something which will interest you, i know, and perhaps all of us: miss frost, please tell mr. snow about," _et cetera_. miss frost, then, speaking a little louder in order that mr. snow may hear, engages the attention of the entire table. the moment any one round the table thus invites the attention of the whole dinner-group, dinner-companions should drop instantly their private chats and join in whatever general talk may ensue on the topic generally introduced. the thread of their _tête-à-tête_ conversation can be taken up later as the general table-talk is suspended. a narration or an anecdote should not be long drawn out. a dinner-guest, or a host, or a hostess, is for the time being a conversationalist, not a lecturer. it is the unwritten law of successful dinner-talk that no one person round the table should keep the floor for more than a few short sentences. the point in anecdotes should be brought out quickly, and no happening of long duration should be recounted. a guest in telling any experience can break his own narration up into conversation by drawing into his talk, or recital, others who are interested in his hobby or in his experience. responses to toasts at banquets may be somewhat longer than the individual speeches of a single person in general table-talk; but any dinner-speaker knows that even his response runs the risk of being spoiled if extended beyond a few minutes. there are never-failing topics of interest and untold material out of which to weave suitable dinner-talk, provided it is woven in the right way. and this weaving of talk is an art in which one may become proficient by giving it attention, just as one becomes the master of any other art by taking thought and probing into underlying principles. so in the art of talking well, even naturally fluent talkers need by faithful pains to get beyond the point where they only happen to talk. they need to attain that conscious power over conversational situations which gives them precision and grace in adapting means to ends and a fine discrimination in choosing among their resources. a one-sided conversation between companions is deadly unless discrimination is used in the matter of listening as well as talking. for instance: _mr. cook_: "don't you think the plan of building a great riverside drive a splendid one?" _miss brown_: "yes." _mr. cook_: "the new york drive is one of the joys of life; it gives more unalloyed pleasure than anything i know of." _miss brown_: "yes." unless under conditions suitable to listening and not to talking, mr. cook might feel like saying to miss brown, as a bright young man once said to a quiet, beautiful girl: "for heaven's sake, miss mary, say something, even if you have to take it back." while it is true that listening attentively is as valuable and necessary to thoroughly good conversation as is talking one's self, good listening demands the same discretion and discrimination that good talking requires. it is the business of any supposedly good conversationalist to discern when and why one must give one's companion over to soliloquy, and when and why one must not do so. the dining-room is both an arena in which talkers fight with words upon a field of white damask, and a love-feast of discussion. if guests are neither hatefully disputatious, nor hypocritically humble, if they are generous, frank, natural, and wholly honest in word and mind, the impression they make cannot help being agreeable. chapter v talk of host and hostess at dinner _the amalgam for combining guests--hosts' talk during the quarter of an hour before dinner--seating guests to enhance conversation--number of guests for the best conversation--directing the conversation at dinner--drawing guests out--signaling for conversation--general and_ tête-à-tête _conversation--putting strangers at ease--steering talk away from offensive topics--the gracious host and hostess--an ideal dinner party._ chapter v the talk of host and hostess at dinner sydney smith, by all accounts a great master of the social art, said of himself: "there is one talent i think i have to a remarkable degree: there are substances in nature called amalgams, whose property it is to combine incongruous materials. now i am a moral amalgam, and have a peculiar talent for mixing up human materials in society, however repellent their natures." "and certainly," adds his biographer, "i have seen a party composed of materials as ill-sorted as could possibly be imagined, drawn out and attracted together, till at last you would believe they had been born for each other." but this rôle of moral amalgam is such a difficult one, it must be performed with such tact and delicacy, that hostesses are justified in employing whatever mechanical aids are at their command. in dinner-giving, the first process of amalgamation is to select congenial people. dinners are very often flat failures conversationally because guests are invited at random. choosing the lesser of two evils, it is better to run the risk of offending than to jeopardize the flow of talk by inviting uncongenial people. when dinners are given to return obligations it is not always easy to arrange profitably the inviting and seating of guests. but the judgment displayed just here makes or mars a dinner. a good way out of the difficulty, where hosts have obligations to people of different tastes and interests, is to give a series of dinners, and to send the invitations out at the same time. if mrs. x. is asked to dine with mrs. z. the evening following the dinner to which mrs. z. has invited mrs. y., mrs. x. is not offended. to see that there is no failure of tact in seating guests should be the next process of amalgamation. to get the best results a great deal of care should be bestowed upon the mixture of this human salad. guests should be seated in such a way that neighbors at table will interest each other; a brilliant guest should be placed where he may at least snatch crumbs of intellectual comfort if his near companions, tho talkative, are not conversationalists of the highest order; the loquacious guest should be put next to the usually taciturn, provided he is one who can be roused to conversation when thrown with talkable people. otherwise one of the hosts should devote himself to the business of promoting talk with the uncommunicative but no less interesting person. a wise hostess will consider this matter of seating guests in connection with selecting and inviting them. it is, therefore, one of the subordinate and purely mechanical processes of the real art of amalgamation. if hosts forget nothing that will tempt a guest to his comfort, they will remember above all the quarter of an hour before dinner, and will begin the actual conquest of amalgamation while their friends are assembling. by animation and cordiality they will put congenial guests in conversation with each other, and will bring forth their mines of things old and new, coining the ore into various sums, large and small, as may be needed. in some highly cultured circles, men and women are supposed to be sufficiently educated and entertaining to require no literary or childish aids to conversation. every dinner-giver, however, knows the device of suitable quotations, or original sayings, or clever limericks, on place-cards, and the impetus they give to conversation between dinner-companions as the guests are seated. but the responsibility of host and hostess does not end when they thus furnish dinner-companions a conversational cue. "this is why," as has been well said by canon ainger, "a dinner party to be good for anything, beyond the mere enjoyment of the menu, should be neither too large nor too small. some forgotten genius laid it down that the number should never be less than that of the graces, nor more than that of the muses, and the latter half of the epigram may be safely accepted. ten as a maximum, eight for perfection; for then conversation can be either dialog, or may spread and become general, and the host or hostess has to direct no more than can profitably be watched over. it is the dinner party of sixteen to twenty that is so terrible a risk.... good general conversation at table among a few is now rather the exception, from the common habit of crowding our rooms or our tables and getting rid of social obligations as if they were commercial debts. indeed many of our young people have so seldom heard a general conversation that they grow up in the belief that their only duty in society will be to talk to one man or woman at a time. so serious are the results of the fashion of large dinner parties. for really good society no dinner-table should be too large to exclude general conversation." at a banquet of thirty or forty, for instance, general talk is impossible. at such banquets toasts and responses take the place of general talk; but at small dinners it is gracious for a host and hostess to lead the conversation often into general paths. ignoring a host and hostess through the various courses of a three hours' dining, which i have already mentioned, can as easily be the fault of the host and hostess themselves as it can be due to inattention on the part of guests. a host and hostess should no more ignore any one guest than any one guest should ignore them; and if they sit at their own table, as i have sometimes seen hosts and hostesses do, assuming no different function in the conversation than if they were the most thoughtless guest at the table of another, they cannot expect their own guests to be anything but petrified, however instinctively social. the conversational duty of a host and hostess is, therefore, to the entire company of people assembled at their board, as well as especially to their right-hand neighbors, the guests of honor. it is the express function of a host and hostess to see that each guest takes active part in general table-talk. leading the talk into general paths and drawing guests out thus become identical. it is this promoting of general conversation which is the backbone of all good talk. many people, however, do not need to be drawn out. mr. mahaffy cautions: "above all, the particular guest of the occasion, or the person best known as a wit or story-teller, should not be pressed or challenged at the outset, as if he were manifestly exploited by the company." such a guest can safely be left quite to himself, unless he is a stranger. as drawing out the people by whom one finds one's self surrounded in society will be treated in a forthcoming essay, i shall not deal with it here further than to tell how a famous pun of charles lamb's gave a thoughtful host not only the means of swaying the conversation of the entire table to a subject of universal interest, but as well the means of drawing out a well-informed yet timid girl. guiding his talk with his near neighbor into a discussion of the _pros_ and _cons_ of punning, he attracted the attention of all his guests by addressing some one at the further end of the table: "mr. white, we were speaking of punning as a form of wit, and it reminded me that i have heard miss black, at your left, repeat a clever pun of charles lamb's--a retort he made when some one accused him of punning. miss black, can you give us that pun? i'm afraid i've forgotten it." in order that her host and all the table might hear her distinctly, miss black pitched her voice a little higher than in talk with her near neighbors and responded quickly: "i'll try to remember it, yes: "'if i were punish-ed for every pun i've shed, i should not have a puny shed wherein to lay my punished head!'" thus miss black was not only drawn out, she was also drawn _into_ the conversation and became the center of an extended general discussion on the very impersonal and interesting subject of punning. as the talk on punning diverged, the conversation gradually fell back into private chats between dinner-companions. a host or hostess will know intuitively when the conversation has remained _tête-à-tête_ long enough, and will once more make it general. when guests pay due attention to their host and hostess, the talk will naturally be carried into general channels, especially where guests are seated a little distance away. even in general conversation a good story, if short and crisp, is no doubt a good thing; but when either a host or a guest does nothing but "anecdote" from the soup to the coffee, story-telling becomes tiresome. anecdotes should not be dragged in by the neck, but should come naturally as the talk about many different subjects may suggest them. it is the duty of the host and hostess, and certainly their pleasure, to make conversational paths easy for any strangers in a strange land. it does not follow that a host and hostess are always well acquainted with all their guests. there are instances where they have never even met some of them. an invitation is extended to the house-guest of a friend; or some person of distinction temporarily in the vicinity is invited, the formality of previous calls being waived for this reason or that. unless a hostess can feel perfectly safe in delegating to some one else the entertaining of a stranger, it is wise to seat this guest as near to herself as possible, even tho he is not made a guest of honor. she can thus learn something about her new acquaintance and put the stranger on an equal conversational footing with the guests who know each other well. in their zeal to give their friends pleasure, a host or hostess often tells a guest that he is to take a particularly brilliant woman in to dinner, and the woman is informed that she is to be the neighbor of a notably clever man. to one whose powers are brought out by being put on his mettle this might prove the best sort of conversational tonic; on the other hand it might be better tact to say that tho a certain person has the reputation of being exceptionally clever, he is, in truth, as natural as an old shoe; that all one has to do to entertain him is to talk ordinarily about commonplace topics. in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this is so. some one is responsible for the epigram: "a great man always lives a great way off"; and it is true that when we come to know really great people we find that they are as much interested as any one else in the commonplaces of life. indeed, the more intellectual people are, the more the homely things of life interest them. when tennyson was once a passenger on a steamer crossing the english channel, some people who had been assigned to seats opposite him in the dining saloon learned that their neighbor at table was the great poet. in a flutter of interest they listened for the wisdom which would drop from the distinguished man's mouth and heard the hearty words, "what fine potatoes these are!" this particular point requires nice discernment on the part of host and hostess; they should know when they may safely impress one guest with the cleverness of the other, and when it would be disastrous to do so. suppose the consequence is that each guest waits for the sparkling flow of wit from the other, and to the consternation of the host and hostess there is profound silence between two really interesting people on whose cleverness they had counted to make their dinner a success! it is also the province of a host and hostess tactfully to steer the drift of general table-talk away from topics likely to offend the sensibilities of any one guest. hosts owe not only attention but protection to every person whom they ask to their home, and it devolves upon them to interpose and come to the rescue if a guest is disabled in any way from doing himself any sort of conversational justice. swaying conversation round and over topics embarrassing to any guest requires the utmost tact and delicacy on the part of a host and hostess; for in keeping one guest from being wounded or embarrassed, the offender himself must not be made to feel conscious of his misstep. indeed he may be, and usually is, quite unconscious of the effect his words are having on those whom he does not know well. any subject which is being handled dangerously must be _juggled_ out of sight, and the determination to juggle it must be concealed. tho it is quite correct for one to say one's self, "i beg pardon for changing the subject abruptly," nothing is worse form than to say to another, "change the subject," or, "let us change the subject." to do this is both rude and crude. directing conversation means leading talkers unconsciously to talk of something else. any guest, as well as a host or hostess, may graciously steer conversation when it touches a subject some phase of which is likely to offend sensitive and unsophisticated people. at a series of dinners given to a circle of philosophic minds religious intolerance was largely the subject of discussion. the circle, for the most part well known to each other, was of liberal belief. a guest appeared among them, and it was known only to one or two that this man was a sincere catholic. as the talk turned upon religious discussion, one of the guests so directed the conversation as to bring out the information that the stranger was a catholic by faith and rearing. this was a very kind and appropriate thing to do. it acquainted the hostess with a fact of which she was ignorant; and it gave all present a feeling of security in whatever they might say. a hospitable host and hostess will not absorb the conversation at their table. they will render the gracious service of furnishing a background for the cleverness of others, rather than display unsparingly their own brilliancy. indeed, a man or woman does not have to be brilliant or intellectual to succeed in this most gracious of social arts. the host or hostess who possesses sympathy and tact will surpass in dinner-giving the most brilliant person in the world who selfishly monopolizes conversation at his own table. if guests cannot go away from a dinner-table feeling better pleased with themselves, that campaign of hospitality has been a failure. when the self-satisfaction on their faces betrays the subtle art of the host and hostess in having convinced all their guests that they have made themselves interesting, then the acme of hospitality has been achieved. one of the most good-natured but most inane of men was one day chuckling at having been royally diverted at a dinner-party. "he was at mrs. x's," said some one. "how do you know that?" "indeed! don't i know her way? she'd make a raven go home rivaling the nightingale." to be able to make your guests better pleased with themselves is the greatest of all social accomplishments. "an ideal dinner party," says a famous london hostess, "resembles nothing so much as a masterpiece of the jeweler's art in the center of which is some crystalline gem in the form of a sparkling and sympathetic hostess round whom the guests are arranged in an effective setting." it would seem quite as necessary that a host prove a crystalline gem in this masterpiece of the jeweler's art. to be signally successful at dinner-giving, care to make the talk interesting is as necessary as care in the preparation of viands. really successful hosts and hostesses take as much precaution against fatalities in conversation as against those which offend the palate. while attending carefully to the polishing of the crystal and to the preparing of the menu which will make their table a delight, they remember that the intellect of their guests must be satisfied no less than their eyes and their stomachs. chapter vi interruption in conversation _its deadening effect on conversation--habitual interruption--nervous interruption--glib talkers--interrupting by over-accuracy--interruptions outside the conversation-circle--children and their interruption--good talk at table--anecdotes of children's appreciation of good conversation--the hostess who is "mistress of herself tho china fall."_ chapter vi interruption in conversation interruption, more surely than anything else, kills conversation. the effusive talker who, in spite of his facility for words, is in no sense a conversationalist, refuses to recognize the fact that conversation involves a partnership; that in this company of joint interest each party has a right to his turn in the conversational engagement. he ignores his conversational partners; he breaks into their sentences with his own speech before they have their words well out of their mouths. he has grown so habitual in his interrupting that he rattles on unconscious of the disgust he is producing in the mind of any well-bred, discriminating conversationalist who hears him. the best of talkers interrupt occasionally in conversation; but the unconscious, rude interruption of the habitual interrupter, and the unintentional, conscious interruption of the cultivated talker are easily discernible, and are two very different things. we are accustomed to think that children are the only offenders in interrupting; but, shades of the french _salon_, the crimes of the adults! the great pity about this positive phase of interrupting is that all habitual interrupters are totally unconscious that they continually break into the speeches of their conversers and literally knock their very words back into their mouths. robert louis stevenson pronounced this eulogy over his friend, james walter ferrier: "he was the only man i ever knew who did not habitually interrupt." now, you who read this may not believe that you are one of the violators of this first commandment of good conversation, "thou shalt not interrupt"; but stop to think what small chance you have of escape when only _one_ acquaintance of stevenson's was acquitted of this crime. one must become conscious of the fact that he continually interrupts before he can cease interrupting. the unconsciousness is what constitutes the crime; for conscious interruption ceases to be interruption. the moment a good talker is aware of having broken into the speech of his converser, he forestalls interruption by waiting to hear what was about to be said. he instantly cuts off his own speech with the conventional courtesy-phrase, "i beg your pardon," which is the same as saying, "pardon me for seeming to be unwilling to listen to you; i really am both willing and glad to hear what you have to say." and he proves his willingness by waiting until the other person can finish the thought he ventured upon. what better proof that conversation is listening as well as talking? sheer, nervous inability to listen is responsible for one phase of interruption to conversation. it is the interruption of the wandering eye which tells that one's words have not been heard. "the person next to you must be bored by my conversation, for it is going into one of your ears and out of the other," said a talker rather testily to his inattentive dinner-companion whose absent-minded and tardy replies had been snapping the thread of the thought until it grew intolerable. she was perhaps only a little less irritating than the man who became so unconscious in the habit of inattention that on one occasion his converser had scarcely finished when he began abstractedly: "yes, very odd, very odd," and told the identical anecdote all over again. there is another phase of interrupting which proceeds from the jerky talker whose remarks are not provoked by what his conversational partner is saying, with observation and answer, affirmation and rejoinder, but who waits breathlessly for a pause to jump in and tell some thought of his own. of this sort of talker dean swift wrote: "there are people whose manners will not suffer them to interrupt you directly, but what is almost as bad, will discover abundance of impatience, and lie upon the watch until you have done, because they have started something in their own thoughts, which they long to be delivered of. meantime, they are so far from regarding what passes that their imaginations are wholly turned upon what they have in reserve, for fear it should slip out of their memory; and thus they confine their invention, which might otherwise range over a hundred things full as good, and that might be much more naturally introduced." an anecdote or a remark will keep. we are not under the necessity of begrudging every moment that shortens our own innings; of interrupting our companion by our looks and voting him an impediment to our own much better remarks. a less objectionable phase of interrupting, because it as often springs from kind thought as from arrogance, is that of the conversationalist so anxious to prove his quickness of perception that he assumes to know what you are going to say before you have finished your sentence in your own mind, and to put an interpretation on your arguments before you are done stating them. his interpretation is as often exactly the opposite of your own as it is identical; and, right or wrong, the foisted-in explanation serves only to interrupt the sequence of thought. as early as 1832 a writer in the _new england magazine_ waxed wroth to pugilistic outburst against this form of interruption: "i have heard individuals praised for this, as indicating a rapidity of mind which arrived at the end before the other was half through. but i should feel as much disposed to knock a man down who took my words out of my mouth, as one who stole my money out of my pocket. such a habit may be a credit to one's powers, but not to one's modesty or good feeling. what is it but saying, 'my dear sir, you are making a very bungling piece of work with that sentence of yours; allow me to finish it for you in proper style.'" tho one is inclined to feel that this author could well have reserved his verbal scourging for more irritating forms of impertinent interruption, it is nevertheless true that people are more entirely considerate who allow their conversational partners to finish their statements without fear of being tript up. it is only lack of discrimination on the part of glib talkers to suppose that those who express themselves more deliberately are less interesting in conversation. the pig is one of the most rapidly loquacious of animals, yet no one would say that the pig is an attractive conversationalist. pope may have been slow in forming the mosaic of symbols which express so superbly the fact that "words are like leaves; and where they most abound much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found," but his deliberateness did not dim the wisdom, or interest, or beauty, of his lines. slow talkers, if allowed to express themselves in their own way, only add to the attractiveness of any group. why should we enjoy characterization more in literature and in drama than in life? "good talking," says stevenson, "is declarative of the man; it is dramatic like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you should shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the greatest loss in significance and perspicuity." the gradgrinds of society who are always coming down upon us with some horrible and unnecessary piece of fact are another form of interruption to good conversation. they stop you to remind you that the accident happened in tremont street, not in boylston; and they suspend a pertinent point in the air to inform you that it was mr. jones's eldest sister, not his youngest, who was abroad at the time of the san francisco earthquake. if some one refers to an incident as having occurred on the tenth of the month, they deem it necessary to stop the talker because they happen to know that it was on the ninth. people are often their own gradgrinds, interrupting themselves in the midst of a narration to correct some trivial mistake which has no bearing one way or the other on what they are saying. many otherwise good talkers are at times afflicted with aphasia and lose the simplest and most familiar word at just the crucial moment--the very word which is necessary to the point they wish to make. this happens more often with elderly people; and it was on such an occasion that i heard a catchword fiend, a moderately young person, use her pet phrase as a red lantern to stop better, if more halting, talk. "mr. black was telling me to-day about mr. white's being appointed to ---what do you call that office?" implored the dignified matron. "just call it anything, mrs. gray, a bandersnatch, or a buttonhook, or a battering-ram," impertinently suggested the glib undergraduate who had been applying these words to everybody and everything, and who continued to do so until she had found a new catchword as the main substance of her conversation. the infirmities of age, as well as the mellowed wisdom of it, deserve the utmost consideration, especially from youth; and in this instance deference in aiding the elderly woman to find her word would have been more graceful than pleasantry, even if the pleasantry were of a less spurious kind. conversation suffers from outside interruptions as much as from interrupting directly within the conversational group. bringing very little children into grown-up company led charles lamb to propose the health of herod, king of the jews! society is no place for young children; and if older children are permitted to be present they should be led to listen attentively and to join the conversation modestly. if a child ventures an opinion or asks a question concerning the topic he is hearing discust, he should be welcomed into the conversation. his views should, in this case, be given the same consideration, no matter how immature, as the riper views of his elders; he should be made a legitimate part of the conversational group. either this, or he should be sent entirely away. there are no half measures in a matter of this sort. the parent's reiterated commands to "keep quiet," or "to be seen and not heard," interrupt as much as the child's prattle. furthermore, many a child's natural aptitude for talking well has been crusht by older people stifling every thought the youngster attempted to utter. a bright young girl of my acquaintance was so supprest by her parents from the age of seven to fifteen that she early acquired the habit of never opening her mouth without first getting the consent of father's eyebrow, or mother's. a child thus treated in youth grows up to be timid and halting in speech; his individuality and spontaneity are smothered. either let the children talk, meanwhile teaching them _how_ to converse, or send them off to themselves where they may at least express their thoughts to citizens of their own age. the very best conversational lesson that a child can be given is imparted when he is taught not to interrupt; when he is made to understand that he must either talk according to the niceties of thoroughly good conversation or must be sent away. it is often contended that children are out of place at a dining-table where even tolerable conversation is supposed to be carried on. this view is no doubt well taken regarding formal dinners; but round the family board is the best place in the world to implant in children the principles of good conversation and interesting table-talk. to this end family differences and unpleasantnesses should be left behind when the family goes to the table. parents should insist, as far as possible, that their children discuss at the dining-table only the pleasant and interesting happenings of the day. "first of all," says mr. mahaffy, "let me warn those who think it is not worth while taking trouble to talk in their family circle, or who read the newspaper at meals, that they are making a mistake which has far-reaching consequences. it is nearly as bad as those convent schools or ladies' academies, where either silence or a foreign tongue is imposed at meals. whatever people may think of the value of theory, there is no doubt whatever that practise is necessary for conversation; and it is at home among those who are intimate, and free in expressing their thoughts, that this practise must be sought. it is thus, and thus only, that young people can go out into the world properly provided with the only universal introduction to society--agreeable speech and manner." trampling on the social and conversational rights of the young was some time ago so well commented upon in _the outlook_ that i transfer part of the article to these pages. the editorial emphasized also the educational advantages of good table-talk in the home: "there is no educational opportunity in the home more important than the talk at table. children who have grown up in homes in which the talk ran on large lines and touched all the great interests of life will agree that nothing gave them greater pleasure or more genuine education.... perhaps one reason why some american children are aggressive and lacking in respect is the frivolity of the talk that goes on in some american families. if children are in the right atmosphere they will not be intrusive or impertinent. make place for their interests, their questions, the problems of their experience; for there are young as well as old perplexities. encourage them to talk, and meet them more than half-way by the utmost hospitality to the subjects that interest and puzzle them. give them serious attention; do not ridicule their confusion of statement nor belittle their troubles.... do not limit the talk at table to the topics of childhood, but make it intelligible to children. some people make the mistake of 'talking down' to their children; of turning the conversation at table into a kind of elaborate 'baby-talk'; not realizing that they are robbing their children of hearing older people talk about the world in which they live. the child is always looking ahead, peering curiously into the mysterious world round him, hearing strange voices from it, getting wonderful glimpses into it. at night when the murmur of voices comes upstairs, he hears in it the sounds of a future full of great things.... it is not, therefore, the child of six who sits at the table and listens; it is a human spirit, eager, curious, wondering, surrounded by mysteries, silently taking in what it does not understand to-day, but which will take possession of it next year and become a torch to light it on its way. it is through association with older people that these fructifying ideas come to the child; it is through such talk that he finds the world he is to possess.... the talk of the family ought not, therefore, to be directed at him or shaped for him; but it ought never to forget him; it ought to make a place for him." apropos of children's appreciation of good talk, this story is told of a young son of one of the clever men of chicago: guests were present and the boy sat quietly listening to the brilliant conversation of his elders, when his father suggested to paul that it was late and perhaps he had better go to bed. "please, father, let me stay," pleaded the youngster, "i do so enjoy interesting conversation." another and as deep a childlike appreciation comes from the classic city of our american cambridge. the little daughter of one of its representative families had lain awake for hours upstairs straining her ears to hear the conversation from below. when her mother came into the little one's room after her guests had gone, the tiny lady said plaintively, "mother dear, while i've been lying here all alone you were having such a liberal time downstairs." unconscious recognition of his just right to converse occasionally with older people was exprest naïvely by the little son of a prominent atlanta family when visiting friends on a plantation. "i like to stay here because you let me talk every day at the table," answered john, when his host asked him why he was pleased in the country. "don't they let you talk every day at home, john?" "oh, when father says 'give the kiddo a chance,' then they let me talk." this appreciation of his host's welcoming him into the conversation was a rare compliment from little john to his older friends and to their interest in child-life. another external and demoralizing interruption to talk is poor table-service. there can be no good conversation at table where the talk is constantly interrupted by wordy instructions to servants. a hostess who takes pride in the table-talk of her guests assures herself in advance that the maid or the butler serving the table is well trained, in order that no questions of servants can jeopardize the flow of conversation. if anything makes it necessary for serving maid or butler to confer with host or hostess, it should be done in an undertone so that conversation is not interrupted. but no matter how quietly the servant does this, the conversation _is_ interrupted by the mere fact that the attention of the host or hostess is diverted for even a moment from the subject being discust. in the home, as in the business office, efficient help means efficient management. it is a reflection on any hostess to have her table served so badly three hundred and sixty-five days in the year that the service is an interruption to table-talk. if she were capable herself, she would have a capable, well-trained maid or butler. if a maid or butler could not be trained properly, her capability would show itself in dismissing that servant and getting one who could be trained. to the end that conversation will not be interrupted, the "russian" method of dining-table service is preferable to all others, and is becoming as popular in america as in the rest of the world.[a] a host and hostess can themselves, by the very atmosphere they create, become an unconscious element of interruption to table-talk. to insure fluent conversation at table, hosts must be free from worry; they must cultivate imperturbability; they must be able to ignore or smile at any accident which might happen "in the best regulated family." there is nothing more distasteful to guests than to observe that their host is anxious lest the arrangements of the hostess miscarry, or that their hostess is making herself quite wretched by a fear that the dishes will not be prepared to perfection, or over the breaking of some choice bit of crystal. at a dinner recently i saw the hostess nervous enough to weep over an accident which demolished a treasured salad bowl; and the result was that it took strong effort on the part of a self-sacrificing and friendly guest to keep up the pleasant flow of talk. how much more tactful and delightful was the manner in which another hostess treated a similar situation. the guests were startled by a crash in the butler's pantry, and every one knew from the tinkling sound that it was cut glass. after a few words of instruction quietly given, the hostess laughingly said, "i hope there is enough glass in reserve so that none of you dear people will have to drink champagne from teacups." this was not only a charming, informal way of smoothing out an awkward situation, but it gave the poor butler the necessary confidence to finish serving the dinner. had the hostess been upset over the affair her agitation would have been communicated to the servants; and instead of one mishap there might have been several. a hostess should still "be mistress of herself tho china fall." in dinner-giving, as in life, it is the part of genius to turn disaster into advantage. "i was once at a dinner-party," said an accomplisht diner-out, "apparently of undertakers hired to mourn for the joints and birds in the dishes, when part of the ceiling fell. from that moment the guests were as merry as crickets." interrupting within the conversational group is perhaps the most insufferable of all impediments to rippling talk; and interruptions from without are quite as intolerable. what pleasure is there in conversation between two people, or among three or four, when the thought is interrupted every other remark? frequent references to subjects entirely foreign to the topic under discussion give conversation much the same jerky, sputtering ineffectualness as sticking a spigot momentarily in a faucet prevents an even flow of water from a tank. people who have any feeling for really good conversation do not allow needless hindrances to destroy the continuity and joy of their intercourse with friends and acquaintances. and people who do permit these interruptions are not conversationalists; they are mere drivelers. footnote: [footnote a: the author, if addrest "secretary for mary lavinia greer conklin, post office box 1239, boston, massachusetts," would be glad to give information about the russian method of serving, and would be pleased, also, to answer questions and to correspond with readers regarding any individual conversational situation in which they may find themselves, provided a self-addrest and stamped envelop is enclosed for reply.] chapter vii power of fitness, tact, and nicety in business words _why cultivating the social instinct adds strength to business persuasion--secret of the ability to use tactful and vivid words in business--essential training necessary to the nice use of words--business success depends upon nicety and tact more than on any quality of force._ chapter vii power of fitness, tact, and nicety in business words there is an aspect of business words which has to do with social tact. "the social tact of business words" sounds incongruous on first thought. business is largely force, to be sure; but a pleasing mien is often powerful where force would fail. training in social instinct and nicety is more essential to a man's commercial interests than is visible on the face of things. for instance: _customer_ (entering store)--"i wish a tin of 'cobra' boot polish, black." _dealer_--"sorry, madam, we do not stock 'cobra,' as we are seldom asked for it. do you wish polish for the class of shoes you are wearing?" to tell a customer abruptly, "we do not carry such-and-such a brand in stock" has the effect of leading her immediately to turn to go. this is not cordial, nor gracious, nor diplomatic; hence it is unbusiness-like. furthermore, to tell a customer that the brand she mentions is seldom asked for is immediately to question her judgment. the dealer, in this case, lost a chance to get attention on the part of his customer by failing to infer, the moment he mentioned her shoes, that she wore a good quality, had good taste, or common sense, or some such thing. his reply could have been vastly improved by an exercise of the social instinct. to answer her with some non-committal, tactful response would open up cordial relations at once and afford the chance easily and gracefully to lead the talk to another brand of polish. _dealer_--"do you prefer 'cobra' polish, madam? for high-grade shoes such as you wear we find this brand more generally serviceable and liked." telling expression, whether in business or in the drawing-room, depends as much upon how one says a thing as upon what one says; as much upon what one refrains from saying as upon what one does say. what is the secret of the ability to put thought into tactful as well as vivid words? or is there a secret? there are those who invariably say the right word in the right way. the question is: how have they found it possible to do this; how have they learned; how have they brought the faculty of expression to a perfected art? or was this ability born in them? or, if there is a secret of proficiency, do the adroit managers of words guard their secret carefully? and if so, why? piano artists, and violin artists, and canvas artists, and singing artists, are uniformly proud of the persevering practise by which they win success. why should not ready writers and ready talkers be just as proud of honest endeavor? are they so vain of the praise of "natural facility for expression" that they seldom acknowledge the steps of progression by which they falteringly but tenaciously climb the ladder of their attainment? a few great souls and masters of words have been very honest about the ways and means by which they became skilful phrase-builders. robert louis stevenson, as perfect in his talk as in his written expression, said of himself: "tho considered an idler at school, i was always busy on my own private ends, which was to learn to use words. i kept two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. as i walked my mind was busy fitting what i saw with appropriate words. as i sat by the roadside a penny version book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene. thus i lived with words. and what i thus wrote was written consciously for practise. i had vowed that i would learn to write; it was a proficiency that tempted me, and i practised to acquire it. i worked in other ways also; often accompanied my walks with dialogs and often exercised myself in writing down conversations from memory. this was excellent, no doubt; but there was perhaps more profit, as there was certainly more effort, in my secret labors at home.[b] that is the way to learn expression. it was so keats learned, and there was never a finer temperament for literature than keats's; it was so, if we could trace it out, that all men have learned." what, then, is the essential training necessary to the nice handling of words? the idea is quite general that an extensive vocabulary alone makes thought flow exactly off the tip of one's tongue or pen. but is this true? one should have a command of words, to be sure; one should know more descriptive words than "awful, fierce, fine, charming"--terms used in an unthinking way by people who do not concern themselves with specific adjectives. but to know how to use a vocabulary is of even more importance than to possess one. indeed, merely to possess a vocabulary without the ability to weave the words into accurate, characterized designs on an effective background is ruinous to the success of any talker or writer. to employ an extensive vocabulary riotously is worse than to own none. when the poet keats wrote those well-known lines, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever its loveliness increases," the first line stood originally: "a thing of beauty is a constant joy." the poet knew that this was the thought he wanted, but he felt that it had not the simple, virile swing he coveted. and so the line remained for many months, "a thing of beauty is a constant joy," in spite of the author's many attempted phrasings to improve it. finally the simple word "forever" came to him, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever." then he had it, and he knew he had it--the essential note, the exact word. certainly the word "forever" was a part of keats's vocabulary; he undoubtedly knew this simple word. it was not the word, but adroitness in using it, which made keats's lines complete in their polished and natural perfection. one of the world's worshiped piano virtuosi, who has quite as intellectual a comprehension of words as of music, was asked by the editor of a magazine to contribute biographical data and photographs for an article on musical composers. the pianiste had published no compositions, and the gracious answer swung readily into line: "if your article is to deal exclusively with musical composers, i cannot be included. i have never published any of my compositions because i feel that they cannot add anything to my reputation as a pianiste, of which i am----" just here, as with keats's line, vocabulary could not serve the purpose. the pianiste could have said "of which i am proud." no, a modest phrase must express honest pride--"my reputation as a pianiste which i guard sedulously," or "defend zealously." no, this the exactness and simplicity of true art rejected. then came the simple, perfect phrasing--"my reputation as a pianiste, of which i am somewhat jealous." unquestionably, as with keats's word "forever," the word "jealous" was perfectly familiar. it was not any one exceptional word which was necessary, but a weaving of simple words--if i may be permitted the expression. here, in order to get the effect desired this master-mind refrained from using a vocabulary. words came readily enough; but the tongue was in command of silence because pretentious words failed the end. this perfection of expression is not a matter of vocabulary alone. it is more than vocabulary; it is a grappling after the really subtle and intellectual elements of the art of expression and persuasion. of what use all the delicately tinted tapestry threads in the world, spread out before a tapestry-worker, if he does not possess the ability to weave them into faultless designs, employing his colors sparingly here, and lavishly there? "one's tongue and pen should be in absolute command, whether for silence or attack," says stevenson again; and, more than on any quality of force, business success depends upon that same nicety in the use of words which selects the tactful expression, the modest and simple phrase, in the drawing-room; the sort of nicety which is unobtrusive exactness and delicacy; an artistry which in no way labels itself skilful. but underneath all, the woof of the process is social skill--that skill which is the ability to go back to unadorned first principles with the dexterity of one who has acquired the power to do the simple thing perfectly by having mastered the entire gamut of the complex. footnote: [footnote b: even stevenson acknowledged secrecy in his earlier climbings.] chapter viii conclusion _conversation is reciprocal--good conversationalists cannot talk to the best advantage without confederates--as in whist, it is the combination which effects what a single whist-playing genius cannot accomplish--good conversation does not mark a distinction among subjects; it denotes a difference in talkability--the different degrees of talkability--imperturbable glibness impedes good conversation--ease with which one may improve one's conversational powers._ chapter viii conclusion good conversation, then, is like a well-played game of whist. each has to give and take; each has to deal regularly round to all the players; to signal and respond to signals; to follow suit or to trump with pleasantry or jest. and neither you yourself, nor any other of the players, can win the game if even one refuses to be guided by its rules. it is the combination which effects what a single whist-playing genius could not accomplish. good conversation, therefore, consists no more in the thing communicated than in the manner of communicating; no more than good whist consists entirely in playing the cards without recognizing even one of the rules of the game. one cannot talk well about either cabbages or kings with one whose attention wanders; with one who delivers a sustained soliloquy, or lecture, and calls it conversation; with one who refuses to enter into amicable discussion; or, when in, does nothing but contradict flatly; with one who makes abrupt transitions of thought every time he opens his mouth; with one, in short, who has never attempted to discover even a few of the thousand and one essential hindrances and aids to conversation. as david could not walk as well when sheathed in saul's armor, so even nimble minds cannot do themselves justice when surrounded by people whose every utterance is demoralizing to any orderly and stimulating exchange of ideas. "for wit is like a rest held up at tennis, which men do the best with the best players," said sir foppling flutter; and few would refuse to admit that fortunate circumstances of companionship are as much a factor of good conversation as is native cleverness. satisfactory conversation does not depend upon whether it is between those intellectually superior or inferior, or between strangers or acquaintances; but upon whether, mentally superior or inferior, known or unknown, each party to the conversation talks with due recognition of its first principles. there are, to be sure, different classes of talkers. there are those of the glory of the sun and others of the glory of the moon. it is easy enough to catch the note of the company in which one finds one's self; but the most entertaining and captivating person in the world is petrified when he can not put his finger on one confederate who understands the simplest mandates of his art, whether talking badinage or wisdom. without intelligent listeners, the best talker is at sea; and any good conversationalist is defeated when he is the only member of a crowd of interrupters who scream each other down. conversation is essentially reciprocal, and when a good converser flings out his ball of thought he knows just how the ball should come back to him, and feels balked and defrauded if his partner is not even watching to catch it, much less showing any intention of tossing it back on precisely the right curve. "the habit of interruption," says bagehot, "is a symptom of mental deficiency; it proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds." it is impossible for a good talker to talk to any advantage with a companion who does not concern himself in the least with anybody's mental processes--not even his own. given conversation which is marked by conformity to all its unwritten precepts, "men and women then range themselves," says henry thomas buckle, "into three classes or orders of intelligence. you can tell the lowest class by their habit of talking about nothing else but persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to talk about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." discussion is the most delightful of all conversation, if the company are _up to it_; it is the highest type of talk, but suited only to the highest type of individuals. therefore, a person who in one circle might observe a prudent silence may in another very properly be the chief talker. highly bred and cultured people have attained a certain unity of type, and are interested in the same sort of conversation. "talk depends so wholly on our company," says stevenson. "we should like to introduce falstaff and mercutio, or falstaff and sir toby; but falstaff in talk with cordelia seems even painful. most of us, by the protean quality of man, can talk to some degree with all; but the true talk that strikes out all the slumbering best of us comes only with the peculiar brethren of our spirits.... and hence, i suppose, it is that good talk most commonly arises among friends. talk is, indeed, both the scene and the instrument of friendship." on the whole, then, the very best social intercourse is possible only when there is equality. hazlitt in one of his delightful essays has said that, "in general, wit shines only by reflection. you must take your cue from your company--must rise as they rise, and sink as they fall. you must see that your good things, your knowing allusions, are not flung away, like the pearls in the adage. what a check it is to be asked a foolish question; to find that the first principles are not understood! you are thrown on your back immediately; the conversation is stopt like a country-dance by those who do not know the figure. but when a set of adepts, of _illuminati_, get about a question, it is worth while to hear them talk." if we are to have a rising generation of good talkers, by our own choice and deliberate aim social intercourse should be freed from the barbarisms which so often hamper it. conversation at its highest is the most delightful of intellectual stimulants; at its lowest the most deadening to intellect. better be as silent as a deaf-mute than to indulge carelessly in imperturbable glibness which impedes rather than encourages good conversation. really clever people dislike to compete in a race with talkers who rarely speak from the abundance of their hearts and often from the emptiness of their heads. on the other hand, one can easily imagine a sage like emerson the victim of conceited prigs, listening to their vapid conversational performances, and can readily understand why he considered conversation between two congenial souls the only really good talk. marked conversational powers are in some measure natural and in some acquired; "and to maintain," says mr. mahaffy, "that they depend entirely upon natural gifts is one of the commonest and most widely-spread popular errors.... it is based on the mistake that art is opposed to nature; that natural means _merely_ what is spontaneous and unprepared, and artistic what is _manifestly_ studied and artificial.... ask any child of five or six years old, anywhere over europe, to draw you the figure of a man, and it will always produce very much the same kind of thing. you might therefore assert that this was the _natural_ way for a child to draw a man, and yet how remote from nature it is. if one or two children out of a thousand made a fair attempt, you would attribute this either to special genius or special training--and why? because the child had really approached nature." just as a child, either with talent for drawing or without it, can draw a better picture of a man after he has been trained, than before, so can those not endowed by nature with ready speech polish and amend their natural defects. neither need there be artificiality or affectation in talk that is consciously cultivated; no more indeed than it is affectation to eat with a fork because one knows that it is preferable to eating with a knife. the faculty of talking is too seldom regarded in the light of a talent to be polished and variously improved. it is so freely employed in all sorts of trivialities that, like the dyer's hand, it becomes subdued to that it works in. canon ainger has declared positively that "conversation might be improved if only people would take pains and have a few lessons." nearly two hundred years before canon ainger came to this decision, dean swift contended that "conversation might be reduced to perfection; for here we are only to avoid a multitude of errors, which, altho a matter of some difficulty, may be in every man's power. therefore it seems that the truest way to understand conversation is to know the faults and errors to which it is subject, and from thence every man to form maxims to himself whereby it may be regulated, because it requires few talents to which most men are not born, or at least may not acquire, without any great genius or study. for nature has left every man a capacity for being agreeable, tho not of shining in company; and there are hundreds of people sufficiently qualified for both, who, by a very few faults that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable." it is recorded of lady blessington by lord lennox in his _drafts on my memory_ that in youth she did not give any promise of the charms for which she was afterwards so conspicuous, and which, in the first half of the nineteenth century, made gore house in london famous for its hospitality. a marriage at an early age to a man subject to hereditary insanity was terminated by her husband's sudden death, and in 1818 she married the earl of blessington. everything goes to prove that, in those few years during her first husband's life, she set herself earnestly to cultivating charm of manner and the art of conversation. talking well is given so little serious consideration that the average person, when he probes even slightly into the art, is as surprized as was molière's _bourgeois gentilhomme_ upon discovering that he had spoken prose for forty years. plato says: "whosoever seeketh must know that which he seeketh for in a general notion, else how shall he know it when he hath found it?" and if what i write on this subject enables readers to know for what they seek in good conversation, even in abstract fashion, i shall be grateful. when all people cultivate the art of conversation as assiduously as the notably good talkers of the world have done, there will be a general feast of reason and flow of soul; each will then say to the other, in milton's words, "with thee conversing, i forget all time." in preparation: _the art of drawing others out_ _conversation versus mere talk_ _following the trend of the conversation; abrupt transitions of thought_ _listening in conversation_ _some common errors in making introductions_ _raconteurs and their anecdotes_ _commonplaces of conversation_ _subjects for conversation; book talk_ _the give and take of talk_ _distinction between inquisitive questioning and "interest questions"_ _justifiable limits of wit, raillery, and humor_ _the use and abuse of slang_ _small talk: glib talkers_ _adjusting "shop" to the time, the place, and the situation_ _giving and accepting compliments_ _joking and jesting; difference between pleasantry and buffoonery_ _a softened mode of speech_ _brutal frankness and intellectual honesty_ _thrusting and parrying in conversation_ _the value in conversation of knowing "who's who"_ * * * * * transcriber's note the following changes have been made to the text: page 41: "it isn't so" changed to "it isn't so". page 65: "tannhaüser" changed to "tannhäuser". scanned images of public domain material from the google print archive. half hours with the idiot by john kendrick bangs * * * * * a little book of christmas a line o' cheer for each day o' the year half hours with the idiot half hours with the idiot by john kendrick bangs [illustration] boston little, brown, and company 1917 _copyright, 1917,_ by little, brown, and company. contents chapter page i as to ambassadors' residences 1 ii as to the fair sex 22 iii he goes christmas shopping 43 iv as to the income tax 65 v a psychic venture 84 vi on medical conservation 101 vii the u. s. telephonic aid society 119 viii for tired business men 137 i as to ambassadors' residences "i am glad to see that the government is beginning to think seriously of providing ambassadors' residences at the various foreign capitals to which our ambassadors are accredited," said the idiot, stirring his coffee with a small pocket thermometer, and entering the recorded temperature of 58 degrees fahrenheit in his little memorandum book. "that's a thing we have needed for a long time. it has always seemed a humiliating thing to me to note the differences between the houses of our government officials of equal rank, but of unequal fortune, abroad. to leave the home of an ambassador to great britain, a massive sixteen-story mausoleum, looking like a collision between a carnegie library and a state penitentiary, with seven baths and four grand pianos on every floor, with guides always on duty to show you the way from your bedchamber to the breakfast room, and a special valet for each garment you wear, from sock to collar, and go over to rome and find your ambassador heating his coffee over a gas-jet in a hall bedroom on the top floor of some dusty old palazzo, overlooking the garage of the spanish minister, is disconcerting, to say the least. it may be a symptom of american fraternity, but it does not speak volumes for western hemispherical equality, and the whole business ought to be standardized. an american embassy architecturally should not be either a twin brother to a renaissance lunatic asylum, or a replica of a four thousand dollar ladies' home journal bungalow that can be built by the owner himself working sunday afternoons for eight hundred dollars, exclusive of the plumbing." "you are right for once, mr. idiot," said the bibliomaniac approvingly. "the last time i was abroad traveling with one of those through europe in ten days parties, i could not make up my mind which was the more humiliating to me as an american citizen, the lavish ostentation of one embassy, or the niggardly squalor of another; and it occurred to me then that here was a first-class opportunity for some patriot to come along and do his country's dignity some good by pruning a little in one place, and fattening things up a bit in another." "quite so," said the idiot, inhaling a waffle. "and i have been hoping," continued the bibliomaniac, "that congress would authorize the purchase of suitable houses in foreign capitals for the purpose of correcting the evil." "that's where we diverge, sir," said the idiot, "as the lady said to her husband, when they got their first glimpse of the courthouse at reno. we don't want to purchase. we want to build. the home of an american ambassador should express america, not the country to which he is sent to ambass. there's nothing to my mind less appropriate than to find a diplomat from oklahoma named, let us say, dinkelspiel, housed in a louis fourteenth chateau on the champs eliza; or a gentleman from indiana dwelling in the palace of some noble but defunct homicidal duck of the sforza strain in rome; or a leading presbyterian representing us at constantinople receiving his american visitors in a collection of bargain-counter minarets formerly occupied by the secondary harem of the sublime porte. there is an incongruity about that sort of thing that, while it may add to the gaiety of nations, leaves uncle sam at the wrong end of the joke. when the thing is done it ought to be done from the ground up. uncle sam should always feel at home in his own house, and i contend that he couldn't really feel that way in an ex-harem, or in one of those cold-storage roman palazzos where the borgias used to dispense cyanide of potassium _frappé_ to their friends and neighbors. he doesn't fit into that sort of thing any more than he fits into those pink satin knee-breeches, and the blue cocked hat with rooster feathers that diplomatic usage requires him to wear when he goes to make a party call on the czar. so i am hoping that when congress takes the matter up it will consider only the purchase of suitable sites, and then go on to adopt a standardized residence which from cellar to roof, from state salon to kitchen, shall express the american idea." "you talk as if there were an american idea in architecture," said the doctor. "if there is such a thing to be found anywhere under the canopy, let's have it." "oh, it hasn't been evolved, yet," said the idiot. "but it soon would be if we were to put our minds on it. we can be just as strong on evolution as we always have been on revolution if we only try. the first thing would be for us to recognize that in his fullest development up to date the real american is a composite of everything that is best in all other nations. take my humble self for instance." "what, again?" groaned the bibliomaniac. "really, mr. idiot, you are worse than the measles. you can take that only once, but you--why, we've had you so often that it sometimes seems as if life were just one idiotic thing after another." "oh, all right," said the idiot. "in that case, let's take you for a dreadful example. what are you, anyhow, mr. bib, but the ultimate result of a highly variegated international complication in the matter of ancestry? your father was english; your mother was german. your grandparents were scotch, irish, and manx, with a touch of french on one side, and a mixture of hungarian, danish, and russian on the other. it is just possible that without knowing it you also contain traces of italian and spanish. your love of classic literature suggests that somewhere back in the ages one of your forbears swarmed about athens as a member of that famous clan, the hoi polloi. the touch of melancholy in your nature may be attributed to overindulgence in waffles, but it suggests also that scandinavia had a hand in the evolution of your ego. in other words, sir, you are a sort of human _pousse-café_, a mighty agreeable concoction, mr. bib, though a trifle dangerous to tackle at breakfast. now, as i wanted to say in the beginning, when you intimated that i was in danger of becoming chronic, i am out of the same box of ancestral odds and ends that you are. i am a mixture of dutch, french, english, and manx, with an undoubted strain of either ciceronian roman or demosthenesian greek thrown in--i'm not certain which--as is evidenced by my overwhelming predilection for the sound of my own voice." "that much is perfectly clear," interjected the bibliomaniac, "though the too-easy and overcontinuous flow of your speech indicates that your veins contain some of the torrential qualities of the ganges." "say rather the mississippi, mr. bib," suggested mr. brief. "the mississippi has the biggest mouth." "well, anyhow," continued the idiot, unabashed, "whether my speech suggests the unearthly, mystic beauty of the ganges, or the placid fructifying flow of the mississippi, the fact remains that the best american type is a composite of all the best that human experience has been able to produce in the way of a featherless biped since doctor darwin's friend, simian, got rid of his tail, preferring to sleep quietly on his back in bed rather than spend his nights swinging nervously to and fro from the limb of a tree. since we can't deny this, let's make a virtue of it, and act accordingly. what is more simple, then, than that a composite people should go in for a composite architecture to express themselves in marble, stone, and brick? acting on this principle let our architecture express the glory that was greece, the grandeur that was rome, the utility that was england, the economy that was scotch, the _espièglerie_ that was france, the simplicity that was holland, and the efficiency that was germany, not to mention the philandery that was constantinople. the problem will be how to combine all these various strains and qualities in one composite building, and that, of course, will have to be solved by architects. it isn't a thing like banking that under the theories of modern statesmanship can be settled by chauffeurs, tobacconists, and undertakers, but will require expert handling. i don't know very much about architecture myself, but off-hand i should say that the exterior of the building might be a combination of late victorian queen anne, softened somewhat with elizabethan suggestions of neo-gothic graeco-roman classicism; with a byzantine fullness about the eaves, relieved with a touch of hebridean french renaissance manifested in the rococo quality of the pergola effect at the front, the whole building welded into a less inchoate mass by a very pronounced feeling of georgian decadence, emphasized with a gambrel roof, and the façade decorated with flamboyant dutch fire escapes, bringing irresistibly to mind the predominance in all american art of the teutonic-doric, as shown in our tendency to gables supported by moorish pilasters done in hudson river brick. not being an architect myself i don't know that a building of that kind could be made to stand up, but we might experiment on the proposition by erecting a pan-european building in washington, and see whether it would stand or not. if it could stand through one extra session of congress without cracking, i don't see why it couldn't be put up anywhere abroad with perfect confidence that it would stay up through one administration, anyhow." "a nightmare of that kind erected in the capital city of a friendly power would be just cause for war to the knife!" said mr. brief. "well, i have an alternative proposition," said the idiot, "and i am not sure that it isn't far better than the other. why not erect a statue of liberty in every capital abroad, an exact reproduction of that monumental affair in new york harbor, and let our ambassadors live in them? they tell me there's as much room inside liberty's skirts as there is in any ordinary ten-story apartment house, and there is no reason why it should not be utilized. my suggestion would be to have all the offices of the embassies in the pedestals, and let the ambassador and his family live in the overskirt. there'd be plenty of room left higher up in the torso for guest chambers, and in the uplifted arm for nurseries for the ambassadorial children, and the whole could be capped with a magnificent banquet hall on the rim of the torch, at the base of the brazen flame." "a plan worthy of the gigantic intellect that conceived it," smiled the doctor. "but how would you have this thing furnished, mr. idiot? would that be done by the ambassadors themselves, or would the president have to call a special session of congress to tackle the job?" "i was coming to that," said the idiot. "it has occurred to me that it would be a fine thing to have forty-eight rooms in the statue, each named after one of our american states, and then leave it to each state to furnish its own room. this would lend a pleasing variety to the inside of the building that could hardly fail to interest the visitor, and would give the foreigners a very clear insight into our resources along lines of interior decorations. think of the massachusetts room, for example--a fine old horse-hair mahogany sofa in one corner; a rosewood highboy off in another; an old-fashioned four-poster bed projecting out into the middle of the room, and a blue china wash-bowl and pitcher on a spindle-legged washstand near by; and on the wall three steel engravings, one showing john hancock signing the declaration of independence, another of charles sumner preaching emancipation, and a third showing billy sunday trying to sweep back the waves of a damp boston from the sand dunes of a gradually drying commonwealth. then the michigan room would be a corker, lavishly filled with antique furniture fresh from grand rapids, and a bronze statuette of henry ford at each end of the mantelpiece for symmetry's sake, the ceiling given over to a symbolical painting entitled the confusion of bacchus, reproducing scenes in detroit when announcement was made that the good old state had voted for grape-juice as the official tipple. missouri's room could be made a thing of beauty and a joy forever, with its lovely wall paper showing her favorite sons, dave francis and champ clark alternately, separated by embossed hound-dogs, rampant, done in gilt bronze, and the state motto, show me, in red, white, and blue tiles over the fireplace. really i can't imagine anything more expressive of all-america than that would be. florida could take the palm room; new york the rather frigid and formal white and gold reception room; maine as the leading cold-water state of the union could furnish the bathrooms; california could provide a little cafeteria affair for a quick lunch in mission style, and owing to her pre-eminence in literature, the library could be turned over to indiana with every assurance that if there were not books enough to go round, any one of her deservedly favorite sons, from george ade to george mccutcheon, would write a five-foot shelfful at any time to supply the deficiency. "murally speaking, a plan of this sort could be made historically edifying also. florida could supply a handsome canvas showing ponce de leon discovering palm beach. in the new jersey room the battle of trenton could be shown, depicting the retreat of jim smith, and the final surrender of democracy to general wilson. ohio could emphasize in an appropriate medium the discovery of the oil fields by mr. rockefeller. pennsylvania could herald her glories with a mural painting apotheosizing william penn and andrew carnegie in the act of forging her heart of steel in the fires of immortality, kept burning by a never-ending stream of bonds poured forth from the end of a cornucopia by fortune herself. an heroic figure of governor blease defying the lightning would come gracefully from south carolina, and rhode island, always a most aristocratic little state, could emphasize the descent of some of her favorite sons from darwin's original inspiration by a frieze depicting a modern tango party at newport, in which the preservation of the type, and a possible complete reversion thereto, should be made imperishably obvious to all beholders. "then, to make the thing consistent throughout, the homes of ambassadors having been standardized, congress should order a standard uniform for her representatives abroad. this would settle once and for all the vexed question as to what an ambassador shall wear when presented to king this, or emperor that, or the ponkapog of thingumbob. i think it ought to be a definitely established principle that every nation should be permitted to choose its own official dud, but not the duds of others. there is no reason in the world why the king of england should be permitted to dictate the style of garments an american ambassador shall wear. suppose he ordered him to attend a five o'clock tea clad in yellow pajamas trimmed with red-plush fringe and gold tassels emerging from green rosettes? it would be enough to set the eagle screaming and to justify the sending of a commission of protest headed by mr. bryan over to london to slap mr. lloyd george on the wrist. nor should the kaiser be permitted to say how an american representative shall dress when calling upon him, compelling him to appear perhaps in a garb entirely unsuited to his style of beauty--something like the uniform of a glorified white wing, for instance, decorated with peacock feathers, and wearing an alpine hat with a stuffed parrot lying flat on its back on the peak, on his head. that sort of thing does not gee with our pretensions. we are a free and independent nation, and it is time to assert our independence of the sartorial shackles those foreign potentates would fasten upon us. let the fiat go forth that hereafter all american ambassadors wheresoever accredited shall wear a long blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons, and forty-eight stars, lit by electricity from a small battery concealed in the pistol pocket, appliquéd on the tails; red and white-striped doeskin trousers, skin tight, held down by straps under the boots; and an embroidered waist-coat, showing a couple of american eagles standing on their hind legs and facing the world with the defiant cry of we pluribus us; the whole topped off with a bell-crowned, fuzzy beaver hat, made of silver-gray plush, which shall never be removed in the presence of anybody, potentate or peasant, plutocrat or cook tourist. if in addition to these items the ambassador were compelled to wear a long, yellow chin whisker, it would be just the liverest livery that ever came down the pike of brummelian splendor. it would emphasize the presence of the american ambassador wherever he went, and make the effete nations of europe, asia, africa, and pan america sit up and take notice." "doubtless," said the bibliomaniac, rising impatiently. "and do you suppose the president could find any self-respecting american in or out of jail who would be willing to wear such a costume as that?" "well," said the idiot, "of course some of 'em might object, but i'll bet you four dollars and eighty-seven cents' worth of doughnuts against a chautauqua rain check that any man who offered you seventeen thousand five hundred dollars a year for wearing those duds without having the money to back the offer up would find your name at the head of the list of his preferred creditors in less than three shakes of a lamb's tail!" ii as to the fair sex "i observe with pain," said the idiot, as he placed the bibliomaniac's pat of butter under his top waffle, "that there is a more or less acrimonious dispute going on as to the propriety of admitting women to the hall of fame. the immortals already in seem to think that immortality belongs exclusively to the male order of human beings, and that the word is really 'him-mortality', and decline to provide even a strap for the ladies to hang on in the cars leading to the everlasting heights, all of which causes me to rejoice that i am not an immortal myself. if the one durable joy in life, the joy that neither crocks nor fades, association with the fair sex, a diversion which age cannot wither nor custom stale its infinite variety, is something an immortal must get along without, it's me for the tall timbers of fameless existence. i rejoice that i am but a plain, common-garden, everyday mortal thing, ready for shipment, f. o. b., for the last terminal station on the road to that well-known irish settlement, o'blivion." "i didn't know that you were such an admirer of the fair sex, mr. idiot," said the doctor. "many years' residence in a refined home for single gentlemen like this would seem to indicate that the allurements of feminine society were not for you." "quite the contrary," said the idiot. "it proves rather my interest in the fair sex as a whole. if i had specialized sufficiently upon one single blessed damozel with pink cheeks, snappy brown eyes, and a pompadour that might strike a soaring lark as the most desirable nest in the world, to ask her to share my lot, and go halves with me in an investment in the bonds of matrimony, it might have been said--i even hope it would have been said--that the allurements of feminine society were not for me. marriage, my dear doctor, is no symptom that a man is interested in women. it is merely evidence of the irresistible attraction of one person for another. it's like sampling a box of candy--you may find the sample extremely pleasing and gobble it up ferociously, but if you were to gobble up the whole box with equal voracity it might prove hateful to you. in my case, i confess that i am so deeply interested in the whole box of tricks that it is the sample i fight shy of, and i have remained single all these years because my heart is no miserable little one-horse-power affair that beats only for one single individual, but a ninety-million horse-power dynamo that whirls madly around day and night, on time and overtime, on behalf of all. i could not possibly bring myself to love only one pair of blue eyes to the utter exclusion of black, brown, or gray; nor can i be sure that if in some moment of weakness i were to tie up irrevocably to a pair of black eyes, somewhere, some day, with the moon just right, and certain psychological conditions wholly propitious, a pair of coruscating brown beads, set beneath two roguish eyebrows, would labor in vain to win a curve of interest from my ascetic upper lip. to put it in the brief form of a cable dispatch, rather than in magazine language at fifteen cents a word, i love 'em all! blonde, brunette, or in between, in every maid i see a queen, as shakespeare would have said if he had thought of it." "that's rather promiscuous, isn't it?" asked the bibliomaniac. "no, it's just playing safe, mr. bib," said the idiot. "it's like a man with a million dollars to invest. it isn't considered quite prudent for him to put every red cent of that million into one single stock. if he put his whole million into u. s. hot air preferred, at 97-7/8, for instance, and some day hot air became so cheap that the bottom dropped out of the market, and the stock fell to 8-3/8 that man would practically be a busted community. but if like a true sage he divided his little million up into twenty fifty-thousand dollar lots, and put each lot into some separate stock or bond, the general average would probably maintain itself somewhere around par whether the tariff on lyonnaise potatoes was removed or not. so it is with my affections. if i could invest them in some such way as that i might have to move out of here, and seek some pleasant little domestic eden where matrimony is not frowned upon." "i rather guess you would have to move out of here," sniffed mrs. pedagogy the landlady. "i might be willing to forego my rules and take somebody in here with one wife, but when a man talks about having twenty--why, i am almost disposed to give you notice now, mr. idiot." "don't you worry your kindly soul about me on that score, mrs. pedagog," smiled the idiot. "with ostrich feathers at seventy-five dollars a plume, and real connecticut sealskin coats made of angora plush going at ninety-eight dollars, and any old kind of a falal selling in the open market at a hundred and fifty per frill, there is no danger of my startling this company by bringing home one bride, much less twenty. i was only speculating upon a theoretical ideal of matrimony, a sort of _e pluribus unum_ arrangement which holds much speculative charm, but which in practice would undoubtedly land a man in jail." "i had no idea that any of my boarders could ever bring themselves to advance a single word in favor of polygamy," said the landlady sternly. "nor i," said the idiot. "i don't believe even mr. bib here would advocate anything of the sort. i was merely trying to make clear to the doctor, my dear lady, why i have never attempted to make some woman happy for a week and a martyr for the rest of time. it is due to my deep admiration for the whole feminine sex, and not, as he seemed to think, to a dislike of feminine society. the trace of polygamy which you seem to find in my discourse is purely academic, and it is clear to me that you have quite misunderstood my scheme. a true marriage, one of those absolutely indestructible companionships that we read about in poetry, involves so many more things than any ordinary human being is really capable of, that one who thinks about the matter at all cannot resist the temptation to speculate on how things might be if they were different. the active man of affairs these busy times needs many diverse things in the way of companionship. he needs a helpmate along so many different lines that no single daughter of eve can reasonably hope to supply them all. for example, if a man marries a woman who is deeply interested in ibsen and bernard shaw abroad, and deep thinkers like william j. bryan and thomas riley marshall at home, she no doubt makes him ecstatically happy in those solemn moments when his mind wishes to grapple understandingly with the infinite. but suppose that poor chap comes home some night worn to a frazzle with the worries and complications of his business affairs, his spirit fairly yearning for something fluffy and intellectually completely restful, do you suppose for a moment that he is going to be lifted out of the morass of his woe by a conversation with that lady of his on the subject of the inestimable infinitude of the protoplasmic suffragette as outlined by professor sophocles j. plato in the latest issue of the _south american review_? not he, my dear mrs. pedagog. what he wants on that occasion is somebody to sit alongside of him while he pulls away on his old briarwood pipe, holding his tired little paddy in her soft right hand, while she twitters forth george ade's latest fable on 'the flipper that flapped', or something else equally diverting. the reverse of the picture is equally true. if there is anything in the world that drives a man to despair it is to have to listen to five o'clock tea gabble when he happens to be in a mood for the alexander hamilton, or vice-president marshall style of discourse. the facts are the same in both cases. the bernard shaw lady is a delight to the heart and soul in his bernard shaw moods. the george ade lady is a source of unalloyed bliss in a george ade mood, but they don't reverse readily, and in most cases they can't reverse at all. then there are other equally baffling complications along other lines. a man may be crazy about poetry, and he falls in love, as he supposes, with a dainty little creature in gold-rimmed eyeglasses, who writes the most exquisite lyrics, simply because he thinks at the moment that those lyrics are going to make his life just one sweet song after another. he marries the little songbird, and then what happens?" "never having married a canary, i don't know," said the landlady, with a glance at her husband. "well, i'll tell you," said the idiot. "he has a honeymoon of lovely images. he feels like a colt put out to pasture on the slopes of parnassus. life runs along with the lilt of a patter song--and then, to indulge in a joke worthy of the palmiest days of london punch, he comes out of patter-song! there dawns a day when he is full chock-a-block up to his neck with poetry, and the inner man craves the re-enforcement of the kind of flapjacks his mother used to make. one good waffle would please him more than sixty-seven sonnets on the subject of 'aspiration.' nothing short of a lustrous, smoking, gleaming stack of fresh buckwheats can hold him on the pinnacle of joy, and the lovely little lyrist, to whom he has committed himself, his destinies, and all that he has under a vow for life, hies herself singing to the kitchen, mixes the necessary amount of concrete, serves the resulting dishes at the breakfast table, and gloom, gloom unmitigated, falls upon that house. after eating two of her cakes poor old hubby begins to feel as if he had swallowed the corner stone of a carnegie library. that lyric touch that herrick might have envied and tennyson have viewed with professional alarm has produced a buckwheat cake of such impenetrable density that the navy department, if it only knew about it, would joyously grant her the contract for furnishing the armor plate for the new superdreadnoughts we are about to build so as to be prepared for peace after germany gets through with us. while eating those cakes the victim speculates on that old problem, is suicide a sin? a cloud rises upon the horizon of his joy, and without intending any harm whatsoever, his mind involuntarily reverts to another little lady he once knew, who, while she couldn't tell the difference between a sonnet and a cabriolet, and had a dim notion when she heard people speaking of keats that keats were some sort of a shellfish found on the rocks of the hebrides at low tide, and much relished by the natives, could yet put together a tea biscuit so delicately tenuous of character that it melted in the mouth like a flake of snow on the smokestack of a pittsburgh blast furnace. thus an apparently secured joy loses its keen edge, and without anybody being really to blame, life becomes thenceforward, very gradually, but none the less surely, a mere test of endurance--a domestic marathon which must be run to the end, unless the runners collapse before reaching the finish." "for both parties!" snapped the landlady, pursing her lips severely. "you needn't think that the men are the only ones to suffer--don't you fool yourself on that point." "oh, indeed i don't, mrs. pedagog," said the idiot. "it's just as bad for the woman as for the man--sometimes a little worse, for there is no denying that women are after all more chameleonic, capable of a greater variety of emotions than men are. a man may find several women in one--in fact, he generally does. it is her frequent unlikeness to herself that constitutes the chief charm of some women. take my friend spinks' wife, for instance. she's the most exacting puritan at home that you ever met. poor spinksy has to toe a straight mark for at least sixteen hours out of every twenty-four. mrs. spinks rules him with a rod of iron, but when that little puritan goes to a club dance--well, believe me, she is the snappiest eyed, most flirtatious little tangoer in ninety-seven counties. sundays in church she is the demurest bit of sartorial impressiveness in sight, but at the bridge table you want to keep your eyes wide open all the time lest your comfortable little balance at the bank be suddenly transformed into a howling overdraft. i should say that on general principles mrs. spinks is not less than nine or ten women, all rolled into one--joan of arc, desdemona, lucrezia borgia, cleopatra, nantippe, juliet, mrs. pankhurst, eve, and the late carrie nation. but spinks--poor old spinksy--there's no infinite variety about him. at most spinks is only two men--mr. henpeck at home and mr. overworked when he gets out." "i suppose from all of this nonsense," said the landlady, "that your matrimonial ideal would be found in a household where a man rejoiced in the possession of a dozen wives--one frivolous little hebe for his joyous moods; one junoesque thundercloud for serious emergencies; one capable seamstress to keep his buttons sewed on; one first-class housekeeper to look after his domestic arrangements; one suffragette to talk politics to; one blue-stocking for literary companionship; one highly-recommended cook to preside over his kitchen; one musical wife to bang on the piano all day; one athletic girl for outdoor consumption, and a plain, common-garden giggler to laugh at his jokes." "i think i could be true to such a household, madame," said the idiot, "but please don't misunderstand me. i'm not advocating such a scheme. i am only saying that since such a scheme is impossible under modern conditions i think it is the best thing that ever happened to my wife that she and i never met." "do you think a household of that sort would be satisfied with you?" asked the bibliomaniac. "the chances are six to one that it wouldn't be," said the idiot. "i'd probably get along gloriously with hebe and the giggler, but i guess the others would stand a fair show of finding marriage a failure. wherefore am i wedded only to my fancies, content that my days should not be subjected to the strain of trying to be all things to one woman, preferring as i do to remain one thing to all women instead--their devoted admirer and willing slave." "well, to come back to the immortals," said the doctor. "you don't really think, do you, that we have any women immortals?" "of course, i do," replied the idiot. "the world is full of them, and always has been." mr. brief, the lawyer, tapped his forehead significantly. "i'm afraid that screw has come loose again, doctor," he said. "looks that way," said the doctor, "but we'll tighten it up again in a jiffy." he paused a moment, and then resumed. "well, mr. idiot," he said, "of course our ideas may differ on the subject of what makes an immortal. now, i should say that it is by their fruits that ye shall know them." "a highly original remark," observed the idiot, with a grin. "that aside," said the doctor, coolly, "let's take up, for purposes of discussion, a few standards. in music, wagner was an immortal, and produced his great trilogy. in poetry, milton was an immortal, and produced 'paradise lost.' in the drama, shakespeare was an immortal, and produced 'hamlet', and, coming down to our own time, let us grant the obvious fact that edison is headed toward immortality because of his wizardry in electricity." "sure thing!" said the idiot. "it is good to have you grant all i say so readily," said the doctor. "now then--let me ask you where in all history you find four women who in the matter of their achievement, in the demonstrated fruits of their labors, even measurably approached any one of these four i have mentioned?" "why, doctor," grinned the idiot, "why ask me to steal candy from a baby? why suggest that i try to drive a tack with a sledgehammer, or cut a mold of currant jelly with the whirring teeth of a buzz saw--" "sparring for time as usual," cried the doctor triumphantly. "you can't name one, and are simply trying to asphyxiate us with that peculiar variety of natural gas for which you have long been famous." "i'll fill the roster with examples if you'll sit and listen," said the idiot. "i can match every male genius that ever lived from noah down to josephus daniels with a woman whose product was of equal if not even greater value. begin where you please--in any century before or since the flood, and i'll be your huckleberry--wagner, milton, cromwell, roosevelt, secretary daniels, kaiser wilhelm, methuselah--i don't care who or what he is--i'll match him." "all right," said the doctor. "suppose we begin low with that trifling little frivoler in literature, william shakespeare!" "good!" cried the idiot. "he'll do--i'll just mark him off with mrs. shakespeare." "what?" chuckled the doctor. "anne hathaway?" "no," said the idiot. "not anne hathaway, but shakespeare's mother." "oh, tush!" ejaculated the bibliomaniac impatiently. "what rot! a wholly unknown provincial person of whom the world knows about as much as a beetle knows about mars. what on earth did she ever produce?" "shakespeare!" said the idiot, in an impressive basso-profundo tone that echoed through the room like a low rumble of thunder. and a silence fell upon that table so deep, so abysmally still, that one could almost hear the snowflakes falling upon the trolley tracks sixteen blocks away. iii he goes christmas shopping "mercy, mr. idiot," cried mrs. pedagog, as the idiot entered the breakfast room in a very much disheveled condition, "what on earth has happened to you? your sleeve is almost entirely torn from your coat, and you really look as if you had been dropped out of an aëroplane." "yes, mrs. pedagog," said the idiot, wearily, "i feel that way. i started in to do my christmas shopping early yesterday, and what you now behold is the dreadful result. i went into jimson and slithers' department store to clean up my christmas list, and, seeing a rather attractive bargain table off at one end of the middle aisle, in the innocence of my young heart, i tried to get to it. it contained a lot of mighty nice, useful presents that one could give to his friends and relatives and at the same time look his creditors in the face--pretty little cakes of pink soap made of rose leaves for five cents for three; lacquered boxes of hairpins at seven cents apiece; silver-handled toothpicks at two for five; french-gilt hatpins, with plate-glass amethysts and real glue emeralds set in their heads for ten cents a pair, and so on. seen from the floor above, from which i looked down upon that busy hive, that bargain table was quite the most attractive thing you ever saw. it fairly glittered with temptation, and i went to it; or at least i tried to go to it. i had been so attracted by the giddy lure of the objects upon that table that i failed to notice the maelstrom of humanity that was whirling about it--or perhaps i would better say the fe-maelstrom of humanity that was eddying about its boundaries, for it was made up wholly of women, as i discovered to my sorrow a moment later when, caught in the swirl, i was tossed to and fro, whirled, pirouetted, revolved, twisted, turned, and generally whizzed about, like a cork on the surface of the niagara whirlpool. what with the women trying to get to the table, and the women trying to get away from the table, and the women trying to get around the table, i haven't seen anything to beat it since the day i started to take a stroll one afternoon out in kansas, and was picked up by a cyclone and landed down by the alamo in san antonio ten minutes later." "you ought to have known better than to try to get through such a crowd as that these days," said the doctor. "how are your ribs--" "know better?" retorted the idiot. "how was i to know any better? there the thing was ready to do business, and nothing but a lot of tired-looking women about it. it looked easy enough, but after i had managed to get in as far as the second layer from the outside i discovered that it wasn't; and then i struggled to get out, but you might as well struggle to get away from the tentacles of an octopus as to try to get out of a place like that without knowing how. i was caught just as surely as a fox with his foot in a trap, and the harder i struggled to get out the nearer i was carried in toward the table itself. it required all my strategy to navigate my face away from the multitude of hatpins that surged about me on all sides. twice i thought my nose was going to be served _en brochette_. thrice did the penetrating points of those deadly pins pierce my coat and puncture the face of my watch. three cigars i carried in my vest pocket were shredded into food for moths, and i give you my word that to keep from being smothered to death by ostrich feathers i bit off the tops of at least fifteen hats that were from time to time thrust in my face by that writhing mass of feminine loveliness. how many aigrettes i inhaled, and the number of artificial roses i swallowed, in my efforts to breathe and bite my way to freedom i shall never know, but i can tell you right now, i never want to eat another aigrette so long as i shall live, and i wouldn't swallow one more canvas-backed tea rose if i were starving. at one time i counted eight ladies standing on my feet instead of on their own; and while i lost all eight buttons off my vest, and six from various parts of my coat, when i got home last night i found enough gilt buttons, crocheted buttons, bone buttons, filagree buttons, and other assorted feminine buttons, inside my pockets to fill an innovation trunk. and talk about massages! i was rubbed this way, and scourged that way, and jack-planed the other way, until i began to fear i was about to be erased altogether. the back breadth of my overcoat was worn completely through, and the tails of my cutaway thereupon coming to the surface were transformed into a flowing fringe that made me look like the walking advertisement of a tassel factory. my watch chain caught upon the belt buckle of an amazon in front of me, and the last i saw of it was trailing along behind her over on the other side of that whirling mass far beyond my reach. my strength was oozing, and my breath was coming in pants short enough to be worn by a bow-legged four-year-old pickaninny, when, making a last final herculean effort to get myself out of that surging eruption, i was suddenly ejected from it, like jonah from the jaws of the whale, but alas, under the bargain table itself, instead of on the outside, toward which i had fondly hoped i was moving." "great heavens!" said the poet. "what an experience. and you had to go through it all over again to escape finally?" "not on your life," said the idiot. "i'd had enough. i just folded my shredded overcoat up into a pillow, and lay down and went to sleep there until the time came to close the shop for the night, when i sneaked out, filled my pockets full of soap, clothespins, and other knickknacks, and left a dollar bill on the floor to pay for them. they didn't deserve the dollar, considering the damage i had sustained, but for the sake of my poor but honest parents i felt that i ought to leave something in the way of ready money behind me to pay for the loot." "it's a wonder you weren't arrested for shoplifting," said mr. brief. "they couldn't have proved anything on me," said the idiot, "even if they had thought of it. i had a perfectly good defense, anyhow." "what was that?" asked the lawyer. "temporary insanity," said the idiot. "after my experience yesterday afternoon i am convinced that no jury in the world would hold that a man was in his right mind who, with no compelling reasons save generosity to stir him to do so, plunged into a maelstrom of that sort. it would be a clear case of either attempted suicide or mental aberration. of course, if i had been dressed for it in a suit of armor, and had been armed with a battle-axe, or a long, sharp-pointed spear, it might have looked like a case of highway robbery; but no male human being in his right mind is going to subject himself to the hazards to life, limb, eye, ear, and happiness, that i risked when i entered that crowd for the sole purpose of getting away unobserved with a package of nickel-plated hairpins, worth four cents and selling at seven, and a couple of hand-painted fly swatters worth ten cents a gross." the landlady laughed a long, loud, silvery laugh, with just a little touch of derision in it. "o you men, you men!" she ejaculated. "you call yourselves the stronger sex, and plume yourselves on your superior physical endurance, and yet when it comes to a test, where are you?" "under the table, madame, under the table," sighed the idiot. "i for one frankly admit the soft impeachment." "yes," said the landlady, "but i'll warrant you never found a woman under the table. we women, weak and defenseless though we be, go through that sort of thing day after day from youth to age, and we never even think of complaining, much less giving up the fight the way you did. once a woman gets her eye on a bargain, my dear mr. idiot, and really wants it, it would take a hundred and fifty maelstroms such as you have described to keep her from getting it." "i don't doubt it," said the idiot, "but you see, my dear mrs. pedagog," he added, "you women are brought up to that sort of thing. you are trained from infancy to tackle just such problems, while we poor men have no such advantages. the only practice in domestic rough-housing that we men ever get in our youth is possibly a season on the football team, or in those pleasing little games of childhood like snap-the-whip, and mumbledypeg where we have to dig pegs out of the ground with our noses. later in life, perhaps, there will come a war to teach us how to assault an entrenched enemy, and occasionally, perhaps around election time, we may find ourselves mixed up in some kind of a free fight on the streets, but all of these things are as child's play compared to an assault upon a bargain table by one who has never practiced the necessary maneuvers. to begin with we are absolutely unarmed." "unarmed?" echoed the landlady. "what would you carry, a gatling gun?" "well, i never thought of that," said the idiot, "but if i ever tackle the proposition again, which, believe me, is very doubtful, i'll bear the suggestion in mind. it sounds good. if i'd had a forty-two centimeter machine-gun along with me yesterday afternoon i might have stood a better chance." "o you know perfectly well what i mean," said mrs. pedagog. "you implied that women are armed when they go shopping, while men are not." "well, aren't they?" asked the idiot. "every blessed daughter of eve in that mêlée yesterday was armed, one might almost say, to the teeth. there wasn't one in the whole ninety-seven thousand of them that didn't have at least two hatpins thrust through the middle of her head with their sharp-pointed ends sticking out an inch and a half beyond her dear little ears; and every time a head was turned in any direction blood was shed automatically. all i had was the stiff rim of my derby hat, and even that fell off inside of three minutes, and i haven't seen hide nor hair of it since. then what the hatpins failed to move out of their path other pins variously and strategically placed would tackle; and as for auxiliary weapons, what with sharp-edged jet and metal buttons sprouting from one end of the feminine form to the other, up the front, down the back, across the shoulders, along the hips, executing flank movements right and left, and diagonally athwart every available inch of superficial area elsewhere, aided and abetted by silver and steel-beaded handbags and featherweight umbrellas for purposes of assault, i tell you every blessed damozel of the lot was a walking arsenal of destruction. all one of those women had to do was to whizz around three times like a dervish, poke her head either to the right or to the left, and gain three yards, while i might twist around like a pinwheel, or an electric fan, and get nothing for my pains save a skewered nose, or a poke in the back that suggested the presence of a member of the black hand society. in addition to all this i fear i have sustained internal injuries of serious import. my teeth are intact, save for two feathers that are so deeply imbedded at the back of my wisdom teeth that i fear i shall have to have them pulled, but every time i breathe one of my ribs behaves as if in some way it had got itself tangled up with my left shoulder blade. why, the pressure upon me at one time was so great that i began to feel like a rosebud placed inside the family bible by an old maid whose lover has evaporated, to be pressed and preserved there until his return. this little pancake that is about to fulfill its destiny as a messenger from a cold and heartless outside world to my inner man, is a rotund, bulgent, balloon-shaped bit of puffed-up convex protuberance compared to the way i felt after that whirl of feminity had put me through the clothes-wringer. i was as flat as a joke of caesar's after its four thousandth semiannual appearance in london punch, and in respect to thickness i was pressed so thin that you could have rolled me around your umbrella, and still been able to get the cover on." "you never were very deep, anyhow," suggested the bibliomaniac. "whence the wonder of it grows," said the idiot. "normally i am fathomless compared to the thin, waferlike quality of my improfundity as i flickered to the floor after that dreadful pressure was removed." "how about women getting crushed?" demanded the landlady defiantly. "if a poor miserable little wisp of a woman can go through that sort of thing, i don't see why a big, brawny man like you can't." "because, as i have already said," said the idiot, "i wasn't dressed for it. my clothes aren't divided up into airtight compartments, rendering me practically unsinkable within, nor have i any steel-constructed garments covering my manly form to resist the pressure." "and have women?" asked mrs. pedagog. the idiot blushed. "how should i know, my dear mrs. pedagog?" replied the idiot. "i'm no authority on the subtle mysteries of feminine raiment, but from what i see in the shop windows, and in the advertising pages of the magazines, i should say that the modern woman could go through a courtship with a grizzly bear and come out absolutely undented. as i pass along the highways these days, and glance into the shop windows, mine eyes are constantly confronted by all sorts of feminine under-tackle, which in the days of our grandmothers were regarded as strictly confidential. i see steel-riveted contraptions, marked down from a dollar fifty-seven to ninety-eight cents, which have all the lithe, lissom grace of a helen of troy, the which i am led to infer the women of to-day purchase and insert themselves into, gaining thereby not only a marvelous symmetry of figure hitherto unknown to them, but that same security against the bufferings of a rude outside world as well, which a gilt-edged bond must feel when it finds itself locked up behind the armor-plated walls of a safe deposit company. except that these armorial undergarments are decorated with baby-blue ribbons, and sporadic, not to say spasmodic, doodads in filmy laces and chiffon, they differ in no respect from those wonderful combinations of slats, chest-protectors, and liver pads which our most accomplished football players wear at the emergent moments of their intellectual development at college. in point of fact, without really knowing anything about it, i venture the assertion that the woman of to-day wearing this steel-lined chiffon figure, and armed with seventy or eighty different kinds of pins from plain hat to safety, which protrude from various unexpected parts of her anatomy at the psychological moment, plus the devastating supply of buttons always available for moments of aggressive action, is the most powerfully and efficiently developed engine of war the world has yet produced. she is not only protected by her unyielding figure from the onslaughts of the enemy, but she fairly bristles as well with unsuspected weapons of offense against which anything short of a herd of elephants on stampede would be powerless. your modern amazon is an absolutely irrefragable, irresistible creature, and it makes me shudder to think of what is going to happen when this war of the sexes, now in its infancy, really gets going, and we defenseless men have nothing but a few regiments of artillery, and a division or two of infantry and cavalry standing between us and an advancing column of super-insulated shoppers, using their handbags as clubs, their hatpins glistening wickedly in the morning light, as they tango onward to the fray. when that day comes, frankly, i shall turn and run. i had my foretaste of that coming warfare in my pursuit of christmas gifts yesterday afternoon, and my motto henceforth and forever is never again!" "then i suppose we need none of us expect to be remembered by you this christmas," said the doctor. "alas, and alas! i shall miss the generous bounty which led you last year to present me with a cold waffle on christmas morn." "on the contrary, doctor," said the idiot. "profiting from my experience of yesterday i am going to start in on an entirely new system of christmas giving. no more boughten articles for me--my presents will be fashioned by loving hands without thought of dross. you and all the rest of my friends at this board are to be remembered as usual. for the bibliomaniac i have a little surprise in store in the shape of a copy of the _congressional record_ for december 7th which i picked up on a street car last friday morning. it is an absolutely first edition, in the original wrappers, and will make a fine addition to his collection of americana. for mr. brief i have a copy of the new york telephone book for 1906, which he will find full of most excellent addresses. for my dear friend, the poet, i have set aside a charming collection of rejection slips from his friends the editors; and for you, doctor, as an affectionate memento of my regard, i have prepared a little mixture of all the various medicines you have prescribed for me during the past five years, none of which i have ever taken, to the vast betterment of my health. these, consisting of squills, cod-liver oil, ipecac, quinine, iron tonic, soothing syrup, spirits of ammonia, horse liniment, himalaya bitters, and calomel, i have mixed together in one glorious concoction, which i shall bottle with my own hands in an old carboy i found up in the attic, on the side of which i have etched the words, when you drink it think of me!" "thanks, awfully," said the doctor. "i am sure a mixture of that sort could remind me of no one else." "and, finally, for our dear landlady," said the idiot, smiling gallantly on mrs. pedagog, "i have the greatest surprise of all." "i'll bet you a dollar i know what it is," said the doctor. "i'll take you," said the idiot. "you're going to pay your bill!" roared the doctor. "there's your dollar," said the idiot, tossing a silver cartwheel across the table. "better hand it right over to mrs. pedagog on account, yourself." iv as to the income tax "well, mr. bib," said the idiot cheerfully, as he speared a lonely prune and put it out of its misery, "have you made your return to the income tax collector yet?" "i both rejoice and regret to say that my income is not large enough to come under the provisions of the act," said the bibliomaniac, "and consequently i haven't bothered my head about it." "then you'd better get busy and send in a statement of your receipts up to january first, or you'll find uncle sam after you with a hot stick. for the sake of the fair name of our beloved home here, sir, don't delay. i'd hate to see a federal patrol wagon rolling up to our door for the purpose of taking you to jail." "but i am exempt," protested the bibliomaniac. "i don't come within a thousand dollars of the minimum." "that may be all true enough," said the idiot. "you know that, and i know that, but uncle sam doesn't know it, and you've got to satisfy him that you are not a plutocrat trying to pass yourself off as a member of one of those respectable middle-class financial families in which this land is so pleasingly rich. you've got to lay a statement of your financial condition before the government whether your income is ninety-seven cents a minute or forty-seven thousand dollars an hour. nobody is exempt from that nuisance. as i understand it, the government requires every man, woman, and child to go to confession, and own up to just how little or how much he or she hasn't got. all men stand equal in the eyes of the law when it comes to the show-down. there is no discrimination in favor of the rich in this business, and the inconvenience of having a minion of authority prying into your private affairs is as much a privilege of yours as it is of uncle john's, or good old brother scramble, the egg king. uncle sam is going to put his eye on every man-jack of us and find out whether we are any good or not, and if so, for how much. he will have sleuths everywhere about to estimate the cubic financial contents of your trousers' pockets, and whether you keep your money in a bank, in a trust company, in a cigar box, your sock, or your wife's name, he is going right after it, and he'll get his share or know the reason why. there isn't a solitary nickel circulating in this land to-day that can hope to escape the eagle eye of the secretary of the treasury and his financial ferrets." "you surprise me," said the bibliomaniac. "if what you say is true, it is a perfect outrage. you don't really mean to tell me that i have got to give a statement of my receipts to some snoopy-nosed old government official, do you?" "even so," said the idiot, "or at least that is the way i understand it. you've not only got to tell how much you've got, but you must also disclose the sources of your revenue. if you found a cent on the corner of main street and desdemona alley on the fifteenth day of december, 1916, thereby adding that much to your annual receipts, you have got to enter it in your statement, and so clearly that the authorities will understand just how, when, and where it came into your possession, all under oath; and you are not allowed to deduct your current living expenses from it, either. if in stooping over to pick up that cent you busted your suspenders, and had to go and pay fifty cents for a new pair, thereby losing forty-nine cents on the transaction, you aren't allowed to make any deductions on that account. that cent is 'net'--not 'nit', but 'net.' same way if in a crowded car you put your hand into what you presumed to be your own pocket, and pulled out unexpectedly a roll of twenty dollar bills amounting to two hundred dollars in all, and then in an absent-minded moment got away with it before you realized that it belonged to the man standing next to you, you'd have to put it down on your statement just the same as all the rest of the items, under penalty of prosecution for concealing sources of revenue from the officers of the law. oh, it's a fine mess we smart alexanders of the hour have got ourselves into in our effort to establish a pipe line between the plutocratic pocketbook and the united states treasury. we all hypnotized ourselves into the pleasing belief that the income tax was going to be a jolly little club with which to hit old brother plute on the head, and make him fork over, while we nixicrats sat on the fence and grinned. it was going to be great fun watching the plutes disgorge, and we all had a notion that life was going to be just one exgurgitating moving picture after another, with us sitting in front row seats gloating over the sorrows of croesus and his coughing coffers. but, alas for our dreams of joy, it hasn't worked out quite that way. the vexation of the blooming thing is visited upon every one of us. them as has has got to pay. them as hasn't has got to prove that they don't have to pay, and i tell you right now, mr. bib, it is going to be a terrific proposition for a lot of chaps in this land of ours who are skinning along on nothing a year, but making a noise like a ten-thousand-dollar proposition." "i fear me their name is legion," said the bibliomaniac. "i know one named smythe," said the idiot. "if a painter were looking around for a model for ready money in an allegorical picture smythe would fill the bill to perfection. you ought to see him. he walks about the streets of this town giving everybody he meets a fifteen-thousand per annum look when, as a matter of fact, he hasn't got ten cents to his name. if he was invited to a submarine masquerade all he'd have to do would be to swallow a glass of water and go as a sponge. he makes about as big a splurge on a deficit as you or i could make if our salaries were raised nine hundred ten per cent., and then some. as a weekender he is in the a 1 class. he hasn't paid for a sunday dinner in five years, nor has he paid for anything else in earned cash for three. his only sources of revenue are his friends, the pawn-shops, and his proficiency at bridge and poker. his only hope for staving off eventual disaster is the possibility of hanging on by his eyelids until he dawns as the last forlorn hope on the horizon of some freckle-faced, red-haired old maid, with nine millions in her own right. he owes every tailor, hatter, and haberdasher in town. when he needs twenty-five dollars he buys a fifty-dollar overcoat, has it charged, and takes it around the corner and pawns it, and ekes out the deficiency with a jackpot or a grand slam, in the manipulation of both of which he is what socrates used to call a cracker-jack. if you ever saw him walking on the avenue, or entering a swagger restaurant anywhere, you'd stop and say to yourself, 'by george! that must be mr. idle rich, of whom i have heard so much lately. gosh! i wonder how it feels to be him!'" "him?" sniffed the bibliomaniac, always a stickler for purity of speech. "sure thing!" said the idiot. "you don't stop to think of grammar when you are dazzled by that spectacle. you just give way, right off, to your natural, unrestrained, primitive instincts, and speak english in exactly the same way that the caveman spoke his tongue in those glorious days before grammar came along to curse education with its artificial restraints upon ease of expression. 'gosh! i wonder how it feels to be him', is what you'd say as old empty wallet passed you by disguised as the horn of plenty, and all day long your mind would continue to advert to him and the carefree existence you'd think to look at him he was leading; and you, with a four-dollar bill within your reach every saturday night, would find yourself positively envying him his wealth, when, as a matter of fact, he hasn't seen a single red cent he could properly call his own for ten years." "oh, well--what of it?" said the bibliomaniac. "of course, there are sponges and snobs in the world. what are they to us?" "why, nothing," said the idiot, "only i wonder what smythe and his kind are going to do when the income tax collector comes along and asks for his little two per cent. of all this showy exterior. it will be a terribly humiliating piece of business to confess that all this ostentatious show of prosperity is nothing but an empty shell, and that way down inside he is only an eighteen-karat, copper-fastened, steel-riveted bluff; fact is, he'll have the dickens of a time making the tax collectors believe it, and then he'll be face to face with a federal indictment for trying to dodge his taxes. and that business of dodging--that brings up another phase of this income tax that i don't believe many of us realized when we were shouting for it as a means of shackling mr. plute. did you ever realize that it won't be very long before the government, in order to get this income tax fixed right, will have a lot of inspectors who will be delegated to do for you and me, and all the rest of us, what the custom house inspectors now do for travelers returning from abroad? every man and woman traveling upon the seas of life, mr. bib, will be required to enter the port of taxation and there submit a declaration of the contents of their boxes to the tax inspectors, which will be followed, as in the case of the traveler from abroad, by a complete overhauling of their effects by those same inspectors. the tesselated pave of your safe deposit companies and banks will look like the floor of an ocean steamship pier on the arrival of a big liner, only instead of being snowed under by a mass of shirts, trousers, paris-made revelations in chiffons, silks, and brocades, necklaces, tiaras, pearl ropes, snipped aigrettes, and snowy drifts of indescribable, but in these free days no longer unmentionable, lingerie, it will be piled high with steel bonds, new haven deferred dividends, sinking fund debenture certificates, government five eighths per cent. bonds, certificates of deposit, miscellaneous stocks, mining, industrial, railway, gilt-edged and wildcat, in one red unburial blent; while the poor owner, fearful lest in the excitement of the ordeal he may have neglected to mention some insignificant item of a million or two in standard oil, will sit by and sweat as the inspector tears his ruthless way through his accumulated stores for wealth." "it will be almost enough to make a man sorry he's rich," said the doctor. "oh, no," said the idiot, "for the rest of us will be in the same pickle, only in a more humiliating position as the intruder reveals that the sum total of out lifetime of endeavor consists chiefly in unpaid bills labeled please remit. the custom house inspectors are harder on the man with nothing to declare than they are on those whose boxes are full. they slam their things all over creation, and insult the owner with the same abandon with which they greet a recognized past-mistress in the arts of smuggling. innocence is no protection when a custom house inspector gets after you, and it will be the same way with the new kind. none of us can hope to escape. the income tax inspectors will come here just as eagerly as they will go to that palatial mausoleum in which mr. rockernegie dwells on the corner of bond avenue and easy street, and they'll rummage through our trunks, boxes, and bureaus in search of such interest-bearing securities as they may suspect us of trying to get by with. mr. bib will have to dump his bureau drawer full of red neckties out on the floor to prove to uncle sam's satisfaction that he hasn't got a fourteen-million-dollar bond issue concealed somewhere behind their lurid glow. the doctor will have to sit patiently by and unprotestingly watch the inspectors going through the pockets of his unrivaled collection of fancy waist-coats in a heart-breaking quest for undeclared interests in mining enterprises and popular cemeteries. trunks, chests, hatboxes, soapboxes, pillboxes, safety razor boxes--in fact, all kinds of receptacles in this house, from mrs. pedagog's ice chest to mr. whitechoker's barrel of sermons--will be compelled to disgorge their uttermost content in order to satisfy the government sleuths that we who dwell in this palace of truth, joy, and waffles, have not a controlling interest in standard oil hidden away lest we be compelled to pay our due to the treasury." "you don't mean to say that the law so provides, do you?" said the bibliomaniac. "not yet," said the idiot, "but it will--it's bound to come. in the very nature of the beast it is inevitable. there never was a tax yet that found a warm spot awaiting it in the hearts of its countrymen. the human mind with all its diabolical ingenuity has never yet been able to devise a tax that somebody somewhere--nay, that most people everywhere--did not try to dodge, and to catch the dodgers the government is compelled to view everybody with suspicion, and treat hoi polloi from top to bottom as if they were nothing more nor less than a lot of unregenerate pickpockets, horse-thieves, and pastmasters in the gentle art of mendacity." "frightful!" said mr. whitechoker. "and is not a man's word to be taken as a guarantee of the accuracy of his return?" "not so's anybody would notice it," grinned the idiot. "when the government finds it necessary to nab leaders of fashionable society for trying to smuggle in one-hundred-thousand-dollar pearl necklaces by sewing them up in the lining of their hats, and to fine the most eminently respectable citizens in the country as much as five thousand dollars for returning from abroad portly with five or six-hundred yards of undeclared lace wound inadvertently about their stomachs, having in the excitement of their homecoming put it on in the place of the little flannel bands they have worn to ward off cholera and other pleasing foreign maladies, it loses some of its confidence in human nature, and acquires some of that penetrating inquisitiveness of mind which is said to be characteristic of the native of missouri. it wants to be shown, and if the income tax remains in force, we might as well make up our minds that the inquisitorial inspector will soon be added to the official pay roll of the united states of america." "but," protested the bibliomaniac, "that will be a plain common-garden espionage of so intolerable a nature that no self-respecting free people will submit to it. it will be an abominable intrusion upon our rights of privacy." the idiot laughed long and loud. "it seems to me," said he, after a moment, "that when colonel john w. midas, of the international hickory nut trust, advanced that same objection against the proposed tax a year or so ago, mr. bib, you sat in that very same chair where you are now and vociferously announced that there was nothing in it." "oh, but that's different," said the bibliomaniac. "midas is a rich man, and i am not." "well, i suppose there is a difference between a prune and a canadian melon, old man, but after all, they're both fruit, and when it comes to being squeezed, i guess it hurts a lemon just as much as it does a lime. i, for one, however, do not fear the inspector. my securities are exempt, for they all pay their tax at the source." "what are they, coupon bonds?" grinned the lawyer. "no," said the idiot; "pawn tickets, interest on which is always paid in advance." v a psychic venture "i beg your pardon, doctor," said the idiot, as he laid aside his morning paper and glanced over the gastronomic delights spread upon the breakfast table at mrs. smithers-pedagog's high-class home for single gentlemen. "i don't wish to intrude upon this moment of blissful intercourse which you are enjoying with your allotment of stock in the waffle trust, but do you happen to have any a no. 1 eighteen-karat psychrobes among your patients that you could introduce me to? i need one in my business." "sike whats?" queried the doctor, pausing in the act of lifting a sizable section of the eight of diamonds done in batter to his lips. "psychrobes," said the idiot. "you know what i mean--a clairvoyant, a medium, a sike--somebody in the spiritual inter-state commerce business, who knows his or her job right down to the ground and back again." "h'm! why--yes, i know one or two mediums," said the doctor. "strictly up-to-date and reliable?" said the idiot. "ready to trot in double harness?" "oh, as to their reliability as mediums i can't testify," said the doctor. "you never can tell about those people, but i will say that in all respects other than their psychic indulgences i have always found those i know wholly reliable." "you mean they wouldn't take a watch off a bureau when the owner wasn't looking, or beat a suffering corporation out of a nickel if they had a chance?" said the idiot. "that's it," said the doctor. "but, as i say, you never can tell. a man may be the soul of honor in respect to paying his board bill, and absolutely truthful in statements of the everyday facts of life, and yet when he goes off, er--when he goes off--" "psychling," suggested the idiot. "bully good title for a story that--'psychling with a psychrobe'--eh? what?" "fair," said the doctor. "but what i was going to say was that when he goes off psychling, as you put it, he may, or may not, be quite so reliable. so if i were to indorse any one of my several clairvoyant patients for you, it would have to be as patients, and not as psychlists." "that's all right," said the idiot. "that's all i really want. if i can be sure that a medium is a person of correct habits in all other respects, i'll take my chances on his reliability as a transient." "as a transient?" repeated the bibliomaniac. "yes," said the idiot. "a person in a state of trance." "what has awakened this sudden interest of yours in things psychic?" asked the doctor. "are you afraid that your position as a dispenser of pure idiocy is threatened by the recorded utterances of great thinkers now passed into the shadowy vales, as presented to us by the mediums?" "not at all," said the idiot. "fact is, i do not consider their utterances as idiotic. take that recent report of the lady who got into communication with the spirit of napoleon bonaparte, and couldn't get anything out of him but a regretful allusion to panama hats and pink pajamas, for instance. everybody thought it was very foolish, but i didn't. to me it was merely a sad intimation of the particular kind of climate the great corsican had got for his in the hereafter. he needed his summer clothes, and couldn't for the moment think of anything else. i should have been vastly more surprised if he had called for a pair of ear-tabs and a fur overcoat." "and do you really believe, also for instance," put in the bibliomaniac scornfully, "that with so many big questions before the public to-day thomas jefferson would get off such drivel as has been attributed to him by these people, having a chance to send a real message to his countrymen?" "i've only seen one message from jefferson," said the idiot, "and it seemed to me most appropriate. it was received by a chap up in schenectady, and all the old man said was 'whizz--whizz--whizz, buzz--buzz--buzz, whizz--whizz--whizz!' lots of people considered it drivel, but to me it was fraught with much sad significance." "well, if you can translate it, it's more than i can," said the bibliomaniac. "the idea that the greatest political thinker of the ages could stoop to unmeaning stuff of that sort is to me preposterous." "not at all," said the idiot. "you have not the understanding mind. those monosyllabic explosions were merely an expression of the rapidity with which poor old jefferson was turning over in his grave as he realized to what uses modern statesmen of all shades of political belief were putting his name. it must be a tough proposition for a simple old democrat like jefferson to find his memory harnessed up to every bit of entomological economic thought now issuing from the political asylums of his native land." "pouf!" said the bibliomaniac. "you are a reactionary, sir." "ubetcha," said the idiot. "first principles first, say i. but to come back to clairvoyants. i am very anxious to get hold of a medium, doctor, and the sooner the better. i'm going to give up wall street. i can't afford to stay there any longer unless i move out of this restful paradise of food and thought and take up my abode in a mills hotel, or charter a bench in the park from the city. the only business we had in our office last week was a game of poker between the firm and its employés, and the firm tided itself over the emergency by winning my salary for the next six weeks. another week of such activity would prostrate me financially, and i am going to open a literary bureau to deal in posthumous literature." "posthumous literature is the curse of letters," said the bibliomaniac. "it generally means the publication of the rejected, or personally discarded, manuscripts of a dead author, which results in the serious impairment of the quality of his laurels. it ought to be made a misdemeanor to print the stuff." "i agree with you entirely as to that, mr. bib," said the idiot. "this business of emptying the pigeonholes of deceased scribes, and printing every last scrap of scribbling to be found there, whether they intended it to be printed or not, is reprehensible, and i for one would gladly advocate a law requiring executors of a literary estate to burn all unpublished manuscripts found among the decedent's papers merely as a matter of protection to a great name. but it isn't that kind of posthumous production that i am going in for. it's the production posthumously produced that i am after, and i need a first-class medium as a side partner to get hold of the stuff for me." "preposterous!" sniffed the bibliomaniac. "sounds that way, mr. bib," said the idiot, "but, all the same, here's a lady over in england has recently published a book of short stories by the late frank r. stockton, which his genial spirit has transmitted to the world through her. now, if this thing can be done by stockton, i don't see why it can't be done by milton, shakespeare, moses, and others, and if i can only get hold of a real psyche i'm going to get up a posthumous literary trust that will stagger humanity." "i guess it will!" laughed the doctor. "yes, sir," said the idiot enthusiastically. "the first thing i shall do will be to send the lady after charles dickens and good old thackeray, and apply for the terrestrial rights to all their literary subsequences, and, as a publisher really ought to do, i shall not content myself with just taking what they write of their own accord, but i'll supply them with subject matter. my posthumous literary trust will have a definite policy. "can't you gentlemen imagine, for instance, what those two men could do with little old new york as it is to-day? what glorious results would come from turning dickens loose on the underworld, and setting thackeray's pen to work on the hupper sukkles of polite s'ciety! if there ever was a time when the reading public were ripe for another 'oliver twist' or another 'vanity fair', that time is now, and i can hardly sleep nights for thinking about it." "i don't see it at all," said the bibliomaniac. "'oliver twist' is quite perfect as it is." "no doubt," retorted the idiot, "but it isn't up-to-date, mr. bib. for example, think of a scene described by dickens in which fagin, now become a sort of man higher up, or at least one of his agents, takes little oliver out into a bowery back yard and makes a proficient gunman out of the kid, compelling him to practice in the flickering glare of an electric light at shooting tailor's dummies on a rapidly moving platform, with a .42-caliber six-shooter, until the lad becomes so expert that he can hit nineteen out of twenty as they pass, missing the twentieth only by a hair's breadth because it represents a man fagin wants to scare and not kill. "or think of how thackeray would take hold of this tango tangle and expose the cubic contents of that cubist crowd, and handle the exquisite dullness of the smart set, not with the glib brilliance of the man on the outside, who novelizes what he reads in the papers, but with the sounder satire of the man who knows from personal observation what he is writing about! great heavens--the idea makes my mouth water!" "that might be worth while," confessed the bibliomaniac. "but how are you going to get the facts over to dickens and thackeray?" "i shall not need to," said the idiot. "all they'll have to do will be to project themselves in spirit over here into the very midst of the scenes to be described. as spirits they will have the entrée into any old kind of society they wish to investigate, and in that respect they will have the advantage over us poor mortals who can't go anywhere without having to take our confounded old bodies along with us. then after i had arranged matters with dickens and thackeray, i'd send my psychic representative after alexander dumas, and get him to write a sequel to 'the three musketeers', and 'twenty years after', which i should call 'two hundred and ninety years after, a romance of 1916', in which d'artagnan, athos, porthos, and aramis should return to modern times and try their hands on trench work, introducing the aëroplane, the submarine, and all the other appurtenances of war, from the militant brick to the dynamite bomb. why, a good, rip-staving old dumas tale of adventure of to-day, with those old heroes of his mixed up with the militant suffragettes and the crown prince of germany, would be what old doctor johnson would have called a cracker-jack, if he had had the slightest conception of the possibilities of the english language." "wouldn't interest me in the least," said the bibliomaniac coldly, "if there is anything under the canopy that i despise it is so-called romance. now, if you could get hold of some of the solider things, such, for instance, as macaulay might write, or"-"ah!" said the idiot, triumphantly, "it is there that my scheme would work out most beneficently. my special articles on historic events by personal participators would thrill the world. "from adam i would secure the first and only authentic account of the fall, with possibly an expression of his opinion as to the validity of the darwinian theory. from noah, aided and abetted by shem, ham, and japhet, would come a series of sea stories narrating in thrilling style the story of the flood, or how we landed the zoo on ararat. a line or two from balaam's ass on the subject of modern socialism would fill the reading world with wonder. a series of papers specially prepared for a woman's magazine by henry viii. on 'wild wives i have wedded', edited, possibly, with copious footnotes by brigham young, would bring fortune to the pockets of the publishers. "and then the poets--ah, mr. bib, what treasures of poesy would this plan of mine not bring within our reach! dante could write a new 'inferno' introducing a new torture in the form of satan compelling a member of congress to explain the tariff bill. homer could sing the sufferings and triumphs of arctic exploration in a new epic entitled 'the chilliad', or possibly expend his genius upon the story of the rise and fall of bryan in immortal periods under the title of 'the billiad'"-"or describe your progressive idiocy under the title of 'the silliad!'" put in the bibliomaniac. "ubetcha!" cried the idiot. "or tell the sad tale of your life under the title of 'the seniliad.' and in addition to these wonders, who can estimate to what extent we should all profit were our more serious reviews to secure articles from washington, hamilton, jefferson, and old ben franklin on the present state of the nation! why, an article dictated off-hand by the shade of lincoln on the thousands who are now flattering themselves that they occupy his shoes, illustrated with those apt anecdotes of which he was a master, and pointed with his gloriously dry humor, under the title of 'later links', would alone make the venture worth while, even if nothing else came of it." "oh, well," said the bibliomaniac, rising, "perhaps there is something in the idea after all, and i wish you success, mr. idiot--and, by the way, if the scheme works out as you expect it to, and you happen to come across old æsculapius, ask him for me for an authoritative statement of the origin and proper treatment of idiocy, will you?" "sure," said the idiot, turning to his breakfast, "but it really isn't necessary to do that, mr. bib. our good old friend, the doctor here, is quite capable of curing you at any time you consent to put yourself unreservedly in his hands." vi on medical conservation "i see by the paper this morning," said the idiot, as he put three lumps of sugar into his pocket and absent-mindedly dropped his eyeglasses into his coffee, "that, thanks to the industry of our medical schools and colleges, the world is richer by thirty thousand new doctors to-day than it was yesterday. how does the law of supply and demand work in cases of that kind, doctor squills?" "badly--very badly, indeed," said the doctor, with a gloomy shake of his head. "the profession is sadly overcrowded, and mighty few of us are making more than a bare living." "i was afraid that was the case," said the idiot sympathetically. "i was talking with a prominent surgeon at the club the other night, and he was terribly upset over the situation. he intimated that we have been ruthlessly squandering our natural internal resources almost as riotously and as blindly as our lumbermen have been destroying the natural physical resources of the country. he assured me that he himself had reached a point in his career where there was hardly a vermiform appendix left in sight, and where five years ago he was chopping down not less than four of these a day for six days of the week at a thousand dollars per, it was now a lucky time for him when he got his pruning knife off the hook once a month." "that vermiform appendix craze was all a fad anyhow," said the bibliomaniac sourly. "like the tango, and bridge, and golf, and slumming, and all the rest of those things that society takes up, and then drops all of a sudden like a hot stick. it looked at one time as if nobody could hope to get into society who hadn't had his vermiform removed." "well, social fad or not," said the idiot, "whatever it was, there is no question about it that serious inroads have been made upon what we may call our vermiforests, and unless something is done to protect them, by george, in a few years we won't have any left except a few stuffed specimens down in the smithsonian institution. "i asked my friend doctor cuttem why he didn't call for a vermiform conservation congress to see what can be done either to prevent this ruthless sacrifice of a product that if suitably safeguarded should supply ourselves, and our children, and our children's children to the uttermost posterity, with ample appendicular resources for the maintenance in good style of a reasonable number of surgeons; or to re-seed scientifically where the unscientific destruction of these resources is uncontrollable. how about that, doctor? suppose you remove a man's vermiform appendix--is there any system of medical, or surgical, fertilization and replanting that would cause two vermiforms to grow where only one grew before, so that sooner or later every human interior may become a sort of garden-close, where one can go and pluck a handful of vermiform appendices every morning, like so many hardy perennials in full bloom?" "i'm afraid not," smiled the doctor. "anybody but the idiot would know that it couldn't be done," said the bibliomaniac, "because if it could be done it would have been done long ago. when you find men successfully transplanting rabbits' tails on monkeys, and frogs' legs on canary birds, you can make up your mind that if it were within the range of human possibility they would by this time have vermiform appendices sprouting lushly in geranium pots for insertion into the systems of persons desiring luxuries of that sort." "you mustn't sneer at the achievements of modern surgery, mr. bib," said the idiot. "there is no telling how soon any one of us may need to avail himself of its benefits. who knows--maybe a surgeon will come along some day who will be able to implant a sense of humor in you, to gladden all your days." "preposterous!" snapped the bibliomaniac. "well, it does seem unlikely," said the idiot, "but i know of a young doctor who without any previous experience planted a little heart in a frigid suffragette; and though i know the soil is not propitious, even you may sometime be blossoming luxuriantly within with buds of cheer and sweet optimism. but however this may be, it is the unquestioned and sad fact that a once profitable industry for our surgically-inclined brothers has slumped; and they tell me that even those surgeons who have adopted modern commercial methods, and give away a set of rudyard kipling's works and a year's subscription to the _commoner_ with every vermiform removed, are making less than a thousand dollars a week out of that branch of their work." "mercy!" cried the poet. "what couldn't i do if i had a thousand dollars a week!" "you could afford to write real poetry all the time, instead of only half the time, eh, old man?" said the idiot affectionately. "but don't you mind. we're all in the same boat. i'd be an infinitely bigger idiot myself if i had half as much money as that." "impossible!" said the bibliomaniac, chuckling over his opportunity. "green-eyed monster!" smiled the idiot. "but speaking of this overcrowding of the profession, it is a surprise to me, doctor, that so many young men are taking up medicine these days, when competent observers everywhere tell us that the world is getting better all the time. "if that is true, and the world really is getting better all the time, it is fair to assume that some day it will be entirely well, and then, let me ask you, what is to become of all the doctors? it will not be a good thing for society ever to reach a point where it has such an army of unemployed on its hands, and especially that kind of an army, made up as it will be of highly intelligent but desperately hungry men, face to face with starvation, and yet licensed by the possession of a medical diploma to draw, and have filled, prescriptions involving the whole range of the materia medica, from iceland moss and squills up to prussic acid and cyanide of potassium. "it makes me shudder to think of it!" said mr. brief, the lawyer, with a grin at the doctor. "shudder isn't the word!" said the idiot. "the bare idea makes my flesh creep like a philadelphia trolley car! coxey's army was bad enough, made up as it was of a poor, miserable lot of tramps and panhandlers, all so unused to labor as to be really jobshy; but in their most riotous moods the worst those poor chaps could do was to heave a few bricks or a dead cat through a millinery shop window, or perhaps bat a village magnate on the back of the head with a bed slat. there was nothing insidiously subtle about the warfare they waged upon society. "but suppose that, laboring under a smarting sense of similar wrongs, there should come to be such a thing as old doctor pepsin's army of unemployed physicians and surgeons, marching through the country, headed for the white house in order to make an impressive public demonstration of their grievances! what a peril to the body politic that would be! not only could the surgeons waylay the village magnates and amputate their legs, and seize hostile editors and cut off the finger with which they run their typewriting machines, and point with alarm with; but the more insidious means of upsetting the public weal by pouring calomel into our wells, putting castor oil in our reservoirs, leaving cholera germs and typhoid cultures under our door mats, or transferring a pair of jackass's legs to the hind-quarters of an old family horse, found grazing in the pasture, would transform a once smiling countryside into a scene of misery and desolation." "poor, poor dobbin!" murmured the bibliomaniac. "indeed, mr. bib, it will be poor, poor dobbin!" said the idiot. "i don't think that many people besides you and myself realize how desperately serious a menace it is that hangs over us; and i feel that one of the first acts of the administration, after it has succeeded in putting grape juice into the constitution as our national tipple, and constructed a solid portland cement wall across the vice president's thorax to insure that promised four years of silence, should be an effort to control this terrible situation." "you talk as if it could be done," said the doctor doubtfully. "of course it can be done," said the idiot. "doctors being engaged in inter-state commerce--" "doctors? interstate commerce?" cried mr. brief. "that's a new one on me, mr. idiot. everybody is apparently in interstate commerce in your opinion. seems to me it was only the other day that you spoke of clairvoyants being in it." "sure," said the idiot. "and it's the same way with the doctors. in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, where a man passes from this state into the future state, you'll find a doctor mixed up in it somewhere, even if it's only as a coroner. this being so, it would be perfectly proper to refer the matter to the interstate commerce commission for a solution. "anyhow, something ought to be done to handle the situation while the menace is in its infancy. we need the ounce of prevention. now, my suggestion would be that the law should step in and either place a limit to the number of doctors to be turned out annually, on a basis of so many doctors to so many hundreds of population--say three doctors to every hundred people--just as in certain communities the excise law allows only one saloon for every thousand registered voters; or else, since the state permits medical schools to operate under a charter, authorizing them to manufacture physicians and surgeons ad lib., and turn them loose on the public, the state should provide work for these doctors to do. "to this end we might have, for instance, a bureau of disease dissemination, subject perhaps to the jurisdiction of the secretary of the interior, under whose direction, acting in coöperation with the department of agriculture, every package of seeds sent out by a congressman to his constituents would have a sprinkling of germs of one kind or another mixed in with the seeds, thus spreading little epidemics of comparatively harmless disorders like the mumps, the measles, or the pip, around in various over-healthy communities where the doctors were in danger of going over the hill to the poorhouse. surely if we are justified in making special efforts to help the farmers we ought not to hesitate to do the doctors a good turn once in a while." "you think the public would stand for that, do you?" queried the bibliomaniac scornfully. "oh, the public is always inhospitable to new ideas at first," said the idiot, "but after a while they get so attached to them that you have to start an entirely new political party to prove that they are reactionary. but, as the poet says, "into all lives some mumps must fall, "and the sooner we get 'em over with the better. if the public once wakes up to the fact that the measles and the mumps are as inevitable as a coal bill in winter, or an ice bill in summer, it will cheerfully indorse a federal statute which enables us to have these things promptly and be done with 'em. it's like any other disagreeable thing in life. as old colonel macbeth used to say to that dear old suffragette wife of his, "if 'twere done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. "it's like taking a cold bath in the morning. you don't mind it at all if you jump in in a hurry and then jump out again. "but even if the public didn't take that sensible view of it, we have legislative methods by which the thing could be brought about without the public knowing anything about it. for instance, supposing somebody in congress were to introduce an innocent little bill appropriating five hundred thousand dollars, for the erection of a residence for a united states ambassador to the commonwealth of california, for the avowed object of keeping somebody in san francisco to see that governor johnson didn't declare war on japan without due notice to the navy department, what could be simpler than the insertion in that bill of a little joker providing that from the date of the enactment of this statute the department of agriculture is authorized and required to expend the sum of twenty thousand dollars annually on the dissemination, through congressional seed packages, of not less than one ounce per package of germs of assorted infantile and other comparatively harmless disorders, for the benefit of the medical profession? taxidermists tell us that there are more ways than one to skin a cat, and the same is true of legislation. "there's only one other way that i can see to bring the desired condition about, and that is to permit physicians to operate under the same system of ethics as that to be found in the plumbing business. if a plumber is allowed, as he is allowed in the present state of public morality, to repair a leak in such a fashion to-day that new business immediately and automatically develops requiring his attention to-morrow, i see no reason why doctors should not be permitted to do the same thing. called in to repair a mump, let him leave a measle behind. the measle cured, a few chicken-pox left carelessly about where they will do the most good will insure his speedy return; and so on. every physician could in this way take care of himself, and by a skilful manipulation of the germs within his reach should have no difficulty not only in holding but in increasing his legitimate business as well." "ugh!" shuddered mrs. pedagog. "you almost make me afraid to let the doctor stay in this house a day longer." "don't be afraid, madame," said the doctor amiably. "after all, i'm a doctor, you know, and not a plumber." "i'll guarantee his absolute harmlessness, mrs. pedagog," said the idiot. "we're perfectly safe here. it is no temptation to a doctor to sow the germs of disorder among people like ourselves who have reduced getting free medical advice to a system." "well," said mr. brief, the lawyer, "your plan is all right for the doctors, but why the dickens don't somebody suggest something for us lawyers once in awhile? there were seventy thousand new lawyers turned out yesterday, and you haven't even peeped." "no," said the idiot, "it isn't necessary. you lawyers are well provided for. with one national congress, and forty-eight separate state legislatures working twenty-four hours a day, turning out fifty-seven new varieties of law every fifteen minutes, all so phrased that no human mind can translate them into simple english, there's enough trouble constantly on hand to keep twenty million lawyers busy for thirty million years, telling us not what we can't do, but what few things there are left under the canopy that a man of religious inclinations can do without danger of arrest!" vii the u. s. telephonic aid society "well, mr. idiot," said the doctor, as the idiot with sundry comments on the top-loftical condition of the thermometer fanned his fevered brow with a tablespoon, "i suppose in view of the hot weather you will be taking a vacation very shortly." "not only very shortly, but excessively shortly," returned the idiot. "its shortliness will be of so brief a nature that nobody'll notice any vacant chairs around where i am accustomed to sit. but let me tell you, dr. squills, it is too hot for sarcasm, so withhold your barbs as far as i am concerned, and believe me always very truly yours, nicholas j. doodlepate." "sarcasm?" said the doctor in a surprised tone. "why, my dear fellow, i wasn't sarcastic, was i? i am sure i didn't mean to be." "to the listener's ear it seemed so," said the idiot. "there seemed to me to be traces of the alkali of irony mixed in with the tincture of derision in that question of yours. when you ask a wall street man who declines to carry speculation accounts these days if he isn't going to take a vacation shortly, it is like asking a resident of the desert of sahara why he doesn't sprinkle a little sand around his place. "life on wall street for my kind, my good sir, of late has been just one darned vacation after another. the only business i have done in three months was to lend one of our customers a nickel, taking a subway ticket and a baseball rain check as collateral security." the idiot shook his head ruefully and heaved a heart-rending sigh. "what we cautious wall street fellows need," said he, "is not a va-cation, but a vo-cation." "oh, well, a man of your fertility of invention ought not to have any trouble about that," said mr. brief. "you should be able without killing yourself to think up some new kind of trade that will keep you busy until the snow-shoveling season begins anyhow." "yes," said the idiot. "ordinary by the exercise of some ingenuity and the use of these two brazen cheeks with which nature has endowed me, i can always manage to pull something resembling a living out of a reluctant earth. if a man slips up on being a captain of industry he can lecture on a sight-seeing coach, or if that fails him under present conditions in this old town, by a little economy he can live on his tips." "and at the worst," said the bibliomaniac, "you always have mrs. pedagog to fall back on." "yes," said the idiot. "the state of my bill at this very moment shows that i have credit enough with mrs. pedagog to start three national banks and a trust company. but, fortunately for me, i don't have to do either. i have found my opportunity lying before me in the daily newspapers, and i am about to start a new enterprise which is not only going to pull a large and elegant series of chestnuts out of the fire for me but for all my subscribers as well. if i can find a good lawyer somewhere to draw up the papers of incorporation for my united states telephonic aid society, i'll start in business this very morning at the nearest pay station." "if you want a good lawyer, what's the matter with me?" asked mr. brief. "i never was any good at riddles," said the idiot, "and that one is too subtle for me. if i want a good lawyer, what is the matter with you? ha! hum! well, i give it up, but i'm willing to be what the ancients used to call the goat. if i want a good lawyer, brudder bones, what is the matter with you? i ask the question--what's the answer?" "i don't know," grinned the lawyer. "well, i guess that's it," said the idiot. "if i want a good lawyer i want one who does know." "but what's this new society going to do?" interrupted the poet. "i am particularly interested in any sort of a scheme that is going to make you rich without forgetting me. if there's any pipe-line to prosperity, hurry up and let me know before it is too late." "why, it is simplicity itself," said the idiot. "the u. s. telephonic aid society is designed to carry first aid to the professionally injured. you have doubtless read recently in the newspapers how damon, a retired financier, desirous of helping his old friend pythias, an equally retired attorney, back into his quondam practice--please excuse that word quondam, mrs. pedagog; it isn't half as profane as it sounds--went to the telephone and impersonating j. mulligatawny solon, member of congress from the chillicothe district, rang up midas, croesus, and dives, the eminent bankers, and recommended pythias as the only man this side of the planet mars who could stave off the ruthless destruction of their interests by an uncontrolled body of lawmakers." "yes," said mr. brief. "i read all that, and it was almost as unreal as a page out of the arabian nights." "wasn't it!" said the idiot. "and yet how simple! well, that's my scheme in a nutshell, only i am going to do the thing as a pure matter of business, and not merely to show the purity of my affection for any pythian dependent. "to show just how the plan will work under my supervision let us take your case first, mr. poet. here you are this morning with your board bill already passed to its third reading, with mrs. pedagog tacking amendments on to the end of it with every passing day. unfortunately for you in your emergent hour, the editors either view your manuscripts with suspicion or, what is more likely, refuse to look at them at all. they care nothing for your aspirations or your inspirations. "your immediate prospect holds nothing in sight save the weary parcel postman, with his bent form, delivering daily at your door eleven-pound packages of unappreciated sonnets. you do not dare think on the morrow, what ye shall eat, and wherewithal shall ye be clothed, because no man liveth who can purchase the necessities of life with rejection slips--those checks on the banks of ambition, payable in the editors' regrets." "by george," blurted the poet feelingly, "you're dead right about that, old man. if editors' regrets were legal tender, i could pay off the national debt." "precisely," said the idiot. "and it is just here, my dear friend, that the u. s. telephonic aid society rushes to your assistance. your case is brought to the society's attention, and i, as president, secretary, treasurer, and general manager of the institution, look into the matter at once. "i find your work meritorious. no editor has ever rejected it because it lacked literary merit. he even goes so far as to print a statement of that fact upon the slip he sends back with it on its homeward journey. like most other poets you need a little food once in awhile. a roof to cover your head is essential to your health, and under the existing laws of society you simply must wear clothes when you appear in public, and it becomes the society's worthy job to aid you in getting all these things. "so we close a contract providing that for ten dollars down and fifteen per cent. of the gross future receipts, i, or the society, agree to secure the publication of your sonnets, rondeaux, limericks, and triolets in the hyperion magazine." "that would be bully if you could only pull it off," said the poet, falling naturally into the terminology of milton. "but i don't just see how you're going to turn the trick." "on the regular 'damon and pythias' principle, as set forth in the newspapers," said the idiot. "immediately the contract between us is signed, i rush to the nearest pay station and ring up the editor of the hyperion magazine, and when i get him on the line we converse as follows: "me--is this the editor of the hyperion magazine? "editor--ubetcha. who are you? "me--i'm president wilson, down at the white house. "editor--glad to hear from you, mr. president. got any more of that new freedom stuff on hand? we are thinking of running a department of humor in the hyperion, and with a little editing i think we could use a couple of carloads of it. "me--why, yes, mr. bluepencil. i think i have a bale or two of remnants in cold storage down at trenton. but really that isn't what i am after this morning. i wanted to say to you officially, but confidentially, of course, that my ambassador to great britain has just cabled his resignation to the state department. what with a little breakfast he gave last week to the president of france and his tips at his own presentation to the king, he has already spent four years' salary, and he does not feel that he can afford to stay over there much after the first of september. "editor--i'm on. i getcha. "me--now, of course, i've got to fill his place right away, and it struck me that you were just the man for the job. in the first place you are tolerably familiar with the language they speak in and about the court of st. james's. i am told by mutual friends that you eat peas with a fork, can use a knife without cutting your lip, and have an intuitive apprehension of the subtle distinctions between a finger-bowl and a sauterne glass. it has also been brought to my attention that your advertising pages have for years been consistent advocates, in season and out, of the use of grape juice as a refreshing beverage for nervous ambassadors. "editor--that's right, mr. president. "me--well, of course, all of this makes you unquestionably _persona grata_ to us, and i think it should make you a novel and interesting feature of diplomatic life along piccadilly. "editor--it sounds good to me, mr. president. "me--now to come to the difficulties in our way--and that is what i have rung you up to talk about. there seems to be but one serious objection to your appointment, mr. bluepencil. at a cabinet meeting called yesterday to discuss the matter, mr. mcadoo expressed the fear that if you go away for four years the quality of the poetry in the hyperion magazine will fall off. in this contention, mr. mcadoo was supported by the secretary of agriculture, whose name escapes me at this moment, with the postmaster general and the secretary of war on the fence. mr. daniels was not present, having gone west to launch a battleship at omaha. but in any event there is where the matter rests at this moment. "for my own part, however, after giving the matter prayerful consideration, i think i can see a way out. the whole cabinet is very much interested in the poems of willie wimpleton spondy, the boy watson. mcadoo is constantly quoting from him. the postmaster general has even gone so far as to advocate the extension of the franking privilege to him, and as for myself, i have made it a practice for the last five years to begin every day by reciting one of his limericks before my assembled family. "editor--i never heard of the boob. "me--well, you hear of him now, and the whole thing comes down to this: mr. spondy will call at your office with a couple of bales of his stuff at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, and you might have something besides a pink rejection slip dripping with regrets ready for him. i don't know what his rates are, but his stuff runs about ninety pounds to the bale, and what that comes to at fifty per you can figure out for yourself. "editor--how does champ clark stand on this thing? "me--he and tommie marshall are with us to the last tintinnabulation of the gong. "editor--then i am to understand just what, mr. president? "me--that you don't go to england on our account until we are absolutely assured beyond peradvanture that there will be no deterioration in the quality of hyperion poetry during your absence. "editor--all right. send the guy around this afternoon. he can send the bale by slow freight. we always pay in advance anyhow." the idiot paused to take breath. "then what?" asked the poet dubiously. "you go around and get what's coming to you," said the idiot. "or perhaps it would be better to send a messenger boy for it. the more impersonal we make this business the better." "i see," said the poet dejectedly. "but even at that, mr. idiot, when the hyperion man doesn't get the ambassadorship, won't he sue me to recover?" "oh, well," said the idiot wearily, "you've got to assume some of the burdens of the business yourself. we can't do it all, you know. but suppose they do sue you? you never heard of a magazine recovering anything from a poet, did you? you'd get a heap of free advertising out of such a lawsuit, and if you were canny enough to put out a book of your verses while the newspapers were full of it, they'd go off like hot cakes, and you could retire with a cool million." "and where do i come in?" asked the doctor. "don't i get any of these plums of prosperity your telephonic aid society is to place within the reach of all?" "on payment of the fee of ten dollars, and signing the regular contract," said the idiot. "i'll do my best for you. in your case i should impersonate our good old friend andrew rockernegie. acting in that capacity i would ring up mr. john d. reddymun, and you'd hear something like this: "me--hello, reddy--is this you? "reddymun--yes. who's this? "me--this is uncle andy. how's the leg this morning? "reddymun--oh, so so. "me--everybody pulling it, i suppose? "reddymun--about the same as usual. it's curious, andrew, how many people are attached to my limb, and how few are attached to me. "me--yes, it's a cold and cruel world, john. but i'm through. i've found the way out. they'll never pull my leg again. "reddymun--by george, old man, i wish i could say as much. "me--well, you can if you'll only do what i did. "reddymun--what's that? "me--had it cut off. "reddymun--no! "me--yep! "reddymun--when? "me--just now. "reddymun--hurt? "me--never knew what was happening. "reddymun--who did it? "me--old doctor squills. he charged me ten thousand dollars for the job, but i figure it out that it has saved me six hundred and thirty three million dollars. "reddymun--send him around, will you? "me--ubetcha!" "and then?" said the doctor. "and then?" echoed the idiot. "well, if you don't know what you would do if you were offered ten thousand dollars to cut a man's leg off i can't teach you, but i have one piece of advice to give you. when you get the order don't go around there with a case full of teaspoons and soup-ladles, when all you need is a good sharp carving knife to land you in the lap of luxury!" "and do you men think for one single moment," cried the landlady, "that all this would be honest business?" "well, in the very nature of the case it would be a trifle 'phoney'," said the idiot, "but what can a man do these days, with his bills getting bigger and bigger every day?" "i'd leave 'em unpaid first!" sniffed the landlady contemptuously. "oh, very well," smiled the idiot. "with your permission, ma'am, we will. you don't know what a load you have taken off my mind." viii for tired business men "poor old binks!" said the idiot sympathetically, as he put down a letter just received from his friend and turned his attention to the waffles. "he's spending the good old summer time in a sanitarium, just because he thinks he's got nervous prostration, and the lord knows when he'll be back in harness again." "who's binks?" asked the lawyer. "you talk as if the name of binks were a household word." "well, it is, in a way," said the idiot. "binks is one of those tired business men that we hear so much of these days. the kind they write comic operas and popular novels for, with all the thought taken out so that he may not have to burden his mind with anything worth thinking about. he's one of these billionaire slaves who's lost his thumb cutting off coupons and employs seventeen clerks with rubber stamps to sign his checks for him. he's succumbed to the strain of it all at last, and now the gobelins have got him. do you approve of these sanitariums, doctor?" "i most certainly do," said the doctor. "sanitariums are the greatest blessings of modern life, and, for my part, i'd like to see a law passed requiring everybody to spend a month in one of them every year of his life, where he could be under constant scientific supervision. it would add ten years to the lives of every one of us." "well, i hope you are right, but i don't know," said the idiot dubiously. "seems to me there's too much coddling going on at those places, and mighty few people get well on coddling. i've given the matter some thought, and i've known a lot of men who had nothing but a pain in their toe who got so much sympathy over it that they became hopeless invalids inside of a year. there's more truth than humor in that joke about the little irish boy who was asked how his mother was and replied that she was enjoying poor health this year." "o, that's all tommyrot," said the doctor. "perfect nonsense--" "i hope so," said the idiot, "but after all nobody can deny that there are a great many people in this world who really do enjoy bad health who wouldn't if it weren't for the perquisites." "perquisites?" frowned the bibliomaniac. "great heavens, mr. idiot, you don't mean to insinuate that there is graft in ill health, just as there is in everything else, do you?" "i sure do," replied the idiot. "take me, for instance--" "i for one must decline to take you until i know whether you are a chronic disorder, or merely a temporary epidemic," grinned mr. brief. "idiocy is pretty contagious," smiled the idiot, in reply, "but in this case i wish to be taken as a patient. let us say, for instance, that i am off in the country at a popular hotel, and all of a sudden some fine morning i come down with a headache--" "that's a debatable hypothesis," said the lawyer. "is it possible for the idiot to have a headache, doctor?" "i have known similar cases," said the doctor. "i knew an old soldier once who lost his leg at gettysburg, and years afterward could still feel the twinges of rheumatism in one of his lost toes." "thanks for the vindication, doctor," said the idiot. "nevertheless, just to please our learned brother here, i will modify the hypothesis. "let us suppose that i am off in the country at a popular summer hotel, and all of a sudden some fine morning i come down with a violent pain in that anatomical void where my head would be if, like mr. brief, i always suffered from one. i am not sick enough to stay in bed, but just badly enough off to be able to loll around the hotel piazzas all morning and look forlorn. "everybody in the place, of course, is immediately sympathetic. all are sorry for me, and it is such an unusual thing for one of my volatile, not to say fluffy, nature to suffer that a vast amount of commiseration is manifested by my fellow guests, especially by the ladies. "they turn me at once into a suffering hero. as i lie listlessly in my steamer-chair they pass me by on tip-toe, or pause and inquire into the progress of my aches and show a great deal more interest in my condition than they do in bridge or votes for women. one fetching young creation in polka-dotted dimity, aged twenty-three, offers to stay home from a picnic and read robert w. chambers aloud to me. another goes to her room and brings me down a little jar of mint jelly, which she feeds to me on the end of a macaroon or a lady finger, while still a third, a pretty little widow of twenty-seven summers, now and then leaves her embroidery to put a cool little hand on my forehead to see if i have any fever--" "a most alluring picture," said the doctor. "it almost makes my head ache to think of it!" said the idiot. "but to continue, this goes on all morning, and then when afternoon comes they hang a nice little hammock for me, filled with dainty sofa cushions, out under the trees, and as they gently swing me to and fro a charming creature from wellesley or vassar sits alongside of me and fans my fevered brow, driving away dull care, flies, and mosquitoes until twilight, when, after feeding me on more macaroons, washed down with copious libations of sparkling lemonade, a bevy of elfin maids sit around in a circle and sing 'my bonnie lies over the ocean', while the aforesaid little widow comes now and then to brush my scalp-lock back from my brow with the aforesaid pink paddy." "oh, well, what of it?" interrupted the doctor. "i've known many a stronger man than you made a fool of--" "what of it?" demanded the idiot. "what of it? there's a lot of it. do you suppose for one minute that i am going to get well under those circumstances?" "i wouldn't," said the lawyer. "not on your faith in the materia medica!" cried the idiot. "that headache would become immortal. as undying as a poet's fame. life would become for me one blissful eternity of cerebellian suffering under those conditions. rather that lose my job as the cynosure of all that lovely solicitude i'd hire a bellboy to come to my room in the morning with a croquet mallet and hammer my head until it split, if i couldn't get one in any more legitimate fashion. "the quiet joy of lying off there with all those ministering angels about me, secretly enjoying the discomfiture of all the other men about the place--they nursing their wrath; their sisters, cousins, aunts, rich grandmothers, and best girls nursing me--get well? me? never, doctor! "but if, on the other hand, nobody came near me all day long save a horse marine of a landlady armed with a bottle of squills, with the request that i go to bed until i felt better, why then i'd be a well man in just seven and a half minutes, dancing the tango, and challenging all the rheumaticky old beaux about the place to a hundred yards' dash for the fifteenth turkey trot with the little widow at the saturday night hop." "yes, i admit that there is such a thing as too much coddling," said the doctor. "there are people who are inclined to hug their troubles, and for whom too much sympathy is a positive deterrent in the process of recuperation, but after all, my dear fellow, until we find something better the sanitarium must serve its purpose, and a great many people are unquestionably helped along by its beneficent operations." "i haven't a doubt of that," said the idiot, "and here's to them! long may they wave! i quaff this pony of maple syrup to the health of the sanitariums of the land--but just the same, for the tired business man, and his name is not only smith, but legion, there should be some other kind of an institution where this coddling process is frowned upon." "why not devote that massive brain of yours to the working out of the idea?" suggested the bibliomaniac. "the great trouble with you, mr. idiot, is that you are prolific in thinking out things that ought to be done, but there you stop. how to do them you never tell us. why don't you give us a constructive notion once in awhile?" "thank you, mr. bib," said the idiot, with a grateful smile. "i've been fishing for that particular nibble for the past eighteen minutes, and i was beginning to fear the shad were shy this morning. you have saved the day, sir. speaking of mr. bib's idea that we ought to have something to take the place of the sanitarium for the tired business man, doctor, how do you think an irritarium would pay?" "a what?" cried the doctor, holding his waffle like mohammed's coffin, suspended in midair. "an irritarium," repeated the idiot. "an institution of aggravation, where, instead of being coddled into permanent invalidism, we should be constantly irritated, provoked, exacerbated, or, as my old friend colonel thesaurus says in his essay on excitation, exasperated into a cantankerously contentious pugnacity!" "and for what purpose, pray?" demanded the bibliomaniac. "as an anti-coddling resource for the restoration of our pristine powers," said the idiot. "just take our old friend, the tired business man, for example. he has been working forty-eight hours a day all winter long, and with the coming of spring he is first cousin to the frazzle, and in the matter of spine twin brother to the jellyfish. his middle name is flabby, and his nerve has succumbed to the superior numbers of nerves. "he is headed straight for the down-and-out club. his lip quivers when he talks, and his hand is the center of a seismic disturbance that turns his autograph into a cross between a dress pattern and a futurist conception of a straight line in the cold gray dawn of the morning after. he has prolonged fits of weeping, and when it comes to making up his mind on any definite course of action he vacillates between two possibilities until it is too late, and then decides wrong. "now, under present conditions they railroad this poor wreck off to a sanitarium, where the very atmosphere that he breathes is the dread thing that has haunted his sleepless hours all winter long--that of retirement. he is made to believe that he is a vurry, vurry sick man, and the only real pleasure that is left to him is bragging about his symptoms to some other unfortunate incarcerated with him; and after each period of boastful exposure of these symptoms in the exchange provided for the swapping of these things in the sanitariums of the day, he goes back to his room more than ever convinced that his case is hopeless; and, confronted by the bogey of everlasting ill health, he lets go of himself altogether and a long, long, tedious period of rehabilitation begins which may or may not get him into shape again in time for the fall season." "it's the only way," said the doctor. "don't fight your doctor. just let go of yourself, and let him do the rest." "well, i'd like to see my system tried for a while," said the idiot. "i'll guarantee that any tired business man who will go to my irritarium will get his spine and his spunk, his nerve and his dander, back in a jiffy. "the first morning, after giving him a first-class breakfast that fills his weary soul with peace, i'd turn him loose in a picture gallery on the walls of which are hung soft, dreamy reproductions of pastoral scenes calculated to lull his soul into an unsuspecting sense of calm, and while he is looking placidly at these lovely things i'd have a husky attendant wearing sneakers creep quietly up behind him and give him such a kick as should for a moment make him feel that the earth itself had blown up. it wouldn't be a pleasant, sympathetic little love tap calculated to make him feel that he never even wanted to get well, but a violent, exacerbating assault; utterly uncalled for and unexpected; a bit of sheer, brutal provocation. "do you suppose for an instant that the party of the second part would throw himself down forthwith upon a convenient divan and give way to a fit of weeping? not he, my dear doctor. the tire of that tired business man would blow out with a report like a crash of distant thunder. all the latent business manhood in him would be aroused into instant action. nerves would fly, and nerve would return. spinelessness and uncertainty would give way to spunk, and a promptitude of truculent reprisal worthy of the palmiest days of his commercial pre-eminence would ensue. worn and weary as he was when he entered the irritarium, he would be so outraged by the rank discourtesy and utter injustice of that kick that he would beat up that attendant as if he were a world's champion battling with a bowlful of cold consommé for a ten-thousand-dollar purse." "tush!" said the doctor. "what do you suppose the attendant would be doing all this time? you seem to think your tired business man would find beating him up as easy as mashing potatoes with a pile driver." "it would be part of my system," said the idiot, "that the attendant should allow himself to be thrashed, so that the tired business man, irritated into a show of spirit and deceived into thinking that he was still some fighter, would leave the place next day, his courage renewed and his confidence in himself completely restored. instead of inoculating him with nut chops and hot water for a weary period of six months, i'd pin the red badge of courage on him at the very start; and i miss my guess if he wouldn't go back to business the next morning as fit as a fiddle, and spend most of his time for the next two years telling everybody who would listen how he walloped the life out of one of the huskiest attendants he could find in a month of sundays." "and you really think such brutal methods would work, do you?" asked the bibliomaniac. "i have eight dollars that are willing to state it is a fact to any two-dollar certificate ever printed by uncle sam," returned the idiot. "why, mr. bib, i had a very dear friend once who was paralyzed. so completely paralyzed was he that he couldn't move without help, and, what was worse, couldn't even talk. "he went to a sanitarium, and for seven long and weary months he was dipped in a warm bath every morning by two attendants, an irishman and a dutchman. one held him by the shoulders and the other by the ankles, and day after day for nearly a year they dipped, and dipped, and dipped him. he showed no signs of improvement whatsoever until one bitterly cold winter's morning, the two attendants, having been off on a spree the night before, forgot to turn on the hot-water faucet and dipped him into a tub of ice water! "the effect was electrical. the patient was so mad that he impulsively broke the dam of silence that had afflicted him for so long and let loose a flow of language on those attendants that made the wrath to come seem like the twittering of a bird; and before they had recovered from their astonishment he had leaped from the tub, pinked the irishman on the eye with a cake of soap, and, after chasing the dutchman downstairs into the parlor, spanked him into a state of coma with a long-handled bath brush he had picked up off the floor." "and i suppose he is giving lessons in the tango to-day!" interjected the lawyer, with a laugh. "nothing so mild," said the idiot. "the last time i saw him he was starting off with old man weston on his walk to chicago. he told me he was going as far as albany with weston." "well," said the doctor, "it might work, but i doubt it. i should have to see the scheme in operation before i recommended it to any of my patients." "all right," said the idiot. "send 'em along, doctor. mr. bib and i can take care of them right here." "leave me out," snapped the bibliomaniac. "i don't care to be a partner in any of your idiotic nonsense." "no, mr. bib," smiled the idiot, genially. "i wasn't going to use you as a partner, but as a shining example of the effectiveness of my theory. i've been irritating you constantly for the past twenty years, and you are still able to eat your thirty-seven and a half flapjacks daily without turning a hair, and that's some testimonial." talks on talking by grenville kleiser formerly instructor in public speaking at yale divinity school, yale university; author of "how to speak in public," "how to develop power and personality in speaking," "how to develop self-confidence in speech and manner," "how to argue and win," "how to read and declaim," "complete guide to public speaking,"; etc. copyright, 1916, by funk. & wagnalls company (printed in the united states of america) published, september, 1916 copyright under the articles of the copyright convention of the pan-american republics and the united states, august 11, 1910 contents page the art of talking 1 types of talkers 11 talkers and talking 18 phrases for talkers 25 the speaking voice 34 how to tell a story 44 talking in salesmanship 56 men and mannerisms 63 how to speak in public 70 practical hints for speakers 84 the dramatic element in speaking 87 conversation and public speaking 94 a talk to preachers 100 care of the speaker's throat 108 don'ts for public speakers 116 do's for public speakers 118 points for speakers 120 the bible on speech 122 thoughts on talking 123 preface good conversation implies naturalness, spontaneity, and sincerity of utterance. it is not advisable, therefore, to lay down arbitrary rules to govern talking, but it is believed that the suggestions offered here will contribute to the general elevation and improvement of daily speech. considering the large number of persons who are obliged to talk in social, business, and public life, the subject of correct speech should receive more serious consideration than is usually given to it. it is earnestly hoped that this volume will be of practical value to those who are desirous of developing and improving their conversational powers. appreciative thanks are expressed to the editors of the _homiletic review_ for permission to reprint some of the extracts. grenville kleiser. new york city, may, 1916. boys flying kites haul in their white-wing'd birds: you can't do that way when you're flying words. "careful with fire," is good advice we know; "careful with words," is ten times doubly so. thoughts unexpress'd may sometimes fall back dead, but god himself can't kill them once they're said! --_will carleton._ the first duty of a man is to speak; that is his chief business in this world; and talk, which is the harmonious speech of two or more, is by far the most accessible of pleasures. it costs nothing; it is all profit; it completes our education; it founds and fosters our friendships; and it is by talk alone that we learn our period and ourselves. --_robert louis stevenson._ vociferated logic kills me quite; a noisy man is always in the right- i twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair, fix on the wainscot a distressful stare; and when i hope his blunders all are out, reply discreetly, "to be sure--no doubt!" --_anon._ talks on talking the art of talking the charm of conversation chiefly depends upon the adaptability of the participants. it is a great accomplishment to be able to enter gently and agreeably into the moods of others, and to give way to them with grace and readiness. the spirit of conversation is oftentimes more important than the ideas expressed. what we are rather than what we say has the most permanent influence upon those around us. hence it is that where a group of persons are met together in conversation, it is the inner life of each which silently though none the less surely imparts tone and character to the occasion. it requires vigorous self-discipline so to cultivate the feelings of kindness and sympathy that they are always in readiness for use. these qualities are essential to agreeable and profitable intercourse, though comparatively few people possess them. burke considered manners of more importance than laws. sidney smith described manners as the shadows of virtues. dean swift defined manners as the art of putting at ease the people with whom we converse. chesterfield said manners should adorn knowledge in order to smooth its way through the world. emerson spoke of manners as composed of petty sacrifices. we all recognize that a winning manner is made up of seemingly insignificant courtesies, and of constant little attentions. a person of charming manner is usually free from resentments, inquisitiveness, and moods. personality plays a large part in interesting conversation. precisely the same phraseology expressed by two different persons may make two wholly different impressions, and all because of the difference in the personalities of the speakers. the daily mental life of a man indelibly impresses itself upon his face, where it can be unmistakably read by others. what a person is, innately and habitually, unconsciously discloses itself in voice, manner, and bearing. the world ultimately appraises a man at his true value. the best type of talker is slow to express positive opinions, is sparing in criticism, and studiously avoids a tone or word of finality. it has been well said that "a talker who monopolizes the conversation is by common consent insufferable, and a man who regulates his choice of topics by reference to what interests not his hearers but himself has yet to learn the alphabet of the art. conversation is like lawn-tennis, and requires alacrity in return at least as much as vigor in service. a happy phrase, an unexpected collocation of words, a habitual precision in the choice of terms, are rare and shining ornaments of conversation, but they do not for an instant supply the place of lively and interesting matter, and an excessive care for them is apt to tell unfavorably on the substance of discourse." when lord beaconsfield was talking his way into social fame, someone said of him, "i might as well attempt to gather up the foam of the sea as to convey an idea of the extraordinary language in which he clothed his description. there were at least five words in every sentence that must have been very much astonished at the use they were put to, and yet no others apparently could so well have expressed his idea. he talked like a racehorse approaching the winning-post--every muscle in action, and the utmost energy of expression flung out into every burst." we are told that matthew arnold combined all the characteristics of good conversation--politeness, vivacity, sympathy, interestedness, geniality, a happy choice of words, and a never-failing humor. when he was once asked what was his favorite topic for conversation, he instantly answered, "that in which my companion is most interested." courtesy, it will be noted, is the fundamental basis of good conversation. we must show habitual consideration and kindliness towards others if we would attract them to us. bluntness of manner is no longer excused on the ground that the speaker is sincere and outspoken. we expect and demand that our companion in conversation should observe the recognized courtesies of speech. there was a time when men and women indulged freely in satire, irony, and repartee. they spoke their thoughts plainly and unequivocally. there were no restraints imposed upon them by society, hence it now appears to us that many things were said which might better have been left unsaid. self-restraint is nowadays one of the cardinal virtues of good conversation. the spirit of conversation is greatly changed. we are enjoined to keep the voice low, think before we speak, repress unseasonable allusions, shun whatever may cause a jar or jolt in the minds of others, be seldom prominent in conversation, and avoid all clashing of opinion and collision of feeling. macaulay was fond of talking, but made the mistake of always choosing a subject to suit himself and monopolizing the conversation. he lectured rather than talked. his marvelous memory was perhaps his greatest enemy, for though it enabled him to pour forth great masses of facts, people listened to him helplessly rather than admiringly. carlyle was a great talker, and talked much in protest of talking. no man broke silence oftener than he to tell the world how great a curse is talking. but he told it eloquently and therein was he justified. there was in him too much vehement sternness, of hard scotch granite, to make him a pleasant talker in the popular sense. he was the evangelist of golden silence, and though he did not apparently practice it himself, his genius will never diminish. gladstone was unable to indulge in small talk. his mind was so constantly occupied with great subjects that he spoke even to one person as if addressing a meeting. it is said that in conversation with queen victoria he would invariably choose weighty subjects, and though she tried to make a digression, he would seize the first opportunity to resume his original theme, always reinforced in volume and onrush by the delay. lord morley is attractive though austere in conversation. he never dogmatizes nor obtrudes his own opinions. he is a master of phrase-making. but although he talks well he never talks much. the story is told that at a recent dinner in london ten leading public men were met together, when one suggested that each gentleman present should write down on paper the name of the man he would specially choose to be his companion on a walking tour. when the ten papers were subsequently read aloud, each bore the name of lord morley. lord rosebery is considered one of the most accomplished talkers of the day. deferential, natural, sympathetic, observant, well-informed, he easily and unconsciously commands the attention of any group of men. his voice is said to recommend what he utters, and a singularly refined accent gives distinction to anything he says. he is a supreme example of two great qualifications for effective talking: having something worth while to say, and knowing how to say it. among distinguished canadians, sir thomas white is one of the most interesting speakers. his versatile mind, and broad and varied experience, enable him to converse with almost equal facility upon politics, medicine, finance, law, science, art, literature, or business. dates, details, facts, figures, and illustrations are at his ready command. his manner is natural, courteous, and genial, but in argumentation the whole man is so thoroughly aroused to earnestness and intensity as almost to overwhelm an opponent. his greatest quality in speaking is his manifest sincerity, and it is this particularly which has ingratiated him in the hearts of his countrymen. the honorable joseph h. choate must certainly be reckoned among the best conversationalists of our time. his manner, both in conversation and in public speaking, is singularly gracious and winning. he is unsurpassed as a story-teller. his fine taste, combined with long experience as a public man, makes him an ideal after-dinner speaker. some eminent men try to mask their greatness when engaged in conversation. they do not wear their feelings nor their greatness on their sleeves. some have an utter distaste for anything like personal display. it is said of the late henry james that a stranger might talk to him for an entire evening without discovering his identity. there is an interesting account of an evening's conversation between emerson and thoreau. when thoreau returned home he wrote in his journal: "talked, or tried to talk, with r.w.e. lost my time, nay, almost my identity. he, assuming a false opposition where there was no difference of opinion, talked to the wind." emerson's version of the conversation was this: "it seemed as if thoreau's first instinct on hearing a proposition was to controvert it. that habit is chilling to the social affections; it mars conversation." conversation offers daily opportunity for intellectual exercise of high order. the reading of great books is desirable and indispensable to education, but real culture comes through the additional training one receives in conversation. the contact of mind with mind tends to stimulate and develop thoughts which otherwise would probably remain dormant. the culture of conversation is to be recommended not only for its own sake, but also as one of the best means of training in the art of public speaking. since the best form of platform address today is simply conversation enlarged and elevated, it may almost be assumed that to excel in one is to be proficient in the other. good conversation requires, among other things, mental alertness, accuracy of statement, adequate vocabulary, facility of expression, and an agreeable voice, and these qualities are most essential for effective public speaking. everyone, therefore, who aspires to speaking before an audience of hundreds or thousands, will find his best opportunity for preliminary training in everyday speech. types of talkers there is no greater affliction in modern life than the tiresome talker. he talks incessantly. presumably he talks in his sleep. talking is his constant exercise and recreation. he thrives on it. he lives for talking's sake. he would languish if he were deprived of it for a single day. his continuous practice in talking enables him easily to outdistance all ordinary competitors. there is nothing which so completely unnerves him as long periods of silence. he has the talking habit in its most virulent form. the trifling talker is equally objectionable. he talks much, but says little. he skims over the surface of things, and is timid of anything deep or philosophical. he does not tarry at one subject. he talks of the weather, clothes, plays, and sports. he puts little meaning into what he says, because there is little meaning in what he thinks. he cannot look at anything seriously. nothing is of great significance to him. he is in the class of featherweights. the tedious talker is one without terminal facilities. he talks right on with no idea of objective or destination. he rises to go, but he does not go. he knows he ought to go, but he simply cannot. he has something more to say. he keeps you standing half an hour. he talks a while longer. he assures you he really must go. you tell him not to hurry. he takes you at your word and sits down again. he talks some more. he rises again. he does not know even now how to conclude. he has no mental compass. he is a rudderless talker. probably the most obnoxious type is the tattling talker. he always has something startlingly personal to impart. it is a sacred secret for your ear. he is a wholesale dealer in gossip. he fairly smacks his lips as he relates the latest scandal. he is an expert embellisher. he adroitly supplies missing details. he has nothing of interest in his own life, since he lives wholly in the lives of others. he is a frightful bore, but you cannot offend him. he is adamant. there is the tautological talker, or the human self-repeater. he goes over the ground again and again lest you have missed something. he is very fond of himself. he tells the same story not twice, but a dozen times. "you may have heard this before," says he, "but it is so good that it will bear repetition." he tries to disguise his poverty of thought in a masquerade of ornate language. if he must repeat his words, he adds a little emphasis, a flourishing gesture, or a spirit of nonchalance. again, there is the tenacious talker, who refuses to release you though you concede his arguments. when all others tacitly drop a subject, he eagerly picks it up. he is reluctant to leave it. he would put you in possession of his special knowledge. you may successfully refute him, but he holds firmly to his own ideas. he is positive he is right. he will prove it, too, if you will only listen. he knows that he knows. you cannot convince him to the contrary, no indeed. he will talk you so blind that at last you are unable to see any viewpoint clearly. a recognized type is the tactless talker. he says the wrong thing in the right way, and the right thing in the wrong way. he is impulsive and unguarded. he reaches hasty conclusions. he confuses his tactlessness with cleverness. he is awkward and blundering. his indifference to the rights and feelings of others is his greatest enemy. he is a stranger to discretion. he speaks first, and thinks afterwards. he may have regrets, but not resolutions. he is often tolerated, but seldom esteemed. the temperamental talker is one of the greatest of nerve-destroyers. he deals in superlatives. he views everything emotionally. he talks feelingly of trifles, and ecstatically of friends. he gushes. he flatters. to him everything is "wonderful," "prodigious," "superb," "gorgeous," "heavenly," "amazing," "indescribable," "overwhelming." extravagance and exaggeration permeate his most commonplace observations. he is an incurable enthusiast. the tantalizing talker is one who likes to contradict you. he divides his attention between what you are saying and what he can summon to oppose you. he dissents from your most ordinary observations. his favorite phrases are, "i don't think so," "there is where you are wrong," "i beg to differ," and "not only that." tell him it will be a fine day, and he will declare that the signs indicate foul weather. say that the day is unpromising, and he will assure you it does not look that way to him. he cavils at trifles. he disputes even when there is no antagonist. to listen to the tortuous talker is a supreme test of patience. he slowly winds his way in and out of a subject. he traverses by-paths, allowing nothing to escape his unwearied eye. he goes a long way about, but never tires of his circuitous journey. ploddingly and perseveringly he zigzags from one point to another. he alters his course as often as the crooked way of his subject changes. he twists, turns, and diverges without the slightest inconvenience to himself. he likes nothing better than to trace out details. his talking disease is discursiveness. the tranquil talker never hurries. he has all the time there is. if you are very busy he will wait. he is uniformly moderate and polite. he is a rare combination of oil, milk, and rose-water. he would not harm a syllable of the english language. his talking has a soporific effect. it acts as a lullaby. his speech is low and gentle. he never speaks an ill-considered word. he chooses his words with measured caution. he is what is known as a smooth talker. the torpedo talker is of the rapid fire explosive variety. he bursts into a conversation. he scatters labials, dentals, and gutturals in all directions. he is a war-time talker,--boom, burst, bang, roar, crash, thud! he fills the air with vocal bullets and syllabic shrapnel. he is trumpet-tongued, ear-splitting, deafening. he fires promiscuously at all his hearers. he rends the skies asunder. he is nothing if not vociferous, stentorian, lusty. he demolishes every idea in his way. he is a napoleon of words. the tangled talker never gets anything quite straight. he inevitably spoils the best story. he always begins at the wrong end. despite your protests of face and manner he talks on. he talks inopportunely. he becomes inextricably confused. he is weak in statistics. he has no memory for names or places. he lacks not fluency but accuracy. he is a twisted talker. the triumphant talker lays claim to the star part in any conversation. he likes nothing better than to drive home his point and then look about exultingly. he says gleefully, "i told you so." that he can ever be wrong is inconceivable to him. he knows the facts since he can readily manufacture them himself. he is self-satisfied, for in his own opinion he has never lost an argument. he is a brave and bold talker. these, then, are some types of talking which we should not emulate. study the list carefully--the tiresome talker, the trifling talker, the tedious talker, the tattling talker, the tautological talker, the tenacious talker, the tactless talker, the temperamental talker, the tantalizing talker, the tangled talker, the triumphant talker--and guard yourself diligently against the faults which they represent. talking should always be a pleasure to the speaker and listener, never a bore. talkers and talking conversation is not a verbal nor vocal contest, but a mutual meeting of minds. it is not a monologue, but a reciprocal exchange of ideas. there are cardinal rules which everyone should observe in conversation. the first of these is to be prepared always to give courteous and considerate attention to the ideas of others. there is no better way to cultivate your own conversational powers than to train yourself first to be an interesting and sympathetic listener. it is in bad taste to interrupt a speaker. this is a common fault which should be resolutely guarded against. moreover, your own opportunity to speak will shortly come if you have patience, when you may reasonably expect to receive the same uninterrupted attention which you have given to others. never allow yourself to monopolize a conversation. this is a form of selfishness practiced by many persons apparently unaware of being ill-mannered. it is inexcusably bad taste to tell unduly long stories or lengthy personal experiences. if you cannot abridge a story to reasonable dimensions, it would be better to omit it entirely. the habitual long-story teller may easily become a bore. avoid the habit of eagerly matching the other person's story or experience with one of your own. there is nothing more disconcerting to a speaker than to observe the listener impatiently waiting to plunge headlong into the conversation with some marvellous tale. be particularly careful not to outdo another speaker in relating your own experiences. if, for instance, he has just told how he caught fifty fish upon a recent trip, do not succumb to the temptation to tell of the time you caught fifty-one. be careful not to give unsolicited advice. it has been well said that advice which costs nothing is worth what it costs. if people desire your counsel they will probably ask for it, in which case they will be more likely to appreciate what you have to tell them. do not voluntarily recommend doctors, dentists, osteopaths, pills, coffee substitutes, health foods, health resorts, or panaceas for the ills of mankind. if you can be of service to others in these particular respects, it will be when you are specifically asked for such information. it is most imprudent to carry an argument to extremes. if you observe an unwillingness in the other person to be convinced by what you say, you had better turn to another subject. conversation should never resolve itself into controversial debate. it is well to avoid discursiveness, over-use of parentheses, and positiveness of statement. keep your desires and feelings from over-coloring your views. a flexible attitude of mind is more likely to win an opponent to your way of thinking. take special pains to enter into the minds and feelings of others. be interested in what they want to talk about. let your interest be deep and sincere. adopt the right tone, temper, and reticence in your conversation. you should accustom yourself to look at things from the other person's standpoint. it is surprising how this habit enlarges the vision and gives a charitableness to speech which might otherwise be absent. it is well to remember that no person can possibly have a monopoly of knowledge upon any subject. good conversation demands restraint, adaptability, and reasonable brevity. there is an appalling waste of words on all sides, hence you should constantly guard yourself against this fault. when there is nothing worth-while to say, the best substitute is silence. practice self-discipline in talking. correct any fault in yourself the instant you recognize it. if, for example, you realize that you are talking at too great length, stop it at once. should you feel that you are not giving interested attention to the speaker, check your mind-wandering immediately and concentrate upon what is being said. do not be always setting other people right. this is a thankless as well as useless task. they probably do not want your assistance, or they would ask for it. besides most people are sensitive about their shortcomings, and prefer to get help and counsel in private. there is no more important suggestion than to rule your moods. ofttimes the feelings run away with the judgment. what you think and say today may be due to your present mood, rather than to matured judgment. let your common sense predominate at all times. it is not well to give too strong expression to your likes and dislikes. these, like all your feelings, should be governed with a firm hand. opinions advanced with too much emphasis may easily fail to impress other minds. remember always that your greatest ally is truth. therefore frankly and faithfully examine your important opinions before giving them expression. resist the desire to be prominent in conversation, or to say clever and surprising things. this is sometimes difficult to do, but it is the only safe course to follow. if you have something brilliant or worth-while to say, it will be best said spontaneously and with due modesty. but if there is no suitable opportunity to say it, put it back in your mind where it may improve with age. egotism is taboo in polite society. the suggestion that nothing should be allowed to pass the lips that charity would check is invaluable advice. it is unfortunately all too common to give hasty and harsh expression to personal opinions and criticisms. reticence is one of the most essential conditions of long friendship. judgment and tact are necessary to good conversation. it is not well to ask many questions, and then only those of a general character. curiosity should be curbed. quite properly people resent inquisitiveness. the best way to cultivate the rare grace of judgment is to be mindful of your own faults and to correct them with all speed and thoroughness. the word "talk" is often used in a derogatory sense, and we hear such expressions as "all talk," "empty talk," and "idle talk." but as everyone talks, we should all do our utmost to set a high example to others of the correct use of speech. it is always better to talk too little than too much. never talk for mere talking's sake. avoid being artificial or pedantic. don't antagonize, dogmatize, moralize, attitudinize, nor criticise. talk in poise,--quietly, deliberately, sincerely, and you will never lack an attentive audience. phrases for talkers it is said of macaulay that he never allowed a sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could make it. he would write and rewrite, and even construct a paragraph or a whole chapter, in order to secure a more lucid and satisfactory arrangement. he wrote just so much each day, usually an average of six pages, and this manuscript was so erased and corrected that it was finally compressed into two pages of print. the masters of english prose have been great workers. stevenson and others like him gave hours and days to the study of words, phrases, and sentences. through unwearied application to the art of rhetorical composition they ultimately won fame as writers. the ambitious student of speech culture, whether for use in conversation or in public, will do well to emulate the example of such great writers. one of the best ways to build a large vocabulary is to note useful and striking phrases in one's general reading. it is advisable to jot down such phrases in a note-book, and to read them aloud from time to time. such phrases may be classified according to their particular application,--to business, politics, music, education, literature, or the drama. it is not recommended that such phrases should be consciously dragged into conversation, but the practice of carefully observing felicitous phrases, and of noting them in writing, cultivates the taste for better words and a sense of discrimination in their use. many phrases noted and studied in this way will unconsciously find their way into one's expression. the list of phrases which follows is offered as merely suggestive. in reading the phrases aloud it is well to think clearly what each one means, and to fit it into a sentence of one's own making. this simple exercise, practiced for a few weeks, will produce surprising results by way of increased facility and flexibility of english style. it is obviously desirable i can well imagine broadly speaking an admirable idea in a literal sense by sheer force of genius you can imagine his chagrin i hazard a guess it challenges belief he has an inscrutable face very fertile in resource i am loath to believe it is essentially undignified example is so contagious i am not in her confidence taken in the aggregate it is a reproof to shallowness there is a misconception here i strongly suspect it so he was covered with confusion it was a just rebuke a pleasing instance of this it lends dignity to life she has a desultory liking for music it seems incredible a kind of detached ideal it blunts the finer sensibilities beyond question or cavil a well-founded suspicion it has elicited great praise they are landmarks in memory superhuman vigor and activity a venerable and interesting figure it is curious and interesting gives the impression of aloofness perfectly void of offence regard with misgiving a stroke of professional luck an unscrupulous adventurer he spoke with extreme reticence robust common sense deficient in amiability done with characteristic thoroughness a vein of philanthropic zeal definite, tangible, and practical too much effusive declamation a man of keen ambition it gives infinite zest singular qualifications for public life they are bitterly hostile the despair of the official wire-puller blind and unreasoning opponent ignoble strife for power surrounded by a cohort of admiring friends in an imperative voice marked by copiousness and vivacity touched with sombre dignity a ridiculous misconception habitual austerity of demeanor ostentation and lavish expenditure a person of exquisite tact intolerant of bumptiousness the obvious danger of dallying this was grossly overstated a mass of calumny and exaggeration inimical to religion fraught with peril i venture to ask attributed to mental decrepitude a strange phenomena it argues a blind faith insatiable whirl of excitement a substratum of truth under some conceivable circumstances bubbling over with infectious joy frigid dignity and arrogant reserve a profound contempt the fine art of hospitality grim morsels of philosophy a tinge of sorrowness and jealousy due to ignorance and barbarism grave and monstrous scandal a splendid instance of self-devotion amusingly exemplified in this case recognized and powerful element a symbol of restraint an utterly fallacious idea in rapid and striking succession we learn from stern experience pictures of an inspired imagination an astonishing outbreak soothing words of sympathy a rather bold assertion the most enthusiastic adherents mere tepid conviction eminently qualified for the task almost supernatural charm in glowing and exaggerated phrases somewhat rich and austere an inexhaustible theme grave and undeniable faults perfectly chosen language all the characteristics of a mob given to grandiloquent phrase peculiar vein of sarcasm froze like ice and cut like steel a generous tribute to an eminent rival cold and stately composure fiery and passionate enthusiasm extraordinary violence of nature a brilliant and delightful play rare and striking combination preeminently qualified for the part moderate and cautious conservatism daring perversions of justice devoid of rhetorical device as a great thinker has observed almost morbid sensitiveness discreetly stifled yawn he was dumb with wonder scarcely less familiar delightfully characteristic it was a profound conviction greatly conceived and expressed blinded by its brightness i have cudgelled my memory exposed to imminent peril screening a breach of etiquette by a natural transition splendid anticipations of success a very laudable attempt lapsed into complete oblivion with most distinguished success like embarking on a shoreless sea a really pretty imitation unless i greatly err undaunted by repeated failure became a term of reproach an epoch-making achievement in the guise of verbal nonsense received with cordial sympathy with the most obvious sincerity held forth with fluency and zest gracious solicitude punctiliously civil and polite an air of sphinx-like mystery consumed by zeal awaited with lively interest sledge-hammer blows against humbug this recalls a happy retort preeminently a case in point exquisite precision and finish incomparably better informed a keen eye for incongruities polite to the point of deference to the last degree improbable people with rampant prejudices a model of chivalrous propriety by way of digression a splendid acquisition singularly attractive fashion a kind of unconscious conspiracy amid engrossing demands the speaking voice there is a widespread need for a more thorough cultivation of the speaking voice. it is astonishing how few persons give specific attention to this important subject. on all sides we are subjected to voices that are disagreeable and strident. it is the exception to hear a voice that is musical and well-modulated. most people make too much physical effort in speaking. they tighten the muscles of the throat and mouth, instead of liberating these muscles and allowing the voice to flow naturally and harmoniously. the remedy for this common fault of vocal tension is to relax all the muscles used in speech. this is easily accomplished by means of a little daily practice. the first thing to keep in mind is that we should speak through the throat and not from it. a musical quality of voice depends chiefly upon directing the tone towards the hard palate, or the bony arch above the upper teeth. from this part of the mouth the voice acquires much of its resonance. an excellent exercise for throat relaxation is yawning. it is not necessary to wait until a real yawn presents itself, but frequent practice in imitating a yawn may be indulged in with good results. immediately after practicing the yawn, it is advisable to test the voice, either in speaking or in reading, to observe improvement in freedom of tone. it is not desirable to use the voice where there is loud noise by way of opposition. many a good voice has been ruined due to the habit of continuous talking on the street or elsewhere amid clatter and hubbub. under such circumstances it is better to rest the voice, since in any contest of the kind the voice will almost surely be vanquished. what we need in our daily conversation is less emphasis, and more quietness and non-resistance. we need less eagerness and more vivacity and variety. we need a settled equanimity of mind that does not deprive us of our animation, but saves us from the petty irritations of everyday life. we need, in short, more poise and self-control in our way of speaking. it is well to remember that few things we say are of such importance as to require emphasis. the thought should be its own recommendation. but if emphasis be necessary, let it be by the intellectual means of pausing or inflection, rather than with the shoulders or the clenched fist. a very disagreeable and common fault is nasality, or "talking through the nose." many persons are guilty of this who least suspect it. this habit is so easily and unconsciously acquired that everyone should be on strict guard against it. almost equally disagreeable is the fault of throatiness, caused by holding the muscles of the throat instead of relaxing them. the best tones of the speaking voice are the middle and low keys. these should be used exclusively in daily conversation. the use of high pitch is due to habit or temperament, but may be overcome through judicious practice. the objection to a high-keyed voice is not only that it is disagreeable to the listener, but puts the speaker "out of tune" with his audience. a good speaking voice should possess the qualities of purity, resonance, flexibility, roundness, brilliancy, and adequate power. these qualities can be rapidly developed by daily reading aloud for ten minutes, giving special attention to one quality at a time. a few weeks, assiduous practice will produce most gratifying results. the voice grows through use, and it grows precisely in the way it is habitually used. distinct articulation and correct pronunciation are indications of cultivated speech. pedantry should be avoided, but every aspirant to correct speech should be a student of the dictionary. a writer has given this good counsel: "resolve that you will never use an incorrect, an inelegant, or a vulgar phrase or word, in any society whatever. if you are gifted with wit, you will soon find that it is easy to give it far better point and force in pure english than through any other medium, and that brilliant thoughts make the deepest impressions when well worded. however great it may be, the labor is never lost which earns for you the reputation of one who habitually uses the language of a gentleman, or of a lady. it is difficult for those who have not frequent opportunities for conversation with well-educated people, to avoid using expressions which are not current in society, although they may be of common occurrence in books. as they are often learned from novels, it will be well for the reader to remember that even in the best of such works dialogues are seldom sustained in a tone which would not appear affected in ordinary life. this fault in conversation is the most difficult of all to amend, and it is unfortunately the one to which those who strive to express themselves correctly are peculiarly liable. its effect is bad, for though it is not like slang, vulgar in itself, it betrays an effort to conceal vulgarity. it may generally be remedied by avoiding any word or phrase which you may suspect yourself of using for the purpose of creating an effect. whenever you imagine that the employment of any mere word or sentence will convey the impression that you are well informed, substitute for it some simple expression. if you are not positively certain as to the pronunciation of a word, never use it. if the temptation be great, resist it; for, rely upon it, if there be in your mind the slightest doubt on the subject, you will certainly make a mistake. never use a foreign word when its meaning can be given in english, and remember that it is both rude and silly to say anything to any person who possibly may not understand it. but never attempt, under any circumstances whatever, to utter a foreign word, unless you have learned to pronounce correctly the language to which it belongs." there is need for the admonition to open the mouth well. many people speak with half-closed teeth, the result being that the quality of voice and correctness of pronunciation are greatly impaired. consonants and vowels should be given proper significance. muffled speech is almost as objectionable as stammering. it enhances the pleasure and quality of conversation to speak in deliberate style. rapidity of utterance often leads a speaker into such faults as indistinctness, monotony, and incorrect breathing. deliberate speaking confers many advantages, not the least of which is increased pleasure to the listener. many voices are too thin in quality. they fail to carry conviction even when the thought is of superior character. the remedy here is to give special attention to the development of deep tones. one of the best exercises for this purpose is to practice for a few minutes daily upon the vowel sound "o," endeavoring to make it full, deep, and melodious. for all-round vocal development this practice should be done with varied force and inflection, and on high as well as low keys of the voice. the best remedy for a weak voice is to practice daily upon explosives, expelling the principal vowel sounds, on various keys, using the abdominal muscles throughout. another good exercise is to read aloud while walking upstairs or uphill. as these exercises are somewhat extreme, the student is recommended to practice them prudently. correct breathing is fundamental to correct and agreeable speaking. the breathing apparatus should be brought under control by daily practice upon exercises prescribed in any standard book on elocution. pure tone of voice depends upon the ability to convert into tone every particle of breath used. aspirated voice, in which some of the breath is allowed to escape unvocalized, is injurious to the throat, and unpleasant to the listening ear. the speaker, whether in conversation or in public, should try always to speak with an adequate supply of breath. deliberate utterance will give the necessary opportunity to replenish the lungs, so that the speaker will not suffer from unnecessary fatigue. needless to say, the habit should be formed of breathing through the nose when in repose. there is a voice of unusual roundness and fulness known as the orotund, which is indispensable to the public speaker. it is simple, pure tone, rounded out into greater fulness. it is produced mainly by an increased resonance of the chest and mouth cavities, and a more vigorous action of the abdominal muscles. it has the character of fulness, but it is not necessarily a loud tone. it is in no sense artificial, but simply an enlargement of the natural conversational voice. the use of the orotund voice varies according to the intensity of the thought and feeling being expressed. it is used in language of great dignity, power, grandeur, and sublimity. it is appropriate in certain forms of public prayer and bible reading. it enables the public speaker to vary from his conversational style. it gives vastly increased scope and power, by enabling the speaker to bring into play all the resources of vocal force and intensity. where resonance of voice is lacking, it can be rapidly developed by means of humming the letter _m_, with lips closed, and endeavoring to make the face vibrate. the tone should be kept well forward throughout the exercise, pressing firmly against the lips and hard palate. later the exercise may begin with the humming _m_, and be developed, while the lips are opened gradually, into the tone of _ah_, still aiming to maintain the original resonance. the speaking voice is capable of most wonderful development. there is a duty devolving upon everyone to cultivate beauty of vocal utterance and diction. crudities of speech so commonly in evidence are mainly due to carelessness and neglect. it is a hopeful sign, however, that greater attention is now being given to this important subject than heretofore. surely there is nothing more important than the development of the principal instrument by which men communicate with one another. as story says: "o, how our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices!- play on the soft lute of love, blow the loud trumpet of war, sing with the high sesquialter, or, drawing its full diapason, shake all the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops." how to tell a story someone has wittily said that only those in their anecdotage should tell stories. de quincey wanted all story-tellers to be submerged in a horse-pond, or treated in the same manner as mad dogs. but story-telling has its legitimate and appropriate use, and if certain rules are observed may give added charm to conversation and public speaking. it requires a fine discrimination to know when to tell a story, and when not to tell one though it is urging itself to be expressed. few men have the rare gift of choosing the right story for the particular occasion. many men have no difficulty in telling stories that are insufferably long, pointless, and uninteresting. we have all been victims of a certain type of public speaker who begins by saying, "now i don't want to bore you with a long story, but this is so good, etc.," or "an incident occurred at the american consulate in shanghai, which reminds me of an awfully good story, etc." when a speaker prefaces his remarks with some such sentences as these, we know we are in for an uncomfortable time. as far as possible a story should be new, clever, short, simple, inoffensive, and appropriate. as such stories are scarce, it is advisable to set them down, when found, in a special note-book for convenient reference. it is said that chauncey m. depew, one of the most gifted of after-dinner speakers, was for many years in the habit of keeping a set of scrap-books in which were preserved stories and other interesting data clipped from newspapers and magazines. these were so classified that he could on short notice refresh his mind with ample material upon almost any general subject. anyone who essays to tell a story should have it clearly in mind. it is fatal for a speaker to hesitate midway in a story, apologize for not knowing it better, avow that it was much more humorous when told to him, and in other ways to announce his shortcomings. if he cannot tell a story fluently and interestingly, he should first practice it on his own family--provided they will tolerate it. some stories should be committed to memory, especially where the point of humor depends upon exact phraseology. in such case, it requires some training and experience to disguise the memorized effort. a story like the following, for obvious reasons, should be thoroughly memorized: the longest sermon on record occupied three hours and a half. but the shortest sermon was that of a preacher who spoke for one minute on the text: "man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." he said: "i shall divide my discourse into three heads: (1) man's ingress into the world; (2) his progress through the world; (3) his egress out of the world. "firstly, his ingress into the world is naked and bare. "secondly, his progress through the world is trouble and care. "thirdly, his egress out of the world is nobody knows where. "to conclude: "if we live well here, we shall live well there. "i can tell you no more if i preach a whole year. "the collection will now be taken up." dialect stories are usually rather difficult, and should not as a general thing be attempted by beginners. as a matter of fact, few persons know how to speak such dialects as irish, scotch, german, cockney, and negro without undue exaggeration. for most occasions it is well to keep to simple stories couched in plain english. a story should be told in simple, conversational style. concentration upon the story, and a sincere desire to give pleasure to the hearers, will keep the speaker free from self-consciousness. needless to say he should not be the first to laugh at his own story. sometimes in telling a humorous anecdote to an audience a speaker secures the greatest effect by maintaining an expression of extreme gravity. no matter how successful one may be in telling stories, he should avoid telling too many. a man who is accounted brilliant and entertaining may become an insufferable bore by continuing to tell stories when the hearers have become satiated. of all speakers, the story-teller should keep his eyes on his entire audience and be alert to detect the slightest signs of weariness. it is superfluous to say that a story should never be told which in any way might give offence. the speaker may raise a laugh, but lose a friend. hence it is that stories about stammerers, red-headed people, mothers-in-law, and the like, should always be chosen with discrimination. generally the most effective story is one in which the point of humor is not disclosed until the very last words, as in the following: an old colored man was brought up before a country judge. "jethro," said the judge, "you are accused of stealing general johnson's chickens. have you any witnesses?" "no, sah," old jethro answered, haughtily; "i hab not, sah. i never steal chickens befo' witnesses." this is a similar example, told by prime minister asquith: an english professor wrote on the blackboard in his laboratory, "professor blank informs his students that he has this day been appointed honorary physician to his majesty, king george." during the morning he had some occasion to leave the room, and found on his return that some student wag had added the words, "god save the king!" henry w. grady was a facile story-teller. one of his best stories was as follows: "there was an old preacher once who told some boys of the bible lesson he was going to read in the morning. the boys, finding the place, glued together the connecting pages. the next morning he read on the bottom of one page: 'when noah was one hundred and twenty years old he took unto himself a wife, who was'--then turning the page--'one hundred and forty cubits long, forty cubits wide, built of gopherwood, and covered with pitch inside and out.' he was naturally puzzled at this. he read it again, verified it, and then said: 'my friends, this is the first time i ever met this in the bible, but i accept it as an evidence of the assertion that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.'" personalities based upon sarcasm or invective are always attended with danger, but good-humored bantering may be used upon occasion with most happy results. as an instance of this, there is a story of an annual dinner at which mr. choate was set down for the toast, "the navy," and mr. depew was to respond to "the army." mr. depew began by saying, "it's well to have a specialist: that's why choate is here to speak about the navy. we met at the wharf once and i did not see him again till we reached liverpool. when i asked how he felt he said he thought he would have enjoyed the trip over if he had had any ocean air. yes, you want to hear choate on the navy." when it was mr. choate's turn to speak, he said: "i've heard depew hailed as the greatest after-dinner speaker. if after-dinner speaking, as i have heard it described and as i believe it to be, is the art of saying nothing at all, then mr. depew is the most marvelous speaker in the universe." the medical profession can be assailed with impunity, since they have long since grown accustomed to it. there is a story of a young laborer who, on his way to his day's work, called at the registrar's office to register his father's death. when the official asked the date of the event, the son replied, "he ain't dead yet, but he'll be dead before night, so i thought it would save me another journey if you would put it down now." "oh, that won't do at all," said the registrar; "perhaps your father will live till tomorrow." "well, i don't think so, sir; the doctor says as he won't, and he knows what he has given him." while stories should be used sparingly, there is probably nothing more effective before a popular audience than the telling of a story in which the joke is on the speaker himself. thus: the last time i made a speech, i went next day to the editor of our local newspaper, and said, "i thought your paper was friendly to me?" the editor said, "so it is. what's the matter?" "well," i said, "i made a speech last night, and you didn't print a single line of it this morning." "well," said the editor, "what further proof do you want?" many of the best and most effective stories are serious in character. one that has been used successfully is this: some gentlemen from the west were excited and troubled about the commissions or omissions of the administration. president lincoln heard them patiently, and then replied: "gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of blondin to carry across the niagara river on a rope; would you shake the cable, or keep shouting out to him--'blondin, stand up a little straighter--blondin, stoop a little more--go a little faster--lean a little more to the north--lean a little more to the south?' no, you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safe over. the government is carrying an immense weight. untold treasures are in our hands. we are doing the very best we can. don't badger us. keep silence, and we'll get you safe across." punning is of course out of fashion. the best pun in the english language is tom hood's: "he went and told the sexton, and the sexton tolled the bell." dr. johnson said that the pun was the lowest order of wit. newspapers formerly indulged in it freely. one editor would say: "we don't care a straw what shakespeare said--a rose by any other name would not smell as wheat." then another paper would answer: "such puns are barley tolerable, they amaize us, they arouse our righteous corn, and they turn the public taste a-rye." but punning, when it is unusually clever and spontaneous, may be thoroughly enjoyable, as in the following: chief justice story attended a public dinner in boston at which edward everett was present. desiring to pay a delicate compliment to the latter, the learned judge proposed as a volunteer toast: "fame follows merit where everett goes." the brilliant scholar arose and responded: "to whatever heights judicial learning may attain in this country, it will never get above one story." story-telling may attain the character of a disease, in one who has a retentive memory and a voluble vocabulary. the form of humor known as repartee, however, is one that requires rare discrimination. it should be used sparingly, and not at all if it is likely to give offence. beau brummell was guilty in this respect, when he was once asked by a lady if he would "take a cup of tea." "thank you," said he, "i never _take_ anything but physic." "i beg your pardon," said the hostess, "you also take liberties." there is a story that henry luttrell had sat long in the irish parliament, but no one knew his precise age. lady holland, without regard to considerations of courtesy, one day said to him point-blank, "now, we are all dying to know how old you are. just tell me." luttrell answered very gravely, "it is an odd question, but as you, lady holland, ask it, i don't mind telling you. if i live till next year, i shall be--devilish old!" the art of story-telling is not taught specifically, hence there are comparatively few people who can tell a story without violating some of the rules which experience recommends. but the right use of story-telling should be encouraged as an ornament of conversation, and a valuable auxiliary to effective public address. many people might excel as story-tellers if they would devote a little time to suggestions such as are offered here. it is not a difficult art, but like every other subject requires study and application. the best counsel for public speakers in the matter of story-telling may be summed up as follows: know your story thoroughly; test your story by telling it to some one in advance; adapt your story to the special circumstances; be concise, omitting non-essentials; have ready more stories than you intend to use, because if you should speak at the end of the list you may find that your best story has been told by a previous speaker; and, finally, always stop when you have made a hit. talking in salesmanship the salesman depends for his success primarily upon his talking ability. obviously, what he offers for sale must have intrinsic merit, and he should possess a thorough knowledge of his wares. but in order to secure the best results from his efforts, he must know how to talk well. all the general requirements for good conversation apply equally to the needs of the salesman. he should have a pleasant speaking voice and an agreeable manner, a vocabulary of useful and appropriate words, and the ability to put things clearly and convincingly. it should be a golden rule of the salesman never to argue with the customer. he may explain and reason, and use all the persuasive phraseology at his command, but he must not permit himself for a single instant to engage in controversy. to argue is fatal to successful salesmanship. there is nothing that can be substituted for a winning personality in the salesman. what constitutes such a personality? chiefly a good voice, affability of manner, straightforward speech, manly bearing, the desire to serve and please, proper attire, and cleanliness of person. these qualifications come within the reach of anyone who aspires to success in salesmanship. every salesman has unexpected problems to solve. a sensitive or touchy customer may become unreasonably angry or offended. what is the salesman to do? he should here be particularly on his guard not to show the slightest resentment. though he may be wholly guiltless, he cannot afford to contradict the customer, nor to challenge him to a vocal duel. if he talks at all, he should talk quietly and reasonably, and always with the object of bringing the customer around to a favorable point of view. the successful salesman must have tact and discrimination. he must know when and how to check in himself the word or phrase which is trying to force its way out into expression, but which would in the end prove inadvisable. he must train himself to choose quickly the right and best course under difficult circumstances. the salesman should give his undivided attention to the customer. if the salesman is speaking, he should speak clearly, directly, concisely, and understandingly; if he is listening, he should listen interestedly and thoroughly, with all his powers alive and receptive. the salesman should know when to speak and when to be silent. some customers wish to be told much, others prefer to think for themselves. he is a wise salesman who knows when to be mute. loquacity has often killed what otherwise might have been a good sale. there is a certain tone of voice which the salesman should aim to acquire. it is neither high nor low in pitch. it is agreeable to the listening ear, and is almost sufficient in itself to win the favorable attention of the prospective buyer. every salesman should cultivate a musical and well-modulated voice as one of the chief assets in salesmanship. the salesman should cultivate dignity of speech and manner. people generally dislike familiarity, joking, and horse-play. it is well to assume that the customer is serious-minded, that he means business and nothing else. needless to say, the telling of long stories, or personal experiences, has no legitimate place in the business of salesmanship. there is a proper time and place for short story-telling. like everything else it is all right in its appropriate setting. lincoln used it to advantage, but once said: "i believe i have the popular reputation of being a story-teller, but i do not deserve the name in its general sense; for it is not the story itself, but its purpose, or effect, that interests me. i often avoid a long and useless discussion by others, or a laborious explanation on my part, by a short story that illustrates my point of view." the salesman should resolve not to lose his poise and agreeableness under any circumstances. irritability never attracts business. to say the right thing in the right place is desirable, but it is quite as important, though more difficult, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the moment of temptation. it is not the legitimate business of the salesman to force upon a customer what is really not wanted, but many times the customer does not know what he wants nor what he might be able to use. hence the competent salesman should know how to influence the customer towards a favorable decision, using all honorable and approved means to bring about such a result. the customer's unfavorable answer is not to be accepted always as final. he may not clearly understand the merits or uses of the article offered. he may need the explanations and suggestions of the salesman in order to reach a right conclusion. here it is that the salesman may fulfill one of his most important duties. there is a wide difference between self-reliance and obtrusiveness. every man should have a full degree of self-confidence. it is needed in every walk in life. but the salesman, more than most men, must have an exceptional degree of faith in himself and in what he has to sell. this self-confidence, however, is a very different thing from boldness or obtrusiveness. courtesy and considerateness are cardinal qualities of the well-equipped salesman, but boastfulness, glibness, egotism, loudness, and self-assertion, are as distasteful as they are undesirable. the eloquence and persuasiveness of silence is nowhere better exemplified than in the art of salesmanship. one man says much, and sells little; another says little, and sells much. the reason for the superior success of one over the other is mainly due to the fact that he knows best how to present the merits of what he offers for sale, knows how to say it concisely and effectively, knows how to ingratiate himself, largely through his personality, into the good graces of the prospective buyer, and knows when to stop talking. modern salesmanship is based primarily upon common sense. a man with brains, though possibly lacking in other desirable qualifications, may easily outdistance the more experienced salesman. it is a valuable thing in any man to be able to think accurately, reason deeply, and size up a situation promptly. the salesman should at all times be on his best talking behavior. it is not advisable for him to have two standards of speech, and to use an inferior one excepting for special occasions. he should cultivate as a regular daily habit discrimination in the use of voice, enunciation, expression, and language. this should be the constant aim not only of the salesman, but of every man ambitious to achieve success and distinction in the world. men and mannerisms there is a story of a politician who had acquired a mannerism of fingering a button on his coat while talking to an audience. on one occasion some friends surreptitiously cut the particular button off, and the result was that the speaker when he stood up to address the audience lost the thread of his discourse. gladstone had a mannerism of striking the palm of his left hand with the clenched fist of his other hand, so that often the emphatic word was lost in the noise of percussion. a common habit of the distinguished statesman was to reach out his right hand at full arm's length, and then to bend it back at the elbow and lightly scratch the top of his head with his thumb-nail. balfour, while speaking, used to take hold of the lapels of his coat by both hands as if he were in mortal fear of running away before he had finished. goshen, at the beginning of a speech, would sound his chest and sides with his hands, and apparently finding that his ribs were in good order, would proceed to wash his hands with invisible soap. the strange thing about mannerisms is that the speakers are usually unconscious of them, and would be the first to condemn them in others. the remedy for such defects lies in thorough and severe self-examination and self-criticism. however eminent a speaker may be with objectionable mannerisms, he would be still greater without them. every public speaker has certain characteristics of voice and manner that distinguish him from other men. in so far as this individuality gives increased power and effectiveness to the speaking style, it is desirable and should be encouraged. when, however, it is carried to excess, or in any sense offends good taste, it is merely mannerism, and should be discouraged. there is an objectionable mannerism of the voice, known as "pulpit tone," that has come to be associated with some preachers. it takes various forms, such as an unduly elevated key, a drawling monotone, a sudden transition from one extreme of pitch to another, or a tone of condescension. it is also heard in a plaintive minor inflection, imparting a quality of extreme sadness to a speaker's style. these are all departures from the natural, earnest, sincere, and direct delivery that belongs to the high office of preaching. still another undesirable mannerism of the voice is that of giving a rising inflection at the close of successive sentences that are obviously complete. here the speaker's thought is left suspended in the air, the hearer feels a sense of disappointment or doubt, and possibly the entire meaning is perverted. thoughts delivered in such a manner, unless they distinctly require a rising inflection, lack the emphasis and force of persuasive speaking. artificiality, affectation, pomposity, mouthing, undue vehemence, monotony, intoning, and everything that detracts from the simplicity and genuine fervor of the speech should be avoided. too much emphasis may drive a thought beyond the mark, and a conscious determination to make a "great speech" may keep the speaker in a state of anxiety throughout its entire delivery. a clear and correct enunciation is essential, but it should not be pedantic, nor should it attract attention to itself. "what you are prevents me from hearing what you say," might also be applied to the manner of the speaker. exaggerated opening of the mouth, audible smacking of the lips, holding tenaciously to final consonants, prolonged hissing of sibilants, are all to be condemned. hesitation, stumbling over difficult combinations, obscuring final syllables, coalescing the last sound of one word with the first sound of the following word, are inexcusable in a trained speaker. when the same modulation of the voice is repeated too often, it becomes a mannerism, a kind of monotony of variety. it reminds one of a street-piano set to but one tune, and is quite as distressing to a sensitive ear. this is not the style that is expected from a public man. what should the speaker do with his hands? do nothing with them unless they are specifically needed for the more complete expression of a thought. let them drop at the sides in their natural relaxed position, ready for instant use. to press the fist in the hollow of the back in order to "support" the speaker, to clutch the lapels of the coat, to slap the hands audibly together, to place the hands on the hips in the attitude of "vulgar ease," to put the hands into the pockets, to wring the hands as if "washing them with invisible soap," or to violently pound the pulpit--these belong to the list of undesirable mannerisms. at the beginning of a speech it may give the appearance of ease to place the hands behind the back, but this position lacks force and action and should not be long sustained. to cross the arms upon the desk is to put them out of commission for the time being. leaning or lounging of any kind, bending at the knee, or other evidence of weakness or weariness, may belong to the repose of the easy chair, but are hardly appropriate in a wide-awake speaker seeking to convince men. rocking the body to and fro, rising on the toes to emphasize, crouching, stamping the foot, springing from side to side, over-acting and impersonation, and violence and extravagance of every description may well be omitted in public speaking. beware of extremes. avoid a statue-like attitude on the one hand and a constant restlessness on the other. dignity is desirable, but one should not forget the words of the reverend sam jones, "there is nothing more dignified than a corpse!" gestures that are too frequent and alike soon lose their significance. if they are attempted at all they should be varied and complete, suggesting freedom and spontaneity. when only half made they are likely to call attention to the discrepancy, and to this extent will obscure rather than help the thought. the continuous use of gesture is displeasing to the eye, and gives the impression of lack of poise. the young speaker particularly should be warned not to imitate the speaking style of others. what is perfectly natural to one may appear ridiculous in another. cardinal newman spoke with extreme deliberateness, enunciating every syllable with care and precision; phillips brooks sent forth an avalanche of words at the rate of two hundred a minute; but it would be dangerous for the average speaker to emulate either of these examples. there is a peculiarity in a certain type of speaking, which, while not strictly a mannerism, is detrimental to the highest effect. it manifests itself in physical weakness. the speaker is uniformly tired, and his speaking has a half-hearted tone. the lifelessness in voice and manner communicates itself to the audience, and prevents all possibility of deep and enduring impression. joseph parker said that when sunday came he felt like a racehorse, and could hardly wait for the time to come for him to go into the pulpit. he longed to speak. the well-equipped speaker is one who has a superior culture of voice and body. all the instruments of expression must be made his obedient servants, but as master of them he should see to it that they perform their work naturally and spontaneously. he should be able while speaking to abandon himself wholly to his subject, confident that as a result of conscientious training his delivery may be left largely to take care of itself. how to speak in public there are two essential qualifications for making an effective public speech. first, having something worth-while to say. second, knowing how to say it. the first qualification implies a judicious choice of subject and the most thorough preparation. it means that the speaker has carefully gathered together the best available material, and has so familiarized himself with his subject that he knows more about it than anyone else in his audience. it is in this requirement of thorough preparation that many public speakers are deficient. they do not realize the need for this painstaking preliminary work, and hence they frequently stand before an audience with little information of value to impart to their hearers. their poverty of thought can not be long disguised in flamboyant rhetoric and sesquipedalian words, and hence they fail to carry conviction to serious-minded men. i would remind you that having something worth-while to say involves more than thorough preparation of the particular subject which the speaker is to present to an audience. the speaker should have a well-furnished mind. you have had the experience of listening to a public speaker who commanded your closest attention not only because of what he said, but also because of what he was. he inspired confidence in you because of his personality and reserve power. it is often what a man has within himself, rather than what he actually expresses, that carries greatest conviction to your mind. as you listen to such a man speak, you feel that he is worthy of your confidence because he draws upon broad experience and knowledge. he speaks out of the fulness of a well-furnished mind. it is important, therefore, that there should be mental culture in a broad way,--sound judgment, a sense of proportion and perspective, a fund of useful ideas, facts, arguments, and illustrations, and a large stock of common sense. every man who essays to speak in public should cultivate a judicial mind, or the habit of weighing and estimating facts and arguments. such a mind is supposedly free from prejudice and seeks the truth at any cost. such a mind does not want this or that to be necessarily true, but wants to recognize as true only that which is true. in these days of multiplied publications and books of all kinds, when printed matter of every description is soliciting our time and attention, it is particularly desirable that we should cultivate a discriminating taste in our choice of books. the highest purpose of reading is for the acquisition of useful knowledge and personal culture, and we should keep these two aims constantly before us. it is noteworthy that men who have achieved enduring greatness in the world have always had a good book at their ready command. if you are ever in doubt about the choice of books, you would do well to enlist the services of a literary friend, or ask the advice of a local librarian. but in any case, be on your guard against books and other publications of commonplace type, which can contribute nothing to the enrichment of your mind and life. it is desirable that you should own the books you read. the sense of personal possession will give an interest and pleasure to your reading which it would not otherwise have, and moreover you can freely mark such books with your pencil for subsequent reference. it is also well to have a note-book conveniently ready in which to jot down useful ideas as they occur to you. here we come to the use of the pen. all the great orators of the world have been prolific writers in the sense of writing out their thoughts. it is the only certain way to clarify your thought, to test it in advance of verbal expression and to examine it critically. the public speaker should write much in order to form a clear and flowing english style. it is surprising how many of our thoughts which appear to us clear and satisfactory, assume a peculiar vagueness when we attempt to set them down definitely in writing. the use of the pen tends to give clearness and conciseness to the speaker's style. it makes him careful and accurate. it aids, too, in fixing the ideas of his speech in his mind, so that at the moment of addressing an audience they will respond most readily to his needs. a well-furnished mind is like a well-furnished house. in furnishing a house we do not fill it up with miscellaneous furniture, bric-a-brac and antiques, gathered promiscuously, but we plan everything with a view to harmony, beauty, and utility. we furnish a particular room in a tone that will be restful and pleasing to the occupant. we choose every piece of furniture, rug, picture, and drapery with a distinct purpose in view of what the total effect will be. so with a well-furnished mind. we must choose the kind of material we intend to keep there. it should be chosen with a view to its beauty, power, and usefulness. we want no rubbish there. we want the best material available. hence the vital importance of going to the right sources for the furniture of our mind, to the great books of the world, to living authorities, to nature, to music, to art, to the best wherever it may be found. the second essential of an effective public speech is knowing how to say it. this implies a thorough training in the technique of speech. there should be a well-cultivated voice, of adequate volume, brilliancy, and carrying quality. there should be ample training in articulation, pronunciation, expression, and gesture. these so-called mechanics should be developed until they become an unconscious part of the speaker's style. your best opportunity for practice is in your everyday conversation. there you are constantly making speeches on a small scale. public speaking of the best modern type is simply elevated conversation. i do not mean elevated in pitch, but in the sense of being launched upon a higher level of thought and with greater intensity than is usually called for by ordinary conversation. in conversation you have your best opportunity for developing your public speaking style. indeed, you are there, despite yourself, forming habits which will disclose themselves in your public speaking. as you speak in your daily conversation you will largely speak when you stand before an audience. you will therefore see the importance of care in your daily speech. there should be a fastidious choice of words, care in pronunciation and articulation, and the mouth well opened so that the words may come out wholly through the mouth and not partly through the nose. culture of conversation is to be recommended for its own sake, since everyone must speak in private if not in public. one of the best plans for self-culture in speaking is to read aloud for a few minutes every day from a book of well-selected speeches. there are numerous compilations of the kind admirably suited to this purpose. the important thing here is to read in speaking style, not in what is termed reading style as usually taught in schools. when you practise in this way it would be well to imagine an audience before you and to render the speech as if emanating from your own mind. the student of public speaking will wisely guard himself against acquiring an artificial style or other mannerism. another good plan is to make short mental speeches while walking. when possible it is well to choose a country road for this purpose, or a park, or some other place where one's mind is not likely to be often diverted by passers-by. lord dufferin, the eminent british orator, was accustomed to prepare most of his speeches while riding on horseback. the habit of forming mental speeches is a great aid to actual speech-making, as it tends to give the mind a power and an adaptability which it would not otherwise have. the painter, the musician, the sculptor, the architect, and other craftsmen search out models for study and inspiration. the public speaker should do likewise, and history shows that the great orators of the world have followed this practise. you can not do better than take as your model the greatest short speech in all history, the gettysburg address. an authority on english style has critically examined this speech and acknowledges that he cannot suggest a single change in it which would add to its power and perfection. you recall the circumstances under which it was written. on the morning of november 18, 1863, abraham lincoln was travelling from washington to take part next day in the consecration of the national cemetery at gettysburg. he wrote his speech on a scrap of wrapping-paper, carefully fitting word to word, changing and correcting it in minutest detail as best he could until it was finished. the next day after the speech had been delivered, edward everett, the trained and polished orator, said that he would have been content to have made in his oration of two hours the impression which lincoln had made in that many minutes. it will repay you to study this speech closely and to wrest from it its innermost secrets of power and effectiveness. the greatest underlying quality of this speech is its rare simplicity--simplicity of thought, simplicity of language, simplicity of purpose, and shining through it all, the simplicity of the great emancipator himself. this simplicity is one of the great distinguishing qualities of effective public speaking. it is characteristic of all true art. it is subtle and difficult to define, but fã©nelon gives a definition that will aid us when he says, "simplicity is an uprightness of soul that has no reference to self." it is another word for unselfishness. in these days of self-exploitation and self-aggrandizement, how refreshing it is to meet a man of true simplicity. we are won by his unaffected manner, his gentleness of argument, his ingratiating tones of voice, his freedom from prejudice and passion. such a man wins us almost wholly by the power of his simplicity. this supreme quality is noticeable in men who are said to have come to themselves. they have tasted and tested life, they have learned proportion and perspective, they have appraised things at their real value, and now they carry themselves in poise and power and confidence. they have found themselves in a high and true sense, and they have come to be known as men of simplicity. simplicity is not to be confounded with weakness or ignorance. it comes through long education. it does not mean the trite, or the commonplace, or the obvious. it is a strong and sturdy quality, is this simplicity of which i am speaking, and nothing else will atone for lack of it in the public speaker. longfellow calls it the supreme excellence, since it is the quality which above all others brings serenity to the soul and makes life really worth living. every man should earnestly seek to cultivate this great quality as essential to noble character. this speech is conspicuous for another indispensable quality for effective public speaking,--the quality of sincerity. it grows largely out of simplicity and is the product of integrity of mind and heart. men recognize it quickly, though they cannot easily tell whence it comes. we find it highly developed in great leaders in business and professional life. there has never been a really great public speaker who was not preeminently a sincere man. beecher said, "let no man who is a sneak try to be an orator." such a man can not be. he will shortly be found out. the world's ultimate estimate of a man is not far wrong. a politician of much promise was addressing a distinguished audience in washington. the opera house was crowded to the doors to hear him and apparently he was making a good impression upon all his hearers. but suddenly, at the very climax of his speech, while upwards of two thousand eyes were rivetted upon him, he was seen to wink at a personal friend of his sitting in a nearby box, and at that instant his future political prospects were shattered as a vase struck by lightning. in that single instant of insincerity he was appraised by that discriminating audience and his doom was sealed. still another great quality in the gettysburg speech is its directness. the speaker had a clearly-defined purpose in view. he knew what he wanted to say, and he proceeded to say it--no more, and no less. there was no straying away into by-paths, no padding of words to make up for shortage of ideas, no superfluous and big-sounding phrases, no empty rhetoric or glittering generalities. how many speakers there are who aim at nothing and hit it. how many speakers there are who are on their way but do not know whither. if this directness of quality were applied to talking in business, in committee meetings, in telephone conversations, in public speaking, it would save annually in this country millions of words and incalculable time and energy. you will note that this speech has the rare quality of conciseness. we have an illustration here of how much a man can say in about 265 words and in the short space of two minutes, if he knows precisely what he wants to say. it is well to bear in mind that although this speech was scribbled off with seeming ease, lincoln owed his ability to do it to a long and painstaking study of words and english style. he was a profound student of the dictionary. he steeped himself in words. he scrutinized words, he studied words, he made himself a master of words. this is a valuable habit for every man to form,--to study words regularly and earnestly, and to add consciously to his working vocabulary a few words daily--so in the course of a year such a man will acquire a large and varied stock of words which will do his instant bidding. the conclusion is a vital part of a speech. it is a place of peril to many a public speaker. countless speeches have been ruined by a bad conclusion. the most important thing here is that having decided beforehand upon the particular ideas or message with which you intend to conclude your speech, not to let any influence lead you away from this preconceived purpose. some speakers are about to conclude effectively but are unwilling to omit anything which they have planned to give in their speech, and so continue in an endeavor to recall every item. at last such a speech has a loose and straggling ending. the words of the conclusion need not be memorized, but the ideas should be definitely outlined in the mind and fixed in the memory, not as words, but as ideas. the knowledge that you can turn at will to these definite ideas, and so bring your speech to a close, will confer upon you a degree of self-confidence which will be of immense service to you. you should ever bear in mind this golden rule for the conclusion of your speech: when you have finished what you have of importance to say, do not be tempted to wander off into by-paths, or to tell an additional story, or to say "and one word more," but having finished your speech, stop on the instant and sit down. practical hints for speakers cultivate as the most desirable thoughts those which are definite, clear, deep, logical, profound, strong, precise, impressive, original, significant, explicit, luminous, positive, suggestive, comprehensive, and practical. resolutely avoid all thoughts which are uncertain, recondite, obscure, immature, unimportant, shallow, weak, visionary, absurd, vague, extravagant, indefinite, or impractical. in your choice and use of words give preference to those which are definite, simple, real, significant, forcible, expressive, adequate, musical, varied, and copious. avoid those which are foreign, slangy, obsolete, unusual, extravagant, technical, long, colloquial, or commonplace. the most desirable qualities in the use of english are the simple, plain, exact, lucid, concise, trenchant, vigorous, impressive, lively, figurative, polished, graceful, fluent, rhythmical, copious, elevated, flexible, smooth, dignified, terse, epigrammatic, felicitous, euphonious, elegant, and lofty. undesirable qualities are the diffuse, verbose, redundant, inflated, prolix, ambiguous, feeble, monotonous, loose, slip-shod, dry, flowery, pedantic, pompous, rhetorical, grandiloquent, artificial, formal, ornate, halting, ponderous, ungrammatical, vague, and obscure. the qualities you should develop in your speaking voice are the pure, deep, round, flexible, resonant, musical, clear, sympathetic, smooth, sonorous, powerful, silvery, melodious, full, strong, natural, mellow, magnetic, expressive, carrying, and responsive. endeavor to keep your voice free from such undesirable qualities as the harsh, breathy, sharp, rough, rigid, throaty, guttural, thin, shrill, nasal, unmusical, discordant, muffled, explosive, strained, inaudible, hollow, strident, sepulchral, and tremulous. your articulation should be clear, distinct, and correct. avoid carelessness, lifelessness, mumbling, weakness, and exaggeration. your pronunciation should be clear-cut and accurate. avoid mouthing, lisping, hesitation, stammering, pedantry, omission of syllables, and suppression of final consonants. your delivery in public speaking should be simple, sincere, natural, varied, magnetic, earnest, forceful, attractive, energetic, animated, sympathetic, authoritative, dignified, direct, impressive, vivid, convincing, persuasive, zealous, enthusiastic, and inspiring. avoid that which is timid, familiar, violent, cold, indifferent, unreal, artificial, dull, sing-song, hesitating, feeble, unconvincing, apathetic, monotonous, pompous, formal, arbitrary, flippant, ostentatious, drawling, or languid. your gesture should be graceful, appropriate, free, forceful, and natural. avoid all gesture which is unmeaning, angular, abrupt, constrained, stilted, or amateurish. your facial expression should be varied, appropriate, pleasing, and impassioned. avoid the unpleasant, immobile, and unvaried. let your standing position be manly, erect, easy, forceful, and impressive. avoid that which is weak, shifting, stiff, inactive, and ungainly. the dramatic element in speaking there is a well-defined prejudice against the importation of anything "theatrical" into the pulpit. the art of the actor is fundamentally different from the work of the preacher. at best the actor but represents, imitates, pretends, acts. the actor seems; the preacher is. it is to be feared, however, that this prejudice has narrowed many preachers down to a pulpit style almost devoid of warmth and action. in their endeavor to avoid the dramatic and sensational, they have refined and subdued many of their most natural and effective means of expression. the function of preaching is not only to impart, but to persuade; and persuasion demands something more than an easy conversational style, an intellectual statement of facts, or the reading of a written message. the speaker must show in face, in eye, in arm, in the whole animated man, that he, himself, is moved, before he can hope successfully to persuade and inspire others. the modified movements of ordinary conversation do not fulfil all the requirements of the preacher. these are necessary and adequate for the groundwork of the sermon, but for the supreme heights of passionate appeal, when the soul of the preacher would, as it were, leap from its body in the endeavor to reach men, there must be intensified life and action--dramatic action. it is difficult to conceive of a greater tribute to a public advocate than that paid to wendell phillips by george william curtis: "the divine energy of his conviction utterly possest him, and his 'pure and eloquent blood spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought, that one might almost say his body thought.'" poise is power, and reserve and repression are parts of the dignified office of the preacher, but carried too far may degenerate into weak and unproductive effort. perfection of english style, rhetorical floridness, and profundity of thought will never wholly make up for lack of appropriate action in the work of persuading men. the power of action alone is vividly illustrated in the touch of the finger to the lips to invoke silence, or the pointing to the door to command one to leave the room. the preacher might often find it profitable to stand before a mirror and deliver his sermon exclusively in pantomime to test its power and efficacy. the body must be disciplined and cultivated as assiduously as the other instruments of the speaker. there is eloquence of attitude and action no less than eloquence of voice and feeling. a preacher drawing himself up to his full height, with a significant gesture of the head, or with flashing eye pointing the finger of warning at his hearers, may rouse them from indifference when all other means fail. sixty years ago the reverend william russell emphasized the importance of visible expression. he said of the preacher: "his outward manner, in attitude and action, will be as various as his voice: he will evince the inspiration of appropriate feeling in the very posture of his frame; in uttering the language of adoration, the slow-moving, uplifted hand will bespeak the awe and solemnity which pervade his soul; in addressing his fellow men in the spirit of an ambassador of christ, the gentle yet earnest spirit of persuasive action will be evinced in the pleading hand and aspect; he will know, also, how to pass to the stern and authoritative mien of the reproved of sin; he will, on due occasions, indicate, in his kindling look, the rousing gesture, the mood of him who is empowered and commanded to summon forth all the energies of the human soul; his subdued and chastened address will carry the sympathy of his spirit into the bosom of the mourner; his moistening eye and his gentle action will manifest his tenderness for the suffering: his whole soul will, in a word, become legible in his features, in his attitude, in the expressive eloquence of his hand; his whole style will be felt to be that of heart communing with heart." dramatic action gives picturesqueness to the spoken word. it makes things vivid to slow imaginations, and by contrast invests the speaker's message with new meaning and vitality. it discloses, too, the speaker's sympathy and identification with his subject. his thought and feeling, communicating themselves to voice and face, to hand and arm, to posture and walk, satisfy and impress the hearer by a sense of adequacy and completeness. henry ward beecher, a conspicuous example of the dramatic style in preaching, was drilled for three years, while at college, in voice-culture, gesture, and action. his daily practise in the woods, during which he exploded all the vowels from the bottom to the top of his voice, gave him not only a wonderfully responsive and flexible instrument, but a freedom of bodily movement that made him one of the most vigorous and virile of american preachers. he was in the highest sense a persuasive pulpit orator. a sensible preacher will avoid the grotesque and the extremes of mere animal vivacity. incessant gesture and action, undue emphasizing with hand and head, and all suggestion of self-sufficiency in attitude or manner should be guarded against. all the various instruments of expression should be made ready and responsive for immediate use, but are to be employed with that taste and tact that characterize the well-balanced man. too much action and long-continued emotional effort lose force, and unless the law of action and reaction is applied to the preaching of the sermon the attention of the congregation may snap and the desired effect be utterly destroyed. the face as the mirror of the emotions is an important part of expression. the lips will betray determination, grief, sympathy, affection, or other feeling on the part of the speaker. the eyes, the most direct medium of psychic power, will flash in indignation, glisten in joy, or grow dim in sorrow. the brow will be elevated in surprise, or lowered in determination and perplexity. the effectiveness of the whisper in preaching should not be overlooked. if discreetly used it may serve to impress the hearer with the profundity and seriousness of the preacher's message, or to arrest and bring back to the point of contact the wandering minds of a congregation. to acquire emotional power and dramatic action the preacher should study the great dramatists. he should read them aloud with appropriate voice and movement. he should study children, and men, and nature. he should, perhaps, see the best actors, not to copy them, but in order that they may stimulate his taste and imagination. conversation and public speaking the ideal style of public speaking is, with very little modification, the ideal of good conversation. the practical age in which we live demands a colloquial rather than an oratorical style of public speaking. a man who has something to say in conversation usually has little difficulty in saying it. if he presents the facts he will speak convincingly; if he is deeply in earnest he will speak persuasively; and if he be an educated man his speech will have the unmistakable marks of culture and refinement. in the conversation of well-bred children we find the most interesting and helpful illustrations of unaffected speech. the exquisite modulation of the voice, the unstudied correctness of emphasis, and the sincerity and depth of feeling might well serve as a model for older speakers. this study of conversation, both our own and that of others, offers daily opportunity for improvement in accuracy and fluency of speech, of fitting words to the mouth as well as to the thought, and of forming habits that will unconsciously disclose themselves in the larger work of public speaking. care in conversation will guard the public speaker from inflated and unnatural tones, and restrain him from transgressing the laws of nature even in those parts of his speech demanding lofty and intensified treatment. some easily remembered suggestions regarding conversation are these: 1. pronounce your words distinctly and accurately, like "newly made coins" from the mint, but without pedantry. 2. upon no occasion allow yourself to indulge in careless or incorrect speech. 3. open the mouth well in conversation. much indistinct speech is due to speaking through half-closed teeth. 4. closely observe your conversation and that of others, to detect faults and to improve your speaking-style. 5. vary your voice to suit the variety of your thought. a well-modulated voice demands appropriate changes of pitch, force, perspective, and feeling. 6. avoid loud talking. 7. take care of the consonants and the vowels will take care of themselves. 8. cultivate the music of the conversational tones. 9. favor the low pitches of your voice. 10. remember that the purpose of conscious practise and observation in the matter of conversation is to lead ultimately to unconscious performance. the value of correct conversation as a means to effective public speaking is realized by few men. beecher said: "how much squandering there is of the voice!" meaning that this golden opportunity for improvement was generally disregarded. it is not too much to say, however, that if the sweet and gentle expression of the mother, the strong and affectionate tones of the father, and the spontaneous musical notes of the children, as heard in daily conversation, could be united in the voice of the minister and brought to the preaching of his sermon, there would be little doubt of its magical and enduring effect upon the hearts of men. the wooing tone of the lover is what the preacher needs in his pulpit style rather than the voice of declamation and denunciation. the study of conversation serves to guide the public speaker not only in the free and natural use of his voice, enunciation, and expression, but also in his use of language. he will here learn to choose the simple word instead of the complex, the short sentence instead of the involved, the concrete illustration instead of the abstract. he will acquire ease, spontaneity, simplicity, and directness, and when he rises to speak to men he will employ tones and words best known and understood by them. a preacher may spend too much time in study and solitude. if he does he will soon realize a distinct loss through lack of social intercourse with his fellow men. the faculties most needed in pulpit preaching are those very powers that are so largely exercised in ordinary conversation. the ability to think quickly, to marshal facts and arguments, to introduce a vivid story or illustration, to parry and thrust as is sometimes needed to hold one's own ground, and the general mental activity aroused in conversation, all tend to produce an interesting, vivacious, and forceful style in public speaking. we should not underestimate the value of meditation and silence to the public speaker. these are necessary for original and profound thinking, for the cultivation of the imagination, and for the accumulation of thought. but conversation offers an immediate outlet for this stored-up knowledge, testing it as a finished product in expression, and projecting it into life and reality by all the resources of voice and feeling. this exercise is as necessary to the mind as physical exercise is to the body. indeed, a full mind demands this relief in expression, lest the strain become too great. the daily newspaper and the magazines should not be allowed to usurp the place of conversation. if the art of talking is rapidly dying out, as some assert, we should do our share to revive it. we may not again have the wit and repartee, the brilliant intellectual combats of those other days, but we can at least each have a cultivated speaking-voice, an interesting manner of expressing our ideas in conversation, and a refined pronunciation of our mother tongue. a talk to preachers the aim of one who would interpret literature to others, by means of the speaking voice, should be first to assimilate its spirit. there can be no worthy or adequate rendering of a great poem or prose selection without a keen appreciation of its inner meaning and content. this is the principal safeguard against mechanical and meaningless declamation. the extent of this appreciation and grasp of the inherent spirit of thought will largely determine the degree of life, reality, and impressiveness imparted to the spoken word. the intimate relationship between the voice and the spirit of the speaker suggests that one is necessary to the fullest development of the other. the voice can interpret only what has been awakened and realized within, hence nothing discloses a speaker's grasp of a subject so accurately and readily as his attempt to give it expression in his own language. it is this spiritual power, developed principally through the intuitions and emotions, that gives psychic force to speaking, and which more than logic, rhetoric, or learning itself enables the speaker to influence and persuade men. the minister as an interpreter of the highest spiritual truth should bring to his work a thoroughly trained emotional nature and a cultivated speaking voice. it is not sufficient that he state the truth with clearness and force; he must proclaim it with such passionate enthusiasm as powerfully to move his hearers. to express adequately the infinite shades of spiritual truth, he must have the ability to play upon his voice as upon a great cathedral organ, from "the soft lute of love" to "the loud trumpet of war." to assume that the study of the art of speaking will necessarily produce consciousness of its principles while in the act of speaking in public, is as unwarranted as to say that a knowledge of the rules of grammar, rhetoric, or logic lead to artificiality and self-consciousness in the teacher, writer, and thinker. there is a "mechanical expertness preceding all art," as goethe says, and this applies to the orator no less than to the musician, the artist, the actor, and the litterateur. let the minister stand up for even five minutes each day, with chest and abdomen well expanded, and pronounce aloud the long vowel sounds of the english language, in various shades of force and feeling, and shortly he will observe his voice developing in flexibility, resonance, and power. for it should be remembered that the voice grows through use. let the minister cultivate, too, the habit of breathing exclusively through his nose while in repose, fully and deeply from the abdomen, and he will find himself gaining in health and mental resourcefulness. for the larger development of the spiritual and emotional powers of the speaker, a wide and varied knowledge of men and life is necessary. the feelings are trained through close contact with human suffering, and in the work of solving vital social problems. the speaker will do well to explore first his own heart and endeavor to read its secret meanings, preliminary to interpreting the hearts of other men. personal suffering will do more to open the well-springs of the heart than the reading of many books. care must be had, however, that this cultivating of the feelings be conducted along rational lines, lest it run not to faith but to fanaticism. there is a wide difference between emotion designed for display or for momentary effect, and that which arises from strong inner conviction and sympathetic interest in others. spurious, unnatural feeling will invariably fail to convince serious-minded men. "emotion wrought up with no ulterior object," says dr. kennard, "is both an abuse and an injury to the moral nature. when the attention is thoroughly awakened and steadily held, the hearer is like a well-tuned harp, each cord a distinct emotion, and the skilful speaker may evoke a response from one or more at his will. this lays him under a great and serious responsibility. let him keep steadily at such a time to his divine purpose, to produce a healthful action, a life in harmony with god and a symphony of service." the emotional and spiritual powers of the speaker will be developed by reading aloud each day a vigorous and passionate extract from the bible, or shakespeare, or from some great sermon by such men as bushnell, newman, beecher, maclaren, brooks, or spurgeon. the entire gamut of human feeling can be highly cultivated by thus reading aloud from the great masterpieces of literature. the speaker will know that he can make his own words glow and vibrate, after he has first tested and trained himself in some such manner as this. furthermore, by thus fitting words to his mouth, and assimilating the feelings of others, he will immeasurably gain in facility and vocal responsiveness when he attempts to utter his own thoughts. music is a powerful element in awakening emotion in the speaker and bringing to consciousness the mysterious inner voices of the soul. the minister should not only hear good music as often as possible, but he should train his ear to recognize the rhythm and melody in speech. for the fullest development of this spiritual power in the public speaker there should be frequent periods of stillness and silence. one must listen much in order to accumulate much. thought and feeling require time in which to grow. in this way the myriad sounds that arise from humanity and from nature can be caught up in the soul of the speaker and subsequently voiced by him to others. the habit of meditating much, of brooding over thought, whether it be our own or that of others, will tend to disclose new and deeper meanings, and consequently deeper shades and depths of feeling. the speaker will diligently search for unwritten meanings in words; he will study, whenever possible, masterpieces of painting and sculpture; he will closely observe the natural feeling of well-bred children, as shown in their conversation; and in many other ways that will suggest themselves, he will daily develop his emotional and spiritual powers of expression. the science of preaching is important, but so, too, is the art of preaching. a powerful pulpit is one of the needs of the times. a congregation readily recognizes a preacher of strong convictions, broad sympathies, and consecrated personality. an affectionate nature in a minister, manifesting itself in voice, face, and manner, will attract and influence men, while a harsh, rigid, vehement manner will as easily repel them. it is to be feared that many sermons are written with too much regard for "literary deportment on paper," and too little thought of their value as pulsating messages to men. the preacher should train himself to take tight hold of his thought, to grip it with mental firmness and fervor, that he may afterward convey it to others with definiteness and vigor. thoughts vaguely conceived and held tremblingly in the mind will manifest a like character when uttered. into the writing of the sermon put vitality and intensity, and these qualities will find their natural place in delivery. thrill of the pen should precede thrill of the voice. the habit of dickens of acting out the characters he was depicting on paper could be copied to advantage by the preacher, and frequently during the writing of his sermon he might stand and utter his thoughts aloud to test their power and effectiveness upon an imaginary congregation. there should be the most thorough cultivation of the inner sources of the preacher, whereby the spiritual and emotional forces are so aroused and brought under control as to respond promptly and accurately to all the speaker's requirements. there should be assiduous training of the speaking voice as the instrument of expression and the natural outlet for thought and feeling. in the combined cultivation of these two essentials of expression--spirit and voice--the minister will find the true secret of effective pulpit preaching. care of the speaker's throat the throat as a vital part of the public speaker's work in speaking is worthy of the greatest care and consideration. it is surprising that so little attention is given to vocal hygiene, when it is remembered that a serious weakness or affection of the throat may disqualify a speaker for important work. the delicate and intricate machinery of the vocal apparatus renders it peculiarly susceptible to misuse or exposure. the common defects of nasality, throatiness, and harshness, are due to wrong and careless use of the speaking-instrument. in the training of the public speaker the first step is to bring the breathing apparatus under proper control. that is to say, the speaker must accustom himself, through careful practise, to use the abdominal method of breathing, and to keep his throat free from the strain to which it is commonly subjected. this form of breathing is not difficult to acquire, since it simply means that during inhalation the abdomen is expanded, and during exhalation it is contracted. it should be no longer necessary to warn the speaker to breathe exclusively through the nose when not actually using the voice. while speaking he must so completely control the breath that not a particle of it can escape without giving up its equivalent in sound. "clergyman's sore throat" is the result of improper use or overstraining of the voice. sometimes the earnestness of the preacher causes him to "clutch" each word with the vocal muscles, instead of using the throat as an open channel through which the voice may flow with ease and freedom. many speakers, in an endeavor to be heard at a great distance, employ too loud a tone, forgetting that the essential thing is a clear and distinct articulation. to speak continuously in high pitch, or through half-closed teeth, almost invariably causes distress of throat. most throat troubles may be set down to a lack of proper elocutionary training. to keep the voice and throat in order there should be regular daily practise, if only for ten minutes. the example might profitably be followed of certain actors who make a practise of humming occasionally during the day while engaged in other duties, as a means of keeping the voice musical and resonant. when the throat becomes husky or weak it is a timely warning from nature that it needs rest and relaxation. to continue to engage in public speaking under these circumstances is often attended with great danger, resulting sometimes in total loss of voice. it is economy in the end to discontinue the use of the voice when there is a serious cold or the throat is otherwise affected. nervousness, anxiety, or unusual mental exertion may cause a vocal breakdown. for this condition rest is recommended, together with gentle massaging of the throat with cold water mixed with a little vinegar or _eau de cologne_. a public speaker should not engage in protracted conversation immediately after a speech. the sudden transition from an auditorium to the outer air should remind the speaker to keep his mouth securely closed. the general physical condition of the speaker has much to do with the vigor and clearness of his voice. a daily plunge into cold water, or at least a sponging of the entire surface of the body, besides being a tonic luxury, greatly invigorates the throat and abdominal muscles. after the "tub" a vigorous rubbing with towel and hands should produce a glow. to the frequent question whether smoking is injurious to the throat, it is safe to say that the weight of authority and experience favors abstinence. any one who has spoken for half an hour or more in a smoke-clouded room, knows the distressing effect it has had upon the sensitive lining of the throat. it must be obvious, therefore, that the constant inhaling of smoke must even more directly irritate the mucous membrane. the diet of the public speaker should be reasonably moderate, and the extremes of hot and cold avoided. the use of ice-water is to be discouraged. many drugs and lozenges are positively injurious to the throat. for habitual dryness of throat a glycerine or honey tablet will usually obviate the trouble. dr. morell mackenzie, the eminent english throat specialist, condemns the use of alcohol as pernicious, and affirms that "even in a comparatively mild form it keeps the delicate tissues in a state of congestion which makes them particularly liable to inflammation from cold or other causes." it must not be assumed that the throat is to be pampered. a reasonable amount of exposure will harden it and to this extent is desirable. to muffle the throat with a scarf, unless demanded by special conditions, may make it unduly sensitive and increase the danger of taking cold when the head is turned from side to side. a leading physician confirms the opinion that the best gargle for daily use is that of warm water and salt. this should be used every night and morning to cleanse and invigorate the throat. where there is a tendency to catarrh a solution made of peroxide of hydrogen, witch-hazel, and water, in equal parts, will prove efficacious. nothing should be snuffed up the nose except under the direction of a physician, lest it cause deafness. many speakers and singers have a favorite nostrum for improving the voice. the long and amusing list includes hot milk, tea, coffee, champagne, raw eggs, lemonade, apples, raisins,--and sardines! a good rule is to eat sparingly if the meal is taken just before speaking. it need hardly be said that serious vocal defects, such as enlarged tonsils, elongated uvula, and abnormal growths in the throat and nose are subjects for the specialist. whenever possible a speaker should test beforehand the acoustic properties of the auditorium in which he is to speak for the first time. a helpful plan is to have a friend seat himself at the back of the hall or church, and give his opinion of the quality and projecting power of the speaker's voice. it is difficult to judge one's own voice because it is conveyed to him not only from the outside but also through the eustachian tube and modified by the vibratory parts of the throat and head. a speaker never hears his own voice as it is heard by another. nothing, perhaps, is so taxing to the throat as long-continued speaking in one quality of tone. there are two distinct registers which should be judiciously alternated by the speaker. these are the "chest" register, in which the vocal cords vibrate their whole length, and the quality of tone derives most of its character from the chest cavity; and the "head" register, in which the vocal cords vibrate only in part, and the quality of tone is reenforced by the resonators of the face, mouth, and head. the first of these registers is sometimes called the "orotund" voice from its quality of roundness, and is employed principally in language of reverence, sublimity, and grandeur. the head tone is the voice of ordinary conversation and should form the basis of the public-speaking style. no one who has to speak in public should be discouraged because of limited vocal resources. many of the foremost orators began with marked disadvantages in this respect, but made these shortcomings an incentive to higher effort. one well-known speaker makes up for lack of vocal power by extreme distinctness of enunciation, while another offsets an unpleasantly heavy quality of voice by skilful modulation. a few easily remembered suggestions are: 1. rest the voice for an hour or two before speaking in public. 2. gargle the throat night and morning with salt and water. 3. never force the voice. 4. avoid all occasions that strain the voice, such as prolonged conversation, speaking against noise, or in cold and damp air. 5. practise deep breathing until it becomes an unconscious habit. 6. favor an outdoor life. 7. hum or sing a little every day. 8. discontinue public speaking when there is a severe cold or other affection of the throat. 9. rest the voice and body immediately after speaking in public. don'ts for public speakers don't rant. don't prate. don't fidget. don't flatter. don't declaim. don't be glib. don't hesitate. don't be nasal. don't apologize. don't dogmatize. don't be slangy. don't antagonize. don't be awkward. don't be violent. don't be personal. don't be "funny." don't attitudinize. don't be monotonous. don't speak rapidly. don't sway your body. don't be long-winded. don't "hem" and "haw." don't praise yourself. don't overgesticulate. don't pace the platform. don't clear your throat. don't "point with pride." don't tell a long story. don't rise on your toes. don't distort your words. don't stand like a statue. don't address the ceiling. don't speak in a high key. don't emphasize everything. don't drink while speaking. don't fatigue your audience. don't exceed your time limit. don't talk for talking's sake. don't wander from your subject. don't fumble with your clothes. don't speak through closed teeth. don't put your hands on your hips. don't fail to stop when you have ended. do's for public speakers be prepared. begin slowly. be modest. speak distinctly. address all your hearers. be uniformly courteous. prune your sentences. cultivate mental alertness. conceal your method. be scrupulously clear. feel sure of yourself. look your audience in the eyes. be direct. favor your deep tones. speak deliberately. get to your facts. be earnest. observe your pauses. suit the action to the word. be yourself at your best. speak fluently. use your abdominal muscles. make yourself interesting. be conversational. conciliate your opponent. rouse yourself. be logical. have your wits about you. be considerate. open your mouth. speak authoritatively. cultivate sincerity. cultivate brevity. cultivate tact. end swiftly. points for speakers as far as possible avoid the following hackneyed phrases: i rise with diffidence unaccustomed as i am to public speaking by a happy stroke of fate it becomes my painful duty in the last analysis i am encouraged to go on i point with pride on the other hand (with gesture) i hold the vox populi be that as it may i shall not detain you as the hour is growing late believe me we view with alarm as i was about to tell you the happiest day of my life it falls to my lot i can say no more in the fluff and bloom i can only hint i can say nothing i cannot find words the fact is to my mind i cannot sufficiently do justice i fear all i can say is i shall not inflict a speech on you far be it from me rise phoenix-like from his ashes but alas! what more can i say? at this late period of the evening it is hardly necessary to say i cannot allow the opportunity to pass for, mark you i have already taken up too much time i might talk to you for hours looking back upon my childhood we can imagine the scene i haven't the time nor ability ah, no, dear friends one more word and i have done i will now conclude i really must stop i have done. the bible on speech how forcible are right words! to every thing there is a season, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. set a watch, o lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying. be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. be ye holy in all manner of conversation. let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you. know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, o lord, my strength, and my redeemer. thoughts on talking to make a good talker, genius and learning, even wit and eloquence, are insufficient; to these, in all or in part, must be added in some degree the talents of active life. the character has as much to do with colloquial power as has the intellect; the temperament, feelings, and animal spirits, even more, perhaps, than the mental gifts. "napoleon said things which tell in history like his battles. luther's table-talk glows with the fire that burnt the pope's bull." cã¦sar, cicero, themistocles, lord bacon, selden, talleyrand, and, in our own country, aaron burr, jefferson, webster, and choate, were all, more or less, men of action. sir walter scott tells us that, at a great dinner party, he thought the lawyers beat the bishops as talkers, and the bishops the wits. nearly all great orators have been fine talkers. lord chatham, who could electrify the house of lords by pronouncing the word "sugar," but who in private was but commonplace, was an exception; but the conversation of pitt and fox was brilliant and fascinating,--that of burke, rambling, but splendid, rich and instructive, beyond description. the latter was the only man in the famous "literary club" who could cope with johnson. the doctor confessed that in burke he had a foeman worthy of his steel. on one occasion, when debilitated by sickness, he said: "that fellow calls forth all my powers. were i to see burke now, it would kill me." at another time he said: "burke, sir, is such a man that, if you met him for the first time in the street, where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five minutes, he'd talk to you in such a manner, that when you parted you'd say--'this is an extraordinary man.'" "can he wind into a subject like a serpent, as burke does?" asked goldsmith of a certain talker. fox said that he had derived more political information from burke's conversation alone than from books, science, and all his worldly experience put together. moore finely says of the same conversation, that it must have been like the procession of a roman triumph, exhibiting power and riches at every step, occasionally mingling the low fescennine jest with the lofty music of the march, but glittering all over with the spoils of a ransacked world. --_mathews._ * * * * * the fault of literary conversation in general is its too great tenaciousness. it fastens upon a subject, and will not let it go. it resembles a battle rather than a skirmish, and makes a toil of a pleasure. perhaps it does this from necessity, from a consciousness of wanting the more familiar graces, the power to sport and trifle, to touch lightly and adorn agreeably, every view or turn of a question _en passant_, as it arises. those who have a reputation to lose are too ambitious of shining, to please. "to excel in conversation," said an ingenious man, "one must not be always striving to say good things: to say one good thing, one must say many bad, and more indifferent ones." this desire to shine without the means at hand, often makes men silent:- the fear of being silent strikes us dumb. a writer who has been accustomed to take a connected view of a difficult question and to work it out gradually in all its bearings, may be very deficient in that quickness and ease which men of the world, who are in the habit of hearing a variety of opinions, who pick up an observation on one subject, and another on another, and who care about none any further than the passing away of an idle hour, usually acquire. an author has studied a particular point--he has read, he has inquired, he has thought a great deal upon it: he is not contented to take it up casually in common with others, to throw out a hint, to propose an objection: he will either remain silent, uneasy, and dissatisfied, or he will begin at the beginning, and go through with it to the end. he is for taking the whole responsibility upon himself. he would be thought to understand the subject better than others, or indeed would show that nobody else knows anything about it. there are always three or four points on which the literary novice at his first outset in life fancies he can enlighten every company, and bear down all opposition: but he is cured of this quixotic and pugnacious spirit, as he goes more into the world, where he finds that there are other opinions and other pretensions to be adjusted besides his own. when this asperity wears off, and a certain scholastic precocity is mellowed down, the conversation of men of letters becomes both interesting and instructive. men of the world have no fixed principles, no groundwork of thought: mere scholars have too much an object, a theory always in view, to which they wrest everything, and not unfrequently, common sense itself. by mixing with society, they rub off their hardness of manner, and impracticable, offensive singularity, while they retain a greater depth and coherence of understanding. there is more to be learnt from them than from their books. --_hazlitt._ * * * * * there are some people whose good manners will not suffer them to interrupt you, but, what is almost as bad, will discover abundance of impatience, and lie upon the watch until you have done, because they have started something in their own thoughts, which they long to be delivered of. meantime, they are so far from regarding what passes, that their imaginations are wholly turned upon what they have in reserve, for fear it should slip out of their memory; and thus they confine their invention, which might otherwise range over a hundred things full as good, and that might be much more naturally introduced. there is a sort of rude familiarity, which some people, by practising among their intimates, have introduced into their general conversation, and would have it pass for innocent freedom or humor; which is a dangerous experiment in our northern climate, where all the little decorum and politeness we have are purely forced by art, and are so ready to lapse into barbarity. this, among the romans, was the raillery of slaves, of which we have many instances in plautus. it seems to have been introduced among us by cromwell, who, by preferring the scum of the people, made it a court entertainment, of which i have heard many particulars; and, considering all things were turned upside down, it was reasonable and judicious; although it was a piece of policy found out to ridicule a point of honor in the other extreme, when the smallest word misplaced among gentlemen ended in a duel. there are some men excellent at telling a story, and provided with a plentiful stock of them, which they can draw out upon occasion in all companies, and, considering how low conversation runs now among us, it is not altogether a contemptible talent; however, it is subject to two unavoidable defects, frequent repetition, and being soon exhausted; so, that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company, that he may not discover the weakness of his fund; for those who are thus endued have seldom any other revenue, but live upon the main stock. --_swift._ * * * * * the highest and best of all the moral conditions for conversation is what we call tact. i say a condition, for it is very doubtful whether it can be called a single and separate quality; more probably it is a combination of intellectual quickness with lively sympathy. but so clearly is it an intellectual quality, that of all others it can be greatly improved, if not actually acquired, by long experience in society. like all social excellences it is almost given as a present to some people, while others with all possible labor never acquire it. as in billiard-playing, shooting, cricket, and all these other facilities which are partly mental and partly physical, many never can pass a certain point of mediocrity; but still even those who have the talent must practise it, and only become really distinguished after hard work. so it is in art. music and painting are not to be attained by the crowd. not even the just criticism of these arts is attainable without certain natural gifts; but a great deal of practice in good galleries and at good concerts, and years spent among artists, will do much to make even moderately-endowed people sound judges of excellence. tact, which is the sure and quick judgment of what is suitable and agreeable in society, is likewise one of those delicate and subtle qualities or a combination of qualities which is not very easily defined, and therefore not teachable by fixed precepts. some people attain it through sympathy; others through natural intelligence; others through a calm temper; others again by observing closely the mistakes of their neighbors. as its name implies, it is a sensitive touch in social matters, which feels small changes of temperature, and so guesses at changes of temper; which sees the passing cloud on the expression of one face, or the eagerness of another that desires to bring out something personal for others to enjoy. this quality of tact is of course applicable far beyond mere actual conversation. in nothing is it more useful than in preparing the right conditions for a pleasant society, in choosing the people who will be in mutual sympathy, in thinking over pleasant subjects of talk and suggesting them, in seeing that all disturbing conditions are kept out, and that the members who are to converse should be all without those small inconveniences which damage society so vastly out of proportion to their intrinsic importance. --_mahaffy._ * * * * * in the course of our life we have heard much of what was reputed to be the select conversation of the day, and we have heard many of those who figured at the moment as effective talkers; yet, in mere sincerity, and without a vestige of misanthropic retrospect, we must say that never once has it happened to us to come away from any display of that nature without intense disappointment; and it always appeared to us that this failure (which soon ceased to be a disappointment) was inevitable by a necessity of the case. for here lay the stress of the difficulty: almost all depends in most trials of skill upon the parity of those who are matched against each other. an ignorant person supposes that to an able disputant it must be an advantage to have a feeble opponent; whereas, on the contrary, it is ruin to him; for he can not display his own powers but through something of a corresponding power in the resistance of his antagonist. a brilliant fencer is lost and confounded in playing with a novice; and the same thing takes place in playing at ball, or battledore, or in dancing, where a powerless partner does not enable you to shine the more, but reduces you to mere helplessness, and takes the wind altogether out of your sails. now, if by some rare good luck the great talker, the protagonist, of the evening has been provided with a commensurate second, it is just possible that something like a brilliant "passage of arms" may be the result,--though much even in that case will depend on the chances of the moment for furnishing a fortunate theme, and even then, amongst the superior part of the company, a feeling of deep vulgarity and of mountebank display is inseparable from such an ostentatious duel of wit. on the other hand, supposing your great talker to be received like any other visitor, and turned loose upon the company, then he must do one of two things: either he will talk upon _outrã©_ subjects specially tabooed to his own private use,--in which case the great man has the air of a quack-doctor addressing a mob from a street stage; or else he will talk like ordinary people upon popular topics,--in which case the company, out of natural politeness, that they may not seem to be staring at him as a lion, will hasten to meet him in the same style, the conversation will become general, the great man will seem reasonable and well-bred, but at the same time, we grieve to say it, the great man will have been extinguished by being drawn off from his exclusive ground. the dilemma, in short, is this:--if the great talker attempts the plan of showing off by firing cannon-shot when everybody else is content with musketry, then undoubtedly he produces an impression, but at the expense of insulating himself from the sympathies of the company, and standing aloof as a sort of monster hired to play tricks of funambulism for the night. yet, again, if he contents himself with a musket like other people, then for us, from whom he modestly hides his talents under a bushel, in what respect is he different from the man who has no such talent? --_de quincey._ * * * * * some, in their discourse, desire rather commendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true; as if it were a praise to know what might be said, and not what should be thought. some have certain commonplaces and themes wherein they are good, and want variety; which kind of poverty is for the most part tedious, and, when it is once perceived, ridiculous. the honorablest part of talk is to give the occasion; and again to moderate and pass to somewhat else; for then a man leads the dance. it is good in discourse, and speech of conversation, to vary, and intermingle speech of the present occasion with arguments, tales with reasons, asking of questions with telling of opinions, and jest with earnest; for it is a dull thing to tire, and, as we say now, to jade any thing too far. as for jest, there be certain things which ought to be privileged from it, namely, religion, matters of state, great persons, any man's present business of importance, and any case that deserveth pity; yet there be some that think their wits have been asleep, except they dart out somewhat that is piquant, and to the quick. that is a vein which would be bridled; _parce, puer, stimulis, et fortius utere loris._ and, generally, men ought to find the difference between saltness and bitterness. certainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory. he that questioneth much shall learn much, and content much, but especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the persons whom he asketh; for he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and himself shall continually gather knowledge: but let his questions not be troublesome, for that is fit for a poser; and let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak: nay, if there be any that would reign and take up all the time, let him find means to take them off, and to bring others on, as musicians use to do with those that dance too long galliards. if you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not. speech of a man's self ought to be seldom, and well chosen. i knew one was wont to say in scorn, "he must needs be a wise man, he speaks so much of himself;" and there is but one case wherein a man may commend himself with good grace, and that is in commending virtue in another, especially if it be such a virtue whereunto himself pretendeth. speech of touch towards others should be sparingly used; for discourse ought to be as a field, without coming home to any man. i knew two noblemen, of the west part of england, whereof the one was given to scoff, but kept ever royal cheer in his house; the other would ask of those that had been at the other's table, "tell truly, was there never a flout or dry blow given?" to which the guest would answer, "such and such a thing passed." the lord would say, "i thought he would mar a good dinner." discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words, or in good order. a good continued speech, without a good speech of interlocution, shows slowness; and a good reply, or second speech, without a good settled speech, showeth shallowness and weakness. as we see in beasts, that those that are weakest in the course, are yet nimblest in the turn; as it is betwixt the greyhound and the hare. to use too many circumstances, ere one come to the matter, is wearisome; to use none at all, is blunt. --_bacon._ * * * * * think as little as possible about any good in yourself; turn your eyes resolutely from any view of your acquirement, your influence, your plan, your success, your following: above all, speak as little as possible about yourself. the inordinateness of our self-love makes speech about ourselves like the putting of the lighted torch to the dried wood which has been laid in order for the burning. nothing but duty should open our lips upon this dangerous theme, except it be in humble confession of our sinfulness before our god. again, be specially upon the watch against those little tricks by which the vain man seeks to bring round the conversation to himself, and gain the praise or notice which the thirsty ears drink in so greedily; and even if praise comes unsought, it is well, whilst men are uttering it, to guard yourself by thinking of some secret cause for humbling yourself inwardly to god; thinking into what these pleasant accents would be changed if all that is known to god, and even to yourself, stood suddenly revealed to man. --_bishop wilberforce._ * * * * * in speaking of the duty of pleasing others, it will not be necessary to dwell on the ordinary courtesies and lesser kindnesses of our daily living, any further than to observe that none of these things, however trifling, is beneath the notice of a good man, ... but i mention one thing, because i think that we are most of us apt to be rather deficient in it, and that is in the trying to suit ourselves to the tastes and views of persons whose professions or inclinations, or situation in life, differ widely from our own.... as a general rule, no man can fall into conversation with another without being able to learn something valuable from him. but in order to get at this benefit there must be something of an accommodating spirit on both sides; each must be ready to hear candidly and to answer fairly; each must try to please the other. we all suffer from the want of acquaintance with the habits and opinions and feelings of different classes of society. --_dr. arnold._ * * * * * if you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism upon those with whom you live. the number of people who have taken out judges' patents for themselves is very large in any society. now it would be hard for a man to live with another who was always criticising his actions, even if it were kindly and just criticism. it would be like living between the glasses of a microscope. but these self-elected judges, like their prototypes, are very apt to have the persons they judge brought before them in the guise of culprits. let not familiarity swallow up old courtesy. many of us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things as we say about strangers behind their backs. there is no place, however, where real politeness is of more value than where we mostly think it would be superfluous. you may say more truth, or rather speak out more plainly to your associates, but not less courteously than to strangers. --_helps._ * * * * * much of the sorrow of life springs from the accumulation, day by day and year by year, of little trials--a letter written in less than courteous terms, a wrangle at the breakfast table over some arrangement of the day, the rudeness of an acquaintance on the way to the city, an unfriendly act on the part of another firm, a cruel criticism needlessly reported by some meddler, a feline amenity at afternoon tea, the disobedience of one of your children, a social slight by one of your circle, a controversy too hotly conducted. the trials within this class are innumerable, and consider, not one of them is inevitable, not one of them but might have been spared if we or our brother man had had a grain of kindliness. our social insolences, our irritating manners, our censorious judgment, our venomous letters, our pin pricks in conversation, are all forms of deliberate unkindness, and are all evidences of an ill-conditioned nature. --_john watson._ * * * * * if this be one of our chief duties--promoting the happiness of our neighbors--most certainly there is nothing which so entirely runs counter to it, and makes it impossible, as an undisciplined temper. for of all the things that are to be met with here on earth, there is nothing which can give such continual, such cutting, such useless pain. the touchy and sensitive temper, which takes offence at a word; the irritable temper, which finds offence in everything whether intended or not; the violent temper, which breaks through all bounds of reason when once roused; the jealous or sullen temper, which wears a cloud on the face all day, and never utters a word of complaint; the discontented temper, brooding over its own wrongs; the severe temper, which always looks at the worst side of whatever is done; the wilful temper, which overrides every scruple to gratify a whim,--what an amount of pain have these caused in the hearts of men, if we could but sum up their results! how many a soul have they stirred to evil impulses; how many a prayer have they stifled; how many an emotion of true affection have they turned to bitterness! how hard they sometimes make all duties! how painful they make all daily life! how they kill the sweetest and warmest of domestic charities! the misery caused by other sins is often much deeper and much keener, more disastrous, more terrible to the sight; but the accumulated pain caused by ill-temper must, i verily believe, if added together, outweigh all other pains that men have to bear from one another. --_bishop temple._ * * * * * wicked is the slander which gossips away a character in an afternoon, and runs lightly over a whole series of acquaintances, leaving a drop of poison on them all, some suspicion, or some ominous silence--"have you not heard?"--"no one would believe it, but--!" and then silence; while the shake of the head, or the shrug of the shoulders, finishes the sentence with a mute meaning worse than words. do you ever think of the irrevocable nature of speech? the things you say are often said forever. you may find, years after your light word was spoken, that it has made a whole life unhappy, or ruined the peace of a household. it was well said by st. james, "if any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, that man's religion is vain." --_stopford brooke._ * * * * * there are three kinds of silence. silence from words is good, because inordinate speaking tends to evil. silence, or rest from desires and passions, is still better, because it promotes quietness of spirit. but the best of all is silence from unnecessary and wandering thoughts, because that is essential to internal recollection, and because it lays a foundation for a proper regulation and silence in other respects. --_madame guyon._ * * * * * the example of our lord, as he humbly and calmly takes the rebuff, and turns to go to another village, may help us in the ordinary ways of ordinary daily life. the little things that vex us in the manner or the words of those with whom we have to do; the things which seem to us so inconsiderate, or wilful, or annoying, that we think it impossible to get on with the people who are capable of them; the mistakes which no one, we say, has any right to make; the shallowness, or conventionality, or narrowness, or positiveness in talk which makes us wince and tempts us towards the cruelty and wickedness of scorn;--surely in all these things, and in many others like them, of which conscience may be ready enough to speak to most of us, there are really opportunities for thus following the example of our saviour's great humility and patience. how many friendships we might win or keep, how many chances of serving others we might find, how many lessons we might learn, how much of unsuspected moral beauty might be disclosed around us, if only we were more careful to give people time, to stay judgment, to trust that they will see things more justly, speak of them more wisely, after a while. we are sure to go on closing doors of sympathy, and narrowing in the interests and opportunities of work around us, if we let ourselves imagine that we can quickly measure the capacities and sift the characters of our fellow-men. --_bishop paget._ * * * * * how much squandering there is of the voice! how little is there of the advantage that may come from conversational tones! how seldom does a man dare to acquit himself with pathos and fervor! and the men are themselves mechanical and methodical in the bad way, who are most afraid of the artificial training that is given in the schools, and who so often show by the fruit of their labor that the want of oratory is the want of education. how remarkable is sweetness of voice in the mother, in the father, in the household! the music of no chorded instruments brought together is, for sweetness, like the music of familiar affection when spoken by brother and sister, or by father and mother. conversation itself belongs to oratory. how many men there are who are weighty in argument, who have abundant resources, and who are almost boundless in their power at other times and in other places, but who, when in company among their kind, are exceedingly unapt in their methods. having none of the secret instruments by which the elements of nature may be touched, having no skill and no power in this direction, they stand as machines before living, sensitive men. a man may be as a master before an instrument; only the instrument is dead; and he has the living hand; and out of that dead instrument what wondrous harmony springs forth at his touch! and if you can electrify an audience by the power of a living man on dead things, how much more should that audience be electrified when the chords are living and the man is alive, and he knows how to touch them with divine inspiration! --_beecher._ * * * * * every one endeavors to make himself as agreeable to society as he can; but it often happens that those who most aim at shining in conversation, overshoot their mark. tho a man succeeds, he should not (as is frequently the case) engross the whole talk to himself; for that destroys the very essence of conversation, which is talking together. we should try to keep up conversation like a ball bandied to and fro from one to the other, rather than seize it all to ourselves, and drive it before us like a football. we should likewise be cautious to adapt the matter of our discourse to our company, and not talk greek before ladies, or of the last new furbelow to a meeting of country justices. but nothing throws a more ridiculous air over our whole conversation than certain peculiarities easily acquired, but very difficultly conquered and discarded. in order to display these absurdities in a truer light, it is my present purpose to enumerate such of them as are most commonly to be met with; and first to take notice of those buffons in society, the attitudinarians and face-makers. these accompany every word with a peculiar grimace or gesture; they assent with a shrug, and contradict with a twisting of the neck; are angry by a wry mouth, and pleased in a caper or minuet step. they may be considered as speaking harlequins; and their rules of eloquence are taken from the posture-master. these should be condemned to converse only in dumb show with their own persons in the looking-glass, as well as the smirkers and smilers, who so prettily set off their faces, together with their words, by a _je-ne-sais-quoi_ between a grin and a dimple. with these we may likewise rank the affected tribe of mimics, who are constantly taking off the peculiar tone of voice or gesture of their acquaintance, tho they are such wretched imitators, that (like bad painters) they are frequently forced to write the name under the picture before we can discover any likeness. next to these whose elocution is absorbed in action, and who converse chiefly with their arms and legs, we may consider the profest speakers. and first, the emphatical, who squeeze, and press, and ram down every syllable with excessive vehemence and energy. these orators are remarkable for their distinct elocution and force of expression; they dwell on the important particulars _of_ and _the_, and the significant conjunction _and_, which they seem to hawk up, with much difficulty, out of their own throats, and to cram them, with no less pain, into the ears of their auditors. these should be suffered only to syringe (as it were) the ears of a deaf man, through a hearing-trumpet; tho i must confess that i am equally offended with the whisperers or low-speakers, who seem to fancy all their acquaintance deaf, and come up so close to you that they may be said to measure noses with you, and frequently overcome you with the full exhalations of a foul breath. i would have these oracular gentry obliged to speak at a distance through a speaking-trumpet, or apply their lips to the walls of a whispering-gallery. the wits who will not condescend to utter anything but a _bon-mot_, and the whistlers or tune-hummers, who never articulate at all, may be joined very agreeably together in concert; and to these tinkling cymbals i would also add the sounding brass, the bawler, who inquires after your health with the bellowing of a town-crier. the tattlers, whose pliable pipes are admirably adapted to the "soft parts of conversation," and sweetly "prattling out of fashion," make very pretty music from a beautiful face and a female tongue; but from a rough manly voice and coarse features mere nonsense is as harsh and dissonant as a jig from a hurdy-gurdy. the swearers i have spoken of in a former paper; but the half-swearers, who split and mince, and fritter their oaths into "gad's but," "ad's fish," and "demme," the gothic humbuggers, and those who nickname god's creatures, and call a man a cabbage, a crab, a queer cub, an odd fish, and an unaccountable skin, should never come into company without an interpreter. but i will not tire my reader's patience by pointing out all the pests of conversation, nor dwell particularly on the sensibles, who pronounce dogmatically on the most trivial points, and speak in sentences; the wonderers, who are always wondering what o'clock it is, or wondering whether it will rain or no, or wondering when the moon changes; the phraseologists, who explain a thing by all that, or enter into particulars, with this and that and t'other; and lastly, the silent men, who seem afraid of opening their mouths lest they should catch cold, and literally observe the precept of the gospel, by letting their conversation be only yea and nay. the rational intercourse kept up by conversation is one of our principal distinctions from brutes. we should, therefore, endeavor to turn this peculiar talent to our advantage, and consider the organs of speech as the instruments of understanding; we should be very careful not to use them as the weapons of vice, or tools of folly, and do our utmost to unlearn any trivial or ridiculous habits, which tend to lessen the value of such an inestimable prerogative. it is, indeed, imagined by some philosophers, that even birds and beasts (tho without the power of articulation) perfectly understand one another by the sounds they utter; and that dogs, cats, etc., have each a particular language to themselves, like different nations. thus it may be supposed that the nightingales of italy have as fine an ear for their own native woodnotes as any signor or signora for an italian air; that the boars of westphalia gruntle as expressively through the nose as the inhabitants in high german; and that the frogs in the dykes of holland croak as intelligibly as the natives jabber their low dutch. however this may be, we may consider those whose tongues hardly seem to be under the influence of reason, and do not keep up the proper conversation of human creatures, as imitating the language of different animals. thus, for instance, the affinity between chatterers and monkeys, and praters and parrots, is too obvious not to occur at once; grunters and growlers may be justly compared to hogs; snarlers are curs that continually show their teeth, but never bite; and the spitfire passionate are a sort of wild cats that will not bear stroking, but will purr when they are pleased. complainers are screech-owls; and story-tellers, always repeating the same dull note, are cuckoos. poets that prick up their ears at their own hideous braying are no better than asses. critics in general are venomous serpents that delight in hissing, and some of them who have got by heart a few technical terms without knowing their meaning are no other than magpies. i, myself, who have crowed to the whole town for near three years past may perhaps put my readers in mind of a barnyard cock; but as i must acquaint them that they will hear the last of me on this day fortnight, i hope that they will then consider me as a swan, who is supposed to sing sweetly at his dying moments. --_cowper._ * * * * * it is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain. this description is both refined, and, so far as it goes, accurate. he is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him, and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. his benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called the comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature--like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their best in dispelling cold and fatigue, tho nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them. the true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the mind of those with whom he is cast--all clashing of opinion or collision of feeling, all restraint or suspicion or gloom or resentment, his great concern being to make every one at ease and at home. he has his eyes on all his company, he is tender toward the bashful, gentle toward the distant, and merciful toward the absurd. he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. he makes light of favors when he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. he never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort; he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motive to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. he is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. from a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves toward our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. he has too much good sense to be affronted at insults. he is too well employed to remember injuries and too indolent to bear malice. he is patient, forbearing, and resigned on philosophical principle; he submits to pain because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death because it is his destiny. if he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds, who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they find it. he may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust; he is as simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive. nowhere shall we find greater candor, consideration, indulgence; he throws himself into the minds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. he knows the weakness of human reason as well as its strength, its province, and its limits. if he can be an unbeliever, he will be too profound and large-minded to ridicule religion or to act against it; he is too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. he respects piety and devotion; he even supports institutions as venerable, beautiful or useful, to which he does not assent; he honors the ministers of religion, and it contents him to decline its mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. he is a friend of religious toleration, and that not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling which is attendant on civilization. --_cardinal newman._ * * * * * * advertisements by grenville kleiser how to speak in public--a practical self-instructor for lawyers, clergymen, teachers, business men, and others. cloth, 543 pages. $1.25, _net_; by mail, $1.40. how to develop self-confidence in speech and manner--a book of practical inspiration; trains men to rise above mediocrity and fearthought to their great possibilities. commended to ambitious men. cloth, 320 pages. $1.25, _net_; by mail, $1.35. complete guide to public speaking--the only extensive, comprehensive, encyclopedic work of its kind ever issued, with its varied and inclusive contents alphabetically arranged by topics, and made immediately accessible by a complete index. the best advice by the world's great authorities upon oratory, 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lessons, with daily exercises, special books, side talks, self-appraisement charts, etc. write for terms. _published by_ funk & wagnalls company new york and london generously made available by kentuckiana digital library (http://kdl.kyvl.org/) note: images of the original pages are available through kentuckiana digital library. see http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;xc=1&idno=b92-203-30752381&view=toc the smart set correspondence & conversations by clyde fitch 1897 chicago & new york herbert s. stone & co copyright, 1897, by herbert s. stone & co. to "mumsy" to whom i owe everything from the little beginning of my life new york 1897 the correspondence and the conversations page the makeway ball 3 the plaintiff 43 the summer 53 the children 65 maternity 85 a letter of introduction 105 wagner, 1897 113 art 131 sorrow 139 the theatre 149 the opera 159 a perfect day 167 the westington's bohemian dinner 175 the gamblers 187 the makeway ball five letters i. from wm. h. makeway ii. from mrs. makeway iii. from miss makeway iv. from a guest v. from an uninvited the smart set i _from wm. h. makeway to joseph k. makeway, of denver._ new york, jan. 12, 189--. my dear brother: you did well to stay west. would to god i had! julia's big party came off last night. i told her weeks ago, when she began insinuating it, that if it must be it must be, of course, and that i would pay all the bills, but i wished it distinctly understood i wouldn't have anything else to do with it. she assured me that nothing whatever would be expected of me. unfortunately, she wasn't the only woman with an american husband, and that people would understand. she promised me i should have a voice in the matter of cigars and champagne--you can know they were _all right_--and i believe the success of the party was, in a great measure, due to them. my having "nothing whatever to do" with it consisted in hearing nothing else discussed for days, and on the night in question having no room i could call my own, my bedroom being devoted to the men (of course you know that julia and i haven't shared the same room for years, not since the six months she spent with her married sister, lady glenwill), my own sanctum down stairs was turned into a smoker, and i was obliged to hang around in any place i could find, all ready for the guests a couple of hours before they began to arrive. of course, too, she finally bulldozed me into helping her receive. you see, the little woman really was worn out, for she had overseen everything. she is a wonder! there isn't an english servant in new york, or london, either, who can teach her anything, altho' our second footman happens to have been with the duke of cambridge at one time. not that i care a damn about such things--except that the duke is a soldier--but in speaking of them i get to taking julia's point of view. i helped her receive some of the people, to sort of give her a feeling of not having the whole infernal thing on her own shoulders. everybody julia wanted came, and a great many she didn't want. i suppose out where you live you don't have to ask the people you don't want. here it's much more likely you can't ask the people you do want. i have some business friends, first-rate fellows, with good looking, dressy wives, but julia bars them every one because they aren't fashionables. you ought to see me when _i'm_ fashionable! the most miserable specimen you ever saw. i look just like one of the figures in a plate in a tailor's window, labeled "latest autumn fashions," and i feel like one, too. julia looked stunning! by jove! she was the handsomest woman there. there isn't another in new york anywhere near her age who can touch her. they say every one asked about her in london when she went out with her sister in english society, and i don't wonder. you know she has a tall crown of diamonds--tiaras, they call them--i've always been ashamed to tell you before! she came home with it from tiffany's one day, and said it was my birthday present to her, and i let it go at that. well, last night no duchess could have worn the same sort of thing any better. the young one, too, looked as pretty as a ---whatever you like, only it must be damned pretty! it was her first ball, you know; she's a ----, you know what, it's her first time in society. she had more bouquets than patti used to get when you and i were running about town. and she was as unconcerned about it! she's fashionable enough--i only hope she isn't too much so. i don't want her to marry this young lord who's hanging around, and i say so three times a day. the "young'un" says i'd better wait till he's asked her, but i don't dare. julia's fixed on it. she won't even argue with me, so you can imagine how determined she is. but i want my daughter to marry an american, and live in her own home where her father and mother live. one thing, i know: most of these marrying foreigners that come over here want money, and i'll be hanged if i'll give the young'un a penny if she takes this one. i mean it. i give you my word. he led the cotillon with her last night. i wouldn't watch it. i staid in my den and helped smoke the cigars. none better! i can tell you that! well, good bye, old man. if you hear of any thing good out your way to drop a couple of hundred thousand in, let me know--better wire me. politics have played the deuce with my utahs. julia sends her love, and wants me to enclose you yards of newspaper clippings about the party. ha! ha! not by a damn sight! it's enough that i was bored to death by it! the "young'un" often speaks of you. she is getting togged out to go with her mother and do the town in the way of at homes and such things. what a life! yet they seem to enjoy it, and pity us. us! in wall street! the elysian fields of america! can i do anything for you here? you know i am always glad of a chance. your affectionate brother, will. how about that girl you were running after? why don't you give it all up? you know what a bad lot she is. settle down and marry. it's the only real happiness. believe your old brother. ii _letter from mrs. wm. h. makeway to lady glenwill, of london._ thursday. my darling tina: it is over, and my dear, i'm dead! only--_such_ a success! surpassed my wildest dreams! if you had _only_ been here. in the first place every one of any consequence in new york came; except, of course, those who are in mourning. there are certain people who have always held off from me, you know; but they've come around at last, and were all in evidence last night and in their best clothes, and _all_ their jewels, and you know that always speaks well for the hostess. i wore my tiara that will so generously gave me my last birthday (of course he hates it himself, but i brought it home, and he had to give in--the dear!). my wedding necklace, three strings of real pearls, and one string of those "orient" things we bought on bond st.--no one could ever tell the difference except will, who makes a fuss every time i wear them. he swears he will give me a new real string if i put them on again, but i tell him we must economize now to make up for what the party cost. my dress was charming. grace nott brought it over from pacquin for her mother, and meanwhile this cruel indecent new tariff came on! get down on your knees, my dear, and be grateful you don't live in this wretched country which is being turned into one great picnicking ground for the working classes. the custom house wanted to make grace pay an awful duty, and then, fortunately for me, but of course it was terrible for them, something in wall street went up instead of down, or vice versa (i never can understand those things), and the poor notts went to smash. the dress was to be left in the custom house. when i heard about it i bought it, duties and all. my dear girl, it fitted me like a dream. did you ever hear anything like it? of course, mrs. nott never could have squeezed herself into it, so it's just as well she didn't try! it is the new color, and made in the very latest way--in fact, the coming spring mode. i really think will's description is the best. i'll try to quote it to you: "it begins at the top--_i.e._ decidedly below the shoulders--to be one kind of a dress, changes its mind somewhere midway, and ends out another sort altogether. one side starts off in one direction, but comes to grief and a big jewel, somewhere in the back. the other side, taking warning, starts off in an absolutely different way, color, and effect, and explodes at the waist under the opposite arm in a diamond sunburst and a knot of tulle, on accidentally meeting its opponent half." it really is quite like that, too! will is as amusing as ever. and he was _so_ sweet about the party. of course, at first, i had to be very diplomatic and get his consent without his knowing. he still hates society in the most unreasonable manner; would even rather stay at home quietly than go to his club. but last night he accepted the inevitable and behaved like a prince. i wonder how many couples in new york who have been married nineteen years are as happy as will and i are? he made a great fuss, of course, about the champagne and cigars. you would have thought the whole fate of the ball depended upon them; and i must say they cost a ridiculous price. however, he pays for them, and they made him happier; so i don't complain. i am sure, after all, he enjoyed the ball thoroughly, too. you could see it in his face. and what perfect manners he has! do you remember? will may not be "smart," but he's a gentleman, and his grandfathers before him were gentlemen, and that always tells. we don't seem to have had many grandfathers, my dear--of our own, i mean, of course. i know you've married a wonderful collection of them, dating back to goodness knows when, but it isn't so important for american women; they can acquire breeding in their own lifetime. i know no other nation whose women can do the same, and even our men haven't the same ability. look at the american duchesses--don't they grace even the parties at marlborough house? look at yourself, my dear girl. but you won't, because you're too modest. still you must acknowledge your success in england is conspicuous. will's manners are perhaps a little old-school, but that's much better than the new-school. young men's manners nowadays are becoming atrocious, and i'm sorry to say i think they get them from england. the first thing one knows the only gentlemen left in america will be the women. but i hope american men _won't_ lose their reputation--deserved, you must acknowledge--of being the most courteous men in the world to women. well, to go back to the ball. of course, all my feelings outside my guests were centered in helen. i might as well tell you at once, she is considered the most attractive debutante of the year--not by me, i don't mean, nor by my friends, but by the people who hate us, and _everybody_. i think she is very like you, a sort of _distingué_ air that you always had. i sometimes wonder if some of our grandmothers (for even if we didn't have grandfathers we must have had grandmothers), if some _one_ of them--hope not _two_--didn't make a wee slip once when royal personages were about! of course there is no use boasting of royal blood in one's veins when it has no business there, but that would account for certain things. you may remember the old portrait of mother's mother. she looked a perfect duchess. helen can have a title if she wants it. i might as well tell you now. please find out all you can for me about young lord ----. he will be duke of ---when his father or some one dies; so find out if you can, too, how long you think it will probably be before he becomes a duke. and is he rich or poor? he needn't be rich, but i don't want to think it's helen's money he's after. i'm doing all i can to bring about the match, and yet i'm not so worldly after all as to want a daughter of mine to make a loveless marriage. helen isn't exactly pretty, but she's extremely attractive. her figure is perfect, and she's the most stylish thing in the world. i am very happy today as i think that i have _lancéed_ her in the best new york can offer. it has not been all downhill work. her father's name entitled her to it; but he hated society, so he was more of a drawback than anything else. i couldn't boast of any social position in buffalo, and it's extraordinary how well that was known here. however, the fact of my being of a good, sterling, unpretentious family did help in the end, when i got started, and people saw i was serious about "getting in." of course, you gave us our first big push forward, you darling. an _entrée_ into smart english society doesn't mean so much for a new yorker nowadays as it used to, but it means a good deal. and a sister-in-law of lord glenwill is a desirable person to know when in london, so it is wise to take her up at home, and i, always having helen's future in mind, took advantage of every possibility. perhaps i shouldn't have had to push my way so much here if the prince of wales were still _making_ an american girl each season, but you know for several years now he seems to have given it up. i think he was discouraged by the last two he made at homburg; neither of them had any success here the following winter, "hall-marked" as they were, and even london hasn't found them husbands yet. of course, as to one of them, i remember the gossip you wrote me about colonel ----. but, as you said, he had a wife and other incumbrances; so the least said about that the better. under any circumstance, i think it's a much bigger triumph to give helen all new york first, now, simply by our own right, and then this may we'll take her to an early drawing-room, and see what happens next. i shall depend upon you, dear, to see that we go to one of the princess' drawing-rooms, and don't get palmed off on one of the princess christian's or anything of that sort. helen was dressed very simply, of course, and no jewels, but looked so sweet. lord ---was devotion itself all evening. naturally every one is on the _qui vive_ for the engagement, but that's all right. they danced the cotillon together. we had charming favors, not too extravagant--that's such wretched taste--but things we bought in venice last year, and hungarian things, and some russian, and a set of tiny gold things tiffany got up especially for us. i had several people down from buffalo, and mother, of course. i wish you could have seen her, bless her heart. she had on all her old lace, and my coiffeur did her hair beautifully. she looked so handsome, and will insisted on her dancing a figure of a quadrille with him, and how graceful and dignified she was. you would have been very proud. i was. lots of people asked about her, and some seemed so surprised when they heard she was my mother. how rude people are; and what did they expect my mother to be like? after all, do _i_ look like the daughter of a washerwoman? i think not. we might ask the grand duke ----, if we meet him again at aix. you know i told will about my small, timid flirtation with the russian, and really he seemed proud of my absurd little conquest! a convenient husband for some women we know, wouldn't he be? ah, but then you see _they_ wouldn't deserve him! sherry did my supper. he imported some birds from austria especially for it, and invented some dishes of his own. i think it was all right. people said so, but, of course, you can't believe people. i can vouch at any rate for the serving of it. it was like magic. we seated _every one_ at little tables which seemed to come up thro' the floors. they were everywhere except in the ball-room; that was left clear. we've built the ball-room since you were over. will bought the house next to us (such a sum as they asked when they heard _we_ wanted it!) and the whole lower floor we made into a ball-room. it just holds my series of gobelins we bought for that outrageous price two years ago in paris at the marquis de shotteau's sale. for flowers, i had quantities of gorgeous palms and lovely cut flowers in bowls and vases wherever it was possible. that was all,--i hate this stuffing a house with half-fading flowers, it always suggests a funeral to me, with the banked-up mantels for coffins. it's horrid, i know, but i can't help it. however, if i am writing in this vein it's time i stopped. my letter is abnormally long as it is--i hope the right number of stamps will be put on it. forgive me for mentioning it, my dear, but we always have to pay double postage due on your epistles. i don't mind at all--they are quite worth it--only i thought you might like to know. i have all the newspapers about the ball for you, but i will wait till after thursday and then send them on in a package. i want to see what _town topics_ will say. nobody cares, of course, only you don't like to see horrid things about you in print. sometimes it treats me very well, and it's devoted to helen, but once in a while it's atrocious. i'm only a little worried about lord ----. i don't want it to say i am after him for helen, because i am _not_! if the english papers have anything in, please send them over--i know some articles are going to be written. if there are any of them absurd and extravagant accounts, of course you will take pains to contradict them. the english press seems often determined to make american society ridiculous. will says we will be greatly indebted to your husband if he will get us a house for the season, as you proposed. carleton house terrace, if possible; if not, use your own judgment, only not grosvenor square--they make too much fun of strangers who go there. i hope you are well and taking some sort of care of yourself, which you know you never do. and please, if you go to paris at easter, be sure to write us at once if sleeves are still growing smaller, if hats are big or little, and whether it's feathers or flowers, or both. also, of course, anything else that will help us. and don't forget to find out all you can about lord ----. and do you advise announcing the engagement before her presentation, or afterward? and by no means say a word to anybody, as he hasn't proposed yet. by the way, will is violently opposed to it. but i think helen and i together will be too much for him, and if absolutely necessary _my health_ can give out! that had to happen, you remember, before i could get him out of 15th street and up here. my love to the hon. bertha. how is the dear child? i long to see you. say what you like, this society life isn't altogether satisfactory. i think after helen is happily married--to whomever it is--i shall drift quietly out of it, and gradually take to playing joan to will's darby. i'm sure will would _love_ it. love to you both, and a heart full to yourself, tina, dearest. your affectionate old sister, mary. p.s.--don't laugh at what i said about a society life. of course i don't mean it. i don't believe i could live without it now. i'm tired after the ball, that's all. to tell the truth i don't quite know where my head is. i shall take two phoenacetine powders right away. do you know about them; they're so good. did i ask you if you went to paris easter to be sure and write me if sleeves---o yes, i remember, i did. iii _from miss makeway to miss blanche matheson in rome._ thursday. my darling blanche: of course i know you are having a wonderful time in rome with royalties and all sorts of smart people and gay entertainments, but still i wish you had been at our ball last night. i believe you would have enjoyed it. i don't think anyone can deny we know how to give balls in america, and mama is a wonder! you know she's been fishing for guests for this ball for years. and she wouldn't give it till she was sure of a list of people who would be present that would bear comparison with anybody's; and, my dear, we had it! and i am sure mama feels more than repaid. with such a culmination everything has been worth while--the french _chef_ and his terrible extravagances, for you must pay to be known as a good house to dine at--all the deadly afternoon parties, all the exorbitant fees paid for years to the opera singers to sing, the house at newport--and the one at lennox, the seasons in london, that shooting box in scotland (it bored us to death), it was all worth while now that we have arrived at the toppest top. and no one could become her position better than mama. a society matron of the first water is certainly her _métier_. lord ---is very much struck with mama. i will tell you about him later. of course poor papa looks a little what that amusing young englishman would call perhaps 1872. he wasn't in it for a minute; bored to death, poor thing. you know he hates parties. thank heaven i am "out" at last, for now i can go to everything that comes on. and do as i please, that is if i want to, because i may marry soon! i wish i could see your expression when you read that. of course it is lord ----. he proposed last night, but i told him he must wait, and propose again in a couple of weeks. i wasn't ready to decide yet. i must be free "out" for a couple of weeks at least. he will be duke of ----, some day. as the duchess i shall have precedence over mamie smith, gertrude strong, and irene van worth, and even over all the older women who have married abroad, except the duchesses of ---and ----. think what fun it would be to sail in everywhere ahead of mamie smith, after all the insufferable airs she has put on! i don't believe i could make a better match. besides he's youngish and good-looking, has splendid estates, and i really like him. i mean i think he is the sort of man you can get very romantic about. and of course there's no real social life anywhere but abroad, and there's no other life that wouldn't bore me to death. it's only natural, for my whole childhood was spent in an atmosphere of searching after it. ever since i can remember the chief occupation and interest of mama was how diplomatically to get into the smartest set with dignity. it seemed as difficult as the proverbial camel and eye of a needle and the rich man getting into heaven, and in my younger days the three were all very much mixed up together in my mind. i think i should prefer london to paris. smart life in paris seems to be so very much more immoral than in london, judging from what one hears and the books one reads, and you know i don't care about immorality. i get that from mama, too. she is shocked all the time in the "world," over here even, tho' she tries to hide it. our house looked lovely last night. we had powdered footmen, and just enough music and just enough supper and just enough people. one of the secrets of success in society is not to overcrowd anything. of course there were some drawbacks to the ball, but small things that didn't really count. mary farnham came and sat the whole evening thro', as usual, without once dancing. even papa said he "drew the line at that." why doesn't she take something? you see lots of things advertised that change people almost as big as she into a perfect shadow in no time. you feel so sorry for her when she's your guest. i had a great mind to put lord ---to the test, but i didn't quite dare! then tommy baggs came and repeated his customary gymnastics--waltzed on everybody's toes in the rooms (slipper sellers ought to pay him a commission), tore two women's gowns nearly off their waists and spilled champagne frappé down mrs. carton's back; would have ruined her bodice, if she'd had any on, at the back. she bore it like a lamb. her teeth were fairly chattering, but she laughed and said it was rather pleasant. good heavens! who do you suppose is down stairs? lord ----! it's going to be a bore if he's coming every day. i shall go down and tell him these two weeks i am to have a complete holiday. do write me all you're doing. with love always, helen. _later_--i have accepted him! he was so perfectly charming! i couldn't help it! iv _from a guest._ thursday. my dear claire: i was so glad to hear from you about florida, and, as you are having such an amusing time, and as the season here is practically finished now that the much-talked of makeway ball is over, i've decided to join you next week. besides, i've missed you awfully, and it will be so nice to be with you again. will you be so good as to engage my rooms for me?--a bedroom with two windows facing south; not near the elevator by any means; not above the third floor--_but not on the first_. please see that the coloring is blue or pink; i'm not particular about design or material, or anything of that sort (i don't think people should be too _exigeant_)--only yellow, or red, or white, or green rooms are too awfully unbecoming to me. have drawing-room to connect with the bedroom please, and then a room for my maid. i hope you won't have to pay more than seven dollars a week for her (all included, naturally). she isn't at all particular. i'm sure i couldn't afford to keep her if she were, and she's such a treasure. of course she reads all my letters and minds my own business more than i do myself, and uses up my crested writing paper at a terrific rate; but that one expects--don't you think so--with a _good_ servant? i know you are mad to hear all about the ball, so i'll tell you. in the first place it was a great success, and that settles it! the makeways are now a power in new york society, and there's really no reason why they shouldn't be. his family are all right and her english connections are better; and then what a charming woman she is! she makes a perfect hostess. such tact! everything was carried out in the best of taste. if they erred at all it was on the side of simplicity; and yet that gives you a wrong idea about the ball, because it really could boast of splendor. yes, i mean it, but of a solid, real kind. there is nothing papier maché about the makeway house; nor about its owners, nor about their entertainment. you can't help but believe this, and it gives you a sense of social security! everyone anyone would want in their house was there. if any line was drawn tightly inside the smart circle, it defined the pseudo-déclassé. mrs. makeway might be described in england as a slightly early-victorian hostess, or if our presidents had at all the position and social power of royalties, she would be ticketed perhaps as of the hayes period, except that would imply "total abstinence," which would mean instant death to anyone in smart society, thank goodness! i suppose you've heard that old _mot_ of the dinners at the white house during the hayes administration, that water flowed like champagne! well, that will never be said of the makeways. their wine was the very best, too; i never had better at any party, seldom as good, and even john, who scoffs at the idea of women being a judge of wines, confesses, that, though we've entertained everybody all our lives, we've never had such a good wine inside our doors. the supper was, in the first place, comfortable, and, in the second place, faultless. (there was a queer kind of game, which i loathed, but of course i knew, whatever it was, under the circumstances it was the right thing, so i choked it down.) the music was superb--all the good hungarian orchestras in town. the cotillon favors were lovely, and some very stunning gold and jeweled things from tiffany's must have cost a fortune. but of course what you want to know about most is the people and what they had on. i wore my--but you'll see my dress in florida, so never mind. mrs. makeway had a superb dress, but she always dresses handsomely. what a nice man mr. makeway is. you felt sure he was bored to death by the party, and all of us at it, but he concealed it with such charming manners and such natural courtesy that you really felt somehow it was a pleasure to come and put him out. the daughter is a great success; there's no denying that. she has a perfect figure, and is very graceful. she seems to have her father's manners, brought up to date by her mother. she's going to be a leader, you can tell that, and apparently she can be an eventual duchess, if she wishes. young lord ---is still here, and his devotion in the makeway quarter is undisguised. everyone likes him, and says he isn't the sort of young fellow to be merely after her money; but no one can tell if helen is going to take him or not. i am sure of one thing, she will do as she pleases. there were beautiful jewels in evidence at the ball. mrs. makeway wore, i believe, a dozen strings of the most gorgeous pearls. all _real_, of course, with their money. they must represent a fortune in themselves. poor old mrs. hammond blake came with _all_ her switzerland amethysts, and a few new topazes mixed in (she must have been at lucerne last summer). she looked like one of those glass gas-lit signs. but really, all the best jewels in new york were there. and it is wonderful to see how the women whose throats are going the way of the world have welcomed the revival of black velvet if they haven't the pearl collarettes. i shall be wanting something of the sort myself soon. woe is me! and john does keep looking so abominally young. i tell him out of courtesy to me he must get old more quickly, or people will be saying i married a man years younger than myself! john says i needn't trouble to furnish people with subjects for talking; they can make up their own. but i don't think we are gossips nowadays here in america; do you? which reminds me that everybody says the mathews are going to separate at last. she's going to dakota, and get it on incaptability, or cruelty, or some little thing like that. everybody wondered at first why, since she'd stood it so long, she was going to divorce ned now, at this late day, but it has leaked out. think of it--charlie harris! aren't you surprised? it's only about two years since _he_ divorced his wife. mrs. harris got the children, so i presume mrs. mathews will keep hers to give charlie in place of his own. if i remember the number he will be getting compound interest! you know the mathews babies came with such lightning rapidity we lost count. one was always confusing the last baby with the one that came before it. anyway, i think charlie harris gets the best of it; so, even if it isn't altogether ideal to possess your children "ready made," as it were, still elsie mathews is a charming woman, and i never could bear mrs. harris. she told such awful fibs, and her exaggerations were not decorative; they were criminal. why, i couldn't recognize a piece of news i told her myself when i heard her repeating it to some one else not five minutes after, as john says. heavens! for the third time, "as john says," i must stop. but _i am_ a very happy married woman! john gives me everything i want, and i adore him. when i hear from you i will telegraph my train. we missed you awfully at the makeways. john spoke of it several times. he loves to dance with you because you are always ready to sit it out and do all the talking. dear me, i'm afraid that doesn't sound complimentary, but i assure you he _meant_ it as such! how nice it will be to be with you. you aren't strict about your mourning, are you? i don't think it's at all necessary, way off there. with love, always affectionately, maybel parke rodney. v _from an uninvited._ thursday. my darling george: i hope this letter will reach you before you leave minneapolis. i do wish you would leave politics alone, if they're going to take you away like this. believe me, the country can get along much better without you than _i_ can! when we are married you have _got_ to give them up. when we are married, too, and this bore of a divorce of mine is finally settled, i presume i shall be invited to mrs. makeway's parties! i wasn't asked last night to her big ball!--not that i care. i am sure that beast of a husband of mine will never be able to prove his nasty charges against us, and that i shall win the case. then there'll be no excuse for mrs. makeway and her prudish set, and i promise you they shall eat "humble pie," if there's any left in the world after all my dear friends have made me devour. tom has been making overtures to my maid through a detective, but lena is faithful to us, and i've promised her double any sum they offer her. _when_ my position is all right again, i shall go in for society in the most extravagant, splendid way for one long, brilliant, spiteful season, and i shall punish every one of these women who have snubbed me so terribly. after all, half of them owe their positions in the world to my family, and with my family to back me there will be no trouble about my being absolutely reinstated. my people will back me up, too, for we have never had a scandal up till now. we have been almost the only family left. of course the papers are full of the makeway ball, and the pictures of mrs. makeway are too deliciously absurd for anything. one looks like that one of me in the evening news when i gave my evidence. i really believe it's the same picture. i hear that she looked rather well with her famous pearls on (which, between you and me, i believe are false), and her tiara, which all the out-of-town people go to the opera to see. but they say she was dressed entirely too young, and showed she thought her own party a great success. however, what can you expect? she was nobody; her family are most ordinary people, the kind that are prominent in some unfashionable church and influential in its sunday-school. o, la-la-la-la! she prides herself on having an ancestor of some sort who fought in the war of independence--a common soldier, i suppose, in washington's army; that's why she has had an office in the "daughters of the revolution." _we_ had several ancestors in the war--commissioned officers; and they all fought for king george, thank heaven; and if they had only won my father would have been the third lord banner, probably, if not something better. so hang mrs. makeway! her daughter is an ugly little creature; she hasn't a single feature that doesn't go its own way irrespective of the others, and with a total disregard for the _tout ensemble_ of the poor girl's face. you know the sort of thing--each feature seems to be minding the other's business. her teeth _look_ lovely, but i believe some of them are "crowns"--they do that sort of thing so well nowadays! what i will grant her is a beautiful figure, but my corset-maker, who is hers, too, gives me her word of honor she laces awfully! they say she had the best time of any girl at the ball; which, if you ask me, i think beastly taste. the house everyone says looked very beautiful--of course, money will do everything--and the music was superb for the same reason, and the supper not too extravagant. (i suppose they economized on that!) but lots of people i've met say they were bored to death, and that there was an awful crowd. it's extraordinary the people she had there! how she got them i don't know--all the swells. but dear me, after all, that's nothing; swells will go to anyone who'll amuse them. i hear old makeway looked fearfully miserable, and, instead of paying other women compliments, made love to his own wife all the evening. it's extraordinary, because he is really a gentleman. his great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were great chums; made their money, i think, in the same business. by the way, the pinkertons have written me that they have still more evidence against tom. they say _she_ is "doing a turn"--whatever that is--in some variety theatre. according to accounts she _did_ tom for a good deal--just served him right. do hurry back--i miss you so, and am so lonely. it's a year and a half since we've been separated so long as this. come back. don't make me jealous or _suspicious_. besides it isn't complimentary to _trust_ me so tremendously. the lawyer is here--i hope he has come to assure me of my positive victory. * * * * * he has thrown up the suit. we are lost! he says tom has indisputable proof, and that there is no use trying. can lina be a wretch after all? or do you suppose it is your man? come at once, at no matter what sacrifice. the majestic sails on wednesday. hadn't we better throw up the sponge and take it? always, and in spite of everything, your adoring edith. the plaintiff two letters from mr. john stuart kennington to mrs. kennington, his wife. from mrs. john stuart kennington, by special messenger, to the law firm of jordan & fields. i _from john stuart kennington to mrs. kennington, his wife._ newport, october --th, 189-. suspicion is absolutely foreign to my nature. therefore, far from a thought of worry when i found my business visits to new york this summer becoming more and more easy to make as far as you were concerned, i used instead to get "a lump in my throat" on the train which left you here behind, believing that your love for me influenced you to hide your own feelings and aid me all you could in the performance of my duties, even at the cost of your own preferred pleasure and at the price of a good many hours of loneliness. loneliness! oh, what fools we men sometimes are! yes, and how careless you women become! i shall never forget the day i changed my plans suddenly, deciding i wouldn't go to new york that week after all, although my bag was packed and smithers already at the station with it. the instantaneous look of disappointment which leaped across your face, and which for some seconds you didn't sufficiently realize to conceal--what a vista that look opened out to me--a hellish vista! and your constrained little smile--a sort of conscious visible movement of the muscles about your mouth--"on purpose"--came too late. that first look had been like a röntgen ray over the last six months of our life--lives i should say, for while you and i were living one life, you at the same time, without me, were living another. then i understood this summer's comfortable weekly good-byes, so different from other years! i think, down in the bottom of my heart, i understood _all_ at _that moment_,--though i wouldn't acknowledge it not even in secret to myself, and even when, before another twenty-four hours had passed, my eyes were damnable witnesses against you. i couldn't believe them, and doubt if i would have if you had not confessed. of course, i knew whenever we had guests jack tolby was always one of them, and also one of the guests wherever we went, but it only seemed natural. he was extremely agreeable in our house; it's only now i realize he has always rather avoided me at the club. i suppose even men like him have some sort of conscience, or at least a sense of decency, if not of honor, toward their own friends, and, if so, good god, how ashamed he must have been every time he had to take my hand! and _you_, when you received my lips on yours, already satiated with kisses in my absence! ugh! kate! kate! how i hate you! yes, hate is the word. and to think _you_ are the mother of my children! that is the _big_ hurt. i want you to understand that what i am going to do is entirely for their sake, not at all for yours. you who have been the first to drag the name of kennington in the public mud. three honest generations of us have kept it clean and honorable, and our wives have done the same for us all down to you--all except my wife. i used to think that in marrying me you had placed me deeper in your debt than i could ever repay. ever since the first time i saw you i loved you; and after that meeting i put my arms about no woman--arms that had been free enough before--until i put them around you. and since then the same. i have been an absolutely faithful husband to you. do you understand what that means? i don't believe so. i preferred you to every other woman in the world. when away from you, your memory guarded my embraces. yet i am not a romantic man. now, for instance, i look at it all in a straightforward light. i realize that you were a girl with no money and no particular position in the world; and in marrying me you obtained both. you have reveled in society--thanks to me and my family--and this is the return you have made. you have dishonored us. now listen; this is what i propose doing. i do not intend to have my children suffer publicly, as they would, especially my two little daughters, if your disgrace were made public. it happens to be with us that a father's falling in this direction does not so seriously, if at all, affect his children; therefore, for their sake, instead of my divorcing _you_, i am going to give you proof and witness by which you may divorce _me_, for your own sin. but there are certain conditions with which you must comply. i will send by my lawyer a paper, which you will sign in the presence of witnesses before any further steps are taken. in this paper you will agree on your securing your divorce to marry tolby. i have had an interview with him (this is not an age nor a country of duels), and i demanded that he make me the reparation of marrying you when you are free. i must frankly say from his manner i do not judge him over anxious. i believe even a duel with pistols would on the whole have pleased tolby better. it is true that precedent is not in his favor. his own experience with you will doubtless make him a little uneasy. to continue: you are to marry him. you are to demand of me in your suit the sum of $---(and do not be uneasy, you will win your suit). this will be convenient for you when you re-marry, for you know tolby hasn't a cent. it will be a real love match on your part, charming! you are to give all my mother's jewels to our oldest daughter on her marriage, and all the jewels i have ever given you to our second on hers. should the girls not marry at twenty-five, they are then to have the jewels. as to the children i shall have to submit, in my rôle of the guilty party, to letting you have control over them; but i warn you that this is to be only nominal. if ever i find you prejudicing either one of them _against me in any way whatever_--even if i find their affections are being alienated from me by some sort of public opinion or gossip--i warn you that when each one is old enough to understand he shall be told the _truth_. you had better look to it then that my children love me. your own hold over their affections rests upon it. these points, and a few others bearing upon them, will be set forth legally in the paper which my lawyer will bring you. kindly send me word if you are prepared to sign, and, if so, when mr. jordan or his representative may call. good bye. john stuart kennington. ii _from mrs. john stuart kennington, by special messenger, to the law firm of jordan & fields._ no. -east 66th street. benj. k. jordan, esq. dear sir: on second thoughts, after you have left me, i have decided to ask you to write mr. kennington as follows--i mean i will give you the idea of what i wish said: acknowledge the receipt of his letter, and say i shall be delighted to sign the paper he proposes at his earliest convenience. i must ask, however, that he submits the document through you, etc. (the same as we agreed on just now in our interview). now, besides, you must demand for me the following changes or corrections, or whatever is right to call them, in the paper. first, the sum of $---is too small; $---must be added to it. also, i am not willing to give up all my homes. either the house in new york, or in newport, or on long island must be made over to me. and i positively refuse to part with the ruby necklace to one of my daughters unless i should choose to do so of my own free will. for the other jewels i have no use whatever. you can express that as you see fit. ask him to let me hear as soon as possible. yours truly, gertrude corte kennington. tuesday. the summer a letter grand hôtel de l'europe, aix-les-bains, sunday. my dear mary: our summer has been a perfect failure. i said in the very beginning if we followed john and the children's ideas it would be; but as i was in the minority i gave in. fortunately we did catch the tail end of the london season. the others wanted to go straight on to paris, but for that once i put my foot down--and all the trunks as well. it was very warm; still there was a great deal going on, so we didn't mind the heat, at least i didn't. heat in london during the season is such a different thing from heat in switzerland or some dull seaside place, where there is not sufficient distraction to take your mind off it. i was doing something every minute. that's the charm of london. every hour of the day there is something, and if there ever was a dull interval i dropped into one of the picture galleries. you know you have to do that sort of thing over here. people talk about pictures, and some do it very well, too, and you really meet painters out. the children go and see things that are good for their education, you know--the tower, where mary queen of scots, or anne boleyn, i forget which, was beheaded, and the--well, all sorts of places like that. the heat made them rather irritable, and evelyn had a rash, but i thought it was good for them to see all the historical sights. so we staid on just the same till after goodwood. and the races ended my pleasure, for next we started for lucerne. i said all along there would be no one in the place. of course people do go there, but on their way to somewhere else, or coming home at odd times, and not for too long. there is never really any society there. i knew it. i have had experience with it. besides, we know the places that every one does go to in july and august. i preferred homburg, with aix at the end, but i would have put up with trouville first, or ostend, or even dinard. but no, switzerland it was! i hate it; i always did. it's too like its photographs. it has absolutely no style. it's all nature, nature, _nature_! the mountains and lakes, no matter how old they really may be, still always have the _beauté du diable_; and for a woman of my age--who has to resort to art to keep herself looking the slightest little bit younger than she is!--it gets on one's nerves, all this natural beauty! i prefer some _place_ that has to resort to art, too, and make itself up a little with gorgeous hotels, casinos, theatres, and baccarat tables. mountains bore me, and i hate to go on the water. there at lucerne the mountains stood continually and solemnly around, just like elderly relatives at a family reunion, and the flat lake lies as uninteresting as the conversation of these estimable creatures would be. and then the people! the town crowded to suffocation, scarcely breathing space, and yet _nobody_ there. to be sure once in a while one notices an extraordinary old frump go by, who turns out to be the duchess of this, or princess that, but i assure you one would have been ashamed to drive in the park with her (at home), unless she was placarded. now and then somebody decent from new york or boston arrived on a morning train, but, of course, they usually left in the evening, driven away by the glare, or the white dust, or by the eternal tourists. that man cook has done more to spoil attractive places than any other dozen people in the world put together. sometimes, of course, they are amusing. one day i went to see the lion! don't laugh. john bet me five hundred dollars i wouldn't go. so, of course, i did. fortunately i'd heard the children explaining it or i shouldn't have enjoyed so much the following joke. a woman and her daughter, both cooks, (tourists i mean, of course, tho' heaven knows what the mother mightn't have been at home), stood in front of the monument. "what's this, clara?" asked the older woman. clara. why this is the famous lion of lucerne, mother! mother. oh is it, ain't it lovely! what's it for--i mean why is it? clara. why, you know, mother, for defending poor marie antoinette in the tuilleries! mother. oh, did it! and then people say lions are such nasty, heartless creatures. clara. (laughing.) o mother! the lion didn't do it; it's only put up for a monument to the soldiers who died trying to protect her from the mob! mother. oh, i see; it's just a fancy picture! well, anyway, i think it's awful sad. * * * * * what do you think of that? and those are the kind of people switzerland was full of. some were alone, and some were impersonally conducted in a very loose sort of way. wherever you wanted to go they were sure to be ahead, and kicking up a middle-class dust that choked you. the loud sound of their incessant _talk_ echoed from snow peak to snow peak. and their terrible clothes, chosen evidently "not to show the dirt" (but they did), came between your eyes and any beauty of scenery there might be, even if you cared to see it, and i didn't. and then the droves of rich americans at the hotels! where did they come from? where did they learn how not to dress? where did they learn how not to behave? those are the questions i asked myself continually, and always gave them up! i became so tired of hearing of pilatus and the rigi, i felt as if one were at the head of my grave and the other at the foot! i had a sort of indigestion of mountains and lakes! and there was john! rushing out every other minute to sit and look at them (i assure you i was threatened very much with the neuralgia from the damp of the lake terrace). and he climbed everything that was climbable, even preferred walking up; but when there were railways i made him take them for fear he'd hurt himself. i believe he went to the top of every blessed thing that had any top! i found plenty of horrid people to look down on without going to the tops of mountains. i tried to drive, but there wasn't a decent turnout in the place. i went out in a little steam launch, but was frightened to death for fear i'd be run down by one of the steamers crowded with cooks. oh, no! _assez_ of switzerland for me! i said to john--"bring me here to bury me if you like, but don't bring me here alive again." and finally, when he and the children couldn't find anything more to climb, i managed to move them on to aix, and here i am. and, of course, the english season has just finished, and the french people haven't begun to come yet, and aix is hot, and dull, and empty! really, isn't it trying? there are even only second-rate cocottes about, none of the smart ones yet! i am dying of the blues. besides i have to take the baths, although i don't want them, because the only way i managed to persuade john to come here was by pretending i _needed_ them! when i think of you in newport, in spite of the heat, leading an absolutely ideal life with your visits, your dinners, and your balls, i am green with envy. these are the times when life seems really almost too complicated to worry through. or course if i were like john's sister margaret, sort of half-crazy, who loves the real country, prefers a farmhouse to a hotel, fields and woods to a casino, i might get on well enough. but i consider that nothing short of a morbid state of mind. if you love me, write me soon, and cheer me up. but don't tell me of too much going on with you, or it will be more than i can bear. if you could honestly say that it was rather a dull season in newport this year, you don't know what a comfort it would be. i do hope john and the children appreciate the sacrifice i am making for them. i'm sure i try to have them realize it. it only shows what we mothers will do for our children. with love, your affectionate, but depressed, geraldine. p.s.--of course, as you can imagine, the shops at lucerne were filthy. i didn't buy a thing except some presents for the servants. at aix the shops are better, but with so few people here, somehow one has no inspiration. i've bought literally nothing except five hats. the children three dialogues i. divorce. ii. birth. iii. death. i _divorce._ tom barnes, _age ten, whose mother, mrs. barnes, having divorced his father, her second husband, has since remarried, and is now mrs. fenley._ claire worthing, _age seven, whose mother, mrs. worthing, having divorced her father to marry the divorced mr. barnes, is now mrs. barnes._ scene, _a fashionable dancing school in new york. a quadrille has been announced. master barnes goes up to miss claire and bowing somewhat stiffly, mumbles some not altogether intelligible wards. miss claire, sliding down from her chair, says "thank you," with perfect composure and a conventional smile, as, taking his arm, they choose a position in the dance._ tom. shall we stop here in this set? claire. no! becky twines' dress would ruin mine. and she made her maid give her that one on purpose i'm sure, because she knew what i was going to wear. but i don't care. i heard mama say, yesterday, her mother, in spite of all her money, hadn't been able to buy her way into several houses. i don't think she ought to have been invited to join our dancing class at all. when people buy their way into other people's houses like that, how do they do it do you suppose? does the butler sell tickets at the door, do you think? tom. perhaps so! butlers look like that. my! i'd jolly like to be a butler! (_they have moved on to another set._) shall we stop here? claire. oh, no, not here! teddy jones always mixes us up. he treads on our toes. tom. yes, and squeezes the girls' hands, too. claire. oh, that we don't mind! would you like to sit this dance out on the stairs? (_she would prefer it herself._) tom. no, let's dance. come on, this is a good place. claire. as you please. do you like kissing games? tom. (_red in the face._) no; do you? (_he does._) claire. oh, i don't mind. (_an embarrassed pause._) tom. i like football and those kind of games. claire. they are all very well for boys. but i don't much care for games myself, and, besides, i don't have the time. tom. what do girls do with themselves all the time? claire. oh! i have my lessons, and i walk out with my maid every morning, and i dress three times a day, and then i have visits to make on other little girls. tom. you've got a new father, haven't you? claire. yes, mama was married two weeks ago. tom. how do you like him? claire. oh, very much! tom. you take my word for it, he's a brick. i know! he used to be my father once. [_the music starts up, and the couples bow._ ii _birth_ elsie, _age 6_. teresa, _age 8_. bob, _age 7_. (_they are sitting on the steps of the large piazza of a beautiful country house, the two little girls affectionately close, the boy at an awkward distance. there has been a pause in the conversation, which the boy breaks._) bob. we've got a new baby at our house! (_splendid effect!_) elsie, teresa. (_together._) oh! (_their eyes are suddenly bright and their faces glow with a sort of awed curiosity and pleasure, not unmixed with envy._) elsie. what kind? teresa. (_eagerly._) yes; which is it? bob. (_proudly._) a boy, of course! (_the two little girls' faces fall for a second, and they are silent, but not for long._) elsie. of course there have to be boys sometimes. teresa. yes, to make a change. elsie. isn't it funny where babies come from! bob. yes, you find them in cabbages. elsie. oh, no! they come down in rainstorms. teresa. no, no! they come out of the flowers. bob. stuff! elsie. they do come from the skies, because you know the stars are little babies waiting to be picked. teresa. i thought the stars were the places where god put his fingers through. bob. they aren't any such thing; they're the gold tacks that fasten on the carpet of heaven. elsie. when i grow up i shall have eleven babies, because i have eleven favorite names, and i shall have them all at once, so they can have nice, happy times playing together, and there won't have to be any horrid older brother and sister, always getting the best of everything. teresa. and i'll tell you what! i'll have eleven children too, to marry yours. bob. no, i'll marry one of them. elsie. no, you must marry one of us. bob. which one? elsie. well, i think it would be best for you to marry me and be father for my eleven children. i want them to have a father. i love my father. teresa. yes; but then who'll be a father to my children? elsie. yours can be sort of orphans; they needn't ever have had any father. teresa. (_approaching a tearful state._) no, that's awfully sad. i want my children to have a father, too! bob. never mind. i'll be their father besides. elsie. let's play house. teresa. let's! bob. let's play indians, and i'll scalp you two girls! elsie. no, that's too rough. we'll play husband and wife. bob and i will get married, and, teresa, you must be the minister and a bridesmaid. (_they retire into the house, where, with the aid of a wrapper, a night dress, a bouquet, and a black mackintosh, the ceremony is properly performed._) elsie. now we'll have a little girl baby, and (_to teresa_) you must be it. teresa. no, i want to be the wife now, and you be the baby. elsie. no, i'll be the husband, and let bob be the baby. bob. i won't be the baby! teresa. anyway, it isn't polite for a little baby to come right away like that. they never do. elsie. that's so; you have to wait till the news that they want one gets up to the skies. iii _death_ _teddy and elsie are in the drawing-room, which is shadowy and sad with the drawn curtains. the children speak in half whispers, and with an air of importance._ teddy. it's going to be in here. elsie. isn't it awful. (_sobs._) teddy. papa was a brick! elsie. (_sob._) now he's an angel. teddy. (_thoughtfully._) do you really think papa would like being an angel? elsie. everybody likes to be an angel. teddy. i don't. elsie. o teddy! teddy. it sounds stupid to me, like sunday all the week. besides, papa won't have any office there, and what'll he do without an office? elsie. isn't it awful. (_sob._) poor papa! teddy. (_swallowing a lump._) don't cry! [_there is a slight noise overhead._ elsie. o teddy! what was that? teddy. (_trembling._) don't be afraid! (_he puts his arm comfortingly around her, and they sit in a huge arm-chair together._) elsie. what is it like to be dead. teddy. it's like school all the time, never letting out, and no recess. elsie. (_with another sob._) poor papa! are you afraid of him now? teddy. no---elsie. do you want to go up and see him? teddy. no. that isn't him anyway upstairs! elsie. yes, it's him; only his soul isn't there. teddy. do you believe it? say, if that's true, how did his soul get out? elsie. i've thought of that. this is what i believe: when people die, god kisses them, and their soul comes right out of their lips to god's. teddy. i'll never play be dead with you, anymore. elsie. no, i don't want to, either. teddy. god might think i really was dead, and i might lose my soul. elsie. you can't make believe with god. teddy. that's so; i forgot. i say, elsie, i'm never going to be wicked again in all my life. elsie. nor i. teddy. oh! girls never are wicked. i believe when we die death comes along and pulls us by our feet; that's why our souls go out. they're afraid of death. (_elsie shudders, and nestles closer to her brother._) teddy. don't be afraid; i won't let him catch you. elsie. poor mama, she cries all the time. teddy. and she won't eat. elsie. i know where there are some little cakes. teddy. (_eagerly._) could you get them? elsie. not alone. i'm afraid. teddy. i'll go with you. (_they get down out of the big chair._) do we go to school the next day after it? elsie. yes; and wear all black. (_sobs._) poor papa. teddy. (_choking._) don't cry. elsie. you're crying too. teddy. no, i ain't! (_crying._) (_she kisses him. he is comforted, but very much ashamed._) elsie. do you think we can go to the circus next week just the same? teddy. i don't care about circuses now. elsie. neither do i. i don't want to go anyway. let's find the cakes. teddy. and then we'll make a coach out of the chairs, and you'll drive me four in hand. [_they go out of the room smiling._ maternity three letters and a cable from mrs. stanton, a widow i _to robert n. stanton, esq., her son_ (_and only child_) venice, thursday. my darling boy: your letter reached me a few moments ago. we were just starting off to see the tintorettos in the scuola, but i opened your envelope before i stepped into the gondola, and read enough in the first few lines to let the others go on without me. first, let me say this; no one in all the world wishes you more joy, more real happiness, than your mother. i wish it more than anything else in the world, and have prayed for it for you every night of my life since you first came into this world. and i've always counted a wife for you as one of the chief joys of your future. i have always wanted you to marry, only i have always said to myself--not yet; i can't spare him yet. mothers begin their children's lives by being the most unselfish beings in the world; and then, as we grow older, i'm afraid we are inclined to go to the other extreme. i won't tell a falsehood and say i am glad you are going to be married now. forgive me, dear, forgive me; but in my heart there is still the same cry--"not yet! not yet!" oh, i know i'm wrong! it _is_ to be, and i accept it; but it seems so sudden; and, after all, i was so unprepared, and you are my life, dear--my everything. you must let me sigh just a little; i'll promise to be all smiles at the wedding. when you first laughed in the sun, and twinkled your baby eyes at the stars i was not a very happy woman. you were only six months old when i divorced your father. (how much i have regretted that step since. it would have been far better had i borne with him. he was the only man in the world for me; and he would have come back to me if i had only waited. then, instead of dying wretchedly miserable as he did, he might have been alive to-day, and we would be companions for each other; but i was proud and wilful--however, enough of that.) as i said: when you were a tiny baby i was an unhappy woman, with an heart empty and bruised. how i hugged you to it! o never, _never_ can i tell you, nor can you imagine, the comfort, the blessing you became to me! your butterfly-like little kisses made well all the bruises; your little hands, with their soft, flower-like caresses, smoothed away the troubles, and before long you seemed to have crept in, little body, little soul, into my heart, till you filled it completely. and now i must share--oh, we _are_ selfish, we mothers! for i want all--all! i used to be a little jealous, in those early days, even of your nurse. do you know, rob, that i bathed my baby every morning of your little life, so long as you took infant tubs? i wouldn't leave it to anyone else; and for more than one year of your life, in the middle of each night and early morning, i warmed over a little spirit lamp (i have it yet) your preparation of milk, and fed it to you, so that you would get your food from me in one way, if the doctor wouldn't let me feed you as i hungered to do. how soon it was you knew me. i could make you smile when no one else could; and what a joy it was to see a love for me coming into your infantile existence. i had cried a good deal before you were born, and some afterward, first out of relief and then for pure gladness. but under your dear influence i gradually forgot how tears came. you almost never cried; and what a good baby you were--oh, a blessed baby!--and i tried to repay you by not worrying you with too many kisses, with too much loving, which i'm sure is not good for a child. sometimes i had to clench my hands, so strong was my desire to take you up and clasp you tight. then how quickly you began to grow; and before long my letters and intimate conversation began to be filled with what "rob said this morning;" and you did say such delightful things! i never knew so naïvely witty a child! and soon you reached the age when i could play the rôle of comforter. the knocks and bruises i've healed by kissing them!--do you remember one-third? i'm sure i don't. the many imagined slights of your little friends, which were forgotten on my lap! the little aches and pains that were slept away in my arms! how full my life was then! what a blessed boy you were! and then those half-lonely years, when everyone frightened me--by saying you would be spoiled--into sending you away to school. i begrudge those months i spent without you yet. but how we enjoyed the vacations! that's when we began reading together again real stories, not those of the younger days. do you remember your favorite when a very small boy? we always read it when you weren't feeling very well, or after you'd been punished for being naughty, sitting together in the great big old rocking-chair. it was about two poor little fatherless boys whose mother died in a garret, and they were so terribly poor they had to beg a coffin for her, and they alone followed it to the grave. there was a very trying and sad woodcut of the two little orphans doing this, and we always cried together over it. it wasn't a healthy story for a small boy, and i don't know how we got hold of it. oh yes, i do! it was published by the tract society, and had a moral. it was your aunt sent it to you, but i have forgotten the moral. the football period began in the school vacations, and went all through college; but still i think you were always more fond of books and music than athletics; and i was never good at outdoor sports; i only managed to master tennis so as to be able to play with you. the four years of college had some loneliness in them, too; but i enjoyed my visits to williamstown, and then is when i began going into "society" a good deal again, for i said when rob comes out he will want to go. he will have at least three cotillon years, and i want him to go in the best society we have. besides, there is sure to be a wife; let her be a girl of our own position and class. but the dearest parts of your college life were our four trips abroad during the summer. and then it was that i began to turn the tables, and when _i_ was tired to lean on _you_, and when disagreeable things happened to let you take mother in your arms and hold her there till she promised to forget them. then it was when your judgment began to mature, and i found it so clear and good, and have been guided by it ever since. oh, those perfect years between the day you graduated and now! how proud i was of you, too, in society. it seemed to me no one was so brilliant a talker at a dinner table. it was all i could ever do to listen to my neighbor instead of straining my ears across the table in your direction. and i am sure it was not maternal prejudice that picked you out in a ball room, for it was not i who made you leader of all the cotillons so long as you cared to dance them. then how more proud i was of you when you interested yourself in politics. i love my country. your father fought, and bravely, in the civil war; so did my brother. and i know if such a terrible calamity as another war should befall us, you would be ready. the patriot fights for his country, in peace, in politics, and i am happy to say your interest in our government is as keen and active to-day as ever. then there is the ever increasing success in your profession--haven't i been through it all with you! never, i am sure, were a mother and son more sympathetic. the reason i came abroad this year was because i was afraid we were getting too dependent on each other. i realized you now preferred staying home with me evening after evening instead of going out. i loved it, but i knew it was wrong. i argued if i went away for a little you would go out into society again, and to your clubs, seeking companionship. it was not good for a young man--i said to myself--not more than thirty-three, to be spending all of his spare time with an old woman--for practically i am that, though you must never call me so; it would break my heart! and so, though it was really an awful break for me to do it, i went away, and the only thing i wanted to happen did, only more. oh, yes! more than i wanted--because i didn't want you to marry--not yet! and if i hadn't gone away you would probably never have met this miss stone, and you would have been just as happy. for you _were_ happy with me before you met her; weren't you? oh, of course, i know not _so_ happy, and not in the same way, but later on you would have met perhaps miss stone, or somebody else you would have cared for in the same way; don't you think so? i am afraid, if i let myself, i'd be sorry i went away. and yet no--_no_; i'm not so selfish as all that. if you really have found the one woman in the world for you i will try to be glad. i will be glad. i am glad! there! i am. after all it is your happiness. how unhappy i should feel if you loved her and she hadn't returned your love! yes, it is much better as it is--for _you_, so it must be for me, too. allowing even for all a lover's enthusiasm, miss stone must be very charming and very lovable. i can see it in her picture, too, which i thank you for sending. of course, without it i should have been cruelly anxious to see what she was like. she is very pretty--very. i am obliged to confess that. i think i shall come to love her for her own sake, and not only for yours. if only she will love me! you love me more than i deserve or merit, so don't say too much about me or she will be sure to be disappointed. if i must be a mother-in-law (horrid name), i want to be a nice one and be loved. i shall do my best. only it is the giving you up. o rob, darling! what shall i do without you--without my blessed son? breakfast alone, luncheon alone, dinner alone, everything alone! ah, i can't bear the thought of it! no! no! i don't mean that! but of course i can't and won't live with you--it's very kind and like you, dear, to say i must, but i don't believe in that. you'll see enough of me, i'm sure, as it is. and i shall have my memories. baby and boy, you are mine alone. i didn't have to share you then; and i won't have to share the memories now, and no one can take them away from me. and what if you make me a grandmother? it isn't at all sure. everybody doesn't have babies now, like they used to. still, if you do! well, i shall probably adore it. but then i must settle down, wear caps, and perhaps revive a widow's veil. i certainly shall have to be more dignified and not go gallivanting about everywhere, and control some of my enthusiasms, or i shall be a ridiculous old creature. you see, i have always kept your age. now i must take one awful flying leap to my own; and then go along with myself properly. i shall have to become much more regular about church and know all the saints' days. a good thing that will be for me, too, i'm sure--what do you think? they've just knocked on the door and told me it is dinner time. i've been three hours over this disgraceful letter. i knew i'd been dreaming[1] a good deal between sentences; but i didn't know it was so bad as all that. well, i'm going down to tell the others my _good_ news (you understand that _good_, don't you?), and we'll drink to the health and happiness of you both in some crimson chianti. and they shall all see how happy i am over your happiness. for i am. and you will see it, too, when i come back; which will be as soon as i can. [1] the words "and crying" are well scratched over, so he couldn't possibly read them. good bye, my boy. forgive your old mother if she's seemed a little cross in this letter, because she isn't really. i shall write miss stone a little letter to-night. god bless you and her (and me), and fill your lives as full of happiness as your hearts can hold and mine can hold for you! good night, my comfort, you best son in the world! your devoted mother. yes, yes, i _am_ glad, dear; so glad. don't misunderstand my letter. your mother is glad, honestly and with--yes, i _can_ say it now--with _all_ her heart. ii _a cable to her son._ (_sent fifteen minutes after the preceding letter._) overjoyed, congratulations, love. mother. iii _letter to miss lucy stone, troy, n.y._ venice, thursday. my dear miss stone: so you are going to take my boy away from me? i begrudge him, just a little, or just a good deal; but i will tell you a secret. i feel pretty sure that when i know you, i shall be grateful to him, instead of grudging, for giving me you for a daughter; and you must love me, for after all if it wasn't for me you wouldn't have him, would you? he has been a perfect son, and they make perfect husbands. and he loves you, my dear. oh, if you had any doubts of it--which of course you haven't, or i shouldn't like you--but if you had, could you have read over my shoulder his letter to me to-day telling me about it. i am very impatient to know you, but i think we shall be great friends, through rob, before we even meet. till then believe me your--dear me, what?--your robert's affectionate old mother. katherine miles stanton. i am sending with this a little old jewel i found at an old shop the other day; it is a love ring of the sixteenth century. perhaps you will find a place for it. i send it with my love. k. m. s. iv _letter to mrs. henry a. austin, troy, n.y._ venice, thursday. dear gertrude: you will be very much surprised to hear from me, i imagine, as a correspondence is something we could never keep up. but our friendship has lasted without it a long time, my dear girl--forty-two years--for we met when i was fourteen. i haven't forgotten yet how the whole school became bearable after you took possession of the other little white cot in my room. it's a year and a half now since i've seen you, and i've missed you. troy is so near; and yet, after all, it is so far, too, when we realize how seldom we meet. you must give me a whole winter soon! yes, for i am going to be alone; rob is going to marry, and that's why i am writing you. it is to a miss lucy stone, of troy. do write me about her. do you know the family? are they friends of yours? rob is fearfully and wonderfully in love; and i can't blame him after seeing her picture. she is lovely (and charmingly dressed), and i am sure rob would never fall in love with any one but a lady. still, i want to know if she, or rather her family, are really smart people, or what. even if they are "what," i'm sure it won't make any difference to rob, and so it mustn't make any difference to me. but it will be a _relief_ to know that they are friends of yours, or even that you know them. i pretend not to believe in class distinctions, and i don't; but when it comes to your own son, somehow or other you do want him to choose his wife among his own social equals. between you and me i am just about broken-hearted. i know it is very wrong of me, but i had sort of let myself grow very dependent upon him, and always had looked upon his marriage much as one looks upon death, as inevitable, but always remote and the end of all things. it still seems like the end of all things, but in time i shall get used to it. i feel simply ashamed of myself for feeling as i do now. of course, if it were given me the choice, "your son's happiness, woman, or your own selfish comfort," i wouldn't hesitate a moment, but it's so hard for a mother who has spent such happy years with her son to realize that his happiness does altogether and absolutely depend on some one else, and on that one and no other? and then we always have that terrible doubt,--has he chosen the right woman for him? just as if he wasn't, after all, the best judge for himself. of course he is; and in time i know i shall be able to thank god he made this choice, but just now--just to-night--it seems to me i come nearer to envying you your childless wifehood than i would ever have thought possible. being in this sentimental, unreal city, doesn't help me any! forgive this, i'm afraid morbid, letter, and believe me affectionately always--write me the truth--your school girl friend, kitty. have they any position whatever in troy? a letter of introduction four letters i. from mrs. joslyn of new york to mrs. lemaire of washington. ii. the same. iii. from mrs. lemaire to mrs. joslyn. iv. from mr. hamilton-locks to the hon. forbes redding of england. i _letter from mrs. joslyn of new york to mrs. lemaire of washington, unsealed and unstamped._ friday. my dear mrs. lemaire: i am very happy to introduce to you mr. hamilton-locks, of london, a friend of mine, who goes to washington for the first time. i know i am giving you both a pleasure in bringing you together, and any courtesy you may be able to extend to mr. hamilton-locks will be as if shown to me also. always sincerely, emily joslyn. ii _a second letter from mrs. joslyn to mrs. lemaire, sent with a special delivery stamp._ friday. my dear mrs. lemaire: i gave a letter of introduction to you to a young englishman this morning. i hasten to write, and beg you, as far as i am concerned, to pay no attention whatever to it. he was sent over to us by lady heton, a traveling acquaintance, whom we know really nothing of, and it's been a great bother trying to be civil and everything else to him. i felt obliged to give him the letter, but you will understand by this that you are to ignore it quite as much as you like. he is no friend of ours whatever, merely an acquaintance that has been forced upon us. we hear you are having such a gay season in washington. we think of taking a house there for next winter. can you manage to keep out of the political set if you want to? i don't mind ambassadors, but i should think all the other people would be most ordinary. i suppose you will come on for the makeway ball; won't you? if so, do lunch with me the day after; don't forget. yours, ever sincerely, emily joslyn. iii _letter from mrs. lemaire to mrs. joslyn._ wednesday. my dear mrs. joslyn: where is your young englishman? i adore young englishmen, and why doesn't yours come to see me? did you give him the letter? he has been in washington a week, is constantly at the p----'s, and all the diplomatic corps are entertaining him. the women are mad about him, he's so awfully good-looking. if you want a house in washington next winter why not rent ours? we are going to rome in december. yours, always cordially, gertrude lemaire. iv _letter from mr. hamilton-locks to the hon. forbes redding._ washington, january, '97. my dear old chap: this place is a very good sort, rather like a little english paris; more cosmopolitan than boston, i mean, tho' no other city here seems quite so lively as new york. the embassy is giving me no end of a good time. i'm sure i'm more than grateful to your uncle. i find society in this place is more like european without trying to be, while in new york they try more, and _aren't_. new york society has an air of its own, and, i must say, it's a damn fine air, too. of course, like other places, it has some frumps, and what blanche heton meant by giving me a letter to a mrs. joslyn is more than meets the eye. but we are not burnt twice by the same flame. the _lady_ gave me in turn a letter to some one here, and i was so afraid i'd forget and use it by mistake, or leave it at the woman's door one day when i'd been drinking a good many whiskeys and sodas and didn't care what i did, that i tore it into bits and dropped them in an umbrella stand in mrs. joslyn's hall five minutes after she gave it to me. there's no use in running any risks. and when a woman over here _is_ stupid she's damn stupid. so is she superlatively fetching when she is charming. and, by jove! but they know how to draw the line--all but mrs. joslyn. people over on this side think every englishman comes over after a wife, and at first they pretend to be very haughty and independent, and then if they find out he is not after a wife after all, like your humble servant, they are quite angry about it. i hope you're keeping an eye on my dogs for me. love to millicent. yours, ted. wagner, 1897 _a letter from lady aires to the countess of upham, at homburg_. bayreuth, aug., 1897. my dear rose: our stay at bayreuth is nearly over--the last opera to-morrow; and, to be frank, i am extremely glad, although of course it has been perfectly charming. first we heard parsifal and the ring; which is four operas, you know. why they call them a "ring" i can't see yet; and i don't like to ask, it gives the musical people who really know the chance to be so superior, and they are conceited enough as it is, goodness knows. anyone would think it was a disgrace not to have been lullabyed to sleep when a baby by a symphony orchestra! i'm sure it isn't my fault if i don't know which is schumann and which is schubert; and what's the difference? (between you and me i don't care. of course i adore music, but it's like a great many other things--you mustn't ask too many questions!) well the first day was "parsifal." it's a _dear_! beautiful, perfectly beautiful! i wore my white mulle with my green and white hat, and if i _do_ say it (and i must, for i'm sure no one else will say it for me), women are such jealous cats about frocks. i didn't see a better turned out woman. such a tremendous lot of smart people as are here, too. really you ought to have come. i'm sure you would have enjoyed it. between the acts it's quite like sunday in the park. the entre-acts are very long, giving us a chance to shake out our frocks and wake up and amuse ourselves. some people go up a little hill, or into some pine woods; but that's rather dull, for you don't meet half so many others--most everyone stays in front of the theatre. but i must tell you about "parsifal." in the first place it is awfully long. and parsifal himself is entirely too fat! i am sure such a very good young person as parsifal shouldn't have a stomach! there are a lot of sort of monks in rather fetching pink red cloaks, with pale bluey gray skirts underneath. (not at all a bad combination, and gave me an idea for a costume for up the river.) their chief is ill, and almost always in great pain, but it does not prevent his singing the longest of speeches. parsifal kills a lovely swan--it flies in _so_ naturally. really wagner was a most wonderful man! then there is a gypsy girl; a sort of snake charmer, who has bottles of things all through the play. i couldn't make out quite if she were parsifal's mother or what. but she is quite mad, and wears only a very uninteresting old brown dress. i must make this criticism of wagner: you don't see many pretty dresses in his operas. then everyone goes to a banqueting hall, which is also partly a church. the scenery moves along in a most miraculous way and the hall is really very lovely. there are children in this scene, and they lift the chalice, and it glows--an electric light in it you know, but it's really lovely. and the music is simply heavenly. i assure you i cried like a baby at this part; i couldn't tell you why, unless it's the poor wretched creature (am-something his name is; i can't find my programme). he's very handsome. i intend to buy his photograph. he has to lift the holy cup, and he feels he is unfit to do it. he is a sinner and wishes he were dead, and somehow or other you feel awfully sympathetic with him. i know the times i've been to church and knelt down so ashamed i couldn't lift my head, thinking of some of the beastly wicked things i've done in my life. and that's just what the second act is. a crowd of women try to seduce parsifal, but they are all german chorus women, and it really doesn't seem such a great temptation. but then the girl who was ugly in the other act comes on very beautiful (but hideously dressed, why don't they get worth or doucet, i wonder, to help them?) and she sings a great deal and very loud, and kisses parsifal, and then everything goes suddenly to wrack and ruin. i shall never dare kiss any very good young man again--not after that! in the last act, this same creature, looking more like act i., washes parsifal's feet. i should hate to play that part, but it's all very pretty and affecting, and the music--well there are no words to describe it. and the whole rest of the act is too wonderful! really you have to cry. of course, it's too long, and you're awfully hungry, but there is a rather smart restaurant now, where everybody goes afterward to get their spirits back; which reminds me that mrs. gordon turned up yesterday and appeared at the restaurant at night, affording us a good deal of amusement. first she started to courtesy to the royalties, who don't want to be noticed. this she perceived in the middle of her courtesy, and cut it short in a quick way, which made her look exactly as if _something_ important in her toilet had burst or broken. then she flew all over from room to room, trying to find a table that suited her, disturbing the whole atmosphere, like meteors are said to do in the skies, and creating the impression, or trying to, that she owned the entire place. she won't be happy here, for it isn't easy for anyone else to own anything where frau wagner is installed; which reminds me to stop this gossip and tell you seriously about the other operas. the first of the ring is the valkyrie; you can remember it because of lord dunraven's yacht. and they swim around in the water; which is, i suppose, why he called it so. but no; on second thoughts, that isn't it at all. the first opera is rheingold, and it's the rhine maidens that go swimming about. how absurd of dunraven to have made such a mistake. i like the rheingold awfully. the first act looks just like water, and the music is so pretty. then, in the second act, there are two splendid big men--one in white, the other in black bear skins--who are rather fetching. the rheingold is the least sociable of the operas, as there is no entre-act. but it is fortunately a great deal the shortest. i think it is one of my favorites. i seem to know more what wagner is about in it. i don't believe he knows himself what he is about some of the time in the valkyrie. this second opera is awfully long. however, it has two good entre-acts, when you can walk around and talk to everybody; and i can assure you we have plenty to say after having been kept quiet for over an hour in the dark theatre. the chairs are so uncomfortable, and if you move somebody hisses. there is not much politeness in bayreuth. we don't get as good a view of the stage as some people, but we have splendid places; the countess of ---is in front of us, her sister right beside me, and behind are the ----s, and near by lady ----. so you see we couldn't possibly have better seats. for the valkyrie i wore a new mauve and pale green frock. i don't think you've seen it. the bill was atrocious. i sha'n't pay it; but the costume is a great success. portions of this second opera are awfully tiresome, first one couple and then another, going on for hours about nothing, but there are some exquisite clouds that move and grow and scatter exactly like nature, only more so, and make up a little for the dull people. i notice one thing: _all_ the gods and goddesses have always such troubles. there isn't a single happy creature among them, not even wotan, who is god of them all, and wears a silly gold curl over one eye. i think it lowers his whole dignity; but they make a great many mistakes like that. of course, one oughtn't to think of these things, but should simply listen to and enjoy the beautiful music, but my nature is so sensitive i can't help it. there are a lot of valkyrie, you know, who wear a sort of antique dress-reform costume, not pretty, and ride through the air on deliciously funny-looking horses. and brunhilde, the leader of them, a rather nice person, behaves quite like a human being in "siegfried," the next opera, which i will tell you about later. in "valkyrie" you think she is going to be burnt up, but in "siegfried" she is saved after all. i suppose there is some sort of biblical idea about hell. you recognized the bible very often in "parsifal." i much prefer siegfried as a person to parsifal. he's not such a _very_ good boy. there's more an air of athletics, football, rowing, and all that about siegfried, while parsifal smacks just a little, i think, of the young men's christian association. you can _kiss_ siegfried with impunity, too; in fact, it saved brunhilde's life, and i wouldn't mind running a few risks myself to be saved in the same way! you get perfectly drunk with this music of the last act of siegfried. of course, my dear, you know i am now writing about the _third_ opera, "siegfried." you must follow me closely, for it's very easy to get confused about them. "siegfried" is awfully long, too, and the first act--well, i don't mind telling you i slept a good deal. you see, the theatre gets so stuffy, and then one is digesting one's luncheon, and the stage is so dark, and i maintain that the music soothes you. i wore, of course, another dress, something quiet, as it was rainy, but i saw no one who looked any better. between the first and second acts i managed to get a bow and a hand-shake from the prince, to the visible envy of mrs. gordon. i wish you could see the dear beast. she flutters around the royalties every minute, like a nervous bird, and as if they were her nest of eggs and a bad little boy was in the neighborhood. i _hate_ snobs; don't you? i am lunching, by the way, with mrs. g. to-morrow. quite a big, smart party of us, i hear. that funny dragon comes in "siegfried," you know, and of course it is much more amusing here than in covent garden or new york. but it's the last act that i _love_! such passionate music! brunhilde falls madly in love with siegfried, who is, of course, ever so many years younger than she. but it's just like us women, especially when we are brunhilde's age. for i suppose she's forty something, as she was grown up and went to sleep before siegfried was born, and when he kisses her he seems to be quite a man! by the way, brunhilde was put to sleep for interfering somehow or other in the love affairs of siegfried's mother and father, who are really sister and brother. if you think of it, the story is extremely indecent, but operatic things never seem to be shocking; music, apparently, covers a multitude of naughtiness, like charity is reported to do. very likely that's why mrs. ---is always doing so much for institutions and what not--for her sins, i suppose. i always thought she was a naughty old hypocrite! by the way, there is a comic character in "siegfried," and in one of the others, i forget which, called mime--a funny little dwarf, the sort of thing they put in a christmas pantomime to amuse the children. _later._ i have just come from the "götterdämmerung," the last opera, and i am completely exhausted. i am as if i were in a dream, and can only think and feel and write of this beautiful, beautiful music and scenery. i am absolutely absorbed in it. some people took the train for nuremberg right after the performance. i am sure i never could have. i really can't believe they _felt_ the thing. our train goes at 1:45. such a nice hour; one doesn't have to hurry in the morning, and can have one's hair done properly. i have a charming new way of doing the hair. i got it from a frenchwoman who sat just in front of me in the theatre to-day, and when it was light enough i studied the arrangement till i got it by heart. you want something like that to do during the long duets. otherwise your attention is apt to wander from the opera, or you get sleepy. to go back to the opera, it began with the same scene that siegfried finished with, which was rather disappointing, but a real horse came on and behaved as quiet as a lamb, with brunhilde screaming like mad all about him. i suppose they put cotton in his ears, or something. the scene changed (without letting us go out for a rest, which i thought something of a sell) to the house, where siegfried falls in love with another woman (oh, these men!) i forgot to tell you, my mind is so full of the music, that i wore my new russell & allen winter frock, and i caught lots of people taking it in. but, dear me, how badly the german women dress! i haven't seen a single _chic_ one among them since i've been here, i don't believe i shall come to bayreuth again. besides, the music is too wearing. the rhine maidens come back in this act! it is most wonderful the way they swim about! but, as far as i can gather, they are rather nasty cats. one thing i will say, though: i think wagner's on the side of the women; for, in spite of brunhilde's being in love with little more than a boy, she has all your sympathies. so has siegfried, too; which is odd. i really sobbed when he died, he was so good-looking, and seemed so sad. this whole opera is very depressing. we reach munich to-morrow night at 7; and i propose going to the residenz theatre there, and seeing a light opera just for contrast. but how bad the shops are at munich. i believe there are some good pictures, but i think one sees so many pictures in europe; don't you? i presume you know brunhilde behaves rather like dido in the end: nearly everybody, more or less, is murdered off, and there is a sort of madame tussaud exhibition in the clouds at the curtain. of course, i haven't really given you any sort of an idea about it at all. there are no words that will adequately describe it, only i promised to give you a detailed personal account; and i have done so. the reason we are going to munich is we can't get a sleeper yet, everything is so crowded. isn't it disgusting. this last opera is rather too noisy at times, and awfully long--longer than the others. but there's a men's ballet in it that is rather nice; not dancing, you know, but singing and posing and walking about, with imitation bare legs, most of them. but i think the best thing about the opera is it leaves you in such an exalted mood. i know i won't be able to think of small or worldly things for weeks, much less write about them. before i forget it, be sure and write me if it's true that mrs. ---and sir george ---are both at homburg, at the same hotel. i hear they are, and there's no end of talk about it. but then i find there's no end of talk about everything and everybody. it is not that people mean badly, but one has to pass the time somehow. i think i love best of all the rheingold music. it is like a jeweller's shop window in bond street; it seems to shine and glitter and sparkle. you see very few jewels here in bayreuth; of course, there's very little chance to display them. women wear the usual small string of pearls. that's about all. as most everyone wore one i wear two, with a different pendant each day. i like to be just a little original, and keep my own individuality. well, now i must tumble into bed or i shall lose my beauty sleep. i'd hate to have my figure get like these german singers. i wonder why! i'd have myself strapped between boards--i'd do _something_. good-bye, my dear. write me all the gossip you can get a hold of. i haven't sent you any in this, but that you couldn't expect. it was impossible that this letter should be anything but wagner, wagner, wagner. i wish you could have been here with me--you'd have seen heaps of your friends. of course i ought to tell you one thing, because i felt it myself: there's nothing catchy about the music. lovingly, fanny. art a letter _a second letter from lady aires to the countess of upham._ munich. my dear rose: it was very thoughtful of you to write me so soon, and aubrey and i wish very much we could join you, but our money is all spent and we must hurry back to england, where we can economize by making cheap visits among our friends for a couple of months. in december we go to new york to spend the winter with mother. you never go home, do you? i am so glad you felt you got so complete an idea of wagner from my letter. i was a little afraid i hadn't done the whole thing justice, but i assure you there were many more people there than i thought of suggesting, and the operas, tho' long, are very delightful. here in munich the chief thing is the picture gallery, as of course at this time of year all fashionable society is away and the theatres and opera either closed or giving second-rate performances. there are more musées than you really care to visit, and are full of masterpieces, many quite as atrocious as masterpieces so often are. the principal one--its name begins with a p--is the one we've been to. i wish you could see the rubens, or else it's the van dykes--i forget which, but they are beautiful; and when one thinks how long ago they were painted, it's wonderful, isn't it? one thing awfully interesting about a picture gallery is to see the absurd difference in women's dress now and in former times; don't you think so? and sometimes one gets ideas for one's self. this particular gallery is altogether one of the most satisfactory i've ever been in. it wasn't crowded full of baedeker people and that sort of thing. in the second room we went in we met lord and lady jenks and the countess of towns. that was the room where we saw a portrait the living image of janet cowther. we all shrieked with laughter! you know how she has what my vulgar little brother calls an "ingrowing face"--it sinks in instead of coming out, so that the poor creature can't know what it seems like to have a real profile. it's extraordinary that there should have been two such faces in the world--don't you think so?--even with two or three hundred years between them. the portrait was painted by--dear me! i can't remember, but it was some one we all know. there's one thing i shouldn't mind, and that is knowing the lady's corset maker; i'd like to give his address to janet, because, my dear, in spite of her face he had made the lady's figure beautiful. i think that's really the nicest part of a picture gallery--seeing comic likenesses to your friends. lady jenks and i sat down on an uncomfortable bench without any back and talked away for nearly an hour. what an amusing creature she is! has stories to tell about everybody under the sun. by the way, she vowed you and your husband got on awfully, and only lived together as a matter of form! i took up your cudgels, my dear, and told her it wasn't true in any particular; that ned adored you and was an angel. of course, he got drunk--that i knew, as all the world did, but you were used to that. it isn't true, is it? he never struck you? i'm sure he didn't! you'd have told a good friend like me; wouldn't you? well, just as lady jenks and i finished the others came back from going through all the other rooms. we were everyone of us dead tired, looking at pictures is so fatiguing. we decided to go back to the hotel and have tea in the garden. but i think it is a dear gallery, and to-morrow--we don't leave till the next day--if we've any time left after doing the shops, i intend to go back and see the pictures all over again. write to eaton sqr.; the servants will forward. poor things, they must have had a dull summer! they say the heat in town has been fearful! but i don't think servants mind; do you? and then they have the run of the house. i am sure they use the drawing-room and sleep in my bed! good-bye, lovingly, fanny. aubrey says janet's portrait is by rembrandt; but i tell him i don't think it was by a frenchman at all, i think it was by greuze. sorrow a letter _a letter to mrs. carly, florence, italy._ new york, wednesday. my dear mary: you were right when you said to me, two years ago, that the time would come when i would realize the futility, the selfish, the absurd insufficiency of my life. it is now six months since i lost my little girl--my only child. i thank you so much for your letter; i was sure you, who had so much heart, would realize more than most people what i suffered and feel still. and it needn't have been--i shall always maintain it _needn't_ have been! she was overheated at dancing-school and caught cold coming home. i was late dressing for an early dinner, thought it was nothing, and paid no attention. from the dinner i went to the opera, from the opera to a ball, on to somebody else's. i was dead tired when i came home and fell into bed and asleep. all this time, my child, with her cold, was sleeping close beside an open window! the maid was careless, of course, but it wasn't _her_ child--it was mine--and i hold myself most to blame. in two more days the doctor told me she couldn't live. i shall never forgive him! in six hours she was dead. i think i went quite mad. i know i really felt as if i had wantonly murdered her; and i still feel i was myself largely responsible. she was the dearest little creature! i am so sorry you never saw her. "i love my mamma best, and god next," she kept on saying all that last day. one wondered and wondered what thought was in her little brain. "you are mother's darling," i said to her--"mother's precious little girl, but god gave you to her, so you are god's first!" she threw her arms about my neck and kissed me, and said: "i like you better than all the little boys at dancing-school put together!" she fluttered about the bed with her arms like a little tired bird! she made me sing to her. i sang hours and hours--lullabies and comic songs she liked best. my maid came to me: "madame is lunching out." i was furious with her for coming to me with any such remark. "telegraph!" was all i said. "telegraph what, madame?" "i don't care," i answered. o my dear mary! to watch a little soul going--a little soul that is all yours, or at least that you thought was all yours! to watch the light of life fade and fade out of a face precious to you, into which you cannot kiss the color again; to watch this little life, dearer to you than your own, slip, slip away from you in spite of your hands clutching to hold it back, or clasped in prayer to keep it! to sit and lose and be helpless! oh, the agony of it! marie came once more; it was dark; i guessed her errand, and only looked at her. she went away without a word. i took the child out of the bed--it was like lifting a flower. at dawn she died in my arms. oh, were ever arms so empty as when they hold the dead body of someone loved? and then began the revelations. the stilted letters of condolence, written with exactly the same amount of feeling as a note of regrets or acceptance, and couched very much in the same sort of language. one woman recommended her dressmaker as being the most _chic_ woman in new york for mourning--as if i cared! a great many cards were left at the door with their corners turned down, and for awhile no invitations came. that was all! most of the people i was unfortunate enough to meet made such remarks as---"my dear mrs. emery, i am so sorry to hear of your loss" (as if the house had been burned down or the silver plate had been stolen); or else---"dear mrs. emery, i was so shocked to hear it; such a _sweet_ child! which was it, a boy or a girl? oh, yes, i remember, a boy--a nice creature; but, my dear, so many boys turn out badly. you must try and console yourself with thinking perhaps you have both been saved a world of trouble after all!" "my child was a little girl," i answered. another woman came to me, saying: "you poor, dear thing! i'm glad you are bearing it so well--you look splendidly. of course you won't stay in mourning long; will you? it's really not necessary for a child; and then i think one _needs_ the distractions of society to drown one's sorrows!" and all in such a flippant tone! there are some who haven't heard of it at all, which seems so strange to me, who see and think of nothing else indoor and out! and sue troyon i shall never forget or stop loving as long as i live. she put her arms about me and kissed me, when she first met me, right in the street, and never said a word, but her eyes were wet. _she_ is a woman and a friend! so now i am going to join you abroad, to travel and live among pictures and music and real people. these months out of society have broken the charm. i've tried to go back, but i can't stand it. the inanities of an afternoon at home are more than i can bear. everybody repeating to each other the same absurd commonplaces over and over again. society conversation in one way is like a wagner opera: it is composed of the same themes, which recur over and over again; only, in the conversation referred to, these themes are deadly, dull, fatuous remarks. as for balls and evening parties, i don't care about dancing any more, somehow, and to see the young _débutantes_ about me almost breaks my heart, full of memories of my daughter and what she might have been. tears are not becoming to a very low-necked dress, and shouldn't be worn with powder and jewels. no, my dear mary, i see in this society of ours, we all grow so hardened, that if we don't have some such grief as i have had, we become hopeless. people soon forgot i had ever had a child, or at least that she hadn't been dead for years. i find myself becoming a bore, because of perhaps a certain lack of spirit that i used to have; and i began to realize that i had never been liked for myself, but for what i gave, and for the atmosphere of amusement which i helped to create by nearly always being gay and enjoying myself. as you yourself said of society, it is absolutely unsatisfactory. i never knew a purely society woman yet who wasn't somewhat or sometimes dissatisfied. first, they can't go as much or everywhere they want; and soon after they have all the opportunities they desire, they find that isn't sufficient, after all, to make life perfect, and then the boredom of fatigue begins to creep upon them with the years, and soon old age begins like a worm to eat into what happiness they have had. oh, no! when i think of how full your life is, of the interesting people you know--not merely empty names with a fashionable address or a coronet on their note paper,--of the places you see and the books you read; and then hear you say your life is too short to see or enjoy a third the world has to offer you! you happy, _happy_ woman you! well! the house is for sale! what furniture i want to keep stored! john, who is prematurely old and half-dead with trying to earn enough money to keep us going as we wished in new york, has entered into it all in exactly my spirit. he has sold his seat on the stock exchange. he has disposed of all his business interests here. we find we have quite enough income to travel as long as we like, moderately, and to live abroad for as many years as we please. when we get homesick--as we are both sure to, for after all we are good americans--we will come back here and settle down quietly in some little house, near everybody, but not in the whirlpool--on the banks of society, as it were, so that when we feel like it we can go and paddle in it for a little, just over our ankles. two weeks after you receive this letter you will receive us! we sail on _kaiser wilhelm_ to naples. no one here knows what to make of us! it's absurd the teapot tempest we've created. the verdict finally is that we've either lost our money or else our minds! with a heart full of love, affectionately, agnes. the theatre four letters, a bill, and a quotation from a newspaper i _a letter from mrs. frederick strong to her husband._ ... fifth avenue, saturday. my dear fred: you must come home at once. dick has announced his engagement to an actress--a soubrette, too, in a farce-comedy. if it had been a woman who played shakespeare, it would have been bad enough, but a girl who sings and dances and does all sorts of things, including wearing her dresses up-side down, as it were--that is, too high at the _bottom_ and too _low_ at the top--well, this is a little too much!--just as we were getting a really good position in society. if the marriage isn't put a stop to, you can be sure she'll soon dance and kick us out of any position whatever that's worth holding. it isn't as if we had any one to back us; but you never had any family, and the least said about mine the better, so we have to be our own ancestors. and just as we had succeeded in getting a footing, in placing ourselves so that our children will be all right, your brother must go and do his best to ruin it all! you see how necessary it is for you to be on the spot. we may be able to break the engagement off before it is too late. leave the mine to take care of itself, or go to pieces if need be. one mine more or less won't make any difference to us. besides, you must think of your children! your brother, too; he's sure to regret it. i am ill over this thing. can't sleep, and have frightful indigestion. everybody's talking about it, and the newspapers are full this morning. my new costume came home from mme. v----'s yesterday; but there's no pleasure now in wearing it! with love, annie. january 19th. and the ball we were going to give next month! what about the ball? mrs. w---had promised me we should have some of the smartest people here! this will ruin everything. telegraph me when you will come. i am suicidal. ii _a bill._ mr. fred'k strong, dr. to the ---private detective agency, for services rendered, $-----. rec'd payment, ----feb. 10th, 189-. iii _a letter from miss beatrice north to richard strong, sent by special delivery to his club._ february 11th. my darling dick: what is the meaning of this letter from a lawyer? who has been trying to damage my character? to ruin my happiness? who hates me? i have never willingly harmed any one. i can't and won't believe this letter was sent with your approval. but why didn't you come to see me yesterday? my dearest in the world, you wouldn't believe evil stories of me, surely! you to whom i have told all my life, everything, for there has been nothing to hide. no, no; i am sure you don't know anything about this cruel letter, and for god's sake hurry and tell me so yourself, hurry and tell me so, and let me kiss the words as they come to your lips. thine, beatrice. iv _letter from the same to the same._ the evidence that you have proves nothing whatever, and even then much of it is exaggerated, which i, in my turn, can prove. i shall sue you for breach of promise. beatrice north. v _from the same to the same, a day later._ i will not write to your lawyers. this second letter of theirs is too insulting. they know very well they could never win the case against me. (i am innocent; and even if i were not, your evidence is ridiculously insufficient.) and that is why they offer to "settle" with me privately. but my own feelings have changed over night. that you could, first, believe the charges against me, and second, that you could have allowed me to be insulted by your--_or your brother's_--lawyers, as you have done, these two things have opened my eyes to your own weak contemptible character. i am grateful the discovery came before it was too late. i release you from your engagement to me, and far from bringing a suit against you i feel i owe you a debt of thanks. i trust this is a sufficient reply to your insult to "settle" privately. the matter is at end with this letter. beatrice north. vi _headlines of a column in a daily new york paper._ the strong's ball! all the swells there! dick strong gets the cold shoulder from most of his friends! the opera _mrs. sternwall's box. the first act of tristan and isolde is three-quarters over. mr. alfred easterfelt is seated alone in the corner. he is bored._ mr. alfred easterfelt. (_to himself, after a long sigh._) damn it! what did i come so early for? (_people are heard by the entire audience entering the little ante-room behind. the men's chorus on the stage drowns the sound of artificial laughter. the curtains part, and_ mr. easterfelt _is joined by_ mrs. sternwall, mrs. morley, miss beebar, and mr. carn.) mrs. morley. (_seriously._) what a pity we've missed so much. (_there are general greetings, whispered pleasantly. each person, without exception, glances first all about the house, and then turns his eyes slowly toward stage. mrs. sternwall sits in_ _the corner, facing the audience with three-quarters face, as the photographers express it, one-quarter toward the singers and_ mise en scène. _she beckons easterfelt to sit behind her. the others fall into the other places more or less as they happen, the women in front looking lovely, as each one is well aware, with her beautiful white neck, her jewels, and her charming coif. the music continues._) mrs. morley. (_suddenly noticing that mr. sternwall is not with them._) but where is mr. sternwall? mrs. sternwall. oh, henry always goes across to hammerstein's olympia during the acts, but he will join us for each of the entre-acts. (_she takes up her opera glass, and examines the house minutely._) miss beebar. what is the opera? mrs. morley. tristan and isolde. i don't care for the new woman; do you? somehow she hasn't the soul for wagner. she sings well enough, mechanically, but she doesn't feel enough. miss beebar. precisely. that's a wig of course; isn't it? and what an ugly one! mrs. sternwall. (_low to mr. easterfelt._) come to-morrow at four. he has taken to leaving the office much earlier the last few days. (_owing to a sudden pause in the music, her voice has been heard quite distinctly. she is embarrassed for a moment, to cover which she leans over toward mrs. morley and miss beebar._) i wish eames sang in this, she wears such good clothes. mr. carn. what's that about eames? miss beebar. i thought eames' name would wake you up! mr. carn. i was listening to the music. miss beebar. don't be absurd; you know you never come to hear the opera, except when i am going. mr. carn. or when eames sings. miss beebar. ah! you acknowledge it! you brute! mr. carn. it's her arms, and her eyes, and her hair. you must acknowledge she's very beautiful---miss beebar. (_interrupts._) for heaven's sake stop; you bore me to death. besides you must listen. it isn't the thing to talk at the opera any more. (_isolde gives tristan the cup with the love potion in it._) mrs. sternwall. (_in a very low voice to mr. easterfelt._) just before the curtain falls change your position quietly. go near miss beebar and mrs. morley, on account of henry. he will come to the box the minute the lights are turned up. miss beebar. (_very low to mr. carn._) i _hate_ eames! mr. carn. no. (_he kisses, without sound, her bare shoulders._) (_tristan and isolde approach each other with outstretched arms. for the first time mrs. morley takes her gaze from the stage. it rests upon a dim figure in a certain seat in the opera club's box. her eyes are full of tears._) a perfect day a leaf from the diary of mrs. herbert dearborn, living in paris _may --, 1897._ a charming, delightful day! marie brought me my coffee at nine, as usual, with a perfect mail. no nasty business letters from america, but only most desirable invitations, notes full of gossip, and regrets from the thompsons for the expensive dinner i felt obliged to give them at _armenonville_, so i won't have to give it! one's old friends in america are really rather a bother, coming to paris in the very middle of the season. if they came only in midsummer, when every one is away, one would be very glad to do what one could, if one were in the city. of course, as far as the thompsons themselves are concerned, i love them. my coffee never tasted so deliciously, and marie said i looked unusually well after my night's rest. to be sure marie says that every morning; but never mind, it is always pleasant to hear the first thing one wakes up, and i only wish i didn't have a sneaking fear that the new empire pink bed-hangings help a good deal. marie sprayed the room with my new perfume (a secret; no one else has it), laved my face in rose-water, and then i had a wee little nap by way of a starter for the day. after my bath i answered my mail; and then, marie having manicured my nails, my toilet was made. i wore, to go out, my striking blue costume, with the hat and sun-shade to match, which always necessitates the greatest care with the complexion. i use an entirely different powder with this dress, and one has to be most careful about one's cheeks. but marie is invaluable so far as the complexion is concerned, and i went out quite satisfied. first, to the hair-dresser's to have my hair re-dyed, as i went to the races in the afternoon, and the light there is very trying. unless your hair has been dyed very lately it is quite useless to go. my hair was never done so well. i am trying it a very little darker, and i am almost sure i like it better. then i went into some shops. i think it is always a good thing to have one's carriage seen waiting outside the smart shops often. i priced a great many things, and had several--which i of course have no idea whatever of buying--sent home on approval. to the dressmaker's, to try on my new dress. it was finished; but didn't suit me. i am having entirely new sleeves and all the trimming changed. i persuaded them it was their fault. i had really thought i should like it that way until i saw it completed. then to breakfast with the countess of ----; a charming _déjeuner_. all the women very desirable to know and very _chicly_ dressed, and not one looking so young for their age, i am sure, as i. in fact, several made that remark to me. i know they say just the opposite behind my back, but it is pleasant to hear nice things under any circumstances. i think it is all one should ask of people, that they should be nice to our faces. i left _déjeuner_ first, because that makes a good impression, as if you are crowded with engagements, and flatters your hostess, who is naturally pleased to catch a much-sought-after guest. i really drove home to rest a little before the races. i find taking off _everything_ and indulging in complete relaxation, if only for ten minutes, is wonderfully refreshing, and saves lots of _lines_! while i was resting my _masseur_ came and gave me face massage. there is nothing like it for a wrinkle-destroyer. and the man is a rather nice person who amuses me. i got him two new clients at the luncheon today. as the other women said, one is only too willing to pay extra to get a man who is good-looking. the races were very exciting. it was a lovely day, our coach had a fine position, and our party was much stared at! i had the most conspicuous seat, and did my best to become it. it isn't for me to say to myself if i succeeded or not, but i owe it to my dress-maker to make the statement that no one else had on a better gown. i wish that statement was the only thing i owed him! i won forty louis; i don't know how. i am absolutely ignorant about horses. i only go because it seems to be the thing to do now. but i thought one of the jockeys looked rather fetching, and so i put my money on him, and he happened to win. we all went for tea to mrs. ----'s, where one of the most expensive singers sang. but i didn't hear her, because if you go into the music room you have to sit down in rows, and you don't see any of the people. i was obliged to hurry away, as my appointment with jacques to-day was for 6:30, and i wanted to stop at an imitation jeweller's place in the rue de la paix, where i had heard were some wonderful paste necklaces. they are quite extraordinary. i ordered one, and shall never tell a soul it's not real. i was late home, but jacques, the dear boy, was waiting, and seemed to me sweeter than ever this afternoon. i gave him the cuff links i have had made for him, with his initials in rubies, and it was too delightful to see his pleasure. i took him out to dine. i think i will marry him. i know he is much younger than i, and all that, but he's so sweet, and, after all, i have enough money for two. the westington's "bohemian dinner" a letter _the sherwood_ 58 west 57th st. my dear dora: we are just home from dining in one of the smartest houses in new york, and i've been bored so wide awake i can't think of going to bed, so i am sitting in my petticoat (that charming white silk, much-festooned, and many-flounced one you brought me over from paris) and a dressing sack (pink, not so very unbecoming). my hair is down, but dick doesn't paint it any more--it's getting thin, dear!--and i've nice little swansdown lined slippers over my best white silk-stockings. i've worn to-night the best of everything my wardrobe affords, and i wasn't ashamed of myself! no, i was much more ashamed of the westingtons, and i'm going to tell you all about it before i touch the pillow! i'm sure you'll be amused. in the first place, to be honest, we were rather pleased to be asked. there is no one smarter than the w.'s, and, besides, they are attractive and good-looking. the truth is, we've always been anxious to go to their house--heaven knows why, now that we've been. we are sufficiently punished, however, for being so foolish as to be flattered by our invitation. for, my dear, we weren't asked to a swell dinner at all; we were invited to what was intended for a "bohemian" affair (but it was only a dull and ungainly one), and it was apparently taken for granted that, as dick painted and i hadn't millions, we were decidedly eligible. of course, as you know, there is no such thing as a real bohemia in new york. the dinner was given in honor (apparently) of the hungarian pianist romedek and his wife. he has been an enormous success here this year, and society has taken him up. but the trouble is with madame romedek; no one is sure she _is_ madame romedek, and a great many people are sure she isn't. she is a pretty, rather common-looking person, with no particular intelligence or _esprit_. i am told she is more communicative _under_ the table than she is over it; and i know some men are crazy about her. of course, she isn't a woman any of us can stand for a moment. if romedek were a painter we should know she'd been his model, and be awfully sorry for him. but romedek is a musician (a great one--i wish you could hear him); and they say she hasn't even the social prestige or poetic license of having been an artist's model, but of having been something quite wrong to begin with. naturally, you see, some of society won't have her at any price. those that must have _him_ have difficulty in entertaining them. i hear one prominent woman who was asked last week to dine and meet the romedeks considered herself insulted, and has struck her would-be hostess' name off her visiting list. so you see it wasn't all plain sailing with the westington's, and i can hear them decide between themselves to give a "real bohemian dinner;" that is, ask people who "do things," and whom you sometimes do meet out at houses where they are not particular about mixing--the kind of people who would probably not take offense at being asked to meet mrs. romedek without having her marriage certificate for their dinner card. of course, as you know, i don't mind being asked to meet anybody. thank goodness! i feel perfectly secure about my reputation, and also about my position, which is quite good enough to please me. but there is a difference in being asked to meet a questionable person because that person is brilliant, or beautiful, or talented, and that therefore you (belonging to the aristocracy of brains) will appreciate her, and, on the other hand, being asked to meet her because you are an artist's wife and don't mind that sort of thing. we _do_ mind it very much! we don't even _care_ for it in geniuses--only we overlook it in a genius; disregard it as not being our affair. but to be asked to meet a silly, loose woman with the idea that i won't mind, almost as if i approved, i resent that. however, let me tell you who was there. on mrs. westington's right, of course, sat romedek, and he is very handsome and very charming, and i think at least mrs. westington enjoyed her dinner if nobody else did. on mrs. w.'s left was mr. ----, who is, you know, a great swell here and who poses as being a fast patron of the arts and graces--especially the graces--after the pattern of a frenchman who has his _entrée_ behind the scenes of the opera. his wife never accepts invitations that he does; they meet, you know, under their own roof, for the sake of the children--but under their _own_ roof only. so in her place belle carterson was asked, who has gone in for keeping a swell florist's place, and they say is making money. she is independent, and i like her, but of course it is considered by her friends in society that since she went in for business she can't refuse to meet _anyone_. dick sat next to her, and had on the other side of him mrs. ----, who likes celebrities without the knack of selection, and whose invitations nowadays i believe are never accepted at once, but are kept open as long as possible to see if something better won't turn up. then came mrs. romedek and mr. westington; he looking bored to death, and she as if she didn't know where she was at. then bobbie lawsher, who writes books and operettas and things--rather amusing he is, but becoming more and more of a snob every day. it's bad enough to see a woman straining every nerve to get into society, but when you see a man it's worse than ridiculous. i met him at a smart party the other night, and he stuck by me for hours, asking who everybody was till i lost my patience and told him i couldn't be a blue book for him or anybody, and he would either have to dance with me at once or go to some one else with his questions. i never knew any one who could bring in the names of as many smart people in one short remark as bobbie can. if you happen to ask him what time it is, you could make a wager that, in his answer, in a perfectly natural way, he will mention familiarly three smart society women (calling one at least by her first name). of course he does get asked a great deal, because he's little more than a snub-cushion--holds any amount of them as easily as pins. besides he goes to afternoon bores, like teas and at homes and days, for which free and untrammelled men can only be obtained by subterfuge and trick or some extraordinary bribe. to a young man like bobbie lawsher afternoon affairs are a sort of happy hunting ground, a social grab bag, where he can never be sure there isn't a dinner invitation, or one for the opera, or a luncheon, to be secured if one is clever and careful. why, when a woman has a man guest back out at the last moment from a dinner, the first thing she does is to rush off to any at home, that's going on, with the fairly confident expectation of finding bobbie lawsher and making him fill her vacancy. bobbie has accomplishments of a certain sort, can sing a pretty little song in a pretty little way, and can pass a tea cup without spilling, and drink tea himself, and can hang around when he's wanted, and be got rid of easily when he isn't. he is a sort of society errand boy, and very useful. i take it back about his having accomplishments--a better word for them is _conveniences_! well, on the other side of bobbie was mrs. ----, red in the face, so angry she was asked to meet madame romedek, talking with poor bobbie in a sharp, spasmodic sort of way, as if she were carrying on the conversation with her knife and fork, cutting the sentences into bits, some ignoring and some eating,--and none agreeing with her, or she agreeing with none. then george ringold asked, i suppose, for me. i am quite aware that women who are indiscreet themselves think there is "more than meets the eye" between george and me. i am very fond of him, and so is dick. and he has kissed me, and dick knows it; but i am sure i need not tell you that is all. on the other side was romedek, and perhaps i ought to feel complimented, but as, thanks to mrs. westington, we didn't succeed in carrying on to a finish any single conversation we started, i don't allow myself to be too flattered. mrs. w. talked music, of course--the commonplaces of it--such as any well-bred, smart, educated woman of the world knows how to talk nowadays, with perhaps just one good, big, absurd mistake thrown in,--thus, by the grace of humor keeping banality from becoming absolutely fatal. madame romedek was rather amusing. she tried to be the lady--which, as she doesn't know how, and only succeeds in being impossibly stupid, must have bored the men on each side of her tremendously. that's where foolish women of that sort spoil their own game. if they would make the best of the bargain, and be frankly a common cocotte _gone right_, they would certainly be more amusing, and might have something like success, at any rate with the men. the food was excellent, the wine good, the house lovely! and as soon after dinner as was at all decent, we left. we decided in the cab on our way home, from no point of view had it paid,--financially least of all; for our dinner in the restaurant, with all our jolly friends, would have cost us only seventy-five cents, while our cab bill for the evening was three dollars. as for having had a good time, there was only one person there who had that--mrs. westington herself. i believe even the servants must have been bored by the dinner, unless, perhaps, madame romedek flirted with _them_; which i should think extremely likely. i am getting sleepy now, of which fact my letter undoubtedly bears "internal evidence." so good night and sweet dreams to you, and none to me--i don't like them! write me what you are doing in paris. i am sure your husband will have his usual great success in the champ de mars. we are all very proud of him. with love, dear dora, guenne barrows. the gamblers i. madame eugenie leblanche, veuve, age 62 years. ii. mlle. nina and mlle. fifi. iii. mrs. henry b. gording and mrs. wm. h. lane. iv. mme. borté and mme. lautre. i _the baccarat table in the villa des fleurs, aix-les-bains._ madame eugenie leblanche, _veuve_. (_a large, stout lady in black satin and brocade, violet-colored face-powder, and a reddish blonde display underneath a questionable bonnet. she wears a somewhat profuse and miscellaneous display of jewels, principally diamonds dull as the eyes of dissipation. she holds her chips in large loose white cotton gloves that reach to her elbow. her lips, compressed together, move constantly, with a sort of excited switch-back motion._) (_to herself._) i wonder who has the cards. oh, it's that monsieur there, i see. not good! i will only place two louis. (_she asks the gentleman in front of her to place them for her. he does so._) no, i am wrong, i will put three. (_she asks the gentleman to place a third louis for her. in doing so the chip rolls from his fingers; he immediately recaptures it and places it properly._) monsieur, monsieur, if you please. return me my louis, if you please! i never play a louis that has rolled on the table. that would bring us bad fortune, you would see! thank you, thank you very much. (_to herself again._) i am sorry i did not ask him to hand me back two. we are going to lose! good heavens! it is sure we lose! ah, the cards! bad, that's sure! o, what emotion! o good heavens! seven! but the bank! no, we gain! o---o good heavens! good heavens! what emotion! we gain! what a misfortune i didn't leave the extra louis! it is disgusting! i regret it now. o, i regret it very much! but it is always like that with me! are we going to be paid? i don't think so! no, we won't be paid! it is always like that; when one loses one is taken, and when one wins one is never paid! o good heavens! now he will pay our side. after all there ought to be enough money. o yes, yes, we will be paid! all the better! two louis for me if you please, thank you. monsieur, i am sorry to trouble you to give me my four louis! no, no, you haven't given me enough! i put down two louis. o yes, you are right. pardon me, i didn't understand; yes, i have four. thank you very much. you are very kind. (_to herself again._) i am paid! after all, i am paid! so much the better! what emotion! i will play two louis again; no, three; no, two; no, one must have courage. monsieur, if you please, will you have the kindness to place my four louis on the table? thank you very much! (_to herself again._) but, if i lose! and i will lose. good heavens! o---what emotion! (_etc., etc._) ii mlle. nina. (_young, very beautiful, in an exquisite gown from laferiere, with gorgeous jewels and a wonderful hat._) who is the banker? mlle. fifi. (_equally charming, as magnificently jeweled, and as exquisitely gowned; also a chapeau of wonderful birds, such as never sang in any wood._) he? he is an old russian. he has millions and millions, my dear! mlle. nina. (_raising her eyebrows and regarding the banker affectionately._) really? mlle. fifi. yes, yes; and he is a perfect gentleman. he gave lala of the vaudeville three strings of pearls in two days. he is very generous and altogether nice. mlle. nina. (_jealously._) do you know him? mlle. fifi. o no, my dear; he is not my style. you know i never like a gentleman who parts his hair on the left side. it's my fad. mlle. nina. (_very pleasantly._) have you won to-night, dearie? mlle. fifi. ah, yes, my dear! _think!_ two thousand francs already! mlle. nina. (_very sweetly, moving away._) so much the better. i've lost like the devil. (_she very slowly makes a detour of the table in the direction of the russian banker. at the same time an elderly gentleman approaches mlle. fifi and speaks to her._) le monsieur. good evening, my dear! mlle. fifi. good evening, my pig of a prince! le monsieur. you have won? mlle. fifi. oh, but _no_, my dear! i have lost _enormously_! it is _terrible_ what i've done! i have lost nearly _all_ i have! mlle. nina. (_who has just arrived behind the banker, leaning over his shoulder and watching him win an enormous coup._) ah, ha! you see, monsieur, i bring you good fortune always! the banker. i didn't know you were behind me, mademoiselle. (_he looks up. she smiles sweetly and innocently. he is pleased._) mlle. nina. oh, yes, for a long time! the banker. you don't play? mlle. nina. (_with a manner altogether modest, and a soft, low voice._) oh, no; never! i have nothing to risk; besides, it doesn't amuse me very much. i never play. the banker. put on that hundred francs just to try your fortune. mlle. nina. (_leaning over, takes the note from the pile._) if you wish it. (_she plays and wins; brushes his cheek and shoulder with her arm as she reaches over to take up her money._) (_the play continues._) mlle. nina. (_still winning._) you know you are very nice. (_she plays again with a note from the banker's pile._) iii mrs. henry b. gording, _of rochester, new york._ do you play? mrs. wm. h. lane, _of brooklyn_. no, not really. i don't quite approve of it, but i just try my luck once in awhile for amusement. mrs. henry b. gording. yes, that's exactly the way i feel. so long as you don't go in for it seriously i don't see any harm. mrs. wm. h. lane. and if you stop as soon as you begin to lose. mrs. henry b. gording. yes, indeed! oh my! are you putting one down? mrs. wm. h. lane. yes, i think that man looks lucky over there with the glasses; besides i like him because his wife sits right by him all the evening. mrs. henry b. gording. (_smiling nervously and fumbling in her glove where she has concealed the money to have it conveniently ready._) put one down for me, too; will you? (_she smiles hysterically._) dear me, i wonder what my husband would say if he could see me? mrs. wm. h. lane. i don't know a single thing about the game; do you? mrs. henry b. gording. (_with two small red spots coming into her cheeks._) not the slightest. it's finished! i wonder who's won! mrs. wm. lane. (_after a long excited sigh._) i don't know. i never can tell till i see them either taking up our chips, or else paying us! mrs. henry b. gording. (_breathlessly._) if i lose, i shall go. mrs. wm. h. lane. so shall i! we've won! mrs. henry b. gording. ah! -----. mrs. wm. h. lane. (_looking at least ten years older than she did two minutes before._) no, we've lost! mrs. henry b. gording. o! -----. mrs. wm. h. lane. i'm not going. i shall try once more! mrs. henry b. gording. so shall i. mrs. wm. h. lane. and i don't believe the woman is that man's wife after all. if she had been we wouldn't have lost our dollars! iv mme. borté. (_leaning over a man's right shoulder for some gold on the table._) i beg pardon; that is my two louis! mme. lautre. (_leaning over the man's left shoulder._) but no, madame, it is mine! i put a louis down there! mme. borté. no, no! that is where i put mine. give me my louis! mme. lautre. but you are wrong, madame; it is my louis, and i shall keep it! mme. borté. but no, madame! mme. lautre. but yes----! three women beside mme. borté. yes, madame is right. she certainly put a louis down there. the same number of women beside mme. lautre. no, it is the other madame who put the money down there. a man on the opposite side of the table. ssss---un monsieur. oh, the women! the women!--always rowing! croupier. make your plays, gentlemen! mme. lautre and mme. borté. (_together; each to her own coterie._) you know perfectly it is my louis; isn't it? oh, never in my life! never! never! (_the game continues, and so does the discussion._) printed at the lakeside press, chicago, for the publishers, herbert s. stone & co. chicago, u.s.a. transcriber's note: apart from a few punctuation corrections, no other changes have been made in the text. the inventions of the idiot by john kendrick bangs author of "a house-boat on the styx" "the pursuit of the house-boat" "olympian nights" etc. etc. new york and london harper & brothers publishers 1904 copyright, 1903, by harper & brothers. _all rights reserved._ published april, 1904 to you contents chapter page i. the culinary guild 1 ii. a suggestion for the cable-cars 16 iii. the transatlantic trolley company 31 iv. the incorporation of the idiot 47 v. university extension 64 vi. social expansion 79 vii. a beggar's hand-book 96 viii. progressive waffles 112 ix. a clearing-house for poets 127 x. some electrical suggestions 142 xi. concerning children 158 xii. dreamaline 172 the inventions of the idiot i the culinary guild it was before the idiot's marriage, and in the days when he was nothing more than a plain boarder in mrs. smithers-pedagog's high-class home for single gentlemen, that he put what the school-master termed his "alleged mind" on plans for the amelioration of the condition of the civilized. "the trials of the barbarian are really nothing as compared with the tribulations of civilized man," he said, as the waitress passed him a piece of steak that had been burned to a crisp. "in the cannibal islands a cook who would send a piece of broiled missionary to her employer's table in this condition would herself be roasted before another day had dawned. we, however, must grin and bear it, because our esteemed landlady cannot find anywhere in this town a woman better suited for the labors of the kitchen than the blank she has had the misfortune to draw in the culinary lottery, familiarly known to us, her victims, as bridget." "this is an exceptional case," said mr. pedagog. "we haven't had a steak like this before in several weeks." "true," returned the idiot. "this is a sirloin, i believe. the last steak we had was a rump steak, and it was not burned to a crisp, i admit. it was only boiled, if i remember rightly, by mistake; bridget having lost her fifth consecutive cousin in ten days the night before, and being in consequence so prostrated that she could not tell a gridiron from a lawn-mower." "well, you know the popular superstition, mr. idiot," said the poet. "the devil sends the cooks." "i don't believe it," retorted the idiot. "that's one of those proverbs that haven't a particle of truth in 'em--nor a foundation in reason either, like 'never look a gift horse in the mouth.' of all absurd advice ever given to man by a thoughtless thinker, that, i think, bears the palm. i know a man who didn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and the consequence was that he accepted a horse that was twenty-eight years old. the beast died in his stables three days later, and the beneficiary had to pay five dollars to have him carted away. as for the devil sending the cooks, i haven't any faith in the theory. any person who had come from the devil would know how to manage a fire better than ninety-nine per cent. of the cooks ever born. it would be a good thing if every one of 'em were forced to serve an apprenticeship with the prince of darkness. however, steak like this serves a good purpose. it serves to bind our little circle more firmly together. there's nothing like mutual suffering to increase the sympathy that should exist between men situated as we are; and as for mrs. smithers-pedagog, i wish her to understand distinctly that i am criticising the cook and not herself. if this particular dainty had been prepared by her own fair hand, i doubt not i should want more of it." "i thank you," returned the landlady, somewhat mollified by this remark. "if i had more time i should occasionally do the cooking myself, but, as it is, i am overwhelmed with work." "i can bear witness to that," observed mr. whitechoker. "mrs. smithers-pedagog is one of the most useful ladies in my congregation. if it were not for her, many a heathen would be going without garments to-day." "well, i don't like to criticise," said the idiot, "but i think the heathen at home should be considered before the heathen abroad. if your congregation would have a guild to look after such heathen as the poet and the doctor and myself, i am convinced it would be more appreciated by those who benefited by its labors than it is at present by the barbarians who try to wear the misfits it sends out. a christian whose plain but honest breakfast is well cooked is apt to be far more grateful than a barbarian who is wearing a pair of trousers made of calico and a coat three sizes too small in the body and nine sizes too large in the arms. i will go further. i believe that if the domestic heathen were cared for they would do much better work, would earn better pay, and would, out of mere gratitude, set apart a sufficiently large portion of their increased earnings to be devoted to the purchase of tailor-made costumes, which would please the cannibals better, far better, than the amateur creations they now get. i know i'd contribute some of my surplus." "what would you have such a guild do?" queried mr. whitechoker. "do? there'd be so much for it to do that the members could hardly find time to rest," returned the idiot. "do? why, my dear sir, take this house, for instance, and see what it could do here. what a boon it would be for me if some kind-hearted person would come here once a week and sew buttons on my clothes, darn my socks--in short, keep me mended. what better work for one who desires to make the world brighter, happier, and less sinful!" "i fail to see how the world would be brighter, happier, or less sinful if your suspender-buttons were kept firm, and your stockings darned, and your wardrobe generally mended," said mr. pedagog. "i grant that such a guild would be doing a noble work if it would take you in hand and correct many of your impressions, revise your well-known facts so as to bring them more in accord with indubitable truths, and impart to your customs some of that polish which you so earnestly strive for in your dress." "thank you," said the idiot, suavely. "but i don't wish to overburden the kind ladies to whom i refer. if my costumes could be looked after i might find time to look after my customs, and, i assure you, mr. pedagog, if at any time you will undertake to deliver a course of lectures on etiquette, i will gladly subscribe for two orchestra-chairs and endeavor to occupy both of them. at any rate, to return to the main point, i claim that the world would be happier and brighter and less sinful if the domestic heathen were kept mended by such a guild, and i challenge any one here to deny, even on so slight a basis as the loose suspender-button, the truth of what i say. when i arise in the morning and find a button gone, do i make genial remarks about the joys of life? i do not. i use words. sometimes one word, which need not be repeated here. i am unhappy, and, being unhappy, the world seems dark and dreary, and in speaking impatiently, though very much to the point, as i do, i am guilty of an offence that is sinful. with such a start in the morning, i come here to the table. mr. pedagog sees that i am not quite myself. he asks me if i am not feeling well, an irritating question at any time, but particularly so to a man with a suspender-button gone. i retort. he re-retorts, until our converse is warmer than the coffee, and our relations colder than the waffles. finally i leave the house, slamming the door behind me, structurally weakening the house, and go to business, where i wreak my vengeance upon the second clerk, who takes it out of the office-boy, who goes home and vents his wrath on his little sister, who, goaded into recklessness, teases the baby until he yells and gets spanked by his mother for being noisy. now, why should a loose suspender-button be allowed to subject that baby to such humiliation, and who can deny that, if it had been properly sewed on by a guild, such as i have mentioned, the baby never would have been spanked for the causes mentioned? what is _your_ answer, mr. whitechoker?" "truly, i am so breathless at your logic that i cannot reason," said the minister. "but haven't we digressed a little? we were speaking of cooks, and we conclude with a pathetic little allegory about a suspender-button and a baby that is not only teased but spanked." "the baby could get the same spanking for reasons based on the shortcomings of the cooks," said the idiot. "i am irritated when i am served with green pease hard enough to batter down gibraltar if properly aimed; when my coffee is a warmed-over reminiscence of last night's demi-tasse, i leave the house in a frame of mind that bodes ill for the junior clerk, and the effect on the baby is ultimately the same." "and--er--you'd have the ladies whose energies are now devoted towards the clothing of the heathen come here and do the cooking?" queried the school-master. "i leave if they do," said the doctor. "i have seen too much of the effects of amateur cookery in my profession to want any of it. they are good cooks in theory, but not in practice." "there you have it!" said the idiot, triumphantly. "right in a nutshell. that's where the cooks are always weak. they have none of the theory and all of the practice. if they based practice on theory, they'd cook better. wherefore let your theoretical cooks seek out the practical and instruct them in the principles of the culinary art. think of what twelve ladies could do; twelve ladies trained in the sewing-circle to talk rapidly, working five hours a day apiece, could devote an hour a week to three hundred and sixty cooks, and tell them practically all they themselves know in that time; and if, in addition to this, twelve other ladies, forming an auxiliary guild, would make dresses and bonnets and things for the same cooks, instead of for the cannibals, it would keep them good-natured." "splendid scheme!" said the doctor. "so practical. your brain must weigh half an ounce." "i've never had it weighed," said the idiot, "but, i fancy, it's a good one. it's the only one i have, anyhow, and it's done me good service, and shows no signs of softening. but, returning to the cooks, good-nature is as essential to the making of a good cook as are apples to the making of a dumpling. you can't associate the word dumpling with ill-nature, and just as the poet throws himself into his work, and as he is of a cheerful or a mournful disposition, so does his work appear cheerful or mournful, so do the productions of a cook take on the attributes of their maker. a dyspeptic cook will prepare food in a manner so indigestible that it were ruin to partake of it. a light-hearted cook will make light bread; a pessimistic cook will serve flour bricks in lieu thereof." "i think possibly you are right when you say that," said the doctor. "i have myself observed that the people who sing at their work do the best work." "but the worst singing," growled the school-master. "that may be true," put in the idiot; "but you cannot expect a cook on sixteen dollars a month to be a prima-donna. now, if mr. whitechoker will undertake to start a sewing-circle in his church for people who don't care to wear clothing, but to sow the seeds of concord and good cookery throughout the kitchens of this land, i am prepared to prophesy that at the end of the year there will be more happiness and less depression in this part of the world; and once eliminate dyspepsia from our midst, and get civilization and happiness controvertible terms, then you will find your foreign missionary funds waxing so fat that instead of the amateur garments for the heathen you now send them, you will be able to open an account at worth's and poole's for every barbarian in creation. the scheme for the sewing on of suspender-buttons and the miscellaneous mending that needs to be done for lone-lorn savages like myself might be left in abeyance until the culinary scheme has been established. bachelors constitute a class, a small class only, of humanity, but the regeneration of cooks is a universal need." "i think your scheme is certainly a picturesque one and novel," said mr. whitechoker. "there seems to be a good deal in it. don't you think so, mr. pedagog?" "yes--i do," said mr. pedagog, wearily. "a great deal--of language." and amid the laugh at his expense which followed, the idiot, joining in, departed. ii a suggestion for the cable-cars "heigh-ho!" sighed the idiot, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "this is a weary world." "what? this from you?" smiled the poet. "i never expected to hear that plaint from a man of your cheerful disposition." "humph!" said the idiot, with difficulty repressing a yawn. "humph! and i may add, likewise, tut! what do you take me for--an insulated sun-beam? i can't help it if shadows camp across my horizon occasionally. i wouldn't give a cent for the man who never had his moments of misery. it takes night to enable us to appreciate daytime. misery is a foil necessary to the full appreciation of joy. i'm glad i am sort of down in the mouth to-day. i'll be all right to-morrow, and i'll enjoy to-morrow all the more for to-day's megrim. but for the present, i repeat, this is a weary world." "oh, i don't think so," observed the school-master. "the world doesn't seem to me to betray any signs of weariness. it got to work at the usual hour this morning, and, as far as i can judge, has been revolving at the usual rate of speed ever since." "the idiot's mistake is a common one," put in the doctor. "i find it frequently in my practice." "that's a confession," retorted the idiot. "do you find out these mistakes in your practice before or after the death of the patient?" "that mistake," continued the doctor, paying apparently little heed to the idiot's remark--"that mistake lies in the idiot's assumption that he is himself the world. he regards himself as the earth, as all of life, and, because he happens to be weary, the world is a weary one." "it isn't a fatal disease, is it?" queried the idiot, anxiously. "i am not likely to become so impressed with that idea, for instance, that i shall have to be put in a padded cell and manacled so that i may not turn perpetual handsprings under the hallucination that, being the world, it is my duty to revolve?" "no," replied the doctor, with a laugh. "no, indeed. that is not at all likely to happen, but i think it would be a good idea if you were to carry the hallucination out far enough to put a cake of ice on your head, assuming that to be the north pole, and cool off that brain of yours." "that is a good idea," returned the idiot; "and if mary will bring me the ice that was used to cool the coffee this morning, i shall be pleased to try the experiment. meanwhile, this is a weary world." "then why under the canopy don't you leave it and go to some other world?" snapped mr. pedagog. "you are under no obligation to remain here. with a river on either side of the city, and a new york juggernaut company, unlimited, running trolley-cars up and down two of our more prominent highways, suicide is within the reach of all. of course, we should be sorry to lose you, in a way, but i have known men to recover from even greater afflictions than that." "thank you for the suggestion," replied the idiot, transferring four large, porous buckwheat-cakes to his plate. "thank you very much, but i have a pleasanter and more lingering method of suicide right here. death by buckwheat-cakes is like being pierced by a toledo blade. you do not realize the terrors of your situation until you cease to be susceptible to them. furthermore, i do not believe in suicide. it is, in my judgment, the worst crime a man can commit, and i cannot but admire the remarkable discernment evinced by the fates in making of it its own inevitable capital punishment. a man may commit murder and escape death, but in the commission of suicide he is sure of execution. just as virtue is its own reward, so is suicide its own amercement." "been reading the dictionary again?" asked the poet. "no, not exactly," said the idiot, with a smile, "but--it's a kind of joke on me, i suppose--i have just been stuck, to use a polite term, on a book called roget's _thesaurus_, and, if i want to get hold of a new word that will increase my seeming importance to the community, i turn to it. that's where i got 'amercement.' i don't hold that its use in this especial case is beyond cavil--that's another thesaurian term--but i don't suppose any one here would notice that fact. it goes here, and i shall not use it elsewhere." "i am interested to know how _you_ ever came to be the owner of a _thesaurus_," said the school-master, with a grim smile at the idea of the idiot having such a book in his possession. "except on the score of affinities. you are both very wordy." "meaning pleonastic, i presume," retorted the idiot. "i beg your pardon?" said the school-master. "never mind," said the idiot. "i won't press the analogy, but i will say that those who are themselves periphrastic should avoid criticising others for being ambaginous." "i think you mean ambiguous," said the school-master, elevating his eyebrows in triumph. "i thought you'd think that," retorted the idiot. "that's why i used the word 'ambaginous.' i'll lend you my dictionary to freshen up your phraseology. meanwhile, i'll tell you how i happened to get a _thesaurus_. i thought it was an animal, and when i saw that a new york bookseller had a lot of them marked down from two dollars to one, i sent and got one. i thought it was strange for a bookseller to be selling rare animals, but that was his business, not mine; and as i was anxious to see what kind of a creature a _thesaurus_ was, i invested. when i found out it was a book and not a tame relic of the antediluvian animal kingdom, i thought i wouldn't say anything about it, but you people here are so inquisitive you've learned my secret." "and wasn't it an animal?" asked mrs. smithers-pedagog. "my dear--my _dear_!" ejaculated mr. pedagog. "pray--ah--i beg of you, do not enter into this discussion." "no, mrs. pedagog," observed the idiot, "it was not. it was nothing more than a book, which, when once you have read it, you would not be without, since it gives your vocabulary a twist which makes you proof against ninety-nine out of every one hundred conversationalists in the world, no matter how weak your cause." "i am beginning to understand the causes of your weariness," observed mr. pedagog, acridly. "you have been memorizing syllables. really, i should think you were in danger of phonetic prostration." "not a bit of it," said the idiot. "those words are stimulating, not depressing. i begin to feel better already, now that i have spoken them. i am not half so weary as i was, but for my weariness i had good cause. i suffered all night from a most frightful nightmare. it utterly destroyed my rest." "welsh-rarebit?" queried the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed, with a tone of reproach. "if so, why was i not with you?" "that question should be its own answer," replied the idiot. "a man who will eat a welsh-rarebit alone is not only a person of a sullen disposition, but of reckless mould as well. i would no sooner think of braving a welsh-rarebit unaccompanied than i would think of trying to swim across the british channel without a lifesaving boat following in my wake." "i question if so light a body as you could have a wake!" said mr. pedagog, coldly. "i am sorry, but i can't agree with you, mr. pedagog," said the bibliomaniac. "a tugboat, most insignificant of crafts, roils up the surface of the sea more than an ocean steamer does. fuss goes with feathers more than with large bodies." "well, they're neither of 'em in it with a cake of soap for real, bona-fide suds," said the idiot, complacently, as he helped himself to his thirteenth buckwheat-cake. "however, wakes have nothing to do with the case. i had a most frightful dream, and it was not due to welsh-rarebits, but to my fatal weakness, which, not having my _thesaurus_ at hand, i must identify by the commonplace term of courtesy. you may not have noticed it, but courtesy is my strong point." "we haven't observed the fact," said mr. pedagog; "but what of it? have you been courteous to any one?" "i have," replied the idiot, "and a nightmare is what it brought me. i rode up-town on a trolley-car last night, and i gave up my seat to sixteen ladies, two of whom, by-the-way, thanked me." "i don't see why more than one of them should thank you," sniffed the landlady. "if a man gives up a trolley-car seat to sixteen ladies, only one of them can occupy it." "i stand corrected," said the idiot. "i gave up a seat to ladies sixteen times between city hall and twenty-third street. i can't bring myself to sit down while a woman stands, and every time i'd get a seat some woman would get on the car. hence it was that i gave up my seat to sixteen ladies. why two of them should thank me, considering the rules, i do not know. it certainly is not the custom. at any rate, if i had walked up-town, i should not have had more exercise than i got on that car, bobbing up and down so many times, and lurching here and lurching there every time the car stopped, started, or turned a corner. whether it was the thanks or the lurching i got, i don't know, but the incidents of the ride were so strongly impressed upon me that i dreamed all night, only in my dreams i was not giving up car seats. the first seat i gave up to a woman in the dream was an eighty-thousand-dollar seat in the stock exchange. it was expensive courtesy, but i did it, and mourned so over the result that i waked up and discovered that it was but a dream. then i went to sleep again. this time i was at the opera. i had the best seat in the house, when in came a woman who hadn't a chair. same result. i got up. she sat down, and i had to stand behind a pillar where i could neither see nor hear. more grief; waked up again, more tired than when i went to bed. in ten minutes i dozed off. found myself an ambitious statesman running for the presidency. was elected and inaugurated. up comes a woman's rights candidate. more courtesy. gave up the presidential chair to her and went home to obscurity, when again i awoke tireder than ever. clock struck four. fell asleep again. this time i was prepared for anything that might happen. i found myself in a trolley-car, but with me i had a perforated chair-bottom, such as the street peddlers sell. lady got aboard. i put the perforated chair-bottom on my lap and invited her to sit down. she thanked me and did so. then another lady got on. the lady on my lap moved up and made room for the second lady. she sat down. between them they must have weighed three hundred pounds. i could have stood that, but as time went on more ladies got aboard, and every time that happened these first-comers would move up and make room for them. how they did it i can't say, any more than i can say how in real life three women can find room in a car-seat vacated by a little child. they did the former just as they do the latter, until finally i found myself flattened into the original bench like the pattern figure of a carpet. i felt like an entaglio; thirty women by actual count were pressing me to remain, as it were, but the worst of it all was they none of them seemed to live anywhere. we rode on and on and on, but nobody got off. i tried to move--and couldn't. we passed my corner, but there i was fixed. i couldn't breathe, and so couldn't call out, and i verily believe that if i hadn't finally waked up i should by this time have reached hong-kong, for i have a distinct recollection of passing through chicago, denver, san francisco, and honolulu. finally, i did wake, however, simply worn out with my night's rest, which, gentlemen, is why i say, as i have already said, this is a weary world." "well, i don't blame you," said mr. whitechoker, kindly. "that was a most remarkable dream." "yes," assented mr. pedagog. "but quite in line with his waking thoughts." "very likely," said the idiot, rising and preparing to depart. "it was absurd in most of its features, but in one of them it was excellent. i am going to see the president of the electric juggernaut company, as you call it, in regard to it to-day. i think there is money in that idea of having an extra chair-seat for every passenger to hold in his lap. in that way twice as many seated passengers can be accommodated, and countless people with tender feet will be spared the pain of having other wayfarers standing upon them." iii the transatlantic trolley company "if i were a millionaire," began the idiot one sunday morning, as he and his friends took their accustomed seats at the breakfast-table, "i would devote a tenth of my income to the poor, a tenth to children's fresh-air funds, and the balance to the education through travel of a dear and intimate friend of mine." "that would be a generous distribution of your wealth," said mr. whitechoker, graciously. "but upon what would you live yourself?" "i should stipulate in the bargain with my dear and intimate friend that we should be inseparable; that wherever he should go i should go, and that, of the funds devoted to his education through travel, one-half should be paid to me as my commission for letting him into a good thing." "you certainly have good business sense," put in the bibliomaniac. "i wish i had had when i was collecting rare editions." "collecting rare books and a good business sense seldom go together, i fancy," said the idiot. "i began collecting books once, but i gave it up and took to collecting coins. i chose my coin and devoted my time to getting in that variety alone, and it has paid me." "i don't exactly gather your meaning," said mr. whitechoker. "you chose your coin?" "precisely. i said, 'here! most coin collectors spend their time looking for one or two rare coins, for which, when they are found, they pay fabulous prices. the result is oftentimes penury. i, on the other hand, will look for coins of a common sort which do not command fabulous prices.' so i chose united states five-dollar gold pieces, irrespective of dates, for my collection, and the result is moderate affluence. i have between sixty and a hundred of them at my savings-bank, and when i have found it necessary to realize on them i have not experienced the slightest difficulty in forcing them back into circulation at cost." "you are a wise idiot," said the bibliomaniac, settling back in his chair in a disgusted, tired sort of way. he had expected some sympathy from the idiot as a fellow-collector, even though their aims were different. it is always difficult for a man whose ten-thousand-dollar library has brought six hundred dollars in the auction-room to find, even in the ranks of collectors, one who understands his woes and helps him bear the burden thereof by expressions of confidence in his sanity. "then you believe in travel, do you?" asked the doctor. "i believe there is nothing broadens the mind so much," returned the idiot. "but do you believe it will develop a mind where there isn't one?" asked the school-master, unpleasantly. "or, to put it more favorably, don't you think there would be danger in taking the germ of a mind in a small head and broadening it until it runs the risk of finding itself confined to cramped quarters?" "that is a question for a physician to answer," said the idiot. "but, if i were you, i wouldn't travel if i thought there was any such danger." "_tu quoque_," retorted the school-master, "is _not_ true repartee." "i shall have to take your word for that," returned the idiot, "since i have not a latin dictionary with me, and all the latin i know is to be found in the quotations in the back of my dictionary, like '_status quo ante_,' '_in vino veritas_,' and '_et tu, brute_.' however, as i said before, i'd like to travel, and i would if it were not that the sea and i are not on very good terms with each other. it makes me ill to cross the east river on the bridge, i'm so susceptible to sea-sickness." "you'd get over that in a very few days," said the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed. "i have crossed the ocean a dozen times, and i'm never sea-sick after the third day out." "ah, but those three days!" said the idiot. "they must resemble the three days of grace on a note that you know you couldn't pay if you had three years of grace. i couldn't stand them, i am afraid. why, only last summer i took a drive off in the country, and the motion of the wagon going over the thank-ye-marms in the road made me so sea-sick before i'd gone a mile that i wanted to lie down and die. i think i should have done so if the horse hadn't run away and forced me to ride back home whether i wanted to or not." "you ought to fight that," said the doctor. "by-and-by, if you give way to a weakness of that sort, the creases in your morning newspaper will affect you similarly as you read it. if you ever have a birthday, let us know, and we'll help you to overcome the tendency by buying you a baby-jumper for you to swing around in every morning until you get used to the motion." "it would be more to the purpose," replied the idiot, "if you as a physician would invent a preventive of sea-sickness. i'd buy a bottle and go abroad at once on my coin collection if you would guarantee it to kill or to cure instantaneously." "there is such a nostrum," said the doctor. "there is, indeed," put in the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibes. "i've tried it." "and were you sea-sick?" asked the doctor. "i never knew," replied the genial old gentleman. "it made me so ill that i never thought to inquire what was the matter with me. but one thing is certain, i'll take my sea-voyages straight after this." "i'd like to go by rail," said the idiot, after a moment's thought. "that is a desire quite characteristic of you," said the school-master. "it is so probable that you could. why not say that you'd like to cross the atlantic on a tight-rope?" "because i have no such ambition," replied the idiot. "though it might be fun if the tight-rope were a trolley-wire, and one could sit comfortably in a spacious cab while speeding over the water. i should think that would be exhilarating enough. just imagine how fine it would be on a stormy day to sit looking out of your cab-window far above the surface of the raging and impotent sea, skipping along at electric speed, and daring the waves to do their worst--that would be bliss." "and so practical," growled the bibliomaniac. "bliss rarely is practical," said the idiot. "bliss is a sort of mugwump blessing--too full of the ideal and too barren in practicability." "well," said mr. whitechoker. "i don't know why we should say that trolley-cars between new york and london never can be. if we had told our grandfathers a hundred years ago that a cable for the transmission of news could be laid under the sea, they would have laughed us to scorn." "that's true," said the school-master. "but we know more than our grandfathers did." "well, rather," interrupted the idiot. "my great-grandfather, who died in 1799, had never even heard of andrew jackson, and if you had asked him what he thought of darwin, he'd have thought you were guying him." "respect for age, sir," retorted mr. pedagog, "restrains me from characterizing your great-grandfather, if, as you intimate, he knew less than you do. however, apart from the comparative lack of knowledge in the idiot's family, mr. whitechoker, you must remember that with the advance of the centuries we have ourselves developed a certain amount of brains--enough, at least, to understand that there is a limit even to the possibilities of electricity. now, when you say that just because an atlantic cable would have been regarded as an object of derision in the eighteenth century, we should not deride one who suggests the possibility of a marine trolley-road between london and new york in the twentieth century, it appears to me that you are talking--er--talking--i don't like to say nonsense to one of your cloth, but--" "through his hat is the idiom you are trying to recall, i think, mr. pedagog," said the idiot. "mr. whitechoker is talking through his hat is what you mean to say?" "i beg your pardon, mr. idiot," said the school-master; "but when i find that i need your assistance in framing my conversation, i shall--er--i shall give up talking. i mean to say that i do not think mr. whitechoker can justify his conclusions, and talks without having given the subject concerning which he has spoken due reflection. the cable runs along the solid foundation of the bed of the sea. it is a simple matter, comparatively, but a trolley-wire stretched across the ocean by the simplest rules of gravitation could not be made to stay up." "no doubt you are correct," said mr. whitechoker, meekly. "i did not mean that i expected ever to see a trolley-road across the sea, but i did mean to say that man has made such wonderful advances in the past hundred years that we cannot really state the limit of his possibilities. it is manifest that no one to-day can devise a plan by means of which such a wire could be carried, but--" "i fear you gentlemen would starve as inventors," said the idiot. "what's the matter with balloons?" "balloons for what?" retorted mr. pedagog. "for holding up the trolley-wires," replied the idiot. "it is perfectly feasible. fasten the ends of your wire in london and new york, and from coast to coast station two lines of sufficient strength to keep the wire raised as far above the level of the sea as you require. that's simple enough." "and what, pray, in this frenzy of the elements, this raging storm of which you have spoken," said mr. pedagog, impatiently--"what would then keep your balloons from blowing away?" "the trolley-wire, of course," said the idiot. mr. pedagog lapsed into a hopelessly wrathful silence for a moment, and then he said: "well, i sincerely hope your plan is adopted, and that the promoters will make you superintendent, with an office in the mid-ocean balloon." "thanks for your good wishes, mr. pedagog," the idiot answered. "if they are realized i shall remember them, and show my gratitude to you by using my influence to have you put in charge of the gas service. meantime, however, it seems to me that our ocean steamships could be developed along logical lines so that the trip from new york to liverpool could be made in a very much shorter period of time than is now required." "we are getting back to the common-sense again," said the bibliomaniac. "that is a proposition to which i agree. ten years ago eight days was considered a good trip. with the development of the twin-screw steamer the time has been reduced to approximately six days." "or a saving, really, of two days because of the extra screw," said the idiot. "precisely," observed the bibliomaniac. "so that, provided there are extra screws enough, there isn't any reason why the trip should not be made in two or three hours." "ah--what was that?" said the bibliomaniac. "i don't exactly follow you." "one extra screw, you say, has saved two days?" "yes." "then two extra screws would save four days, three would save six days, and five extra screws would send the boat over in approximately no time," said the idiot. "so, if it takes a man two hours to succumb to sea-sickness, a boat going over in less than that time would eliminate sea-sickness; more people would go; boats could run every hour, and mr. whitechoker could have a european trip every week without deserting his congregation." "inestimable boon!" cried mr. whitechoker, with a laugh. "wouldn't it be!" said the idiot. "unless i change my mind, i think i shall stay in this country until this style of greyhound is perfected. then, gentlemen, i shall tear myself away from you, and seek knowledge in foreign pastures." "well, i am sure," said mr. pedagog--"i am sure that we all hope you will change your mind." "then you want me to go abroad?" said the idiot. "no," said mr. pedagog. "no--not so much that as that we feel if you were to change your mind the change could not fail to be for the better. a mind like yours ought to be changed." "well, i don't know," said the idiot. "i suppose it would be a good thing if i broke it up into smaller denominations, but i've had it so long that i have become attached to it; but there is one thing about it, there is plenty of it, so that in case any of you gentlemen find your own insufficient i shall be only too happy to give you a piece of it without charge. meanwhile, if mrs. pedagog will kindly let me have my bill for last week, i'll be obliged." "it won't be ready until to-morrow, mr. idiot," said the landlady, in surprise. "i'm sorry," said the idiot, rising. "my scribbling-paper has run out. i wanted to put in this morning writing a poem on the back of it." "a poem? what about?" said mr. pedagog, with an irritating chuckle. "it was to be a triolet on omniscience," said the idiot. "and, strange to say, sir, you were to be the hero, if by any possibility i could squeeze you into a french form." iv the incorporation of the idiot "how is business these days, mr. idiot?" asked the poet, as the one addressed laid down the morning paper with a careworn expression on his face. "good, i hope?" "fair, only," replied the idiot. "my honored employer was quite blue about things yesterday, and if i hadn't staved him off i think he'd have proposed swapping places with me. he has said quite often of late that i had the best of it, because all i had to earn was my salary, whereas he had to earn my salary and his own living besides. i offered to give him ten per cent. of my salary for ten per cent. of his living, but he said he guessed he wouldn't, adding that i seemed to be as great an idiot as ever." "i fancy he was right there," said mr. pedagog. "i should really like to know how a man of your peculiar mental construction can be of the slightest practical value to a banker. i ask the question in all kindness, too, meaning to cast no reflections whatever upon either you or your employer. you are a roaring success in your own line, which is all any one could ask of you." "there's hominy for you, as the darky said to the hotel guest," returned the idiot. "any person who says that discord exists at this table doesn't know what he is talking about. even the oil and the vinegar mix in the caster--that is, i judge they do from the oleaginous appearance of the vinegar. but i am very useful to my employer, mr. pedagog. he says frequently that he wouldn't know what not to do if it were not for me." "aren't you losing control of your tongue?" queried the bibliomaniac, looking at the idiot in wonderment. "don't you mean that he says he wouldn't know what to do if it were not for you?" "no, i don't," said the idiot. "i never lose control of my tongue. i meant exactly what i said. mr. barlow told me, in so many words, that if it were not for me he wouldn't know what _not_ to do. he calls me his back action patent reversible counsellor. if he is puzzled over an intricate point he sends for me and says: 'such and such a thing being the case, mr. idiot, what would you do? don't think about it, but tell me on impulse. your thoughtless opinions are worth more to me than i can tell you.' so i tell him on impulse just what i should do, whereupon he does the other thing, and comes out ahead in nine cases out of ten." "and you confess it, eh?" said the doctor, with a curve on his lip. "i certainly do," said the idiot. "the world must take me for what i am. i'm not going to be one thing for myself, and build up a fictitious idiot for the world. the world calls you men of pretence conceited, whereas, by pretending to be something that you are not, you give to the world what i should call convincing evidence that you are not at all conceited, but rather somewhat ashamed of what you know yourselves to be. now, i rather believe in conceit--real honest pride in yourself as you know yourself to be. i am an idiot, and it is my ambition to be a perfect idiot. if i had been born a jackass, i should have endeavored to be a perfect jackass." "you'd have found it easy," said mr. pedagog, dryly. "would i?" said the idiot. "i'll have to take your word for it, sir, for _i_ have never been a jackass, and so cannot form an opinion on the subject." "pride goeth before a fall," said mr. whitechoker, seeing a chance to work in a moral reflection. "exactly," said the idiot. "wherefore i admire pride. it is a danger-signal that enables man to avoid the fall. if adam had had any pride he'd never have fallen--but speaking about my controlling my tongue, it is not entirely out of the range of possibilities that i shall lose control of myself." "i expected that, sooner or later," said the doctor. "is it to be bloomingdale or a private mad-house you are going to?" "neither," replied the idiot, calmly. "i shall stay here. for, as the poet says, "''tis best to bear the ills we hov nor fly to those we know not of.'" "ho!" jeered the poet. "i must confess, my dear idiot, that i do not think you are a success in quotation. hamlet spoke those lines differently." "shakespeare's hamlet did. my little personal shakespeare makes his hamlet an entirely different, less stilted sort of person," said the idiot. "you have a personal shakespeare, have you?" queried the bibliomaniac. "of course i have," the idiot answered. "haven't you?" "i have not," said the bibliomaniac, shortly. "well, i'm sorry for you then," sighed the idiot, putting a fried potato in his mouth. "very sorry. i wouldn't give a cent for another man's ideals. i want my own ideals, and i have my own ideal of shakespeare. in fancy, shakespeare and i have roamed over the fields of warwickshire together, and i've had more fun imagining the kind of things he and i would have said to each other than i ever got out of his published plays, few of which have escaped the ungentle hands of the devastators." "you mean commentators, i imagine," said mr. pedagog. "i do," said the idiot. "it's all the same, whether you call them commentors or devastators. the result is the same. new editions of shakespeare are issued every year, and people buy them to see not what shakespeare has written, but what new quip some opinionated devastator has tried to fasten on his memory. in a hundred years from now the works of shakespeare will differ as much from what they are to-day as to-day's versions differ from what they were when shakespeare wrote them. it's mighty discouraging to one like myself who would like to write works." "you are convicted out of your own mouth," said the bibliomaniac. "a moment since you wasted your pity on me because i didn't mutilate shakespeare so as to make him my own, and now you attack the commentators for doing precisely the same thing. they're as much entitled to their opinions as you are to yours." "did you ever learn to draw parallels when you were in school?" asked the idiot. "i did, and i think i've made a perfect parallel in this case. you attack people in one breath for what you commiserate me for not doing in another," said the bibliomaniac. "not exactly," said the idiot. "i don't object to the commentators for commentating, but i do object to their putting out their versions of shakespeare as shakespeare. i might as well have my edition published. it certainly would be popular, especially where, in 'julius cã¦sar,' i introduce five cassiuses and have them all fall on their swords together with military precision, like a 'florodora' sextette, for instance." "well, i hope you'll never print such an atrocity as that," cried the bibliomaniac, hotly. "if there's one thing in literature without excuse and utterly contemptible it is the comic version, the parody of a masterpiece." "you need have no fear on that score," returned the idiot. "i haven't time to rewrite shakespeare, and, since i try never to stop short of absolute completeness, i shall not embark on the enterprise. if i do, however, i shall not do as the commentators do, and put on my title-page 'shakespeare. edited by willie wilkins,' but 'shakespeare as he might have been, had his plays been written by an idiot.'" "i have no doubt that you could do great work with 'hamlet,'" observed the poet. "i think so myself," said the idiot. "but i shall never write 'hamlet.' i don't want to have my fair fame exposed to the merciless hands of the devastators." "i shall never cease to regret," said mr. pedagog, after a moment's thought, "that you are so timid. i should very much like to see 'the works of the idiot.' i admit that my desire is more or less a morbid one. it is quite on a plane with the feeling that prompts me to wish to see that unfortunate man on the bowery who exhibits his forehead, which is sixteen inches high, beginning with his eyebrows, for a dime. the strange, the bizarre in nature, has always interested me. the more unnatural the nature, the more i gloat upon it. from that point of view i do most earnestly hope that when you are inspired with a work you will let me at least see it." "very well," answered the idiot. "i shall put your name down as a subscriber to the _idiot monthly magazine_, which some of my friends contemplate publishing. that is what i mean when i say i may shortly lose control of myself. these friends of mine profess to have been so impressed by my dicta that they have asked me if i would allow myself to be incorporated into a stock company, the object of which should be to transform my personality into printed pages. hardly a day goes by but i devote a portion of my time to a poem in which the thought is conspicuous either by its absence or its presence. my schemes for the amelioration of the condition of the civilized are notorious among those who know me; my views on current topics are eagerly sought for; my business instinct, as i have already told you, is invaluable to my employer, and my fiction is unsurpassed in its fictitiousness. what more is needed for a magazine? you have the poetry, the philanthropy, the man of to-day, the fictitiousness, and the business instinct necessary for the successful modern magazine all concentrated in one person. why not publish that person, say my friends, and i, feeling as i do that no man has a right to the selfish enjoyment of the great gifts nature has bestowed upon him, of course can only agree. i am to be incorporated with a capital stock of five hundred thousand dollars. one hundred thousand dollars' worth of myself i am to be permitted to retain; the rest my friends will subscribe for at fifty cents on the dollar. if any of you want shares in the enterprise i have no doubt you can be accommodated." "i'm obliged to you for the opportunity," said the doctor. "but i have to be very careful about things i take stock in, and in general i regard you as a thing in which i should prefer not to take stock." "and i," observed mr. pedagog--"i have never up to this time taken any stock in you, and i make it a rule to be guided in life by precedent. therefore i must be counted out." "i'll wait until you are listed at the stock exchange," put in the bibliomaniac, "while thanking you just the same for the chance." "you can put me down for one share, to be paid for in poetry," said the poet, with a wink at the idiot. "you'll never make good," said the idiot, slyly. "and i," said the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibes, "shall be most happy to take five shares to be paid for in advice and high-balls. moreover, if your company needs good-will to establish its enterprise, you may count upon me for unlimited credit." "oh, as for that," said the idiot, "i have plenty of good-will. even mr. pedagog supplies me with more of it than i deserve, though by no means with all that i desire." "that good-will is yours as an individual, mr. idiot," returned the school-master. "as a corporation, however, i cannot permit you to trade upon me even for that. your value is, in my eyes, entirely too fluctuating." "and it is in the fluctuating stock that the great fortunes are made, mr. pedagog," said the idiot. "as an individual i appreciate your good-will. as a corporation i am soulless, without emotions, and so cherish no disappointments over your refusal. i think if the scheme goes through it will be successful, and i fully expect to see the day when idiot preferred will be selling as high, if not higher, than steel, and leaving utterly behind any other industrial that ever was known, copper or rope." "if, like the railways, you could issue betterment bonds you might do very well," said the doctor. "i think ten million dollars spent in bettering you might bring you up to par." "or a consolidated first-mortgage bond," remarked the bibliomaniac. "consolidate the idiot with a man like chamberlain or the german emperor, and issue a five-million-dollar mortgage on the result, and you might find people who'd take those bonds at seventy-five." "you might if they were a dollar bond printed on cartridge-paper," said mr. pedagog. "then purchasers could paper their walls with them." "rail on," said the idiot. "i can stand it. when i begin paying quarterly dividends at a ten-per-cent. rate you'll wish you had come in." "i don't know about that," said mr. pedagog. "it would entirely depend." "on what?" queried the idiot, unwarily. "on whether that ten per cent. was declared upon your own estimate of your value or upon ours. on yours it would be fabulous; on ours--oh, well, what is the use of saying anything more about it. we are not going in it, and that's an end to it." "well, i'll go in it if you change your scheme," said the doctor. "if instead of an idiot publishing company you will try to float yourself as a consolidated gas company you may count on me to take a controlling interest." "i will submit the proposition to my friends," said the idiot, calmly. "it would be something to turn out an honest gas company, which i should, of course, try to be, but i am afraid the public will not accept it. there is little demand for laughing-gas, and, besides, they would fear to intrust you with a controlling interest for fear that you might blow the product out and the bills up--coining millions by mere inflation. they've heard of you, doctor, and they know that is the sort of thing you'd be likely to do." v university extension "i was surprised and gratified last evening, mr. idiot," observed the school-master as breakfast was served, "to see you at the university extension lecture. i did not know that you admitted the necessity of further instruction in any matter pertaining to human knowledge." "i don't know that i do admit the necessity," returned the idiot. "sometimes when i take an inventory of the contents of my mind it seems to me that about everything i need is there." "there you go again!" said the bibliomaniac. "why do you persist in your refusal to allow any one to get a favorable impression concerning you? mr. pedagog unbends sufficiently to tell you that you have at last done something which he can commend, and you greet him with an idiotism which is practically a rebuff." "very well said," observed the school-master, with an acquiescent nod. "i came to this table this morning encouraged to believe that this young man was beginning to see the error of his ways, and i must confess to a great enough interest in him to say that i was pleased at that encouragement. i saw him at a lecture on literature at the lyceum hall last evening, and he appeared to be interested, and yet this morning he seems to show that he is utterly incorrigible. may i ask, sir, why you attended that lecture if, as you say, your mind is already sufficiently well furnished?" "certainly you may ask that question," replied the idiot. "i went to that lecture to have my impressions confirmed, that is all. i have certain well-defined notions concerning university extension, and i wished to see if they were correct. i found that they were." "the lecture was not upon university extension, but upon romanticism, and it was a most able discourse," retorted mr. pedagog. "very likely," said the idiot. "i did not hear it. i did not want to hear it. i have my own ideas concerning romanticism, which do not need confirmation or correction. i have already confirmed and corrected them. i went to see the audience and not to hear professor peterkin exploding theories." "it is a pity the chair you occupied was wasted upon you," snapped mr. pedagog. "i agree with you," said the idiot. "i could have got a much better view of the audience if i had been permitted to sit on the stage, but professor peterkin needed all that for his gestures. however, i saw enough from where i sat to confirm my impression that university extension is not so much of a public benefit as a social fad. there was hardly a soul in the audience who could not have got all that professor peterkin had to tell him out of his books; there was hardly a soul in the audience who could not have afforded to pay one dollar at least for the seat he occupied; there was not a soul in the audience who had paid more than ten cents for his seat or her seat, and those for whose benefit the lecture was presumably given, the ten-cent people, were crowded out. the lectures themselves are not instructive--professor peterkin's particularly--except in so far as it is instructive to hear what professor peterkin thinks on this or that subject, and his desire to be original forces him to cook up views which no one else ever held, with the result that what he says is most interesting and proper to be presented to the attention of a discriminating audience, but not proper to be presented to an audience that is supposed to come there to receive instruction." "you have just said that you did not listen to the lecture. how do you know that what you say is true?" put in the bibliomaniac. "i know professor peterkin," said the idiot. "does he know you?" sneered mr. pedagog. "i don't think he would remember me if you should speak my name in his presence," observed the idiot, calmly. "but that is easily accounted for. the professor never remembers anybody but himself." "well, i admit," said mr. pedagog, "that the professor's lectures were rather advanced for the comprehension of a person like the idiot, nevertheless it was an enjoyable occasion, and i doubt if the fulminations of our friend here will avail against university extension." "you speak a sad truth," said the idiot. "social fads are impervious to fulmination, as solomon might have said had he thought of it. as long as a thing is a social fad it will thrive, and, on the whole, perhaps it ought to thrive. anything which gives society something to think about has its value, and the mere fact that it makes society _think_ is proof of that value." "we seem to be in a philosophic frame of mind this morning," said mr. whitechoker. "we are," returned the idiot. "that's one thing about university extension. it makes us philosophic. it has made a stoic of my dear old daddy." "oh yes!" cried mr. pedagog. "you _have_ a father, haven't you? i had forgotten that." "wherein," said the idiot, "we differ. _i_ haven't forgotten that i have one, and, by-the-way, it is from him that i first heard of university extension. he lives in a small manufacturing town not many miles from here, and is distinguished in the town because, without being stingy, he lives within his means. he has a way of paying his grocer's bills which makes of him a marked man. he hasn't much more money than he needs, but when the university extension movement reached the town he was interested. the prime movers in the enterprise went to him and asked him if he wouldn't help it along, dilating upon the benefits which would accrue to those whose education stopped short with graduation from the high-schools. it was most plausible. the notion that for ten cents a lecture the working masses could learn something about art, history, and letters, could gather in something about the sciences, and all that, appealed to him, and while he could afford it much more ill than the smart people, the four hundred of the town, he chipped in. he paid fifty dollars and was made an honorary manager. he was proud enough of it, too, and he wrote a long, enthusiastic letter to me about it. it was a great thing, and he hoped the state, which had been appealed to to help the movement along, would take a hand in it. 'if we educate the masses to understand and to appreciate the artistic, the beautiful,' he wrote, 'we need have little fear for the future. ignorance is the greatest foe we have to contend against in our national development, and it is the only thing that can overthrow a nation such as ours is.' and then what happened? professor peterkin came along and delivered ten or a dozen lectures. the masses went once or twice and found the platform occupied by a man who talked to them about romanticism and realism; who told them that dickens was trash; who exalted tolstoi and ibsen; but who never let them into the secret of what romanticism was, and who kept them equally in the dark as to the significance of realism. they also found the best seats in the lecture-hall occupied by the smart set in full evening-dress, who talked almost as much and as loudly as did professor peterkin. the masses did not even learn manners at professor peterkin's first and second lectures, and the third and fourth found them conspicuous by their absence. all they learned was that they were ignorant, and that other people were better than they, and what my father learned was that he had subscribed fifty dollars to promote a series of social functions for the diversion of the four hundred and the aggrandizement of professor peterkin. he started in for what might be called romanticism, and he got a realism that he did not like in less time than it takes to tell of it, and to-day in that town university extension is such a fad that when, some weeks ago, the swell club of that place talked of appointing thursday evening as its club night, it was found to be impossible, for the reason that it might interfere with the attendance upon the university extension lectures. that, mr. pedagog, is a matter of history and can be proven, and last night's audience confirmed the impression which i had formed from what my father had told me. professor peterkin's lectures are interesting to you, a school-master, but they are pure greek to me, who would like to know more about letters. i would gather more instruction from your table-talk in an hour than i could from professor peterkin's whole course." "you flatter me," said mr. pedagog. "no," returned the idiot. "if you knew how little the ignorant gain from peterkin you would not necessarily call it flattery if one should say he learned more from your conversation over a griddle-cake." "you misconceive the whole situation, i think, nevertheless," said mr. whitechoker. "as i understand it, supplementary lectures, and examinations based on them, are held after the lectures, when the practical instruction is given with great thoroughness." "i'm glad you spoke of that," said the idiot. "i had forgotten that part of it. professor peterkin received pay for his lectures, which dealt in theories only; plain mr. barton, who delivered the supplementary lectures, got nothing. professor peterkin taught nothing, but he represented university extension. plain mr. barton did the work and represented nothing. both reached society. neither reached the masses. in my native town plain mr. barton's supplementary lectures, which were simply an effort to unravel the peterkin complications, were attended by the same people in smaller crowds--people of social standing who were curious enough to devote an hour a week to an endeavor to find out the meaning of what professor peterkin had told them at the function the week before. the students examined were mostly ladies, and i happen to know that in a large proportion they were ladies whose husbands could have afforded to pay professor peterkin his salary ten times over as a private tutor." "as i look at it," said mr. pedagog, gravely, "it does not make much difference to whom your instruction is given, so long as it instructs. what if these lectures do interest those who are comparatively well off? your society woman may be as much in need of an extended education as your factory girl. the university extension idea is to convey knowledge to people who would not otherwise get it. it simply sets out to improve minds. if the social mind needs improvement, why not improve it? why condemn a system because it does not discriminate in the minds selected for improvement?" "i don't condemn a system which sets out to improve minds irrespective of conditions," replied the idiot. "but i should most assuredly condemn a man, or a set of men, who induced me to subscribe to a bread fund for the poor and who afterwards expended that money on cream-cakes for the czar of russia. the fact that the czar of russia wanted the cream-cakes and was willing to accept them would not affect my feelings in the matter, though i have no doubt the people in charge of the fund would find themselves far more conspicuous for having departed from the original idea. some of them might be knighted for it if the czar happened to be passionately fond of cream-cakes." "then, having attacked this system, what would you have? would you have university extension stop?" asked the bibliomaniac. "not at all," returned the idiot. "anything which can educate society is a good thing, but i should change the name of it from university extension to social expansion, and i should compel those whose minds were broadened by it to pay the bills." "but as yet you have failed to hit the nail on the head," persisted the bibliomaniac. "the masses can attend these lectures if they wish to, and on your own statement they don't. you don't seem to consider that point, or, if you do, you don't meet it." "i don't think it necessary to meet it," said the idiot. "though i will say that if you were one of the masses--a girl, say, with one dress, threadbare, poor, and ill-fitting, and possessed of a natural bit of pride--you would find little pleasure in attending a lecture your previous education does not permit of your comprehending, and sitting through an evening with a lot of finely dressed, smart folk, with their backs turned towards you. the plebeians have _some_ pride, my dear bibliomaniac, and they are decidedly averse to mixing with the swells. they would like to be educated, but they don't care to be snubbed for the privilege of being mystified by a man like professor peterkin, even for so small a sum as ten cents an evening." vi social expansion "we were talking about university extension the other day, mr. pedagog," said the idiot, as the school-master folded up the newspaper and put it in his pocket, "and i, as you remember, suggested that it might better be called social expansion." "did you?" said mr. pedagog, coldly. "i don't remember much about it. i rarely make a note of anything you may say." "well, i did suggest the change of name, whether your memory is retentive or not, and i have been thinking the matter over a good deal since, and i think i've got hold of an idea," returned the idiot. "in that case," said the bibliomaniac, "we would better lock the door. if you have really got hold of an idea you should be very careful not to let it get away from you." "no danger of that," said the idiot, with a smile. "i have it securely locked up here," tapping his forehead. "it must be lonesome," said mr. pedagog. "and rather uncomfortable--if it is a real idea," observed the doctor. "an idea in the idiot's mind must feel somewhat as a tall, stout irish maid feels when she goes to her bedroom in one of those harlem flat-houses." "you men are losing a great opportunity," said the idiot, with a scornful glance at the three professional gentlemen. "the idea of your following the professions of pedagogy, medicine, and literature, when the three of you combined could make a fortune as an incarnate comic paper. i don't see why you don't make a combination like those german bands that play on the street corners, and go about from door to door, and crack your jokes just as they crack their music. i am sure you'd take, particularly in front of barber-shops." "it would be hard on the comic papers," said the poet, who was getting a little unpopular with his fellow-boarders because of his tendency, recently developed, to take the idiot's part in the breakfast-table discussions. "they might be so successful that the barber-shops, instead of taking the comic papers for their customers to read, would employ one or more of them to sit in the middle of the room and crack jokes aloud." "we couldn't rival the comic papers though," said the doctor, wishing to save his dignity by taking the bull by the horns. "we might do the jokes well enough, but the comic papers are chiefly pictorial." "you'd be pictorial enough," said the idiot. "wasn't it you, mr. pedagog, that said the doctor here looked like one of cruikshank's physicians, or as if he had stepped out of dickens's pages, or something like it?" "i never said anything of the sort!" cried the school-master, wrathfully; "and you know i didn't." "who was it said that?" asked the idiot, innocently, looking about the table. "it couldn't have been mr. whitechoker, and i know it wasn't the poet or my genial friend who occasionally imbibes. mr. pedagog denies it; i didn't say it; mrs. pedagog wouldn't say it. that leaves only two of us--the bibliomaniac and the doctor himself. i don't think the doctor would make a personal remark of that kind, and--well, there is but one conclusion. mr. bibliomaniac, i am surprised." "what?" roared the bibliomaniac, glaring at the idiot. "do you mean to fasten the impertinence on me?" "far from it," returned the idiot, meekly. "very far from it. it is fate, sir, that has done that--the circumstantial evidence against you is strong; but then, mercifully enough, circumstantial evidence is not permitted to hang a man." "now see here, mr. idiot," said the bibliomaniac, firmly and impressively, "i want you to distinctly understand that i am not going to have you put words into my mouth that i never uttered. i--" "pray, don't attack me," said the idiot. "i haven't made any charge against you. i only asked who could have said that the doctor looked like a creation of cruikshank. i couldn't have said it, because i don't think it. mr. pedagog denies it. in fact, every one here has a clear case of innocence excepting yourself, and i don't believe _you_ said it, only the chain of circumstance--" "oh, hang your chain of circumstance!" interrupted the bibliomaniac. "it is hung," said the idiot, "and it appears to make you very uncomfortable. however, as i was saying, i think i have got hold of an idea involving a truly philanthropic and by no means selfish scheme of social expansion." "heigho!" sighed mr. pedagog. "i sometimes think that if i had not the honor to be the husband of our landlady i'd move away from here. your views, sir, are undermining my constitution." "you only think so, mr. pedagog," replied the idiot. "you are simply going through a process of intellectual reconstruction at my hands. you feel exactly as a man feels who has been shut up in the dark for years and suddenly finds himself in a flood of sunlight. i am doing with you as an individual what i would have society do for mankind at large--in other words, while i am working for individual expansion upon the raw material i find here, i would have society buckle down to the enlargement of itself by the improvement of those outside of itself." "if you swim in water as well as you do in verbiage," said the bibliomaniac, "you must be able to go three or four strokes without sinking." "oh, as for that, i can swim like a duck," said the idiot. "you can't sink me." "i fancied not," observed mr. pedagog, with a smile at his own joke. "you are so light i wonder, indeed, that you don't rise up into space, anyhow." "what a delightful condition of affairs that suggestion opens up!" said the idiot, turning to the poet. "if i were you i'd make a poem on that. something like this, for instance: "i am so very, very light that gravitation curbs not me. i rise up through the atmosphere till all the world i plainly see. "i dance about among the clouds, an airy, happy, human kite. the breezes toss me here and there, to my exceeding great delight. "and when i would return to sup, to breakfast, or perchance to dine, i haul myself once more to earth by tugging on a piece of twine." mr. pedagog grinned broadly at this. "you aren't entirely without your good points," he said. "if we ever accept your comic-paper idea we'll have to rely on you for the nonsense poetry." "thank you," said the idiot. "i'll help. if i had a man like you to give me the suggestions i could make a fortune out of poetry. the only trouble is i have to quarrel with you before i can get you to give me a suggestion, and i despise bickering." "so do i," returned mr. pedagog. "let's give up bickering and turn our attention to--er--social extension, is it?" "yes--or social expansion," said the idiot. "some years ago the world was startled to hear that in the city of new york there were not more than four hundred people who were entitled to social position, and, as i understand it, as time has progressed the number has still further diminished. last year the number was only one hundred and fifty, and, as i read the social news of to-day, not more than twenty-five people are now beyond all question in the swim. at dinners, balls, functions of all sorts, you read the names of these same twenty-five over and over again as having been present. apparently no others attended--or, if they did, they were not so indisputably entitled to be present that their names could be printed in the published accounts. now all of this shows that society is dying out, and that if things keep on as they are now going it will not be many years before we shall become a people without society, a nation of plebeians." "your statement so far is lucid and logical," said mr. pedagog, who did not admire society--so called--and who did not object to the goring of an ox in which he was not personally interested. "well, why is this social contraction going on?" asked the idiot. "clearly because social expansion is not an accepted fact. if it were, society would grow. why does it not grow? why are its ranks not augmented? there is raw material enough. you would like to get into the swim; so would i. but we don't know how. we read books of etiquette, but they are far from being complete. i think i make no mistake when i say they are utterly valueless. they tell us no more than the funny journal tells us when it says: "'never eat pease with a spoon; never eat pie with a knife; never put salt on a prune; never throw crumbs at your wife.'" they tell most of us what we all knew before. they tell us not to wear our hats in the house; they tell us all the obvious things, but the subtleties of how to get into society they do not tell us. the comic papers give us some idea of how to behave in society. we know from reading the funny papers that a really swell young man always leans against a mantel-piece when he is calling; that the swell girl sits on a comfortable divan with her feet on a tiger-skin rug, and they converse in epigram. sometimes the epigram is positively rude; when it is not rude it is so dull that no one wonders that the tiger's head on the rug represents the tiger as yawning. but, while this is instructive, it teaches us how to behave on special occasions only. you or i might call upon a young woman who did not sit on a divan, who had no tiger-skin rug to put her feet on, and whose parlor had a mantel-piece against which we could not lean comfortably. what are we to do then? as far as they go, the funny papers are excellent, but they don't go far enough. they give us attractive pictures of fashionable dinners, but it is always of the dinner after the game course. some of us would like to know how society behaves while the soup is being served. we know that after the game course society girls reach across the table and clink wine-glasses with young men, but we do not know what they do before they get to the clink stage. nowhere is this information given. etiquette books are silent on the subject, and though i have sought everywhere for information, i do not know to this day how many salted almonds one may consume at dinner without embarrassing one's hostess. now, if i can't find out, the million can't find out. wherefore, instead of shutting themselves selfishly up and, by so doing, forcing society finally into dissolution, why cannot some of these people who know what is what give object-lessons to the million; educate them in _savoir-faire_? "last summer there was a play put on at one of our theatres in which there was a scene at a race-track. at one side was a tally-ho coach. for the first week the coach was an utterly valueless accessory, because the people on it were the ordinary supers in the employ of the theatre. they did not know how to behave on a coach, and nobody was interested. the management were suddenly seized with a bright idea. they invited several swell young men who knew how things were done on coaches to come and do these things on their coach. the young men came and imparted a realism to the scene that made that coach the centre of attraction. people who went to that play departed educated in coach etiquette. now there lies my scheme in a nutshell. if these twenty-five, the old guard of society, which dines but never surrenders, will give once a week a social function in some place like madison square garden, to which the million may go merely as spectators, not as participators, is there any doubt that they would fail to be instructed? the garden will seat eight or ten thousand people. suppose, for an instance, that a dozen of your best exponents of what is what were to give a dinner in the middle of the arena, with ten thousand people looking on. do you mean to say that of all that vast audience no one would learn thereby how to behave at a dinner?" "it is a great scheme," said the doctor. "it is!" said the idiot, "and i venture to say that a course of, say, twelve social functions given in that way would prove so popular that the garden would turn away every night twice as many people as it could accommodate." "it would be instructive, no doubt," said the bibliomaniac; "but how would it expand society? would you have examinations?" "most assuredly," said the idiot. "at the end of the season i should have a rigid examination of all who chose to apply. i would make them dine in the presence of a committee of expert diners, i would have them pass a searching examination in the art of wearing a dress suit, in the science of entering a drawing-room, in the art of behavior at afternoon teas, and all the men who applied should also be compelled to pass a physical examination as an assurance that they were equal to the task of getting an ice for a young lady at a ball." "society would get to be too inclusive and would cease to be exclusive," suggested mr. whitechoker. "i think not," said the idiot. "i should not give a man or a woman the degree of b.s. unless he or she had passed an examination of one hundred per cent." "b.s.?" queried mr. pedagog. "yes," returned the idiot. "bachelor of society--a degree which, once earned, should entitle one to recognition as a member of the upper ten anywhere in christendom." "it is superb!" cried mr. pedagog, enthusiastically. "yes," said the idiot. "at ten cents a function it would beat university extension out of sight, and, further, it would preserve society. if we lose society we lose caste, and, worse than all, our funny men would have to go out of business, for there would be no fads or willieboys left to ridicule." vii a beggar's hand-book "mr. idiot," said the poet one morning, as the waffles were served, "you are an inventive genius. why don't you invent an easy way to make a fortune? the trouble with most methods of making money is that they involve too much labor." "i have thought of that," said the idiot. "and yet the great fortunes have been made in a way which involved very little labor, comparatively speaking. you, for instance, probably work harder over a yard of poetry that brings you in ten dollars than any of our great railroad magnates have over a mile of railroad which has brought them in a million." "which simply proves that it is ideas that count rather than labor," said the poet. "not exactly," said the idiot. "if you put a hundred ideas into a quatrain you will get less money for it than you would for a two-volume epic in which you have possibly only half an idea. it isn't idea so much as nerve that counts. the man who builds railroads doesn't advance any particular idea, but he shows lots of nerve, and it is nerve that makes wealth. i believe that if you literary men would show more nerve force and spare the public the infliction of what you call your ideas, you would make more money." "how would you show nerve in writing?" queried the bibliomaniac. "if i knew i'd write and make my fortune," said the idiot. "unfortunately, i don't know how one can show nerve in writing, unless it be in taking hold of some particularly popular idiosyncrasy of mankind and treating it so contemptuously that every one would want to mob you. if you could get the public mad enough at you to want to mob you they'd read everything you'd write, simply to nourish their wrath, and you'd soon be cutting coupons for a living, and could then afford to take up more ideas--coupon-cutters can afford theories. for my own part, one reason why i do not myself take up literature for a profession is that i have neither the nerve nor the coupons. i'd probably run along in the rut like a majority of the writers of to-day, and wouldn't have the grit to strike out in a new line of my own. men say, and perhaps very properly, this is the thing that has succeeded in the past. i'll do this. something else that appears alluring enough in the abstract has never been done, and for that reason i won't do it. there have been clever men before me, men clever enough to think of this something that i fondly imagine is original, and they haven't done it. doubtless they refrained from doing it for good and sufficient reasons, and i am not going to be fool enough to set my judgment up against theirs. in other words, i lack the nerve to go ahead and write as i feel. i prefer to study past successes, with the result that i am moderately successful only. it's the same way in every line of business. precedent guides in all things, but where occasionally you find a man courageous enough to cast precedent to the winds, one of two things happens. either fortune or ruin follows. hence, the thing to do if you want to make a fortune is to eliminate the possibility of ruin as far as may be. you cannot ruin a man who has nothing. he is down on bed-rock, anyhow; so for a receipt for fortune i should say, start a pauper, show your nerve, and you'll make a pile, or you won't make a pile. if you make it you are fortunate. if you fail to make it you are no more unfortunate than you were before you started." "for plausibility, mr. idiot," said mr. pedagog, "you are to me a perfect wonder. i do not think that any one can deny, with confidence born of certainty, the truth of your premises, and it must be admitted that your conclusions are based properly upon those premises, and yet your conclusions are almost invariably utterly absurd, if not absolutely grotesque. here is a man who says, to make a fortune become a beggar!" "precisely," said the idiot. "there is nothing like having a clean slate to work on. if you are not a beggar you have something, and having something promotes caution and tends to destroy nerve. as a beggar you have everything to gain and nothing to lose, so you can plunge. you can swim better in deep water than in the shallow." "well," said the doctor, "enlighten us on this point. you may not know how to show nerve as a writer--in fact, you confess that you don't. how would you show nerve as a beggar? would you strive to enforce your demands and degenerate into a common highwayman, or would you simply go in for big profits, and ask passers-by for ten dollars instead of ten cents?" "he'd probably take a bag of dynamite into a millionaire's office and threaten to blow him to pieces if he didn't give him a house and lot," sneered the bibliomaniac. "not at all," said the idiot. "that's cowardice, not nerve. if i went into a millionaire's office and demanded a million--or a house and lot even--armed with a bag full of newspapers, pretending it held dynamite, it might be more like nerve; but my beggar would do nothing contrary to the law. he'd simply be nervy, that's all--cheeky, perhaps you'd call it. for instance, i believe that if i were to hire in the elevated cars one of those advertising spaces above the windows, and were to place in that space a placard saying that i was by nature too lazy to work, too fond of life to starve, too poor to live, and too honest to steal, and would be placed in affluence if every man and woman who saw that sign would send me ten cents a week in two-cent postage-stamps for five weeks running, i should receive enough money to enable me to live at the most expensive hotel in town during that period. by living at that hotel and paying my bills regularly i could get credit enough to set myself up in business, and with credit there is practically no limit to the possibilities of fortune. it is simply honest nerve that counts. the beggar who asks you on the street for five cents to keep his family from starving is rebuffed. you don't believe his story, and you know that five cents wouldn't keep a family from starving very long. but the fellow who accosts you frankly for a dime because he is thirsty, and hasn't had a drink for two hours, in nine cases out of ten properly selected ones will get a quarter for his nerve." "you ought to write a _manual for beggars_," said the bibliomaniac. "i have no doubt that the idiot publishing company would publish it." "yes," said mr. pedagog. "a sort of beggar's _don't_, for instance. it would be a benefit to all men, as well as a boon to the beggars. that mendicancy is a profession to-day there is no denying, and anything which could make of it a polite calling would be of inestimable value." "i have had it in mind for some time," said the idiot, blandly. "i intended to call it _mendicancy made easy_, or _the beggar's don't: with two chapters on etiquette for tramps_." "the chief trouble with such a book i should think," said the poet, "would be that your beggars and tramps could not afford to buy it." "that wouldn't interfere with its circulation," returned the idiot. "it's a poor tramp who can't steal. every suburban resident in creation would buy a copy of the book out of sheer curiosity. i'd get my royalties from them; the tramps could get the books by helping themselves to the suburbanites' copies as they do to chickens, fire-wood, and pies put out to cool. as for the beggars, i'd have it put into their hands by the people they beg from. when a man comes up to a wayfarer, for instance, and says, 'excuse me, sir, but could you spare a nickel to a hungry man?' i'd have the wayfarer say, 'excuse _me_, sir, but unfortunately i have left my nickels in my other vest; but here is a copy of the idiot's _mendicancy made easy, or the beggar's don't_.'" "and you think the beggar would read it, do you?" asked the bibliomaniac. "i don't know whether he would or not. he'd probably either read it or pawn it," the idiot answered. "in either event he would be better off, and i would have got my ten per cent. royalty on the book. after the _beggars' manual_ i should continue my good work if i found the class for whom it was written had benefited by my first effort. i should compile as my contribution to the literature of mendicancy for the following season what i should call _the beggar's ã�lite directory_. this would enlarge my sphere a trifle. it would contain as complete lists as could be obtained of persons who give to street beggars, with their addresses, so that the beggars, instead of infesting the streets at night might go to the houses of these people and collect their incomes in a more business-like and less undignified fashion. added to this would be two lists, one for tramps, stating what families in the suburbs kept dogs, what families gave, whether what they gave was digestible or not, rounding up with a list of those who do not give, and who have telephone connection with the police station. this would enable them to avoid dogs and rebuffs, would save the tramp the time he expends on futile efforts to find work he doesn't want, and as for the people who have to keep the dogs to ward off the tramps, they, too, would be benefited, because the tramps would begin to avoid them, and in a short while they would be able to dispense with the dogs. the other list would be for organ-grinders, who are, after all, only beggars of a different type. this list would comprise the names of persons who are musical and who would rather pay a quarter than listen to a hand-organ. by a judicious arrangement with these people, carried on by correspondence, the organ-grinder would be able to collect a large revenue without venturing out, except occasionally to play before the house of a delinquent subscriber in order to remind him that he had let his contract expire. so, by slow degrees, we should find beggars doing their work privately and not publicly, tramps circulating only among those whose sympathies they have aroused, and organ-grinding only a memory." "the last, i think, would not come about," said mr. pedagog. "for there are people who like the music of hand-organs." "true--i'm one of 'em. i'd hire a hansom to follow a piano-organ about the city if i could afford it, but as a rule the hand-organ lovers are of the one-cent class," returned the idiot. "the quarter class are people who would rather not hear the hand-organ, and it is to them that a grinder of business capacity would naturally address himself. it is far pleasanter to stay at home and be paid large money for doing nothing than to undertake a weary march through the city to receive small sums for doing something. that's human nature, mr. pedagog." "i presume it is," said mr. pedagog; "but i don't think your scheme is. human nature works, but your plan wouldn't." "well, of course," said the idiot, "you never can tell about ideals. the fact that an ideal is ideal is the chief argument against its amounting to much. but i am confident that if my _beggar's don't_ and _ã�lite directory_ fail, my other book will go." "you appear to have the writing of a library in mind," sneered the bibliomaniac. "i have," said the idiot. "if i write all the books i have in mind, the public library will be a small affair beside mine." "and your other book is to be what?" queried mr. whitechoker. "_plausible tales for beggars to tell_," said the idiot. "if the beggar could only tell an interesting story he'd be surer of an ear in which to whisper it. the usual beggar's tale is commonplace. there's no art in it. there are no complications of absorbing interest. there is not a soul in creation, i venture to say, but would be willing to have a beggar stop right in the middle of his story. the tales i'd write for them would be so interesting that the attention of the wayfarer would be arrested at once. his mind would be riveted on the situation at once, and, instead of hurrying along and trying to leave the beggar behind, he would stop, button-hole him, and ask him to sit down on a convenient doorstep and continue. if a beggar could have such a story to tell as would enable him in the midst of one of its most exciting episodes to whisper hoarsely into the ear of the man whose nickel he was seeking, 'the rest of this interesting story i will tell you in central park at nine o'clock to-morrow night,' in such a manner as would impel the listener to meet him in the park the following evening, his fortune would be made. such a book i hope some day to write." "i have no doubt," said mr. whitechoker, "that it will be an entertaining addition to fiction." "nor have i," said the idiot. "it will make the writers of to-day green with envy, and, as for the beggars, if it is not generally known that it is i and not they who are responsible for the work, the beggars will shortly find themselves in demand as writers of fiction for the magazines." "and you?" suggested the poet. "i shall be content. mere gratitude will force the beggars to send me the magazine orders, and _i'll_ write their articles and be glad of the opportunity, giving them ten per cent. of the profits. i know a man who makes fifty dollars a year at magazine work, and one of my ambitions is to rival the banker-poets and dry goods essayists by achieving fame as the boarding-house dickens." viii progressive waffles "i am afraid," said mr. pedagog, in a loud whisper to the bibliomaniac, "that the idiot isn't feeling well this morning. he has eaten three fish-cakes and a waffle without opening his mouth." the idiot looked up, and, gazing wearily at mr. pedagog for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and ejaculated, "tutt!" "he's off," said the bibliomaniac. "whenever he says 'tutt!' you can make up your mind that his vocabulary is about to be loosed." "if my vocabulary were as warped as some other vocabularies i might mention," said the idiot, helping himself to another waffle modelled after the six of hearts, "i'd keep it in a cage. a man who observes that i have eaten three fish-cakes and a waffle without opening my mouth hasn't a very good command of language. he simply states as a fact what is in reality an impossibility, granting that i eat with my mouth, which i am told i do." "you know what i mean," retorted mr. pedagog, impatiently. "i am so much in your society that i have acquired the very bad habit of speaking in the vernacular. when i say you haven't opened your mouth i do not refer to the opening you make for the receipt of waffles and fish-cakes, but for those massive openings which you require for your exuberant loquacity. in other words, i mean that you haven't spoken a word for at least three minutes, which is naturally an indication to us that you aren't feeling well. you and talk are synonymous as far as we are concerned." "i _have_ been known to speak--that is true," said the idiot. "that i am not feeling very well this morning is also true. i have a headache." "a what ache?" asked the doctor, scornfully. "a very bad headache," returned the idiot, looking about him for a third waffle. "how singular!" said the bibliomaniac. "reminds me of a story i heard of a man who had lost his foot. he'd had his foot shot off at gettysburg, and yet for years after he could feel the pangs of rheumatism in that foot from which he had previously suffered." "pardon me for repeating," observed the idiot. "but, as i have already said, and as i expect often to have to say again, tutt! i can't blame you for thinking that i have no head, however. i find so little use for one here that in most instances i do not obtrude it upon you." "i haven't noticed any lack of head in the idiot," put in the school-master. "as a rule, i can agree to almost anything my friend the bibliomaniac says, but in this case i cannot accept his views. you have a head. i have always said you had a head--in fact, that is what i complain about chiefly, it is such a big head." "thank you," said the idiot, ignoring the shaft. "i shall never forget your kindness in coming to my aid, though i can't say that i think i needed it. even with a racking headache sustained by these delicious waffles, i believe i can handle the doctor and my bookish friend without assistance. i am what the mathematicians would call an arithmetical absurdity--i am the one that is equal to the two they represent. at present, however, i prefer to let them talk on. i am too much absorbed in thought and waffles to bandy words." "if i had a headache," said mrs. smithers-pedagog, without, it must be said, in any way desiring to stem the waffle tide which was slowly but surely eating into the profits of the week--"if i had a headache i should not eat so many waffles, mr. idiot." "i suppose i ought not to," replied the idiot, "but i can't help it, ma'am. waffles are my weakness. some men take to drink, some to gaming; i seek forgetfulness of woe in waffles. mr. whitechoker, will you kindly pass me that steaming ten of diamonds that is wasting its warmth upon the desert air before you?" mr. whitechoker, with a sigh which indicated that he had had his eye on the ten of diamonds himself, did as he was requested. "many thanks," said the idiot, transferring the waffle to his plate. "let me see--that is how many?" "five," said mr. pedagog. "eight," said the bibliomaniac. "dear me!" ejaculated the idiot. "why can't you agree? i never eat less than twelve waffles, and now that you have failed to keep tab i shall have to begin all over again. mary, bring me one dozen fresh waffles in squads of four. this is an ideal breakfast, mrs. smithers-pedagog." "i am glad you are pleased," said the landlady, graciously. "my one aim is to satisfy." "you are a better shot than most women," said the idiot. "i wonder why it is," he added, "that waffles are so generally modelled after playing-cards, and also why, having been modelled after playing-cards, there is not a full pack?" "fifty-two waffles," said mr. whitechoker, "would be too many." "fifty-three, including the joker," said mr. pedagog. "what do _you_ know about cards, john?" asked mrs. pedagog, severely. the idiot laughed. "did you ever hear that pretty little song of gilbert and sullivan's, mr. poet, 'things are seldom what they seem'?" he asked. "why shouldn't i know about playing-cards?" said mr. pedagog, acridly. "mr. whitechoker seems to be aware that a pack holds fifty-two cards--if he, why not i?" "i--ah--i of course have to acquaint myself with many vicious things with which i have very little sympathy," observed mr. whitechoker, blandly. "i regard cards as an abomination." "so do i," said mr. pedagog--"so do i. but even then i know a full house--i should say a full pack from a--er--a--er--" "bob-tail flush," suggested the idiot. "sir," said mr. pedagog, "i am not well up in poker terms." "then you ought to play," said the idiot. "the man who doesn't know the game has usually great luck. but i am sorry, mrs. pedagog, that you are so strongly opposed to cards, for i was going to make a suggestion which i think would promote harmony in our little circle on waffle days. if you regard cards as wholly immoral, of course the suggestion is without value, since it involves two complete packs of cards--one cardboard pack and one waffle pack." "i don't object to cards as cards, mr. idiot," said the landlady. "it is the games people play with cards that i object to. they bring a great deal of unnecessary misery into the world, and for that reason i think it is better to avoid them altogether." "that is quite true," said the idiot. "they do bring about much unhappiness. i know a young woman who became a victim of insomnia once because in a series of ten games of old maid she got the odd card seven times. of course it wasn't entirely the cards' fault. superstition had something to do with it. in fact, i sometimes think the fault lies with the people who play, and not with the cards. i owe much to the game of whist. it taught me to control my tongue. i should have been a regular talk-fiend if it hadn't been for whist." mr. pedagog looked unutterable things at the idiot. "are you laboring under the delusion that you have any control over your tongue?" he asked, savagely. "most certainly," said the idiot. "well, i'll have to make a note of that," said mr. pedagog. "i have a friend who is making a collection of hallucinations." "if you'll give me his address," said the idiot, "i'll send him thousands. for five dollars a dozen i'll invent hallucinations for him that people ought to have but haven't." "no," returned the school-master. "in his behalf, however, i thank you. he collects only real hallucinations, and he finds there are plenty of them without retaining a professional lunatic to supply him." "very well," said the idiot, returning to his waffles. "if at any time he finds the supply running short, i shall be glad to renew my offer." "you haven't unfolded your harmony promoting scheme for waffle days," suggested the poet. "it has aroused my interest." "oh, it is simple," said the idiot. "i have noticed that on waffle days here most of us leave the table more or less dissatisfied. we find ourselves plunged into acrimonious discussions, which, to my mind, arise entirely from the waffles. mr. pedagog is a most amiable gentleman, and yet we find him this morning full of acerbity. on the surface of things i seem to be the cause of his anger, but in reality it is not i, but the waffles. he has seen me gradually absorbing them and it has irritated him. every waffle that i eat _he_ might have had if i had not been here. if there had been no one here but mr. pedagog, he would have had all the waffles; as it is, his supply is limited. this affects his geniality. it makes him--" "pardon me," said mr. pedagog. "but you are all wrong. i haven't thought of the things at all." "consciously to yourself you have not," said the idiot. "subconsciously, however, you have. the philosophy of the unconscious teaches us that unknown to ourselves our actions are directly traceable to motives we wot not of. the truth of this is conclusively proven in this case. even when i point out to you the facts in the case you deny their truth, thereby showing that you are not conscious of the real underlying motive for your irritation. now, why is that irritation there? because our several rights to the individual waffles that are served here are not clearly defined at the outset. when mary brings in a steaming platter full of these delicious creations of the cook, mr. pedagog has quite as much right to the one with the six of hearts on it as i have, but i get it. he does not. hence he is irritated, although he does not know it. so with mr. whitechoker. five minutes ago he was hastening through the four of spades in order that he might come into possession of the ten of diamonds that lay smoking before him. as he was about to put the last spade in his mouth i requested him to hand me the ten of diamonds, having myself gulped down the deuce of clubs to get ahead of him. he couldn't decline to give me that waffle because he wanted it himself. he had to give it to me. he was irritated--though he did not know it. he sighed and gave me the waffle." "i did want it," said mr. whitechoker. "but i did not know that i sighed." "there you are," said the idiot. "it is the philosophy of the unconscious again. if you are not conscious of so actual a thing as a sigh, how much the more unconscious must you be of something so subtle as motive?" "and your waffle-deck?" said the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibes. "how will that solve the problem? it seems to me to complicate the problem. as it is, we have about thirty waffles, each one of which is a germ of irritation in the breast of the man who _doesn't_ eat it. if you have fifty-two waffles you have twenty-two more germs to sow discord in our midst." "you would have but for my scheme," said the idiot. "i'd have a pack of cards at the table, and i'd deal them out just as you do in whist. each card would represent the corresponding waffle. we'd begin breakfast by playing one hand after the manner of whist. each man would keep his tricks, and when the waffles were served he would receive those, and those only, represented by the cards in the tricks he had taken. if you took a trick with the king of diamonds in it, you'd get the waffle with the king of diamonds on it, and so on. every man would be clearly entitled through his skill in the game to the waffles that he ate." "very good," said mr. whitechoker. "but suppose you had bad luck and took no tricks?" "then," said the idiot, "you'd have bad luck and get no waffles." "tutt!" said mr. pedagog. and that was the sole criticism any of the boarders had to make, although there is reason to believe that the scheme had objectionable features to the majority of them, for as yet progressive waffles has not been played at mrs. smithers-pedagog's. ix a clearing-house for poets "how is your muse these days, mr. idiot?" asked the bibliomaniac one sunday morning while the mush was being served. "flourishing," said the idiot. "just flourishing--and no more." "i should think you'd be pleased if she is flourishing," said the doctor. "i'd rather she'd stop flourishing and do a little writing," said the idiot. "she's a queer muse, that one of mine. she has all the airs and graces of an ordinary type-writer with an unconquerable aversion to work." "you look upon your muse as you would upon your type-writer, eh?" said mr. pedagog. "yes," said the idiot. "that's all my muse is, and she isn't even a capable type-writer. the general run of type-writers make sense of what you write, but my muse won't. you may not believe it, but out of ten inspirations i had last week not one of them is fit for publication anywhere but in a magazine or a puzzle column. i don't know what is the matter with her, but when i sit down to dictate a comic sonnet she turns it into a serious jingle, and _vice versa_. we can't seem to get our moods to fit. when i want to be serious she's flippant, and when i become flippant she's serious." "she must be very serious most of the time," said the doctor. "she is," said the idiot, innocently. "but that's only because i'm flippant most of the time. i'm going to give her warning. if she doesn't brace up and take more interest in her work i'm going to get another muse, that's all. i can't afford to have my income cut down fifty per cent. just because she happens to be fickle." "maybe she is flirting with somebody else," suggested the poet. "my muse does that occasionally." "i doubt it," said the idiot. "i haven't observed any other poet encroaching upon my particular province. even you, good as you are, can't do it. but in any event i'm going to have a change. the day has gone by when a one-muse poet achieves greatness. i'm going to employ a half-dozen and try to corner the poetry market. queer that in all these years that men have been writing poetry no one has thought of that. people get up grain corners, corners in railway stock, monopolies in gas and oil and everything else, about, but as yet no poet has cornered the market in his business." "that's easily accounted for," said the bibliomaniac. "the poet controls only his own work, and if he has any sense he doesn't want to monopolize that." "that isn't my scheme at all," said the idiot. "you have a monopoly of your own work always if you choose to avail yourself of it, and, as you say, a man would be crazy to do so. what i'd like to see established is a sort of poetic clearing-house association. supposing, for instance, that i opened an office in wall street--a bank for poets, in which all writers of verse could deposit their rhymes as they write them, and draw against them just as they do in ordinary banks with their money. it would be fine. take a man like swinburne, for instance, or our friend here. our poet could take a sonnet he had written, endorse it, and put it in the bank. he'd be credited with one sonnet, and wouldn't have to bother his head about it afterwards. he could draw against it. if the clearing-house company could dispose of it to a magazine his draft would be honored in cash to its full value, less discount charges, which would include postage and commissions to the company." "and suppose the company failed to dispose of it?" suggested the poet. "they'd do just as ordinary banks do with checks--stamp it 'not good,'" said the idiot. "that, however, wouldn't happen very often if the concern had an intelligent receiving-teller to detect counterfeits. if the receiving-teller were a man fit for the position and a poet brought in a quatrain with five lines in it, he could detect it at once and hand it back. so with comic poems. i might go there with a poem i thought was comic, and proceed to deposit it with the usual deposit slip. the teller would look at it a second, scrutinize the humor carefully, and then if it was not what i thought it, would stamp it 'not comic' or 'counterfeit.' it is perfectly simple." "very simple," said mr. pedagog. "though i should have used a synonym of simple to describe it. it's idiotic." "that's what people said of columbus's idea that he could discover america," said the idiot. "everything that doesn't have dollars slathered all over it in plain view is idiotic." "the word slathered is new to me," said the school-master; "but i fancy i know what you mean." "the word slathered may be new to you," said the idiot, "but it is a good word. i have used it with great effect several times. whenever any one asks me that foolish question that is asked so often, 'what is the good word?' i always reply 'slathered,' and the what's-the-good-word fiend goes off hurt in his mind. he doesn't know what i mean any more than i do, but it shuts him up completely, which is just so much gained." "i must confess," said the poet, "that i cannot myself see where there is any money for your rhyme clearing-house. ordinarily i quite approve of your schemes, but in this instance i go over to the enemy." "i don't say that it is a gold-mine," said the idiot. "i doubt if i had every cent that is paid for poetry in a year by everybody to everybody that my income would reach one hundredth part of what i'd receive as a successful manufacturer of soap; but there would be more money in poetry than there is if by some pooling of our issues we could corner the market. suppose every writer of a quatrain in america should send his whole product to us. we could say to the magazines, 'gentlemen, quatrains are not quatraining as hard as they were. if you need a four-line bit of gloom and rhyme to finish off your thirty-second page, our price is twenty-five dollars instead of seventy-five cents, as of yore.' so with all other kinds of verse. we'd simply name our figure, force the editors to accept it, and unload. we might get caught on the last thirty or forty thousand, but our profits on the others would enable us to more than meet the losses." "and would you pay the author the twenty-five dollars?" asked mr. whitechoker. "not if we were sane," replied the idiot. "we'd pay the author two dollars and fifty cents, which is one dollar and seventy-five cents more than he gets now. _he_ couldn't complain." "and those that you couldn't sell?" asked the bibliomaniac. "we'd simply mark 'not good' and return to the author. that's what happens to him now, so no objection could be raised to that. but there's still another side to this matter," said the idiot. "publishers would be quite as anxious to help it along as the poets. dealing through us, they would be spared the necessity of interviewing poets, which i am informed is always painful because of the necessity which publishers labor under to give the poet to understand that they are in the business for profit, not for pleasure or mere love of sinking money in a magazine. so the publishers would keep a standing account of hard cash in our bank. say a magazine used one hundred dollars' worth of verse in a month. the publisher at the beginning of the year would deposit twelve hundred dollars with us, and throughout the year would draw out sonnets, ballads, or pastels-in-metre just as he needed them. the checks would read something like this: 'the poets' clearing-house association of the city of new york will pay to john bluepencil, editor, or order, ten sonnets. (signed) blank brothers & co.' or perhaps we'd receive a notice from a southern publisher to this effect: 'have drawn on you at sight for eight quatrains and a triolet.' now, when you consider how many publishers there are who would always keep a cash balance in the treasury, you begin to get some notion as to how we could meet our running expenses and pay our quarterly dividends to our stockholders anyhow; and as for future dividends, i believe our loan department would net us a sufficient amount to make the stock gilt-edged." "you would have a loan department, eh?" said mr. pedagog. "that would be popular," said the poet; "but there again i dispute the profit. you could find plenty of poets who would borrow your funds, but i doubt the security of the loans." "all of your objections are based on misconceptions," said the idiot. "the loan department would not lend money. it would lend poems for a consideration to those who are short and who need them to fulfil their obligations." "who on earth would want to borrow a poem, i'd like to know?" said the bibliomaniac. "lovers, chiefly," said the idiot. "never having been a poet yourself, sir, you have no notion how far the mere faculty of being able to dash off a sonnet to a lady's eyebrow helps a man along in ultimately becoming the possessor of that eyebrow, together with the rest of the lady. _i_ have seen women won, sir, by a rondeau. in fact, i have myself completely routed countless unpoetic rivals by exploding in their ranks burning quatrains to the fair objects of our affections. with woman the man who can write a hymn of thanksgiving that he is permitted to gaze into her cerulean orbs has a great advantage over the wight who has to tell her she has dandy blue eyes in commonplace prose. the commonplace-prose wight knows it, too, and he'd pay ten per cent. of his salary during courtship if he could devise a plan by means of which he could pass himself off as a poet. to meet this demand, our loan department would be established. an unimaginative lover could come in and describe the woman he adored; the loan clerk would fish out a sonnet to fit the girl, and the lover could borrow it for ten days, just as brokers borrow stock. armed with this he could go up to harlem, or wherever else the maiden lived, and carry consternation into the hearts of his rivals by spouting the sonnet as nonchalantly as though he had just thought of it. so it would go on. for the following call he could borrow a ballad singing the glories of her raven locks, likening them to the beautiful night, or, if the locks were red instead of black, to the aurora borealis." "you'd have trouble finding a rhyme to borealis," said the poet. "tutt!" said the idiot. "what's the matter with 'glory, alice,' 'listen to my story, alice,' 'i'm going to war so gory, alice,' 'i fear you are a tory, alice' (this for a revolutionary poem), or 'come rowing in my dory, alice'? there's no end to 'em." "if you'll write a rhyming dictionary i'll buy a copy," was the poet's sole comment. "that will come later," said the idiot. "once get our clearing-house established, we can branch out into a general poetry trust and supply company that will make millions. we'll make so much money, by jove!" he added, slapping the table enthusiastically, "that we can afford to go into the publishing business ourselves and bring out volumes of verse for anybody and everybody. we can deal in fame! a man that couldn't write his own name so that anybody could read it could come to us and say: 'gentlemen, i've got everything but brains. i want to be an author and 'mongst the authors stand. i am told it is delightful to see one's book in print. i haven't a book, but i've got a dollar or two, and if you'll put out a first-class book of poems under my name i'll pay all expenses and give you a royalty of twenty per cent. on every copy i give away!' no money in it? bah! you gentlemen don't know. if you say fortune would not wait upon this venture _i_ say you are the kind of men who would sell government bonds for their value as mere engravings if you had the chance." "you certainly do draw a roseate picture," said mr. whitechoker. "i do indeed," said the idiot, "and the paint is laid on thick." "well, i hope it goes," said the poet. "i'll make a deposit the first day of three hundred and sixty-seven ballads, four hundred and twenty-three couplets, eighty-nine rondeaus, and one epic about ten yards in length, all of which i have in my desk at this moment." "very well," said the idiot, rising, "with that encouragement from you i feel warranted in ordering the 'not good' stamp at least." x some electrical suggestions "if i were beginning life all over again," said the idiot, "i'd be an electrician. it seems to me that of all modern pursuits, barring architecture perhaps, electricity is the most fascinating." "there's probably more money in it than there is in idiocy, too, i fancy," said the bibliomaniac, dryly. "well, i should think so," assented the idiot. "idiocy is merely an intellectual diversion. electricity is a practical science. idiocy cannot be said to be anything more than a luxury, while electricity has become a necessity. i do not even claim that any real lasting benefit can come to the world through idiocy, but in electricity are possibilities, not yet realized, for which the world will be distinctly better and happier." "it is kind of you to speak so highly of electricity," said the doctor. "the science may now advance, knowing that you approve." "approve?" cried the idiot. "approve is not the word, sir. i enthuse--and why should i not, feeling, as i do, that in the electrical current lies the germ of the elixir of life! i thoroughly believe that a bottle of liquefied electricity would make us all young." "then don't take it!" said the school-master. "you have suffered from an aggravated case of youngness for as long a time as i have known you. pray do nothing to intensify your youth." "i fear i shall be forced to deny myself that pleasure, mr. pedagog," returned the idiot, mildly, "for the unhappy reason that as yet the formula for the electrical elixir has not been discovered; that it will be discovered before i die i hope and pray, because, unlike the man in the hymn, i would live always. i'd like to be an immortal." "an immortal idiot! think of it!" said the doctor. "i didn't expect much sympathy from you, dr. capsule," said the idiot. "the man with car-horses to sell does not dote upon the trolley-car." "the application of the allegory is not entirely apparent," said the doctor. "no?" said the idiot. "i am surprised. i thought you intellectuals absorbed ideas more quickly. to deal in plain terms, since it appears to be necessary, a plan which involves the indefinite extension of mortal life and the elimination of bodily ills is not likely to receive the hearty endorsement of the medical profession. if a man could come home on a stormy night and offset the deleterious effects of wet feet by swallowing an electric pill, one containing two volts, like a two-grain quinine pill, for instance, with greater certainty than one feels in taking quinine, your profession would have to put up the shutters and go into some such business as writing articles on 'measles as it used to be,' or 'disorders of the ante-electrical period.' the fine part of it all is that we should not have to rely for our medicines upon the state of the arsenic market, or the quinine supply, or the squill product of the year. electric sparks can be made without number whether the sun shines or not. the failure of the peruvian bark crop, or the destruction by an early frost of the castor oil wells, would cease to be a hideous possibility to delicate natures. they could all fail for all mankind need fear, for electricity can be generated when and wherever one has need of it. if your electric pills were used up, and the chemist too far away from your house for you to get the supply replenished at the moment, you could put on your slippers and by walking up and down your carpeted floor for ten or fifteen minutes generate enough electricity to see you through. of course you'd have to have a pair of dynamic-storage-reservoir slippers to catch the sparks as they flew, but i fancy they'd be less costly in the long run than the medicines we have to-day." "why have wet feet at all if electricity is to be so all-powerful?" suggested mr. whitechoker. "why not devise an electrical foot-protector and ward off all possibility of damp, cold feet?" "you couldn't do that with men and women constituted as they are," said the idiot. "your foot-protector would no doubt be a good thing, but so are rubber overshoes. nothing will ever be patented to compel a man to keep his feet dry, and he won't do it except under compulsion, but once having his feet wet he will seek the remedy. it's the elixir of life that i bank on most, however. i don't believe there is one among us, excepting mrs. pedagog, to whom twenty-five was not the most delightful period of existence. to mrs. pedagog, as to all women, eighteen is the limit. but men at twenty-five and women at eighteen know so much, enjoy so much, regard themselves so highly! there is nothing _blasã©_ about them then. disillusion--which i think ought to be called dissolution--comes later. at thirty a man discovers that the things he knew at twenty-five aren't so; and as for a woman at twenty-five, if so be she is unmarried, her life is empty, and if so be she is married, she has cares in the shape of children and a husband, who as a theory was a poet, but who as a reality is a mere business machine who is oftentimes no fonder of staying at home than he was before he was married and went out to see her every night." "what a wise little pessimist he is!" said mr. pedagog to the doctor. "very. but i fail to comprehend why he branches off into pessimism when electricity was his text," said the doctor. "because he's the id--" began the bibliomaniac, but the idiot interrupted him. "don't jump fences, gentlemen, before you know whether they are made of barbed wire or not. i'm coming to the points you are bringing up, and if you are not careful they may puncture you," he said. "i am not in any sense a pessimist. quite the contrary. i am an optimist. i'm not old enough or cross-grained enough as yet to be a pessimist, and it's because i don't want to be a pessimist that i want this elixir of electricity to hurry up and have itself patented. if men when they reached the age of twenty-five, and women at eighteen, would begin to take this they might live to be a thousand and yet retain all the spirit and feelings of twenty-five and eighteen. that's the connection, dr. capsule. if i could be twenty-five all my life i'd be as happy as a bird--and if i were the poet here i'd immortalize that idea in verse- "a man's the biggest thing alive when he has got to twenty-five; and as for woman, she's a queen whose summers number just eighteen." "that's a good idea," returned the poet. "i'll make a note of that, and if i sell it i'll give you a commission." "no, don't do that," said the idiot, slyly. "i shall be satisfied to see your name in print." the poet having accepted this sally in the spirit in which it was intended, the idiot resumed: "but of course the elixir and the electrical pills are as yet all in the air. we haven't even taken a step in that direction. mr. edison and other wizards have been too much occupied with electric lights and telephones and phonographs and transatlantic notions to pay any attention to schemes to prolong life and keep us, despite our years, perpetually young." "i fancy they are likely to continue to do so," said the doctor. "whatever motive you may attribute to me for pooh-poohing your notions, i do so. no sane person wants to live forever, and if it were possible that all men might live forever, you'd soon find the world so crowded that the slighter actors in the human comedy would be shoved off the stage. there are enough people in the world now, without man's adding all future generations to their number and making death an impossibility." "that's all nonsense," said the idiot. "my elixir wouldn't make death an impossibility. any man who thought he'd had enough at the end of a thousand years could stop taking the elixir and shuffle off the mortal coil. as a matter of fact, not more than ten per cent. of the people in the world would have any faith in the elixir at all. i know people to-day who do not take advantage of the many patent remedies that are within their reach, preferring the mustard-plaster and catnip-tea of their forefathers. there's where human nature works again. i believe that if i were myself the discoverer of the formula for my mixture, and for an advertisement secured a letter from a man saying, 'i was dying of old age, having reached the advanced period of ninety-seven; i took two bottles of your electrical elixir and am now celebrating my twenty-fifth birthday again,' ninety-nine per cent. of the people who read it would laugh and think it had strayed out of the funny column. people lack confidence in their fellow-men--that's all; but if they were twenty-five and eighteen that would all be changed. we are very trustful at twenty-five and eighteen, which is one of the things i like about those respective ages. when i was twenty-five i believed in everybody, including myself. now--well, i'm older. but enough of schemes, which i must admit are somewhat visionary--as the telephone would have seemed one hundred years ago. let us come down to realities in electricity. i can't see why more is not made of the phonograph for the benefit of the public. take a man like chauncey m. de choate. he goes here and he goes there to make speeches, when i've no doubt he'd much prefer to stay at home cutting coupons off his bonds. why can't the phonograph voice do _his_ duty? instead of making the same speech over and over again, why can't some electrician so improve the phonograph that de choate can say what he has to say through a funnel, have it impressed on a cylinder, duplicated and reduplicated and scattered broadcast over the world? if mr. edison could impart what poets call stentorian tones to the phonograph, he'd be doing a great and noble work. again, for smaller things, like a dance, why can't the phonograph be made useful at a ball? i attended one the other night, and when i wanted to dance the two-step the band played the polka; if i wished the polka it played a waltz. some men can only dance the two-step--they don't know the waltz, the polka, or the schottische. now why can't the phonograph come to the rescue? in almost any hotel in new york you can drop a nickel in a slot and hear sousa's band on the phonograph. why not extend the principle and have a phonograph for men who can dance nothing but the two-step, charged with 'the washington post march,' and supplied with four tubes with receivers to put in the ears of the listeners? make it small enough for a man to carry in his pocket; then at a ball he could go up to a young lady, ask her to dance, put two of the receivers in her ears, two in his, and trip the light fantastic toe utterly independently of what other people were dancing. it's possible. mr. edison could do it in five minutes, and every one would be satisfied. it might be rather droll to see two people dancing the two-step while eight others were fastened on to a lanciers phonograph, and a dozen or more other couples were dancing respectively the waltz, schottische, and virginia reel, but we'd soon get used to that, and no man need become a wall-flower because he couldn't dance the dance that happened to be on. furthermore, you'd be able to do away with the musicians, who always cast a pall over dances because of their superiority to the rest of the world in general and the dancers in particular." "how about your couple that prefer to sit out the dance on the stairs?" said the poet, who, in common with the idiot, knew several things about dances that messrs. pedagog and whitechoker did not. "it would be particularly attractive to them," said the idiot. "they could sit on the stairs and wax sentimental over any dreamy air the man happened to have in his vest-pocket. he could arrange all that beforehand--find out what song she thought divinest, and go loaded accordingly. and as for the things that usually happen on stairs at dances, as well as in conservatories at balls, with the aid of a phonograph a man could propose to a girl in the presence of a thousand people, and nobody but the maiden herself would be the wiser. i tell you, gentlemen," the idiot added, enthusiastically, as he rose to depart, "if the phonograph people only knew their power they'd do great things. the patent vest-pocket phonograph for music at balls and proposals for bashful men alone would make their fortunes if they only could see it. i almost wish i were an electrician and not an idiot." with which he left the room, and mr. pedagog whispered to mrs. pedagog that while he considered the idiot very much of an idiot, there was no denying that at times he did get hold of ideas that were not wholly bad. "that's true," said the good landlady. "i think if you had proposed to me through a phonograph i should not have had to guess at what you meant and lead you on to express yourself more clearly. i didn't want to say yes until i was fully convinced that you meant what you didn't seem able to say." xi concerning children the poet had been away for a week, and on his return to his accustomed post at the breakfast-table seemed but a shadow of his former self. his eyes were heavy and his long locks appeared straggly enough for a man of far more extended reputation as a singer of melodious verse. "to judge from your appearance, mr. poet," said the idiot, after welcoming his friend, "you've had a lively vacation. you certainly do not look as if you had devoted much of it to sleep." "i haven't," said the poet, wearily, "i haven't averaged more than two hours of sleep daily since i went away." "i thought you told me you were going off into the country for a rest?" observed the idiot. "i did--and this is what comes of it," returned the poet. "i went to visit my sister up in saratoga county. she has seven children." "aha!" smiled the idiot. "that's it, is it--well, i can sympathize with you. i've had experience with youngsters myself. i love 'em, but i like to take 'em on the instalment plan--very little at a time. i have a small cousin with a capacity for play and impudence that can't be equalled. his mother wrote me once and asked if i thought hagenbeck, the wild-animal tamer, could be induced to take him in hand." "that's the kind," put in the poet, his face lighting up a little upon discovering that there was some one at least at the board who could sympathize with him. "my sister's seven are all of the wild-animal variety. i'd rather fall in with seven tigers than put in another week with my beloved nephews and nieces." "did they play alp with you?" the idiot asked, with a grin. "alp?" said the poet. "no--not that i know of. they may have, however. i was hardly conscious of what they were doing the last two days of my stay there. they simply overpowered me, and i gave in and became a toy for the time." "it isn't much fun being a toy," said the idiot. "i think i'd rather play alp." "what on earth is alp?" asked mr. pedagog, his curiosity aroused. "i've heard enough absurd names for games in the last five years, but i must say, for pure idiocy and lack of suggestiveness, the name of alp surpasses all." "that's as it should be," said the idiot. "my small cousin invented alp, and anything that boy does is apt to surpass all. he takes after me in some things. but alp, while it may seem to lack suggestiveness as a name, is really just the name for the game. it's very simple. it is played by one alp and as many chamois as desire to take a hand. as a rule the man plays the alp and the children are the chamois. the man gets down on his hands and knees, puts his head on the floor, and has a white rug put on his back, the idea being that he is an alp and the rug represents its snow-clad top." "and the chamois?" asked mr. whitechoker. "the chamois climbs the alp and jumps about on the top of it," said the idiot. "my experience, based upon two hours a day of it for ten consecutive days, is that it's fun for the chamois but rough on the alp; and i got so after a while that i really preferred business to pleasure and gave up playing alp to return to work before my vacation was half over." "how do you score in this game of alp?" said mr. pedagog, smiling broadly as he thought of there being an embryo idiot somewhere who could discomfit the one fate had thrown across his path. "i never had the strength to inquire," said the idiot. "but my impression is that the game is to see which has the greater endurance, the chamois or the alp. the one that gets tired of playing first loses. i always lost. my small cousin is a storehouse of nervous energy. i believe he could play choo-choo cars with a real engine and last longer than the engine--which being the case, i couldn't hope to hold out against him." "my nephews didn't play alp," said the poet. "i believe alp would have been a positive relief to me. they made me tell them stories and poems from morning until night, and all night too, for one of them shared his room with me, and the worst of it all was that they all had to be new stories and new poems, so i was kept composing from one week's end to the other." "why weren't you firm with them and say you wouldn't, and let that end it?" said mr. pedagog. "ha--ha!" laughed the idiot. "that's fine, isn't it, mr. poet? it's very evident, mr. pedagog, that you're not acquainted with children. now, my small cousin can make the same appeal over and over again in a hundred and fifty different ways. you may have the courage to say no a hundred and forty-nine times, but i have yet to meet the man who could make his no good with a boy of real persistent spirit. i can't do it. i've tried, but i've had to give in sooner or later." "same way with me, multiplied by seven," said the poet, with difficulty repressing a yawn. "i tried the no business on the morning of the third day, and gave it up as a hopeless case before the clock struck twelve." "i'd teach 'em," said mr. pedagog. "you'd have to learn 'em first," retorted the idiot. "you can't do anything with children unless you understand them. you've got to remember several things when you have small boys to deal with. in the first place, they are a great deal more alert than you are. they are a great deal more energetic; they know what they want, and in getting it they haven't any dignity to restrain them, wherein they have a distinct advantage over you. worst of all, down in your secret heart you want to laugh, even when they most affront you." "i don't," said mr. pedagog, shortly. "and why? because you don't know them, cannot sympathize with them, and look upon them as evils to be tolerated rather than little minds to be cultivated. hard a time as i have had as an alp, i'd feel as if a great hole had been punched in my life if anything should deprive me of my cousin sammie. he knows it and i know it, and that is why we are chums," said the idiot. "what i like about sammie is that he believes in me," he added, a little wistfully. "i wouldn't mind doing that myself--if i could." "you might think differently if you suffered from seven sammies the way the poet does," said the bibliomaniac. "there couldn't be seven sammies," said the idiot. "sammie is unique--to me. but i am not at all narrow in this matter. i can very well imagine how sammie could be very disagreeable to some people. i shouldn't care much for alp, i suppose, if when night came on sammie didn't climb up on my lap and tell me he thought i was the greatest man that ever lived next to his mother and father. that's the thing, mr. pedagog, that makes alp tolerable--it's the sugar sauce to the batter pudding. there's a good deal of plain batter in the pudding, but with the sauce generously mixed in you don't mind it so much. that boy would be willing to go to sleep on a railway track if i told him i'd stand between him and the express train. if i told him i could hammer down gibraltar with putty he'd believe it, and bring me his putty-blower to help along in the great work. that's why i think a man's so much better off if he is a father. somebody has fixed a standard for him which, while he may know he can't live up to it, he'll try to live up to, and by aiming high he won't be so apt to hit low as he otherwise might. as sammie's father once said to me: 'by jove, idiot,' he said, 'if men could _only_ be what their children think them!'" "nevertheless they should be governed, curbed, brought up!" said the bibliomaniac. "they should, indeed," said the idiot. "and in such a fashion that when they are governed, curbed, and brought up they do not realize that they have been governed, curbed, and brought up. the man who plays the tyrant with his children isn't the man for me. give me the man who, like my father, is his son's intimate, personal friend, his confidant, his chum. it may have worked badly in my case. i don't think it has--in any event, if i were ever the father of a boy i'd try to make him feel that i was not a despot in whose hands he was powerless, but a mainstay to fall back on when things seemed to be going wrong--fountain-head of good advice, a sympathizer--in short, a chum." "you certainly draw a pleasant picture," said mr. whitechoker, kindly. "thank you," said the idiot. "it's not original with me. my father drew it. but despite my personal regard for sammie, i do think something ought to be done to alleviate the sufferings of the parent. take the mother of a boy like sammie, for instance. she has him all day and generally all night. sammie's father goes to business at eight o'clock and returns at six, thinking he has worked hard, and wonders why it is that sammie's mother looks so confoundedly tired. it makes him slightly irritable. she has been at home taking things easy all day. he has been in town working like a dog. what right has she to be tired? he doesn't realize that she has had to entertain sammie at those hours of the day when sammie is in his best form. she has found him trying to turn somersaults at the top of the back stairs; she has patiently borne his musical efforts on the piano, upon which he practises daily for a few minutes, generally with a hammer or a stick, or something else equally well calculated to beautify the keys; she has had to interfere in sammie's well-meant efforts to instruct his small brother in the art of being an indian who can whoop and scalp all in the same breath, thereby incurring for the moment sammie's undying hatred; she has heard sammie using language which an inconsiderate hired man has not scrupled to use in sammie's presence; she has, with terror in her soul, watched him at play with a knife which some friend of the family who admires sammie had given him, and has again incurred his enmity by finally, to avoid nervous prostration, taken that treasure from him. in short, she has passed a day of real tragedy. sammie is farce to me, comedy to his father, and tragedy to his mother. cannot something be done for her? is there no way by means of which sammie can be entertained during the day, for entertained he must be, that does not utterly destroy the nervous system of his mother? can't some inventive genius who has studied the small boy, who knows the little ins and outs of his nature, and who, above all, sympathizes with those ins and outs, put his mind on the life of the woman of domestic inclination, and do something to make her life less of a burden and more of a joy?" "you are the man to do it," said the bibliomaniac. "an inventive genius such as you are ought to be able to solve the problem." "perhaps he ought to be," said the idiot; "but we are not all what we ought to be, i among the number. almost anything seems possible to me until i think of the mother at home all day with a dear, sweet, bright, energetic boy like sammie. then, i confess, i am utterly at a loss to know what to do." and then, as none of the boarders had any solution of the problem to suggest, i presume there was none among them who knew "how to be tranquil though a mother." perhaps when women take up invention matters will seem more hopeful. xii dreamaline "well, mr. idiot," said mr. pedagog, as the guests gathered about the table, "how goes the noble art of invention with you? you've been at it for some time now. do you find that you have succeeded in your self-imposed mission and made the condition of the civilized less unbearable?" "frankly, mr. pedagog, i have failed," said the idiot, sadly. "failed egregiously. i cannot find that of all the many schemes i have evolved for the benefit of the human race any single one has been adopted by those who would be benefited. wherefore, with the exception of dreamaline, which i have not yet developed to my satisfaction, i shall do no more inventing. what is the use? even you, gentlemen, here have tacitly declined to accept my plan for the elimination of irritation on waffle days, a plan at once simple, picturesque, and efficacious. with such discouragement at home, what hope have i for better fortune abroad?" "it is dreadful to be an unappreciated genius!" said the bibliomaniac, gruffly. "it's better to be a plain lunatic. a plain lunatic is at least free from the consciousness of failure." "nevertheless, i'd rather be myself than any one else at this board," rejoined the idiot. "unappreciated though i be, i am at least happy. consciousness of failure need not necessarily destroy one's happiness. if i do the best i can with the tools i have i needn't weep because i fail, and with his consciousness of failure the unappreciated genius always has the consolation of knowing that it is not he but the world that is wrong. if i am a philanthropist and offer a thousand dollars to a charity, and the charity declines to accept it because i happen to have made it out of my interest in 'a widows' and orphans' speculation company, large losses a surety,' it is the charity that loses, not i. so with my plans. social expansion is not taken up by society--who dies, i or society? capitalists decline to consider my proposition for a general poetry trust and supply company. who loses a fine chance, i or the capitalists? i may be a little discouraged for the time being, but what of that? invention isn't the only occupation in the world for me. i can give up philanthropy and take up misanthropy in a moment if i want to--and with dreamaline i can rule the world." "ah--just what is this dreamaline?" asked mr. whitechoker, interested. "that, sir, is the question which i am now trying to answer for myself," returned the idiot. "if i could answer it, as i have said, i could rule the world--everybody could rule the world; that is to say, his own world. it is based on an old idea which has been found by some to be practicable, but it has never been developed to the point which i hope to attain." "wake me up when he gets to the point, will you, kindly?" whispered the doctor to the bibliomaniac. "if you sleep until then you'll never wake," said the bibliomaniac. "to my mind the idiot never comes to a point." "you are a little too mysterious for me," observed mr. whitechoker. "i know no more about dreamaline now than i did when you began." "which is my case exactly," said the idiot. "it is a vague, shadowy something as yet. it is only a germ lost in my cerebral wrinkles, but i hope by a persistent smoothing out of those wrinkles with what i might call the flat-iron of thought, i may yet lay hold of the microbe, and with it electrify the world. once dreamaline is discovered all other discoveries become as nothing; all other inventions for the amelioration of the condition of the civilized will be unnecessary, and even progressive waffles will cease to fascinate." "perhaps," said the bibliomaniac, "if you will give us a hint as to the nature of your plan in general we may be able to help you in carrying it out." "the doctor might," said the idiot. "my genial friend who occasionally imbibes might--even the poet, with his taste for welsh rarebits, might--but from you and mr. pedagog and mr. whitechoker i fear i should receive little assistance. indeed, i am not sure but that mr. whitechoker might disapprove of the plan altogether." "any plan which makes life happier and better is sure to meet with my approval," said mr. whitechoker. "with that encouragement, then," said the idiot, "i will endeavor to lay before you my crowning invention. dreamaline, as its name may suggest, should be a patent medicine, by taking which man should become oblivious to care." "what's the matter with champagne for that?" interrupted the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibes. "champagne has some good points," said the idiot. "but there are two drawbacks--the effects and the price. both of these drawbacks, so far from making us oblivious to our cares, add to them. the superiority of dreamaline over champagne, or even over beer, which is comparatively cheap, is that one dose of dreamaline, costing one cent, will do more for the patient than one case of champagne or one keg of beer; it is not intoxicating or ruinous to the purse. furthermore, it is more potent for good, since, under its genial influences, man can do that to which he aspires, or, what is perhaps better yet, merely imagine that he is doing that to which he aspires, and so avoid the disappointment which i am told always comes with ambition achieved. "take, for instance, the literary man. we know of many cases in which the literary man has stimulated his imagination by means of drugs, and while under the influence has penned the most marvellous tales. that man sacrifices himself for the delectation of others. in order to write something for the world to rave over, he takes a dose which makes him rave, and which ultimately kills him. dreamaline will make this entirely unnecessary. instead of the writers taking hasheesh, the reader takes dreamaline. instead of one man having to smoke opium for millions, the millions take dreamaline for themselves as individuals. i would have the scientists, then, the chemists, study the subject carefully, decide what quality it is in hasheesh that makes a writer conceive of these horrible situations, put this into a nostrum, and sell it to those who like horrible situations, and let them dream their own stories." "very interesting," said the bibliomaniac, "but all readers do not like horrible situations. we are not _all_ morbid." "for which we should be devoutly thankful," said the idiot. "but your point is not well taken. on each bottle of what i should call 'literary dreamaline,' to distinguish it from 'art dreamaline,' 'scientific dreamaline,' and so on, i should have printed explicit directions showing consumers how the dose should be modified to meet the consumer's taste. one man likes a de maupassant story. let him take his dreamaline straight, lie down and dream. he'd get his de maupassant story with a vengeance. another likes the modern story in realism--a story in which a prize might be offered to the reader who finds a situation, an incident in the three hundred odd pages of the book he reads. this man could take a spoonful of dreamaline and dilute it to his taste. a drop of dreamaline, which taken raw would give a man a dream like doctor jekyll and mr. hyde, put into a hogshead of pure water would enable the man who took a spoonful of it before going to bed to fall asleep and walk through a three-volume novel by henry james. thus every man could get what he wanted at small expense. dreamaline for readers sold at a dollar a quart would give every consumer as big and varied a library as he wished, and would be a great saving to the eyes. people would have more time for other pleasures if by taking a dose of dreamaline before retiring they could get all their literature in their sleeping hours. then every bottle would pay for itself ten times over if on awakening the next morning the consumer would write out the story he had dreamed and publish it for the benefit of those who were afraid to take the medicine." "you wouldn't make much money out of it, though," said the poet. "if one bottle sufficed for a library you wouldn't find much of a demand." "that could be got around in two ways," said the idiot. "we could copyright every bottle of dreamaline and require the consumers to pay us a royalty on every book inspired by it, or we could ourselves take what i would call financial dreamaline, one dose of which would make a man feel like a millionaire. life is only feeling after all. if you feel like a millionaire you are as happy as a millionaire--happier, in fact, because in reality you do not have to wear your thumbs out cutting coupons on the first of every month. then i should have art dreamaline. you could have it arranged so that by a certain dose you could have old masters all over your house; by another dose you could get a collection of modern french paintings, and by swallowing a whole bottle you could dream that your walls were lined with mysteries that would drive the impressionists crazy with envy. in scientific dreamaline you would get ideas for invention that would revolutionize the world." "how about the poets and the humorists?" asked the poet. "they'd be easy," said the idiot. "i wouldn't have any hasheesh in the mixture for them. welsh rarebit would do, and you'd get poems so mysterious and jokes so uproarious that the whole world would soon be filled with wonder and with laughter. in short, dreamaline would go into every walk of life. music, letters, art, poetry, finance. every man according to his bent or his tastes could partake. every man could make with it his own little world in which he was himself the prime mover, and so harmless would it be that when next morning he awoke he would be as tranquil and as happy as a babe. i hope, gentlemen, to see the day when dreamaline is an established fact, when we cannot enter a household in the land that does not have hanging on its walls, after the manner of those glass fire hand-grenades, a wire rack holding a row of bottles labelled art, letters, music, and so on, instead of libraries, picture-galleries, music-rooms, and laboratories. the rich and the poor alike may have it. the child who loves to have stories told to him will cry for it; the poor wanderer who loves opera and cannot afford even to pass the opera-house in a cable-car, can go into a drug-store, and for a cent, begged of a kind-hearted pedestrian on the street, purchase a sufficient quantity to imagine himself a box-holder; the ambitious statesman can through its influences enjoy the sensation of thinking himself president of the united states. not a man, woman, or child lives but would find it a boon, and as harmless as a graham cracker. that, gentlemen, is my crowning invention, and until i see it realized i invent no more. good-morning." and in a moment he was gone. "well!" said mr. pedagog. "that's the cap to the climax." "yes," said mrs. smithers-pedagog. "where do you suppose he got the idea?" asked the bibliomaniac. "i don't know," said the doctor. "but i suspect that without knowing it he's had some of the stuff he describes. most of his schemes indicate it, and dreamaline, i think, proves it." the end asa holmes annie·fellows·johnston [illustration] asa holmes or at the cross-roads works of annie fellows johnston the little colonel series (_trade mark, reg. u. s. pat. of._) each one vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated the little colonel stories $1.50 (containing in one volume the three stories, "the little colonel," "the giant scissors," and "two little knights of kentucky.") the little colonel's house party 1.50 the little colonel's holidays 1.50 the little colonel's hero 1.50 the little colonel at boarding-school 1.50 the little colonel in arizona 1.50 the little colonel's christmas vacation 1.50 the little colonel: maid of honor 1.50 the above 8 vols., _boxed_ 12.00 illustrated holiday editions each one vol., small quarto, cloth, illustrated, and printed in color the little colonel $1.25 the giant scissors 1.25 two little knights of kentucky 1.25 the above 3 vols., _boxed_ 3.75 cosy corner series each one vol., thin 12mo, cloth, illustrated the little colonel $.50 the giant scissors .50 two little knights of kentucky .50 big brother .50 ole mammy's torment .50 the story of dago .50 cicely .50 aunt 'liza's hero .50 the quilt that jack built .50 flip's "islands of providence" .50 mildred's inheritance .50 other books joel; a boy of galilee $1.50 in the desert of waiting .50 the three weavers .50 keeping tryst .50 asa holmes 1.00 songs ysame (poems, with albion fellows bacon) 1.00 l. c. page & company 200 summer street boston, mass. [illustration] asa holmes or at the cross=roads by annie fellows johnston author of "the little colonel," "two little knights of kentucky," etc. with a frontispiece by ernest fosbery [illustration] boston l.c. page & company publishers _copyright, 1900, 1901_ by e. s. barnett _copyright, 1902_ by l. c. page and company (incorporated) _all rights reserved_ _seventh impression_ colonial press electrotyped and printed by c. h. simonds & co. boston, mass., u. s. a. to a dear old philosopher whose cheerful optimism and sunny faith have sweetened life for all who know him asa holmes or at the cross-roads chapter i there is no place where men learn each other's little peculiarities more thoroughly than in the group usually to be found around the stove in a country store. such acquaintance may be of slow growth, like the oak's, but it is just as sure. each year is bound to add another ring to one's knowledge of his neighbours if he lounges with them, as man and boy, through the saturday afternoons of a score of winters. a boy learns more there than he can be taught in schools. it may be he is only a tow-headed, freckle-faced little fellow of eight when he rides over to the cross-roads store for the first time by himself. too timid to push into the circle around the fire, he stands shivering on the outskirts, looking about him with the alertness of a scared rabbit, until the storekeeper fills his kerosene can and thrusts the weekly mail into his red mittens. then some man covers him with confusion by informing the crowd that "that little chap is perkins's oldest," and he scurries away out of the embarrassing focus of the public eye. but the next time he is sent on the family errands he stays longer and carries away more. perched on the counter, with his heels dangling over a nail keg, while he waits for the belated mail train, he hears for the first time how the government ought to be run, why it is that the country is going to the dogs, and what will make hens lay in cold weather. added to this general information, he slowly gathers the belief that these men know everything in the world worth knowing, and that their decisions on any subject settle the matter for all time. he may have cause to change his opinion later on, when his sapling acquaintance has gained larger girth; when he has loafed with them, smoked with them, swapped lies and spun yarns, argued through a decade of stormy election times, and talked threadbare every subject under the sun. but now, in his callow judgment, he is listening to the wit and wisdom of the nation. now, as he looks around the overflowing room, where butter firkins crowd the calicoes and crockery, and where hams and saddles swing sociably from the same rafter, as far as his knowledge goes, this is the only store in the universe. some wonder rises in his childish brain as he counts the boxes of axle-grease and the rows of shining new pitchforks, as to where all the people live who are to use so many things. he has yet to learn that this one little store that is such a marvel to him is only a drop in the bucket, and that he may travel the width of the continent, meeting at nearly every mile-post that familiar mixture of odours--coal oil, mackerel, roasted coffee, and pickle brine. and a familiar group of men, discussing the same old subjects in the same old way, will greet him at every such booth he passes on his pilgrimage through vanity fair. probably in after years perkins's oldest will never realise how much of his early education has been acquired at that saturday afternoon loafing-place, but he will often find himself looking at things with the same squint with which he learned to view them through 'squire dobbs's short-sighted spectacles. many a time he will find that he has been unconsciously warped by the prejudices he heard expressed there, and that his opinions of life in general and men in particular are the outgrowth of those early conversations which gave him the creed of his boyhood. "them blamed yankees!" exclaims one of these neighbourhood orators, tilting his chair back against the counter, and taking a vicious bite at his plug of tobacco. "they don't know no better than to eat cold bread the year 'round!" and the boy, accepting the statement unquestioningly, stores away in his memory not only the remark, but all the weighty emphasis of disgust which accompanied the remark in the spitting of a mouthful of tobacco juice. henceforth his idea of the menu north of the mason and dixon line is that it resembles the bill of fare of a penitentiary, and he feels that there is something coldblooded and peculiar about a people not brought up on a piping hot diet of hoe-cake and beaten biscuit. in the same way the lad whose opinions are being moulded in some little corner grocery of a new england village, or out where the roads cross on the western prairie, receives his prejudices. it may be years before he finds out for himself that the land of boone is not fenced with whiskey jugs and feuds, and that the cap-sheaf on every shock of wheat in its domain is not a winchester rifle. but these prejudices, popular at local cross-roads, are only the side lines of which every section carries its own specialty. when it comes to staple articles, dear to the american heart and essential to its liberty and progress, their standard of value is the same the country over. one useful lesson the youthful lounger may learn here, if he can learn it anywhere, and that is to be a shrewd reader of men and motives. since staple characteristics in human nature are repeated everywhere, like staple dry goods and groceries, a thorough knowledge of the group around the stove will be a useful guide to perkins's oldest in forming acquaintances later in life. long after he has left the little hamlet and grown gray with the experiences of the metropolis, he will run across some queer dick whose familiar personality puzzles him. as he muses over his evening pipe, suddenly out of the smoke wreaths will spring the face of some old codger who aired his wisdom in the village store, and he will recognise the likeness between the two as quickly as he would between two cans of leaf lard bearing the same brand. but perkins's oldest is only in the primer of his cross-roads curriculum now, and these are some of the lessons he is learning as he edges up to the group around the fire. on the day before thanksgiving, for instance, he was curled up on a box of soap behind the chair of old asa holmes--miller holmes everybody calls him, because for nearly half a century his water-mill ground out the grist of all that section of country. he is retired now; gave up his business to his grandsons. they carry it on in another place with steam and modern machinery, and he is laid on the shelf. but he isn't a back number, even if his old deserted mill is. it is his boast that now he has nothing else to do, he not only keeps up with the times, but ahead of them. everybody goes to him for advice; everybody looks up to him as they do to a hardy old forest tree that's lived through all sorts of hurricanes, but has stood to the last, sturdy of limb, and sound to the core. he is as sweet and mellow as a winter apple, ripened in the sun, and that's why everybody likes to have him around. you don't see many old men like that. their troubles sour them. well, this day before thanksgiving the old miller was in his usual place at the store, and as usual it was he who was giving the cheerful turn to the conversation. some of the men were feeling sore over the recent election; some had not prospered as they had hoped with their crops, and were experiencing the pinch of hard times and sickness in their homes. still there was a holiday feeling in the atmosphere. frequent calls for nutmeg, and sage, and cinnamon, left the air spicy with prophecies of the morrow's dinner. the farmers had settled down for a friendly talk, with the comfortable sense that the crops were harvested, the wood piled away for the winter, and a snug, warm shelter provided for the cattle. it was good to see the hard lines relax in the weather-beaten faces, in the warmth of that genial comradeship. even the gruffest were beginning to thaw a little, when the door opened, and bud hines slouched in. the spirits of the crowd went down ten degrees. not that he said anything; only gave a gloomy nod by way of greeting as he dropped into a chair. but his whole appearance said it for him; spoke in the droop of his shoulders, and the droop of his hat brim, and the droop of his mouth at the corners. he looked as if he might have sat for the picture of the man in the "biglow papers," when he said: "sometimes my innard vane pints east for weeks together, my natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins." the miller greeted him with the twinkle in his eye that eighty years and more have never been able to dim; and perkins's oldest had his first meeting with the man who always finds a screw loose in everything. nothing was right with bud hines. one of his horses had gone lame, and his best heifer had foundered, and there was rust in his wheat. he didn't have any heart to keep thanksgiving, and he didn't see how anybody else could, with the bottom dropped clean out of the markets and the new road tax so high. for his part he thought that everything was on its last legs, and it wouldn't be long till all the powers were at war, and prices would go up till a poor man simply couldn't live. it was impossible not to be affected more or less by his gloomy forebodings, and the old miller, looking around on the listening faces, saw them settling back in their old discouraged lines. clasping his hands more firmly over the top of his cane, he exclaimed: "now look here, bud hines, i'm going to give you a proverb that was made on purpose for such a poor, weak-kneed mr. ready-to-halt as you are: 'never be discouraged, and never be a discourager!' if you can't live up to the first part, you certainly can to the second. no matter how hard things go with you, you've no right to run around throwing cold water on other people. what if your horse has gone lame? you've got a span of mules that can outpull my yoke of oxen any day. one heifer oughtn't to send a man into mourning the rest of his days, and it would be more fitting to be thankful over your good tobacco crop than to groan over the failure of your wheat. more fitting to the season. as for the rest of the things you're worrying over, why, man, they haven't happened yet, and maybe never will. my old grandad used to say to me when i was a lad, 'never cross your bridge till you come to it, asa,' and i've proved the wisdom of that saying many a time. suppose'n you put that in your pipe and smoke it." if perkins's oldest learns no other lesson this year than to put those two proverbs into practice, he will have had a valuable education. how many thanksgivings they will help to make for him! how many problems and perplexities they will solve! "never be discouraged; never be a discourager! don't cross your bridge until you come to it!" it is a philosophy that will do away with half the ills which flesh imagines it is heir to. thanksgiving day! how much more it means to the old miller than to the little fellow beside him on the soap box! to the child it is only a feast day; to the old man it is a festival that links him to a lifetime of sacred memories. "five and eighty years," he says, musingly, resting his chin on the wrinkled hands that clasp the head of his cane. a silence falls on the group around the stove, and through the cracked door the red firelight shines out on thoughtful faces. "it's a long time; five and eighty years," he repeats, "and every one of them crowned with a thanksgiving. boys," lifting his head and looking around him, "you've got a good bit of pike to travel over yet before you get as far as i've gone, and some of you are already half fagged out and beginning to wonder if it's all worth while--bud, here, for instance. i'd like to give you all a word of encouragement. "looking back, i can see that i've had as many ups and downs as any of you, and more than your share of work and trouble, for i've lived longer, and nearly all the years are marked with graves. seems to me that lately i've had to leave a new grave behind me at every mile-stone, till now i'm jogging on all alone. family gone, old neighbours gone, old friends--i'm the last of the old set. but, still, when all is said and done, i haven't lost heart, for 'i've lived, seen god's hand through a lifetime, and all was for best.' "when i was milling down there on bear creek you'd 'a' thought i was a fool if i hadn't taken my rightful toll out of every bushel of grist that ran through my hopper, and sometimes i think that the almighty must feel that way about us when we go on grinding and grinding, and never stopping to count up our share of the profit and pleasure and be thankful over it. i believe that no matter what life pours into our hopper, we are to grind some toll of good out of it for ourselves, and as long as a man does his part toward producing something for the world's good, some kind of bread for its various needs, he will never go hungry himself. "and i believe more than that. you've heard people compare old age to a harvest field, and talk about the autumn of life with its ripened corn waiting for the reaper death, and all that, and speak about the 'harvest home,' as if it were the glorious end of everything. but it never did strike me that way, boys. the best comes after the harvesting, when the wheat is turned into flour and the flour into bread, and the full, wholesome loaves go to make up blood and muscle and brain. that's giving it a sort of immortality, you might say, raising it into a higher order of life. and it's the same with a man. his old age is just a ripening for something better a little further on. all that we go through with here isn't for nothing, and at eighty-five, when it looks as if a man had come to the stepping-off place, i've come to believe that 'the best is yet to be.'" there is a stir around the door, and the old miller looks around inquiringly. the mail has come in, and he rises slowly to get his weekly paper. perkins's oldest, waiting his turn in front of the little case of pigeonholes, eyes the old man with wondering side glances. he has not understood more than half of what he has heard, but he is vaguely conscious that something is speaking to him now, as he looks into the tranquil old face. it is the miller's past that is calling to him; all those honest, hard-working years that show themselves in the bent form and wrinkled hands; the serene peacefulness that bespeaks a clear conscience; the big, sunny nature that looks out of those aged eyes; and above all the great hopefulness that makes his days a perpetual thanksgiving. the mute eloquence of an unspoken invitation thrills the child's heart, he knows not why: "grow old along with me; the best is yet to be!" it is the greatest lesson that perkins's oldest can ever learn. chapter ii one would have known that it was the day before christmas at the cross-roads store, even if the big life insurance calendar over the desk had not proclaimed the fact in bold red figures. an unwonted bustle pervaded the place. rows of plump, dressed turkeys hung outside the door, and on the end of the counter where the pyramid of canned tomatoes was usually stacked, a little evergreen tree stood in a brave array of tinsel and tiny christmas tapers. it was only an advertisement. no one might hope to be the proud possessor of the noah's ark lodged in its branches, or of the cheap toys and candy rings dangling from every limb, unless he had the necessary pennies. still, every child who passed it eyed it with such wistful glances that the little rubber santa claus at the base must have felt his elastic heart stretch almost to bursting. above the familiar odour of coal-oil and mackerel, new leather, roasted coffee and pickle brine, rose the holiday fragrance of cedar and oranges. "makes me think of when i was a kid," said a drummer who had been joking with the men around the stove, trying to kill time while he waited for the train that was to take him home for christmas. "there's nothing like that smell of cedar and oranges to resurrect the boy in a man. it puts me straight back into knickerbockers again, among a whole grove of early christmas trees. i'll never forget the way i felt when i picked my first pair of skates off one of them. a house and lot wouldn't give me such a thrill now." "aw, i don't believe christmas is at all what it's cracked up to be," said a voice from behind the stove, in such a gloomy tone that a knowing smile passed around the circle. "bet on you, bud hines, for findin' trouble, every time," laughed the storekeeper. "why, bud, there ain't no screw loose in christmas, is there?" "well, there just is!" snapped the man, resenting the laugh. "it comes too often for one thing. i just wish it had happened on leap-year, the twenty-ninth of february. it would be a heap less expensive having it just once in four years. seems to me we're always treading on its heels. my old woman hardly gets done knitting tidies for one christmas till she's hard at it for another. "anyhow, christmas never measures up to what you think it's a-going to--not by a jug-full. sure as you get your heart set on a patent nail-puller or a pair of fur gloves--something that'll do _you_ some good--your wife gives you a carpet sweeper, or an alarm-clock that rattles you out an hour too early every morning." the drummer led the uproarious laughter that followed. they were ready to laugh at anything in this season of good cheer, and the drummer's vociferous merriment was irresistible. he slapped the speaker on the back, adding jokingly, "that's one thing job never had to put up, did he, partner! he nearly lost his reputation for politeness over the misfit advice he didn't want. but there's no telling what he'd have done with misfit christmas gifts. it would take a star actor to play the grateful for some of the things people find in their stockings. for instance, to have a fond female relative give you a shaving outfit, when you wear a full beard." "you bet your life," answered the storekeeper feelingly. "now, if santa claus wasn't a fake--" "hist!" said the drummer, with a significant glance toward a small boy, perched on a soap-box in their midst, listening open-mouthed to every word. "i've children myself, and i'd punch anybody's head who would shake their faith in santy. it's one of the rosy backgrounds of childhood, in my opinion, and i've got a heap of happiness out of it since i was a kid, too, looking back and recollecting." it was very little happiness that the boy on the soap-box was getting out of anything, that gray december afternoon. he was weighed down with a feeling of age and responsibility that bore heavily on his eight-year-old shoulders. he had long felt the strain of his position, as pattern to the house of perkins, being the oldest of five. now there was another one, and to be counted as the oldest of six pushed him almost to the verge of gray hairs. there was another reason for his tear-stained face. he had been disillusioned. only that noon, his own mother had done that for which the drummer would have punched any one's head, had it been done to his children. "we're too poor, sammy. there can't be any christmas at our house this year," she had said, fretfully, as she stopped the noisy driving of nails into the chimney, on which he contemplated hanging the fraternal stockings. to his astonished "why?" she had replied with a few blunt truths that sent him out from her presence, shorn of all his childish hopefulness as completely as samson was shorn of his strength. there had been a sorry half-hour in the hay-mow, where he snuffled over his shattered faith alone, and from whence he went out, a hardened little skeptic, to readjust himself to a cold and santa clausless world. the only glimmer of comfort he had had since was when the drummer, with a friendly wink, slipped a nickel into his hand. but even that added to his weight of responsibility. he dropped it back and forth from one little red mitten to another, with two impulses strong upon him. the first was to spend it for six striped sticks of peppermint candy, one for each stocking, and thus compel christmas to come to the house of perkins. the other was to buy one orange and go off in a corner and suck it all by himself. he felt that fate owed him that much of a reparation for his disappointment. he was in the midst of this inward debate when a new voice joined the discussion around the stove. it came from cy akers. "well, _i_ think it's downright sinful to stuff a child with such notions. you may call 'em fairy-tales all you like, but it's nothing more or less than a pack of lies. the idea of a christian payrent sitting up and telling his immortal child that a big fat man in furs will drive through the air to-night in a reindeer sleigh right over the roofs and squeeze himself down a lot of sooty chimneys, with a bag of gimcracks on his back--it's all fol-de-rol! i never could see how any intelligent young one could believe it. i never did. but that's one thing about me, as the poet says, 'if i've one pecooliar feature it's a nose that won't be led.' i never could be made to take stock in any such nonsense, even as a boy. i'll leave it to mr. asa holmes, here, if it isn't wrong to be putting such ideas into the youth of our land." the old miller ran his fingers through his short white hair and looked around. his smile was wholesome as it was genial. he was used to being called in judgment on these neighbourhood discussions, and he spoke with the air of one who felt that his words carried weight: "you're putting it pretty strong, cy," he said, with a laugh, and then a tender, reminiscent light gleamed in his old eyes. "you see it's this way with me, boys. we never heard any of these things when i was a lad. it's plain facts in a pioneer cabin, you know. father taught us about christmas in the plain words that he found set down in the gospels, and i told it the same way to my boys. when my first little grandson came back to the old house to spend christmas, i thought it was almost heathenish for his mother to have him send letters up the chimney and talk as if santa claus was some real person. i told her so one day, and asked what was going to happen when the little fellow outgrew such beliefs. "'why, father holmes,' said she,--i can hear her now, words and tones, for it set me to thinking,--'don't you see that he is all the time growing into a broader belief? it's this way.' she picked up a big apple from the table. 'once this apple was only a tiny seed-pod in the heart of a pink blossom. the beauty of the blossom was all that the world saw, at first, but gradually, as the fruit swelled and developed, the pink petals fell off, naturally and easily, and the growing fruit was left. my little son's idea of christmas is in the blossom time now. this rosy glamour of old customs and traditions that makes it so beautiful to him is taking the part of the pink petals. they will fall away by and by, of their own accord, for underneath a beautiful truth is beginning to swell to fruitage. santa claus is the spirit of christmas love and giving, personified. it is because i want to make it real and vital, something that my baby's mind can grasp and enjoy, that i incarnate it in the form of the good old saint nicholas, but i never let him lose sight of the star. it was the spirit of christmas that started the wise men on their search, and they followed the star and they found the child, and laid gifts at his feet. and when the child was grown, he, too, went out in the world and followed the star and scattered his gifts of love and healing for all the children of men. and so it has gone on ever since, that spirit of christmas, impelling us to follow and to find and to give, wherever there is a need for our gold and frankincense and myrrh. that is the larger belief my boy is growing into, from the smaller.' "and she is right," said the old man, after an impressive pause. "she raised that boy to be an own brother to santa claus, as far as good-will to men goes. it's christmas all the year round wherever _he_ is. and now when he brings his boys back to the old home and hangs their stockings up by the fire, i never say a word. sometimes when the little chaps are hunting for the marks of the reindeer hoofs in the ashes, i kneel down on the old hearthstone and hunt, too. * * * * * "a brother to santa claus!" the phrase still echoed in the heart of perkins's oldest when the group around the stove dispersed. it was that which decided the fate of the nickel, and filled the little red mittens with sticks of striped delight for six, instead of the lone orange for one. out of a conversation but dimly understood he had gathered a vague comfort. it made less difference that his patron saint was a myth, since he had learned there might be brothers in the claus family for him to fall back upon. then his fingers closed over the paper bag of peppermints, and, suddenly, with a little thrill, he felt that in some queer way he belonged to that same brotherhood. as he fumbled at the latch, the old miller, who always saw his own boyhood rise before him in that small tow-headed figure, and who somehow had divined the cause of the tear-streaks on the dirty little face, called him. "here, sonny!" it was a pair of shining new skates that dangled from the miller's hands into his. one look of rapturous delight, and two little feet were flying homeward down the frozen pike, beating time to a joy that only the overflowing heart of a child can know, when its troubles are all healed, and faith in mankind restored. and the old man, going home in the frosty twilight of the christmas eve, saw before him all the way the light of a shining star. chapter iii it was an hour past the usual time for closing the cross-roads store, but no one made a move to go. listening in the comfortable glow of the red-hot stove, to the wind whistling down the long pipe, was far pleasanter than facing its icy blasts on the way home. besides, it was the last night of the old year, and hints of forthcoming cider had been dropped by jim bowser, the storekeeper. also an odour of frying doughnuts came in from the kitchen, whenever mrs. bowser opened the door into the entry. added to the usual group of loungers was the drummer who had spent christmas eve with them. he had come in on an accommodation train, and was waiting for the midnight express. he had had the floor for some time with his stories, when suddenly in the midst of the laughter which followed one of his jokes, bud hines made himself heard. "i say, jim," he exclaimed, turning to the storekeeper, "why don't you tear off the last leaf of that calendar? we've come to the end of everything now; end of the day, end of the year, end of the century! something none of _us_ will ever experience again. it's always a mighty solemn thought to me that i'm doing a thing for the la-ast time!" jim laughed cheerfully, tilting his chair back against the counter, and thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his vest. "i don't know as i feel any call to mourn over takin' down an old calendar when i have a prettier one to put in its place, and it's the same way with the century. there'll be a better one to begin on in the morning." "that's so," asserted cy akers. "but some people come bang up against a new year as if it was a stone wall, and down they set and count up their sins, and turn over new leaves, and load 'emselves down with so many good resolutions that they stick in the mud by the end of the first week. now i hold that if it wasn't for the almanacs, steppin' from one year to another, or from one century to another, wouldn't jar you no more than steppin' over the equator. they're only imaginary lines, and nobody would ever know where he was at, either in months or meridians, if he didn't have almanacs and the like to keep him posted. fourth of july is just as good a time to take stock and turn over a new leaf as the first of january." "maybe you take stock like a man i used to sell to down in henderson county," said the drummer. "he never kept any books, so he never knew exactly where he was 'at,' as you say. once a year he'd walk around the store with his hands in his pockets, and size up things in a general sort of way. 'bill,' he'd say to his clerk, cocking his eyes up at the shelves, 'we've got a right smart chance of canned goods left over. i reckon there's a half shelf full more than we had left last year. i know there's more bottles of ketchup.' then he'd take another turn around the room. 'bill, i disremember how many pitchforks we had in this rack. there's only two left now. nearly all the calico is sold, and (thumping the molasses barrel), this here bar'l sounds like it's purty nigh empty. take it all around, bill, we've done first-rate this year, so i don't know as it's worth while botherin' about weighin' and measurin' what's left over, so long as we're satisfied.' and maybe that's why cy makes so little of new year," added the drummer, with a sly wink at the others. "he thinks it's not worth while to weigh and measure his shortcomings when he can take stock of himself in a general sort of a way, and always be perfectly satisfied with himself." there was a laugh at cy's expense, and bud hines began again. "what worries me is, what's been prophesied about the new century. one would think we've had enough famines and plagues and wars and rumours of wars in this here old one to do for awhile, but from what folks say, it ain't goin' to hold a candle to the trouble we'll see in the next one." "troubles is seasonin'. ''simmons ain't good till they are frostbit,'" quoted cy. "then accordin' to bud's tell, he ought to be the best seasoned persimmon on the bough," chuckled the storekeeper. "no, that fellow that was here this afternoon goes ahead of bud," insisted cy, turning to the drummer. "i wish you could have heard him, pardner. he came in to get a postal order for some money he wanted to send in a letter, and he nearly wiped up the earth with poor old bowser, because there was a two-cent war tax to pay on it. "'whose war?' says he. ''tain't none of _my_ makin',' says he, 'and i'll be switched if i'll pay taxes on a thing i've been dead set against from the start. it's highway robbery,' says he, 'to load the country down with a war debt in times like these. it's kill yourself to keep yourself these days, and as my uncle josh used to say after the mexican war, "it's tough luck when people are savin' and scrimpin' at the spigot for the government to be drawin' off at the bung."' "bowser here just looked him over as if he'd been a freak at a side-show, and said bowser, in a dry sort of way, he guessed, 'when it came to the pinch, the spigot wouldn't feel that a two-cent stamp was a killin' big leakage.' "the fellow at that threw the coppers down on the counter, mad as a hornet. 'it's the principle of the thing,' says he. 'uncle sam had no business to bite off more'n he could chew and then call on me to help. what's the war done for this country, anyhow?' "he was swinging his arms like a stump speaker at a barbecue, by this time. 'what's it done?' says he. 'why it's sent the soldiers back from cuba with an itch as bad as the smallpox, and as ketchin' to them citizens that wanted peace, as to them that clamoured for war. i know what i'm talkin' about, for my hired man like to 'uv died with it, and he hadn't favoured the war any more than a spring lamb. and what's it doin' for us, now?' says he. 'sendin' the poor fellows back from the philippines by the ship-load, crazy as june-bugs. i know what i'm talkin' about. that happened to one of my wife's cousins. what was it ever begun for,' says he, 'tell me that!' "peck here, behind the stove, sung out like a fog-horn, '_remember the maine!_' peck knew what a blow the fellow had made at an indignation meeting when the news first came. no tellin' what would have happened then if a little darky hadn't put his head in at the door and yelled, 'say, mistah, yo' mules is done backed yo' wagon in de ditch!' he tore out to tend to them, or we might have had another spanish war right here among bowser's goods and chattels." "no danger," said peck, dryly, "he isn't the kind of a fellow to fight for principle. it's only when his pocketbook is touched he wants to lick somebody. he's the stingiest man i ever knew, and i've known some mighty mean men in my time." "what's the matter with you all to-night?" said the drummer. "you're the most pessimistic crowd i've struck in an age. this is the tune you've been giving me from the minute i lifted the latch." and beating time with foot and hands in old plantation style, the drummer began forthwith to sing in a deep bass voice that wakened the little bowsers above: "ole satan is loose an' a-bummin'! de wheels er distruckshin is a-hummin.' oh, come 'long, sinner, ef you comin'!" the door into the entry opened a crack and mrs. bowser's forefinger beckoned. "here's good-bye to the old and good luck to the new," cried jim, jumping up to take the big pitcher of cider that she passed through the opening. "and here's to mrs. bowser," cried the drummer, taking the new tin cup filled for him with the sparkling cider, and helping himself to a hot doughnut from the huge panful which she brought in. "it's a pretty good sort of world, after all, that gives you cakes as crisp and sugary as these. 'speak well of the bridge that carries you over' is my motto, so don't let another fellow cheep to-night, unless he can say something good of the poor old century or the men who've lived in it!" "mr. holmes! mr. asa holmes!" cried several voices. the old miller, who had been silent all evening, straightened himself up in his chair and drew his hand over his eyes. "i feel as if i were parting with an old comrade, to-night," he said. "the century had only fifteen years the start of me, and it's a long way we've travelled together. i've been sitting here, thinking how much we've lived through. listen, boys." it was a brief series of pictures he drew for them, against the background of his early pioneer days. they saw him, a little lad, trudging more than a mile on a winter morning to borrow a kettle of hot coals, because the fire had gone out on his own hearthstone, and it was before the days of matches. they saw him huddled with the other little ones around his mother's knee when the wolves howled in the night outside the door, and only the light of a tallow-dip flickered through the darkness of the little cabin. they saw the struggle of a strong life against the limitations of the wilderness, and realised what the battle must have been oftentimes, against sudden disease and accident and death, with the nearest doctor a three days' journey distant, and no smoke from any neighbour's chimney rising anywhere on all the wide horizon. while he talked, a heavy freight train rumbled by outside; the wind whistled through the telegraph wires. the jingle of a telephone bell interrupted his reminiscences. the old man looked up with a smile. "see what we have come to," he said, "from such a past to a time when i can say 'hello,' across a continent. cables and cross-ties and telegraph poles have annihilated distance. the century and i came in on an ox-cart; we are going out on a streak of lightning. "but that's not the greatest thing," he said, pausing, while the listening faces grew still more thoughtful. "think of the hospitals! the homes! the universities! the social settlements! the free libraries! the humane efforts everywhere to give humanity an uplift! when i think of all this century has accomplished, of the heroic lives it has produced, i haven't a word to say about its mistakes and failures. after all, how do we know that the things we cry out against _are_ mistakes? "this war may be a samson's riddle that we are not wise enough to read. those who shall come after us may be able to say '_out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness!_'" somewhere in an upper room a clock struck twelve, and deep silence fell on the little company as they waited for the solemn passing of the century. it was no going out as of some decrepit lear tottering from his throne. perhaps no man there could have put it in words, but each one felt that its majestic leave-taking was like the hoary old apostle's: "i have fought a good fight, i have finished my course, i have kept the faith." chapter iv for some occult reason, the successful merchant in small towns and villages is the confidant, if not father-confessor, of a large number of his patronesses. it may be that his flattering air of personal interest, assumed for purely business purposes, loosens not only the purse-strings but the spring that works the panorama of private affairs. or it may be an idiosyncrasy of some classes of the mind feminine, to make no distinction between a bargain counter and a confessional. whatever the cause, many an honest merchant can testify that it is no uncommon thing for a woman to air her domestic troubles while she buys a skirt braid, or to drag out her family skeleton with the sample of sewing silk she wishes to match. the cross-roads had had its share of confidences, although as a rule the women who disposed of their butter and eggs in trade to bowser were of the patient sort, grown silent under the repressing influence of secluded farm life. still, bowser, quick to see and keen to judge, had gained a remarkable insight into neighbourhood affairs in fifteen years' dealings with his public. "all things come to him who waits" if he wears an air of habitual interest and has a sympathetic way of saying "ah! indeed!" it was with almost the certainty of foreknowledge that bowser counted his probable patrons as he spread out his valentines on the morning of the fourteenth of february. he had selected his comic ones with a view to the feud that existed between the hillock and bond families, well knowing that a heavy cross-fire of ugly caricatures and insulting rhymes would be kept up all day by the younger members of those warring households. it was with professional satisfaction he smiled over the picture of a fat man with a donkey's head, which he was as sure would be sent by pete hillock to old man bond, as if he had heard pete's penny dropping into the cash-drawer. "nothing like supplying the demand," he chuckled. it was with more than professional interest that he arranged the lace-paper valentines in the show-case, for the little embossed cupids had a strong ally in this rustic haberdasher, whose match-making propensities had helped many a little romance to a happy issue. drawing on his fund of private information, acquired in his rôle of confidant to the neighbourhood gossips, he set out his stock of plump red hearts, forget-me-nots, and doves; and with each addition to the festal array he nodded his head knowingly over the particular courtship it was designed to speed, or the lovers' quarrel that he hoped might be ended thereby. * * * * * there had been two weeks of "february thaw." melting snow had made the mud hub-deep in places. there was a velvety balminess in the touch of the warm wind, and faint, elusive odours, prophetic of spring, rose from the moist earth and sap-quickened trees. the door of the cross-road store stood open, and behind it, at the post-office desk, sat marion holmes, the old miller's granddaughter. just out of college and just into society, she had come to spend lent in the old place that had welcomed her every summer during her childhood. the group around the stove stared covertly at the pretty girl in the tailor-made gown, failing to recognise in the tall, stylish figure any trace of the miller's "little polly," who used to dangle her feet from the counter and munch peppermint drops, while she lisped nursery rhymes for their edification. she had come for the letters herself, she told bowser, because she was expecting a whole bag full, and her grandfather's rheumatism kept him at home. installed in the post-office chair, behind the railing that enclosed the sanctum of pigeon-holes, she amused herself by watching the customers while she waited for the mail-train. "it's like looking into a kaleidoscope," she told bowser in one of the pauses of trade. "every one who comes in gives me a different point of view and combination of opinions. now, those valentines! i was thinking what old-fashioned things those little lace-paper affairs are, and wondering how anybody could possibly get up any thrills over them, when in walked miss anastasia dill. prim and gentle as ever, isn't she? still getting her styles from _godey's lady's books_ of the early sixties; she must draw on their antiquated love stories for her sentiment, too, for she seemed lost in admiration of those hearts and darts. what _do_ you suppose is miss anastasia's idea of a lover?" marion rattled on with all of a débutante's reckless enthusiasm for any subject under discussion. "wouldn't he be as odd and old-fashioned as the lace valentines themselves? she'd call him a _suitor_, wouldn't she? i wonder if she ever had one." then bowser, piecing together the fragmentary gossip of fifteen years, told marion all he knew of miss anastasia's gentle romance; and marion, idly clasping and unclasping the little yale pin on her jacket, gained another peep into the kaleidoscope of human experiences. "i have read of such devotion to a memory," she said when the story was done, "but i never met it in the flesh. what a pity he died while he was on such a high pedestal in her imagination. if he had lived she would have discovered that there are no such paragons, and all the other sons of adam needn't have suffered by comparison. so she's an old maid simply because she put her ideal of a lover so high in the clouds nobody could live up to it! dear old miss anastasia!" bowser pulled his beard. "such couples make me think of these here lamps with double wicks," he said. "they hardly ever burn along together evenly. one wick is sure to flare up higher than the other; you either have to keep turning it down and get along with a half light or let it smoke the chimney--maybe crack it--and make things generally uncomfortable. but here comes somebody, miss marion, who's burned along pretty steady, and that through three administrations. it's her brag that she's had three husbands and treated them just alike, even to the matter of tombstones. 'not a pound difference in the weight nor a dollar in the price,' she always says." the newcomer was a fat, wheezy woman, spattered with mud from the hem of her skirt to the crown of her big crape bonnet, which had tipped on one side with the jolting of the wagon. "well, jim bowser!" she exclaimed, catching sight of the valentines. "ef you ain't got out them silly, sentimental fol-de-rols again! my nephew, jason potter,--that's my second husband's sister's son, you know,--spent seventy-five cents last year to buy one of them silly things to send to his girl; and i says to him, 'jason,' says i, 'ef _i'd_ been lib meadows, that would 'uv cooked your goose with _me_! any man simple enough to waste his substance so, wouldn't make a good provider.' i ought to know--i've been a wife three times." this, like all other of mrs. power's conversational roads, led back to the three tombstones, and started a flow of good-natured badinage on the subject of matrimony, which continued long after she had taken her noisy departure. "well!" exclaimed bud hines, as the big crape bonnet went jolting down the road, "i guess there's three good men gone that could tell why heaven is heaven." "why?" asked cy akers. "because there's no marryin' or givin' in marriage there." "bud speaks feelingly!" said cy, winking at the others. "he'd better get a job on a newspaper to write side talks with henpecked husbands." "shouldn't think _you'd_ want to hear any extrys or supplements," retorted bud. "you get enough in your own daily editions." * * * * * "st. valentine has been generous with my little polly," said the old miller, looking up fondly at the tall, graceful girl, coming into his room, her face aglow and her arms full of packages. "but what's the good of it all, grandfather?" answered marion. "i've been looking into cupid's kaleidoscope through other people's eyes this afternoon, and nothing is rose-coloured as i thought. everything is horrid. 'marriage is a failure,' and sentiment is a silly thing that people make flippant jokes about, or else break their hearts with, like mr. bowser's double-wick lamps, that flare up and crack their chimneys. i've come to the conclusion that st. valentine has outlived his generation." she broke the string which bound one of the boxes that she had dropped on the table, and took out a great dewy bunch of sweet violets. as their fragrance filled the room, the old man looked around as if half expecting to see some familiar presence; then dropped his white head with a sigh, and gazed into the embers on the hearth, lost in a tender reverie. presently he said, "i wish you would hand me that box on my wardrobe shelf, little girl." as marion opened the wardrobe door, something hanging there made her give a little start of surprise. it was an old familiar gray dress, with the creases still in the bent sleeves just as they had been left when the tired arms last slipped out of them. that was ten years ago; and marion, standing there with a mist gathering in her eyes, recalled the day her grandfather had refused to let any one fold it away. it had hung there all those years, the tangible reminder of the strong, sweet presence that had left its imprint on every part of the household. "it is like my life since she slipped out of it," the old man had whispered, smoothing the empty sleeve with his stiff old fingers. "like my heart--set to her ways at every turn, and left just as she rounded it out--but now--so empty!" he lifted an old dog-eared school-book from the box that marion brought him, a queer little "geography and atlas of the heavens," in use over fifty years ago. inside was a tiny slip of paper, time-yellowed and worn. the ink was faded, until the words written in an unformed girlish hand were barely legible: "true as grapes grow on a vine, i will be your valentine." "i had put a letter into her murray's grammar," he explained, holding up another little book. "here is the page, just at the conjugation of the verb 'to love.' you see i was a big, shy, overgrown boy that lost my tongue whenever i looked at her, although she wasn't fifteen then, and only reached my shoulder. this valentine was the answer that she slipped into my atlas of the heavens. i thought the sky itself had never held such a star. we walked home across the woodland together that day, never saying a word. it was the last of the february thaw, and the birds were twittering as if it were really spring. just such a day as this. all of a sudden, right at my feet, i saw something smiling up at me, blue as the blue of my polly's eyes. i stooped and brushed away the leaves, and there were two little violets. "as i gave them to her i wanted to say, 'there will always be violets in my heart for you, my polly,' but i couldn't speak a word. i know she understood, for long years after--when she was dead--i found them here. she had pinned them on the page where my letter had lain, here on the conjugation that says, 'we love,' and she had added the word '_for ever_.'" a tear dropped on the dead violets as the old man reverently closed the book, and sat gazing again into the dying embers. there was a tremulous smile on his face. was it backward over the hills of their youth he was wandering, or ahead to those heights of hope, where love shall "put on immortality?" marion laid her warm cheek against her violets, still fragrant with the sweetness of their fresh, unfaded youth. then taking a cluster from the great dewy bunch, she fastened it at her throat with the little yale pin. chapter v trade was dull at the cross-roads. jim bowser, his hands thrust into his pockets and his lips puckered to a whistle, stood looking through the dingy glass of his front door. march was coming in with a snow-storm, and all he could see in any direction was a blinding fall of white flakes. there were only three men behind the stove that afternoon, and one of them was absorbed in a newspaper. conversation flagged, and from time to time bud hines yawned audibly. "this is getting to be mighty monotonous," remarked the storekeeper, glancing from the falling snow to the silent group by the stove. "march always is," answered bud hines. "the other months have some holiday in 'em; something to brighten 'em up, if it's no more than a family birthday. but to me, march is as dull and uninteresting as a mud road." "there's the inauguration this year," suggested cy akers, looking up from his newspaper. "that's a big event. this paper is full of it." "well, now you've hit it!" exclaimed bud, with withering scorn, as he bit off another chew of tobacco. "that is exciting! just about as interesting as watching a man take his second helping of pie. i wouldn't go across the road to see it. now in a monarchy, where death makes the changes, it can't get to be a cut and dried affair that takes place every four years. they make a grand occasion of it, too, with their pomp and ceremony. look at what england's just seen. it's the sight of a lifetime to bury a queen and crown a king. but what do we see when we change presidents? one man sliding into a chair and another sliding out, same as when the barber calls 'next!' humph!" cy akers rubbed his chin. "fuss and feathers! that's all it amounts to," he exclaimed. "i'm down on monopolies, and in my opinion it's the worst kind of monopoly to let one family crowd out everybody else in the king business. i like a country where every man in it has a show. not that i'd _be_ president, if they offered me double the salary, but it is worth a whole lot to me to feel that in case i did want the office, i've as good a right to it as any man living. and talk about sights--i say it's the sight of a lifetime to see a man step out from his place among the people, anywhere he happens to be when they call his name, take his turn at ruling as if he'd been born to it, and then step back as if nothing had happened." bud smiled derisively. "you only see that on paper, my boy. men don't step quietly into offices in this country. they run for 'em till they are red in the face, and it's the best runner that gets there, not the best man. monopoly in the king business keeps out the rabble, any how, and it gives a country a good deal more dignity to be ruled by a dynasty than by tom, dick, and harry." "well, there's no strings tied to you," said cy, testily, taking up his newspaper again. "when people don't like the way things are run on this side of the water, there's nothing to hinder emigration." there was a stamping of snowy feet outside the door, and a big, burly fellow blustered in, whom they hailed as henry bicking. he was not popular at the cross-roads, having the unenviable reputation of being a "born tease," but any diversion was welcome on such a dull day. in the catalogue of queer characters which every neighbourhood possesses, the autocrat, bore, and crank may take precedence of all others alphabetically, but the one that heads the list in disagreeableness is that infliction on society known as the "born tease." one can forgive the teasing propensity universally found in boys, as he would condone the playful destructiveness of puppyhood; something requiring only temporary forbearance. but when that trait refuses to be put away with childish things it makes of the man it dominates a sort of human mosquito. he regards every one in reach his lawful prey, from babies to octogenarians, and while he does not always sting, the persistency of his annoying attacks becomes exasperating beyond endurance. the same motive that made henry bicking pull cats' whiskers out by the roots when he was a boy, led him to keep his children in a turmoil, and his sensitive little wife in tears half the time. he had scarcely seated himself by the stove when he was afforded opportunity for his usual pastime by the entrance of half a dozen children, who came tumbling in on their way home from school to warm. he began with a series of those inane questions by which grown people have made themselves largely responsible for the pertness of the younger generation. if children of this day have departed from that delectable state wherein they were seen and not heard, the fault is due far more to their elders than to them. often they have been made self-conscious, and forced into saucy self-assertion by the teasing questions that are asked merely to provoke amusing replies. henry bicking's quizzing had an element of cruelty in it. his was the kind that pinches his victims' ears, that tickles to the verge of agony, that threatens all sorts of disagreeable things, for the sake of seeing little faces blanch with fright, or eyes fill with tears of pain. "come here, woodpecker," he began, reaching for a child whose red hair was the grief of his existence. but the boy deftly eluded him, and the little fellow standing next in line, drying his snowball-soaked mittens, became the victim. he was dragged unwillingly to his tormentor's knee. "what are you going to be when you're a man?" was demanded, when the first questions had elicited the fact that the child's name was sammy perkins, and that he was eight years old. but perkins's oldest, having no knowledge of the grammar of life beyond its present tense indicative, hung his head and held his tongue at mention of its future potential. "if you don't tell me you sha'n't have your mittens!" bicking dangled them tantalisingly out of reach, until, after an agonising and unsuccessful scramble, the child was forced into a tearful reply. then he began again: "which are you for, democrats or republicans?" "ain't for neither." "well, you're the littlest mugwump i ever did see. mugwumps ain't got any right to wear mittens. i've a notion to pitch 'em in the stove." "oh, _don't_!" begged the child. "_please_, mister! i'm not a mugwump!" the tragic earnestness of the child as he disclaimed all right to the term of reproach which he could not understand, yet repudiated because of its obnoxious sound, amused the man hugely. he threw back his head and laughed. "tell me who you holler for!" he continued, catching him up and holding him head downward a moment. then goaded by more teasing questions and a threatening swing of his red mittens toward the stove door, perkins's oldest was at last led to take a bold stand on his party platform, and publicly declare his political preference. but it was in a shaking voice and between frightened sobs. "m-ma, she's for mckinley, an' p-pap, he's for b-bryan, so i jus' holler for uncle sam!" "good enough for you, sonny," laughed the storekeeper. "that's true blue americanism. stick to uncle sam and never mind the parties. they've had new blades put on their old handles, and new handles put on those old blades again, till none of 'em are what we started out with. we keep on calling them 'genuine barlows,' but it's precious little of the original barlows we're hanging on to nowadays." * * * * * it was a woman's voice that interrupted the conversation. mrs. teddy mahone had come in for some tea. "arrah, misther bicking! give the bye his mitts! you're worrse than a cat with a mouse." the loud voice with its rich irish brogue drew cy akers's attention from his newspaper. "by the way, bud," he exclaimed, raising his voice so that mrs. mahone could not fail to hear, "you were complaining about march being so dull and commonplace without any holidays. you've forgotten st. patrick's day." "no, i haven't. st. patrick is nothing to me. there's no reason i should take any interest in him." "and did you hear that, mrs. mahone," asked henry bicking, anxious to start a war of words. "oh, oi heard it, indade oi did!" she answered with a solemn shake of the head. "it grieves the hearrt of me to hear such ingratichude. there's niver a sowl in all ameriky but has cause to be grateful for what he's done for this counthry." "what's he ever done?" asked bud, skeptically. there was a twinkle in mrs. mahone's eyes as she answered: "it was this way. a gude while back whin it was at the beginnin' iv things, ameriky said to herself wan day, 'it's a graand pudding oi'll be afther makin' meself, by a new resait oi've just thought iv.' so she dips into this counthry for wan set iv immygrants, an' into another counthry for another batch, and after a bit a foine mess she had iv 'em. dutch an' frinch an' eyetalian, rooshian, spaniards an' haythen chinee, all stirred up in wan an' the same pudding-bag. "'somethin's lackin',' siz she, afther awhile, makin' a wry face. "'it's the spice,' siz st. pathrick, 'ye lift out iv it, an' the leaven. ye'll have to make parsinal application to meself for it, for oi'm the only wan knowin' the saicret of where it's to be found.' "'then give me some,' siz she, an' st. pathrick, not loikin' to lave a leddy in trouble, reached out from the auld sod and handed her a fair shprinklin' of them as would act as both spice an' leaven. "'they'll saison the whole lot,' siz he, 'an' there's light-heartedness enough among them to raise the entoire heavy mass in your whole united pudding-bag.' "'thanks,' siz she, stirrin' us in. 'it's the makin' of the dish, sorr, and oi'm etarnally obliged to ye, sorr. oi'll be afther puttin' the name of st. pathrick in me own family calendar, and ivery year on that day, it's the pick iv the land that'll take pride in addin' to me own shtars an' shtripes the wearin' o' the green.' "ye see, misther hines, ye may think ye're under no parsinal obligation to him, but down-hearted as ye are by nature, what wud ye have been had ye niver coom in conthact with the leaven of st. pathrick at all, sorr? oi ask ye that." * * * * * late that night bowser pushed his ledger aside with a yawn, and got down from his high stool to close the store. as he counted the meagre contents of the cash drawer, he reviewed the day, whose minutes had been as monotonous in passing as the falling of the snowflakes outside. it had left nothing behind it to distinguish it from a hundred other days. the same old faces! the same kind of jokes! the same round of commonplace duties! a spirit of unrest seized him, that made him chafe against such dreary monotony. when he went to the door to put up the shutters, the beauty of the night held him a moment, and he stood looking across the wide fields, lying white in moonlight and snow. far down the road a lamp gleamed from the window of an upper room in the old miller's house, where anxious vigil had been kept beside him for hours. the crisis was passed now. only a little while before, the doctor had stopped by to say that their old friend would live. down the track a gleaming switch-light marked the place where a wreck had been narrowly averted that morning. "and no telling how many other misfortunes we've escaped to-day," mused bowser. "maybe if a light could be swung out for each one, folks would see that the dull gray days when nothing happens are the ones to be most thankful for, after all." chapter vi april sunshine of mid-afternoon poured in through the open door of the cross-roads. the usual group of loungers had gathered around the rusty stove. there was no fire in it; the day was too warm for that, but force of habit made them draw their chairs about it in a circle, as if this common centre were the hub, from which radiated the spokes of all neighbourly intercourse. the little schoolmistress was under discussion. her short reign in district no. 3 had furnished a topic of conversation as inexhaustible as the weather, for her régime was attended by startling changes. luckily for her, the young ideas enjoyed being taught to shoot at wide variance from the targets set up by parental practice and tradition, else the tales told out of school might have aroused more adverse criticism than they did. "you can't take much stock in her new-fangled notions," was the unanimous opinion at the cross-roads. she had "put the cart before the horse" when she laid the time-honoured alphabet on the shelf, and gave the primer class a whole word at a mouthful, before it had cut a single orthographic tooth on such primeval syllables as a-b ab. "look at my willie," exclaimed one of the district fathers. "beating around the bush with talk about a picture cow, and a real cow, and a word cow, and not knowing whether b comes after w or x. at his age i could say the alphabet forwards or backwards as fast as tongue could go without a slip." "she's done _one_ sensible thing," admitted cy akers. "they tell me she's put her foot down on the scholars playing april fool tricks this year." "i don't see why," said henry bicking. "it has been one of the customs in this district since the schoolhouse was built. what's the harm if the children do take one day in the year for a little foolishness? let them have their fun, i say." "but they've carried it too far," was the answer. "it's scandalous they should be allowed to abuse people's rights and feelings and property as they have done the last few years. first of april doesn't justify such cutting up any more than the first of august." "she's got scripture on her side," said squire dobbs. "you know solomon says, 'as a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour and saith, am i not in sport?'" "she can't stamp out such a deep-rooted custom in one day," protested bicking. "you can bet on the little school-ma'am every time," laughed bowser. "my daughter milly says they didn't have regular lessons yesterday afternoon. she had them put their books in their desks. "said they'd been studying about wise men all their lives, now they'd study about fools awhile; the fools of proverbs and the fools of history. "she read some stories, too, about a cruel disappointment and the troubles brought about by some thoughtless jokes on the first of april. mighty interesting stories, milly said. you could have heard a pin drop, and some of the girls cried. then she drew a picture on the blackboard of a court jester, in cap and bells, and asked if they wouldn't like a change this year. instead of everybody acting the fool and doing silly things they'd all be ashamed of if they'd only stop to think, wouldn't they rather she'd appoint just one scholar to play the fool for all of them, as the old kings used to do. "they agreed to that, quick enough, thinking what fun they'd have teasing the one chosen to be it. then she said she'd appoint the first one this morning who showed himself most deserving of the office. milly says from the way she smiled when she said it, they're all sure she means to choose the first one who plays an april fool joke. she'd put it so strong to 'em how silly it was, that there ain't a child in school you could hire to run the risk of being appointed fool for the day. so i think she's coming out ahead as usual." "after all," said bud hines, "there's some lessons to be got out of those old tricks we used to play. for instance, the pocketbook tied to a string. seems to me that everything in life worth having has a string tied to it, and just as i am about to pick it up, fate snatches it out of my hands." "don't you believe it, buddy," said bowser, cheerfully; "you take notice those pocketbooks on strings are always empty ones, and they don't belong to us, so we have no business grabbing for them or feeling disappointed because we can't get something for nothing." but bud waved aside the interruption mechanically. "then there's the _gifts_ with strings tied to 'em," he continued. "my wife has a rich aunt who is always sending her presents, and writing, 'understand this is for _you_, louisy. you're too generous, and i don't want anybody but your own deserving self to wear this.' now out in the country here, my wife doesn't have occasion to wear handsome clothes like them once a year, while they'd be the very thing for clara may, off at normal school. but not a feather or a ribbon can the child touch because her great-aunt bought them expressly for her ma. goodness knows she'd have a thousand times more pleasure in seeing clara may enjoy them, than knowing they were lying away in bureau drawers doing nobody any good. when she takes 'em out at house-cleaning times i say, 'ma,' says i, 'deliver me from gifts with strings tied to 'em. i'd rather have a ten-cent bandanna, all mine, to have and to hold or to give away as pleased me most, than the finest things your aunt honigford's money could buy, if i had to account to her every time i turned around in them.' "when i give anything i _give_ it, and don't expect to come back, spying around ten years afterward to see if it's worn out, or cracked, or faded, or broken. that's my doctrine." * * * * * marion holmes, driving along the country road in the old miller's antiquated chaise, drew rein in front of a low picket gate, overhung by mammoth snowball bushes. down the path, between the rows of budding lilacs and japonicas, came an old gentleman in a quaintly cut, long-tailed coat. he was stepping along nimbly, although he leaned hard on his gold-headed cane. "'a man he was to all the country dear,'" quoted marion softly to herself as the minister's benign face smiled a greeting through his big square-bowed spectacles. "i know he must have been goldsmith's friend, and i wish i dared ask him how long he lived in the deserted village." but all she called out to him as he stopped with a courtly bow, under the snowball bushes, was a cheery good morning and an invitation to take a seat beside her if he wanted to drive to the cross-roads store. "thank you, miss polly," he answered, "that is my destination. i am on my way there for a text." "for a what?" exclaimed marion in surprise, turning the wheel for him to step in beside her. "for a text for my easter sermon," he explained as they drove on in the warm april sunshine. "ah, i see, miss polly, you have not discovered the school of philosophers that centres around the cross-roads store. well, it's not to be wondered at; few people do. i spent a winter in rome, when i was younger, and one of my favourite walks was up on the pincian hill. the band plays in the afternoons, you know, and tourists flock to see the queen drive by. there is a charming view from the summit--the dome of st. peters against the blue italian sky, the old yellow tiber crawling along under its bridges from ruin to ruin, and the immortal city itself, climbing up its historic hills. and on the pincio one meets everybody,--soldiers and courtiers, flower girls and friars, monks in robes of every order, and pilgrims from all parts of the world. "the first time i was on the hill, as i wandered among the shrubbery and flowers, i noticed a row of moss-grown pedestals set along each side of the drive for quite a distance. each pedestal bore the weather-beaten bust of some old sage or philosopher or hero. "they made no more impression on my mind then, than so many fence-posts, but later i found a workman repairing the statuary one day. he had put a new nose on the mutilated face of an old philosopher, and that fresh white nasal appendage, standing out jauntily in the middle of the ancient gray visage, was so ludicrous i could not help smiling whenever i passed it. i began to feel acquainted with the old fellow, as day after day that nose forced my attention. sometimes, coming upon him suddenly, the only familiar face in a city full of strangers, i felt that he was an old friend to whom i should take off my hat. then it became so that i rarely passed him without recalling some of his wise sayings that i had read at college. many a time he and his row of stony-eyed companions were an inspiration to me in that way. "it was so that i met these men at the cross-roads. they scarcely claimed my attention at first. then one day i heard one of them give utterance to a time-worn truth in such an original way that i stopped to talk to him. "trite as it was, he had hewn it himself out of the actual experiences of his own life. it was the result of his own keen observation of human nature. set as it was in his homely, uncouth dialect, it impressed me with startling force. then i listened to his companions, and found that they, too, were sometimes worthy of pedestals. unconsciously to themselves they have often given me suggestions for my sermons. ah, it's a pity that the backwoods has no pincio on which to give its philosophers to posterity!" * * * * * half an hour later as they drove homeward, marion glanced at her companion. "no text this time," she laughed, breaking the reverie into which the old minister had fallen. "your sages said nothing but 'good morning, sir,' and there wasn't a single suggestion of easter in the whole store, except the packages of egg dyes, and some impossible little chocolate rabbits. oh, yes,--those two little boys playing on the doorstep. tommy bowser had evidently taken time by the forelock and sampled his father's dyes, for he had a whole hatful of coloured eggs, and was teaching that little perkins boy how to play 'bust.' he was an apt scholar, for while i watched he won five of tommy's eggs and never cracked his own. you should have seen them." "oh, i saw them," said the minister, with a smile. "it was those same little lads who suggested the text for my easter sermon." marion gave a gasp of astonishment. "would you mind telling me _how_?" she exclaimed. "it came about very naturally. there they stood with their hands full of the easter eggs, with never a thought of what they symbolised--the breaking shell--the rising of this little embryo earth-existence to the free full-winged life of the resurrection. they were too intent on their little game, on their small winnings and losings, to have a thought for higher things. as i watched them it occurred to me how typical it was of all the children of men, and instantly that text from luke flashed into my mind: '_their eyes were holden._' do you remember? it was when the two disciples went down to emmaus. i often picture it," mused the old man after a little pause. "the green of the olive groves, the red and white of the blossoming almond-trees, the late afternoon sunshine, and those two discouraged fishermen trudging along the dusty road. they were turning away from a lost cause and a buried hope, too absorbed in their overwhelming grief to see that it was the risen lord himself who walked beside them. not till the end of their journey did they know why it was that their hearts had burned within them as he talked with them by the way. their eyes were holden. "how typical that is, too, miss polly. sometimes we go on to the end of life, missing the comfort and help that we might have had at every step, because we look up at our lord only through eyes of clay, and hold communion with him as with a stranger. yes, i shall certainly make that the subject of my easter sermon, miss polly. thank you for helping me discover it." that next sunday as marion sat in church beside the old miller, her gaze wandered from the lilies in the chancel to the faces of the waiting congregation. bud hines was there and bowser, cy akers, and even perkins's oldest, whose game of "bust" had suggested the helpful sermon of the morning. marion studied the serious, weather-beaten faces with new interest. "it is not in spiritual things alone that our eyes are holden," she said to herself. "i have been looking at only the commonplace exterior of these people. it takes a man like the old minister to recognise unpedestalled virtues and to set them on the pincio they deserve." chapter vii the old saying that "there are always two sides to a story" has worn a deep rut into the popular mind. it has been handed down to us so often with an air of virtuous rebuke, that we have come to regard the individual who insists on his two-sided theory as the acme of all that is broad-minded and tolerant. but in point of fact, if two sides is all he sees, he is only one remove from the bigot whose mental myopia limits him to a single narrow facet. even such a thing as a may-day picnic is polyhedral. the little schoolmistress, who was the chief promoter of the one at the cross-roads, would have called it a parallelopiped, if she had been there that morning, to have seen the different expressions portrayed on the faces of six people who were interested in it. the business side of the picnic appealed to bowser. as he bustled around, dusting off cases of tinned goods that he had long doubted his ability to dispose of, and climbed to the top shelves for last summer's shop-worn cans of sardines and salmon, as he sliced cheese, and counted out the little leathery lemons that time had shrivelled, his smile was as bland as the may morning itself. one could plainly see that he regarded this picnic as a special dispensation of providence, to help him work off his old stock. there were no loungers in the store. field and garden claimed even the idlest, and only the old miller, who had long ago earned his holiday, sat in the sun on the porch outside, with his chair tipped back against the wall. at intervals a warm breath from the apple orchard, in bloom across the road, touched his white hair in passing, and stirred his memory until he sat oblivious of his surroundings. he was wholly unmindful of the gala stir about him, save when polly recalled his wandering thoughts. she, keenly alive to every sensation of the present, stood beside him with her hand on his shoulder, while she waited for her picnic basket to be filled. "isn't it an ideal may-day, grandfather?" she exclaimed. "it gives me a real englishy feeling of skylarks and cuckoos and cowslips, of primroses and village greens. i think it is dear of the little school-ma'am to resurrect the old may-pole dance, and give the children some idea of 'merrie old england' other than the dates and dust of its ancient history." unconsciously beating time with light fingertips on the old man's shoulder, she began to hum half under her breath: "'and then my heart with rapture thrills, and dances with the daffodills-o-dills- and dances with the daffodils!'" suddenly she broke off with a girlish giggle of enjoyment. "listen, grandfather. there's little cora bowser up-stairs, rehearsing her speech while she dresses. isn't it delicious to be behind the scenes!" through an open bedroom window, a high-pitched, affected little voice came shrilly down to them: "'if you're _wa_-king, call me _early_! call me _early_, mother dear!'" "now, cora," interrupted the maternal critic, "you went and forgot to make your bow; and how many times have i told you about turning your toes out? you'll have to begin all over again." then followed several beginnings, each brought to a stop by other impatient criticisms. there were so many pauses in the rehearsal and reminders to pay attention to manners, commas, and refractory ribbons, that when cora was finally allowed to proceed, it was in a tearful voice punctuated with sobs, that she declared, "'to-morrow will be the ha-happiest day of all the g-glad new year.'" "'uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,'" quoted the old miller with a smile, as mrs. bowser's parting injunction reached their ears. "now, cora, for goodness' sake, don't you forget for one minute this whole enduring day, that them daisies on your crown came off your teacher's best hat, and have to be put back on. if you move around much to the picnic you might lose some of 'em. best keep pretty quiet anyway, or your sash will come unpinned, and the crimp will all get out of your hair. wish i'd thought to iron them plaits before i unbraided 'em. they'd have been lots frizzier." it was a very stiffly starched, precise little queen o' the may who came down the steep back stairs into the store. she stepped like a careful peacock, fearing to ruffle a feather of her unrivalled splendour. her straight flaxen hair, usually as limp as a string, stood out in much crimped profusion from under her gilt paper crown. polly could not decide whether the pucker on the little forehead came from anxiety concerning the borrowed daisies which starred her crown, or the fact that it was too tightly skewered to the royal head by a relentless hat-pin. one of the picnic wagons was waiting at the door, and as bowser lifted her in among her envious and admiring schoolmates, polly saw with sympathetic insight which of its many sides the picnic parallelopiped was presenting to the child in that proud moment. the feeling of supreme importance that it bestowed is a joy not permitted to all, and rarely does it come to any mortal more than once in a lifetime. but for every haman, no matter how resplendent, sits an unmoved mordecai in the king's gate. so to this little sheba of the cross-roads there was one who bowed not down. perkins's oldest, on the front seat beside the driver, had no eyes for her. he scarcely looked in her direction. his glances were all centred on the baskets which bowser was packing in around his feet. he smelled pickles and pies and ham sandwiches. he knew of sundry tarts and dressed eggs in his own basket, and wild rumours had reached his ears that miss polly intended to stand treat to the extent of bowser's entire stock of bananas and candy. aside from hopes of a surreptitious swim in the creek and a wild day in the woods, his ideas of a picnic were purely prandial. across the road, miss anastasia dill, peeping through the blinds, watched the wagon rattle off with its merry load. long after the laughing voices had passed beyond her hearing, she still stood there, one slender hand holding back the curtain, and the other shading her faded blue eyes, as she gazed absently after them. it was the sunshine of another may-day she was looking into. presently with a little start she realised that she was not out in the cool green woods with a may-basket in her hands, brimming over with anemones. she was all alone in her stuffy little parlour, with its hair-cloth furniture and depressing crayon portraits. and the canary was chirping loudly for water, and the breakfast cups were still unwashed. but for once, heedless of her duties, even unmindful of the fact that she had left the shutters open, and the hot sun was streaming across her cherished store carpet, she drew a chair up to the marble-topped centre table, and deliberately sat down. there was a pile of old-fashioned daguerreotypes in front of her. she opened them one by one, and then took up another that lay by itself on a blue beaded mat. so the face it dimly pictured held a sacred place, apart, in her memory. when her eyes had grown misty with long gazing, she lifted a book from its place beside the family bible. it was bound in red leather, and it had a quaint wreath of embossed roses around the gilt letters of its title, "the album of the heart." it was an autograph album, and as she slowly turned the pages she remembered that every hand that had traced a sentiment or a signature therein had once upon a time gathered anemones with her in some one of those other may-days. then she turned through the pages again. of all that circle of early friends not one was left to give her a hand-clasp. she had friends in plenty, but the old ones--the early ones--the roots of whose growth had twined with hers in the intimacy known only to childhood, were all gone. the may-day picnic brought only a throb of pain to gentle miss anastasia, for to her it was but the lonely echo of a "voice that was still." bud hines watched the wagon drive away with far different emotions. he had happened to come into the store for a new hoe, as the gay party started. "it's all foolishness," he grumbled to the miller, "to lose a whole day's schooling while they go gallivanting around the country for nothing. they'll ride ten miles to find a place to eat their dinner in, and pass by twenty on the way nicer than the one they finally pick out. they'd better be doing sums in school, or grubbing weeds out of the garden, instead of playing 'frog in the meadow' around a fool british may-pole." he looked around inquiringly as if he expected his practical listener to agree with him. but all the sympathy he got from the old miller was one of the innumerable proverbs he seemed to keep continually on tap. "'all work and no play makes jack a dull boy,' bud. life is apt to be little but sums and grubbing for the youngsters by and by, so let them make the most of their may-days now." * * * * * the sequels of picnics are also polyhedral. miss anastasia, lingering at her front gate in the early twilight, that she might enjoy to the last moment the orchard odours that filled all the balcony outdoors, heard the rattle of returning wheels. she had had a pleasant day, despite the tearful retrospection of the morning, for she had attended the great social function of the neighbourhood, the monthly missionary tea. it had brought immeasurable cheer, and now she was returning with a comfortable conviction that she was to be envied far above any of her neighbours. the consciousness of having on her best gown, of being the mistress of the trim little home to which she was going, of freedom from a hundred harassing cares that she had heard discussed that afternoon, all combined to make her supremely contented with her lot. "poor children," she sighed, as the tired, dirty little picnickers were lifted from the wagon across the road. "they look as if the game hadn't been worth the candle. i'm glad that i've outgrown such things." perkins's oldest, having soaked long in the cold creek, and sampled every dinner-basket with reckless abandon till he could sample no more, sat doubled up in the straw of the wagon-bed. he was white about the mouth, and had he been called upon to debate the time-worn question, "resolved, that there is more pleasure in pursuit than in possession," the tarts and sandwiches of that day's picnic would have furnished several dozen indisputable arguments for the affirmative. the dishevelled little queen sat beside him, tired out by her day's wild frolic, with starch and frizzes all gone. as she was lifted over the wheel, and put down on the doorstep, a limp little bunch of woe, miss anastasia heard her bewailing her fate. she had lost the stars from her crown, the borrowed daisies that must be reckoned for on the morrow. the amused listener smiled to herself under cover of the twilight, as she heard bowser's awkward attempts at consolation, for all the comfort that he could muster was an old saw learned from the miller: "never mind, cora, pa's mighty sorry for his little girl. but you know: "'when a man buys meat he buys bone, and when he buys land he buys stone. you must take the bad with the good.'" chapter viii there is something in the air of june that stirs even insentient things with a longing to blossom. staid old universities blaze out with the gala colours of commencement week, when the month of roses is ushered in, and on every college campus the social life of the student year comes to flower in the crowning exercises of class-day. one wonders sometimes if the roots, burrowing underground in order to fill the bush overhead with myriads of roses, have any share in the thrill of success at having produced such a wealth of sweetness and beauty. but there need be no surmise about college florescence. faculties may beam with complacency on their yearly cluster of full-blown graduates, the very walls of the gray old universities may thrill as they echo the applause of admiring audiences, but the greatest pride is not felt within the college town itself where the student life centres. it is back in the roots that have made college life possible. back in some parental existence that daily sinks itself farther into the commonplace in order that some son or daughter may blossom into the culture of arts and belles-lettres. the jacqueminot that flaunts its glory over the garden wall may not sweeten life for the fibres that lift it, but the valedictorian who flaunts his diploma and degree in the classic halls of some sea-board college may be glorifying the air of some little backwoods village a thousand miles inland. even the cross-roads are bound with a network of such far-reaching roots to the commencements of harvard and yale. it was cy akers's boy who came home this june, a little lifted up, perhaps, by the honours he had won; thoroughly impressed with the magnitude of his own knowledge and the meagreness of other peoples', but honestly glad at first to get back to the old home and neighbours. the family pride in him was colossal. old cy encouraged his visits to the cross-roads store, inventing excuses for going which he considered the acme of subtle diplomacy. but his motives were as transparent as a child's. illiterate himself, he wanted his neighbours to see what college had done for his boy in the way of raising him head and shoulders above them all. and the boy was good-naturedly compliant. he was as willing to show off mentally as he had been to lend a hand in the wheat harvest, and demonstrate what football training had done for him in the way of developing muscle. like perkins's oldest, his education had begun with the primer of the cross-roads. he could remember the time when he, too, had ignorantly believed this to be the only store in the universe, and wondered if there were enough people living to consume all its contents. now he smiled to himself when he looked around the stuffy little room and saw the same old butter firkins crowding the--apparently--same old calico and crockery, and looked up at the half-dozen hams still swinging sociably from the low rafters. time had been, too, when he thought the men who gossiped around its rusty stove on saturday afternoons knew everything. like perkins's oldest, he had unquestioningly formulated the creed of his boyhood from their conversations, and he smiled again when he recalled how he had been warped in those early days by their prejudices and short-sighted opinions. the smile extended outwardly when he walked into their midst to find them repeating the same old saws about the weather, and the way the country was going to the dogs. yet in his salad days these time-honoured prognostications had seemed to him the wisdom of seers and sages. probably it was the thought that he had travelled far beyond the narrow confines of the cross-roads that gave his conversation a patronising tone. but the cross-roads refused to be patronised. he learned that on the day of his arrival. it was the first lesson of a valuable post-graduate course. that a man away from home may be mister robert harrison hamilton akers, with all the a. b.'s and ll. d.'s after his name that an educational institution can bestow; but as soon as he sets foot again on his native heath, where he has gone through the vicissitudes of boyhood, he is shorn of titles and degrees as completely as samson was shorn of his locks, and his strength straightway falls from him. he is nobody but bobby akers, and everybody remembers when he robbed birds' nests, and stole grapes, and played hooky, and was a little freckle-faced, snub-nosed neighbourhood terror. a man cannot maintain his importance long in the face of such reminiscences. no amount of university culture is going to lay the ghost of youthful indiscretions, and he might as well put his patronising proclivities in his pocket. they will not be tolerated by those who have patted him on the head when he wore roundabouts. * * * * * it was saturday afternoon, but it was also the and of the wheat-harvest, and the men were afield who usually gathered on the cross-roads porch to round up the week over their pipes and plugs of chewing tobacco. only three chairs were tilted back against the wall, and on these, with their heels caught over the front rungs, sat bowser, the old miller, and robert akers. the whirr of reaping machines came faintly up from the fields and near by, where several acres of waving yellow grain still stood uncut, a bob-white whistled cheerily. no one was talking. "knee-deep in june" would have voiced the thoughts of the trio, for they were "jes' a sort o' lazein' there," with their hats pulled over their eyes, enjoying to the utmost the perfect afternoon. every breeze was redolent with red clover and wild honeysuckle, and vibrant with soothing country sounds. "who is that coming up the road?" asked the miller, as a team and wagon appeared over the brow of the hill. "they wabble along like duncan smith's horses," answered the storekeeper, squinting his eyes for a better view. "yes, that's who it is. that's dunk on the top of the load. moving again, bless pete!" as the wagon creaked slowly nearer, a feather bed came into view, surmounting a motley collection of household goods, and perched upon it, high above the jangle of her jolting tins and crockery, sat mrs. duncan smith. a clock and a looking-glass lay in her lap, and, like a wise virgin, in her hands she carefully bore the family lamp. from frequent and anxious turnings of her black sunbonnet, it was evident that she was keeping her weather eye upon the chicken-coop, which was bound to the tail-board of the wagon by an ancient clothes-line. a flop-eared dog trotted along under the wagon. squeezed in between a bureau and the feather bed, two shock-headed children sat on a flour barrel, clutching each other at every lurch of the crowded van to keep from losing their balance. "howdy, dunk!" called the storekeeper, as the dusty pilgrims halted in front of the porch. "where are you bound now?" "over to the old neal place," answered the man, handing the reins to his wife, and climbing stiffly down over the wheel. going around to the back of the wagon, he unstrapped a kerosene can which swung from the pole underneath. "gimme a gallon of coal-ile, jim," he said. "i don't want to be left in the dark the first night, anyway. it takes awhile to git your bearings in a strange place, and it's mighty confusing to butt agin a half-open door where you've always been used to a plain wall, and it hurts like fire to bark your shins on a rocking-chair when you're steering straight for bed, and hain't no idee it's in the road. this time it'll be a little more so than usual," he added, handing over the can. "the house backs up agin a graveyard, you know. sort o' spooky till you git used to it." "what on earth did you move there for?" asked bowser. "they say the place is ha'nted." "to my mind the dead make better neighbours than the living," came the tart reply from the depths of the black sunbonnet. "at any rate, they mind their own business." "oh, come now, mrs. smith," began bowser, good-naturedly. "maybe you've been unfortunate in your choice of neighbours." "i've had a dozen different kinds," came the emphatic answer. "this'll make the twelfth move in eight years, so you can't say that i'm speaking from hearsay." "twelve moves in eight years!" exclaimed bowser, as the wagon went lurching and creaking on through the dust. "there's gipsy blood in that dunk smith, sure as you live. seems like that family can't be satisfied anywhere; always thinking they can better themselves by changing, and always getting out of the frying-pan into the fire. there wa'n't no well in the place where they settled when they was first married, and they had to carry water from a spring. the muscle put into packing that water up-hill those six months would have dug a cistern, but they were too short-sighted to see that. they jest played jack and jill as long as they could stand it, and then moved to a place where there was a cistern already dug. but there wa'n't any fruit on that place. if they'd have set out trees right away they'd have been eating from orchards of their own planting by this time. but they thought it was easier to move to where one was already set out. "then when they got to a place where they had both fruit and water, it was low, and needed draining. the water settled around the house, and they all had typhoid that summer. oh, they've spent enough energy packing up and moving on and settling down again in new places to have fixed the first one up to a queen's taste. they seem to be running a perpetual home-seeker's excursion. well, such a life might suit some people, but it would never do for me." "but such a life has some things in its favour," put in rob akers, always ready to debate any question that offered, for the mere pleasure of arguing. "it keeps a man from getting into a rut, and develops his ability to adapt himself to any circumstance. a man who hangs his hat on the same peg for fifty or sixty years gets to be so dependent on that peg that he would be uncomfortable if it were suddenly denied him. now dunk smith can never become such a slave to habit. then, too, moving tends to leave a man more unhampered. he gradually gets rid of everything in his possessions but the essentials. he hasn't a garret full of old claptraps, as most people have who never move from under their ancestral roof-trees. you saw for yourself, one wagon holds all his household goods and gods. "it is the same way with a man mentally. if he stays in the spot where his forefathers lived, in the same social conditions, he is apt to let his upper story accumulate a lot of worn-out theories that he has no earthly use for; all their old dusty dogmas and cob-webbed beliefs. he will hang on to them as on to the old furniture, because he happened to inherit them. if he would move once in awhile, keep up with the times, you know, he'd get rid of a lot of rubbish. it is especially true in regard to his religion. all those old superstitions, for instance, about jonah and the whale, and noah's ark and the like. "he hangs on to them, not because he cares for them himself, but because they were his father's beliefs, and he doesn't like to throw out anything the old man had a sentiment for. now, as i say, if he'd move once in awhile--do some scientific thinking and investigating on his own account--he'd throw out over half of what he holds on to now. he'd cut the most of genesis out of his bible, and let job slide as a myth. one of the finest bits of literature, to be sure, that can be found anywhere, but undoubtedly fiction. the sooner a man moves on untrammelled, i say, by those old heirlooms of opinion, the better progress he will make." "toward what?" asked the old miller, laconically. "dunk's moving next door to the graveyard." there was a twinkle in his eye, and the young collegian, who flattered himself that his speech was making a profound impression, paused with the embarrassing consciousness that he was affording amusement instead. "the last time i went east to visit my grandson," said the old man, meditatively, "his wife showed me a mahogany table in her dining-room which she said was making all her friends break the tenth commandment. it was a handsome piece of furniture, worth a small fortune. it was polished till you could see your face in it, and i thought it was the newest thing out in tables till she told me she'd rummaged it out of her great-grandmother's attic, and had it 'done over' as she called it. it had been hidden away in the dust and cobwebs for a lifetime because it had been pronounced too time-worn and battered and scratched for longer use; yet there it stood, just as beautiful and useful for this generation to spread its feasts on as it was the day it was made. every whit as substantial, and aside from any question of sentiment, a thousand times more valuable than the one that dunk smith drove past with just now. his table is modern, to be sure, but it's of cheap pine, too rickety to serve even dunk through his one short lifetime of movings. "i heard several lectures while i was there, too. one was by a man who has made a name for himself on both sides of the water as a scientist and a liberal thinker. he took up genesis, all scratched and battered as it is by critics, and showed us how it had been misunderstood and misconstrued. and by the time he'd polished up the meaning here and there, so that we could see the original grain of the wood, what it was first intended to be, it seemed like a new book, and fitted in with all the modern scientific ideas as if it had been made only yesterday. "there it stood, like the mahogany table that had been restored after people thought they had stowed it away in the attic to stay. just as firm on its legs, and as substantial for this generation to put its faith on, as it was in the days of the judges. "take an old man's word for it, robert, who has lived a long time and seen many a restless dunk smith fling out his father's old heirlooms, in his fever to move on to something new. solid mahogany, with all its dust and scratches, is better than the modern flimsy stuff, either in faith or furniture, that he is apt to pick up in its stead." chapter ix the booming of distant cannon had been sounding at intervals since midnight, ushering in the fourth, but bowser, although disturbed in his slumbers by each reverberation, did not rouse himself to any personal demonstration until dawn. then his patriotism manifested itself in a noisy tattoo with a hammer, as he made the front of his store gay with bunting, and nailed the word _welcome_ over the door, in gigantic letters of red, white, and blue. when he was done, each window wore a bristling eyebrow of stiff little flags, that gave the store an air of mild surprise. the effect was wholly unintentional on bowser's part, and, unconscious of the likeness to human eyes he had given his windows, he gazed at his work with deep satisfaction. but the expression was an appropriate one, considering all the astonishing sights the old store was to look upon that day. in the woodland across the railroad track, just beyond miss anastasia dill's little cottage, preparations were already begun for a grand barbecue. even before bowser had finished tacking up his flags, the digging of the trench had begun across the way, and the erection of a platform for the speakers. in one corner of the woodland a primitive merry-go-round had already been set in place, and the first passenger train from the city deposited an enterprising hoky-poky man, a peanut and pop-corn vender, and a lank black-bearded man with an outfit for taking tin-types. by ten o'clock the wood-lot fence was a hitching-place for all varieties of vehicles, from narrow sulkies to cavernous old carryalls. a haze of thick yellow dust, extending along the pike as far as one could see, was a constant accompaniment of fresh arrivals. each newcomer emerged from it, his sunday hat and coat powdered as thickly as the wayside weeds. smart side-bar buggies dashed up, their shining new tops completely covered with it. there was a great shaking of skirts as the girls alighted, and a great flapping of highly perfumed handkerchiefs, as the young country beaux made themselves presentable, before joining the other picnickers. slow-going farm wagons rattled along, the occupants of their jolting chairs often representing several generations, for the drawing power of a fourth of july barbecue reaches from the cradle to the grave. the unusual sight of such a crowd, scattered through the grove in gala attire, was enough of itself to produce a holiday thrill, and added to this was the smell of gunpowder from occasional outbursts of firecrackers, the chant of the hoky-poky man, and the hysterical laughter of the couples patronising the merry-go-round, as they clung giddily to the necks of the wooden ostriches and camels in the first delights of its dizzy whirl. "good as a circus, isn't it?" exclaimed robert akers, pausing beside the bench where the old miller and the minister sat watching the gay scene. "i'm having my fun walking around and taking notes. it is amusing to see how differently the affair impresses people, and what seems to make each fellow happiest. little tommy bowser, for instance, is in the seventh heaven following the hoky-poky man. he gets all that people leave in their dishes for helping to drum up a crowd of patrons. perkins's boy sticks by the merry-go-round. he has spent every cent of his own money, and had so many treats that he's spun around till he's so dizzy he's cross-eyed. one old fellow i saw back there is simply sitting on the fence grinning at everything that goes by. he's getting his enjoyment in job lots." "sit down," said the minister, sociably moving along the bench to make room beside him for the young man. "mr. holmes and i are finding our amusement in the same way, only we are not going around in search of it. we are catching at it as it drifts by." "what has happened to mrs. teddy mahone?" exclaimed rob, as a red-faced woman with an important self-conscious air hurried by. "she seems ubiquitous this morning, and as proud as a peacock over something. one would think she were the mistress of ceremonies from her manner." "or hostess, rather," said the miller. "she met me down by the fence on my arrival, and held out her hand as graciously as if she were a duchess in her own drawing-room, and i an invited guest. "'gude marnin' to yez, mr. holmes,' she said. 'i hope ye'll be afther enjyin' yerself the day. if anything intherferes wid yer comfort ye've but to shpake to mahone about it. he's been appinted _constable_ for the occasion, ye understhand. if i do say it as oughtn't, he can carry the title wid the best av 'im; him six fut two in his stockin's, an' the shtar shinin' on his wes'cut loike he'd been barn to the job.' "then she turned to greet some strangers from morristown, and i heard her introducing herself as mrs. _constable_ mahone, and repeating the same instructions she had given me, to report to her husband, in case everything was not to their liking." both listeners laughed at the miller's imitation of her brogue, and the minister quoted, with an amused smile: "'for never title yet so mean could prove, but there was eke a mind, which did that title love.' it is a pity we cannot dress more of them in 'a little brief authority.' it seems to be a means of grace to a certain class of hibernians. it has americanised the mahones, for instance. you'll find no patriots on the ground to-day more enthusiastic than mr. and mrs. constable mahone. fourth of july will be an honoured feast-day henceforth in their calendar. it is often surprising how quickly a policeman's buttons and billy will make a good citizen out of the wildest bog-trotter that ever brandished a shillalah." * * * * * later, in subsequent wanderings around the grounds, the young collegian spied the little schoolmistress helping to keep guard over the cake-table. he immediately crossed over and joined her. she was looking unusually pretty, and there was an amused gleam in her eyes as she watched the crowds, which made him feel that she was viewing the scene from his standpoint; that he had found a kindred spirit. "what incentive to patriotism do you see in all this, miss helen?" he asked, when he had induced her to turn over her guardianship of the cake-table to some one else, and join him in his tour among the boisterous picnickers. "none at all--yet," she answered. "i suppose that will come by and by with the songs and speeches. but all this foolishness seems a legitimate part of the celebration to me. you remember lowell says, 'if i put on the cap and bells, and made myself one of the court fools of king demos, it was less to make his majesty laugh than to win a passage to his royal ears for certain serious things which i had deeply at heart.' it takes a barbecue and its attendant attractions to draw a crowd like this. see what a hotch-potch it is of all nationalities. now that schneidmacher family never would have driven ten miles in this heat and dust simply to hear the band play 'hail, columbia,' and judge jackson make one of his spread-eagle speeches on the duty of the american citizen. neither would the o'gradys or any of the others who represent the foreign element in the neighbourhood. even young america himself, the type we see here, is more willing to come and bring his best girl on account of the diversions offered." "well, that may be so," was the reluctant assent, "but if this is a sample of the fourth of july observances all over the country i can't help feeling sorry for uncle sam. patriotism has sadly degenerated from the pace that patrick henry set for it." "the old miller says not," answered the little schoolmistress. "i made that same complaint last washington's birthday, when i was trying to work my school up to proper enthusiasm for the occasion. he recalled the drouth of the summer before when nearly every well and creek and pond in the township went dry. cattle died of thirst, gardens dried up like brick-kilns, and people around here were almost justified in thinking that the universe would soon be entirely devoid of water. the skies were like brass, and there was no indication of rain for weeks. but one day there was a terrific earthquake shock. it started all the old springs, and opened new ones all over this part of the country, and the water gushed out of the earth where it had been pent up all the time, only waiting for some such touch to call it forth. 'and you're afraid that patriotism is going dry in this generation,' he said to me. 'but it only takes some shock like the sinking of the _maine_, or some sudden menace to the public safety, to start a spring that will gush from plymouth rock to the golden gate. there is a deep underground vein in the american heart that no drouth can ever dry. maybe it does not come to the surface often, but it can always be depended on in time of need.'" the speakers for the day began to arrive, and rob, seeing the crowds gravitating toward the grand stand, took the little schoolmistress to the bench where the miller had stationed himself. "watch that old scotchman just in front of us," whispered the girl, "mr. sandy mcpherson. last thanksgiving there was a union service in the schoolhouse. after the sermon 'america' was sung, and that old heathen stood up and roared out through it all, at the top of his voice, every word of 'god save the queen!' wasn't that flaunting the thistle in our faces with a vengeance? i am sure that he will repeat the performance to-day. think of the dogged persistence that refuses to succumb to the fact that we have thrown off the british yoke! the very day we are celebrating that event, he'll dare to mix up our national hymn with 'god save the king.'" it was as she had predicted. as the band started with a great clash of brazen instruments, and the whole company rose to the notes of "america," sandy mcpherson's big voice, with its broad scotch burr, rolled out like a bass drum: "'thy choicest gifts in store, on _him_ be pleased to pour. long may _he_ reign.'" it drowned out every voice around him. "he ought to be choked," exclaimed rob, in righteous indignation, as they resumed their seats. "to-day of all days! the old tory has been living in this country for forty-five years, and a good living he's gotten out of it, too, for himself and family. nobody cares what he sings on his own premises, but he might have the decency to keep his mouth shut on occasions of this kind, if he can't join with us." there was a gleam of laughter in the little schoolmistress's eyes as she replied: "if the truth were known i have no doubt but that this fourth of july celebration is very like the pie in mother goose's song of sixpence, when her four and twenty blackbirds were baked in a pie. if this pie could be opened, and the birds begin to sing according to their sentiments, there would be a wonderful diversity of tunes. one would be twittering the 'marseillaise,' and another 'die wacht am rhein,' and another echoing old sandy's tune. america was in too big a hurry to serve her national pie, i am afraid. consequently she put it in half prepared, and turned it out half baked. the blackbirds should have had their voices tuned to the same key before they were allowed to become vital ingredients of such an important dish." "in other words," laughed rob, "you'd reconstruct the enfranchisement laws. make the term of probationary citizenship so long that the blackbird would have time to change his vocal chords, or even the leopard his anarchistic spots, before he would be considered fit to be incorporated in the national dish. by the way, miss helen, have you heard mrs. mahone's allegory of the united pudding bag? you and she ought to collaborate. get the storekeeper to repeat it to you sometime." "you needn't laugh," responded the little schoolmistress, a trifle tartly. "you know yourself that scores of emigrants are given the ballot before they can distinguish 'yankee doodle' from 'dixie,' and that is only typical of their ignorance in all matters regarding governmental affairs. too many people's idea of good citizenship is like the man's 'who kept his private pan just where 'twould catch most public drippings.' there is another mistaken idea loose in the land," she continued, after a moment. "that is, that a great hero must be a man who has a reputation as a great soldier. i wish i had the rewriting of all the school histories. they are better now than when i studied them, but there is still vast room for improvement. i had to learn page after page of wars. really, war and history were synonyms then as it was taught in the schools. every chapter was gory, and we were required to memorise the numbers killed, wounded, and captured in every battle, from the french and indian massacres, down to the last cannon-shot of the sixties. that is all right for government records and reference libraries, but when we give a text-book to the rising generation, the accounts of battles and the glorifying thereof would be better relegated to the foot-notes. it is loyal statesmanship that ought to be exalted in our school histories. we ought to make our heroes out of the legislators who cannot be bribed and public men who cannot be bought, and the honest private citizen who _lives_ for his country instead of dying for it." the old miller beside her applauded softly, leaning over to say, as the overture by the band came to a close with a grand clash, "if ever the blackbirds are tuned to one key, miss helen, america will know whom to thank. not the legislators, but the patriotic little schoolma'ams all over their land who are serving their country in a way her greatest generals cannot do." * * * * * all day the cross-roads store raised its bristling eyebrows of little flags, till the celebration came to a close. savoury whiffs of the barbecued meats floated across to it, vigorous hand-clapping and hearty cheers rang out to it between the impassioned words of excited orators. later there were the fireworks, and more rag-time music by the band, and renewed callings of the hoky-poky man. but before the moon came up there was a great backing of teams and scraping of turning wheels, and a gathering together of picnic-baskets and stray children. "well, it's over for another year," said bowser, welcoming the old miller, who had crossed the road and taken a chair on the porch to wait until the crowds were out of the way. "those were fine speeches we had this afternoon, but seemed to me as if they were plumb wasted on the majority of that crowd. they applauded them while they were going off, same as they did the rockets, but they forget in the next breath." as bowser spoke, a rocket whizzed up through the tree tops, and the old miller, looking up to watch the shining trail fade out, saw that the sky was full of stars. "that's the good of those speeches, bowser," he said. "'_to leave a wake, men's hearts and faces skyward turning._' i hadn't noticed that the stars were out till that rocket made me look up. the speeches may be forgotten, but they will leave a memory in their wake that give men an uplook anyhow." chapter x "guess who's come to board at the widder powers's for the month of august?" it was bowser who asked the question, and who immediately answered it himself, as every man on the porch looked up expectantly. "nobody more nor less than a _multimillionaire_! the big boot and shoe man, william a. maxwell. mrs. powers bought a bill of goods this morning as long as your arm. it's a windfall for _her_. he offered to pay regular summer-resort-hotel prices, because she's living on the old farm where he was born and raised, and he fancied getting back to it for a spell." "family coming with him?" queried cy akers, after a moment's meditation over the surprising fact that a millionaire with the world before him should elect such a place as the cross-roads in which to spend his vacation. "no, you can bet your bottom dollar they're not. and they're all abroad this summer or _he'd_ never got here. they'd had him dragged off to some fashionable watering-place with them. but when the cat's away the mice'll play, you know. mrs. powers says it is his first visit here since his mother's funeral twenty years ago, and he seems as tickled as a boy to get back. "yesterday evening he followed the man all around the place while she was getting supper. she left him setting up in the parlour, but when she went in to ask him out to the table, he was nowhere to be seen. pretty soon he came walking around the corner of the house with a pail of milk in each hand, sloshing it all over his store clothes. he'd done the milking himself, and seemed mightily set up over it." "lawzee! billy maxwell! don't i remember him?" exclaimed bud hines. "seems like 'twas only yesterday we used to sit on the same bench at school doin' our sums out of the same old book. the year old man prosser taught, we got into so much devilment that it got to be a regular thing for him to say, regular as clock-work, almost, 'i'll whip bud hines and billy maxwell after the first arithmetic class this morning.' i don't s'pose he ever thinks of those old times since he's got to be one of the four hundred. somehow i can hardly sense it, his bein' so rich. he never seemed any smarter than the rest of us. that's the way of the world, though, seesaw, one up and the other down. of course it's my luck to be the one that's down. luck always was against me." "there he is now," exclaimed the storekeeper, and every head turned to see the stranger stepping briskly along the platform in front of the depot, on his way to the telegraph office. he had the alertness of glance and motion that comes from daily contact with city corners. if there was a slight stoop in his broad shoulders, and if his closely cut hair and beard were iron gray, that seemed more the result of bearing heavy responsibilities than the token of advancing years. his immaculate linen, polished low-cut shoes, and light gray business suit would have passed unnoticed in the metropolis, but in this place, where coats and collars were in evidence only on sunday, they gave him the appearance of being on dress parade. perkins's oldest eyed him as he would a zebra or a giraffe, or some equally interesting curiosity escaped from a zoo. he had heard that his pockets were lined with gold, and that he had been known to pay as much as five dollars for a single lunch. five dollars would board a man two weeks at the cross-roads. with his mouth agape, the boy stood watching the stranger, who presently came over to the group on the porch with smiling face and cordial outstretched hand. despite his gray hair there was something almost boyish in the eagerness with which he recognised old faces and claimed old friendships. bowser's store had been built since his departure from the neighbourhood, so few of the congenial spirits accustomed to gather there were familiar to him. but bud hines and cy akers were old schoolfellows. when he would have gone up to them with old-time familiarity, he found a certain restraint in their greeting which checked his advances. if he thought he was coming back to them the same freckle-faced, unconventional country lad they had known as billy maxwell, he was mistaken. he might feel that he was the same at heart; but they looked on the outward appearance. they saw the successful man of the world who had outstripped them in the race and passed out of their lives long ago. they could not conceive of such a change as had metamorphosed the boy they remembered into the man who stood before them, without feeling that a corresponding change must have taken place in his attitude toward them. they were not conscious that this feeling was expressed in their reception of him. they laughed at his jokes, and indulged in some reminiscences, but he felt, in a dim subconscious way, that there was a barrier between them, and he could never get back to the old familiar footing. he turned away, vaguely disappointed. had he dared to dream that he would find his lost youth just as he had left it? the fields and hills were unchanged. the very trees were the same, except that they had added a few more rings to their girth, and threw a larger circling shade. but the old chums he had counted on finding had not followed the same law of growth as the trees. the shade of their sympathies had narrowed, not expanded, with the passing years, and left him outside their contracted circle. perkins's oldest, awed by reports of his fabulous wealth, could hardly find his tongue when the distinguished visitor laid a friendly hand on his embarrassed tow head, and inquired about the old swimming-hole, and the mill-dam where he used to fish. but the boy's interest grew stronger every minute as he watched him turning over the limited assortment of fishing tackle. the men he knew had outlived such frivolous sports. it was a sight to justify one's gazing open-mouthed,--a grown man deliberately preparing for a month's idleness. if the boy could have seen the jointed rods, the reels, the flies, all the expensive angler's outfit left behind in the maxwell mansion; if he could have known of the tarpon this man had caught in florida bays, and the fishing he had enjoyed in northern waters, he would have wondered still more; wondered how a man could be considered in his right mind who deliberately renounced such privileges to come and drop a common hook, on a pole of his own cutting, into the shallow pools of the cross-roads creek. after his purchases no one saw him at the store for several days, but the boy, dodging across lots, encountered him often,--a solitary figure wandering by the mill stream, or crashing through the woods with long eager strides; lying on the orchard grass sometimes with his hat pulled over his eyes; leaning over the pasture bars in the twilight, and following with wistful glance the little foot-path stretching white across the meadows. a pathetic sight to eyes wise enough to see the pathos,--a world-weary, middle-aged man in vain quest of his lost boyhood. on sunday, polly, looking across the church from her place in the miller's pew, recognised the stranger in their midst, and straightway lost the thread of the sermon in wondering at his presence. she had gone to school with his daughter, maud maxwell. she had danced many a german with his son claude. they lived on the same avenue, and passed each other daily; but this was the first time she had seen him away from the shadow of the family presence, that seemed to blot out his individuality. she had thought of him only as maud's father, a simple, good-natured nonentity in his own household. a good business man, but one who could talk nothing but leather, and whose only part in the family affairs was to furnish the funds for his wife and children to shine socially. "oh, your father's opinion doesn't count," she had heard mrs. maxwell say on more than one occasion, and the children had grown up, unconsciously copying her patronising attitude toward him. as polly studied his face now in the light of other surroundings, she saw that it was a strong, kindly one; that it was not weakness which made him yield habitually, until he had become a mere figurehead in his own establishment. it was only that his peace-loving nature hated domestic scenes, and his generosity amounted to complete self-effacement when the happiness of his family was concerned. his eyes were fixed on the chancel with a wistful reminiscent gaze, and polly read something in the careworn face that touched her sympathy. "grandfather," she said, at the close of the service, "let's be neighbourly and ask mr. maxwell home to dinner with us. he looks lonesome." she was glad afterward that she had suggested it, when she recalled his evident pleasure in the old man's company. there were chairs out under the great oak-trees in the yard, and the two sat talking all afternoon of old times, until the evening shadows began to grow long across the grass. then polly joined them again, and sat with them till the tinkle of home-going cowbells broke on the restful stillness of the country sabbath. "all the orchestras in all the operas in the world can't make music that sounds as sweet to me as that does," said mr. maxwell, raising his head from the big armchair to listen. then he dropped it again with a sigh. "it rests me so after the racket of the city. if julia would only consent, i'd sell out and come back to-morrow. but she's lost all interest in the old place. i'm country to the core, but she never was. she took to city ways like a duck to water, just as soon as she got away from the farm, and she laughs at me for preferring katydids to the whirr of electric cars." a vision rose before the old miller of a little country girl in a pink cotton gown, who long ago used to wait, bright-eyed and blushing, at the pasture bars, for billy to drive home the cows. many a time he had passed them at their trysting-place. then he recalled the superficial, ambitious woman he had met years afterward when he visited his son. he shook his head when he thought of her renouncing her social position for the simple pastoral life her husband longed to find the way back to. presently he broke the silence of their several reveries by turning to polly. "what's that piece you recited to me the other night, little girl, about old times? say it for mr. maxwell." and polly, clasping her hands in her lap, and looking away across the august meadows, purple with the royal pennons of the ironweed, began the musical old poem: "'ko-ling, ko-lang, ko-linglelingle, way down the darkening dingle the cows come slowly home. (and old-time friends and twilight plays and starry nights and sunny days come trooping up the misty ways, when the cows come home.) "'and over there on merlin hill hear the plaintive cry of the whippoorwill. and the dewdrops lie on the tangled vines, and over the poplars venus shines, and over the silent mill. "'ko-ling, ko-lang, ko-linglelingle, with ting-aling and jingle the cows come slowly home. (let down the bars, let in the train of long-gone songs and flowers and rain, for dear old times come back again, when the cows come home.)'" once as polly went on, she saw the tears spring to his eyes at the line "and mother-songs of long-gone years," and she knew that the "same sweet sound of wordless psalm, the same sweet smell of buds and balm," that had been his delight in the past, were his again as he listened. but, much to her surprise, as she finished, he rose abruptly, and began a hurried leave-taking. she understood his manner, however, when his mood was revealed to her a little later. at her grandfather's suggestion she walked down to the gate with him, to point out a short cut across the fields to mrs. powers's. outside the gate he paused, hat in hand. "miss polly," he began, as if unconsciously taking her into his confidence, "old times never come back again. seems as if the bottom had dropped out of everything. i've done my best to resurrect them, but i can't do it. i thought if i could once get back to the old place i could rest as i've not been able to rest for twenty years--that i'd have a month of perfect enjoyment. but something's the matter. "many a time when i've been off at some fashionable resort i've thought i'd give a fortune to be able to drop my hook in your grandfather's mill-stream, and feel the old thrill that i used to feel when i was a boy. i tried it the day i came--caught a little speckled trout, the kind that used to make me tingle to my finger ends, but somehow it didn't bring back the old sensation. i just looked at it a minute and put it back in the water, and threw my pole away. "even the swimming-hole down by the mill didn't measure up to the way i had remembered it. i've fairly ached for a dip into it sometimes, in the years i've been gone. seemed as if i could just get into it once, i could wash myself clear of all the cares and worries of business that pester a man so. that was a disappointment, too. the change is in me, i guess, but nothing seems the same." polly knew the reason. he had tried so long to mould his habits to fit his wife's exacting tastes, that he had succeeded better than he realised. he could not analyse his feelings enough to know that it was the absence of long accustomed comforts that made him vaguely dissatisfied with his surroundings; his luxuriously appointed bathroom, for instance; the perfect service of his carefully trained footmen. mrs. powers's noisy table, where with great clatter she urged every one "to fall to and help himself," jarred on him, although he was unconscious of what caused the irritation. as for the rank tobacco bowser furnished him when he had exhausted his own special brand of cigars with which he had stocked his satchel, it was more than flesh and blood could endure. that is, flesh and blood that had acquired the pampered taste of a millionaire whose wife is fastidious, and only allows first-class aromas in the way of the weed. but polly knew another reason that his vacation had been a failure. she divined it as the little yale pin, stuck jauntily into the front of her white dress, met the touch of her caressing fingers. the girl in the pink cotton gown was long dead, and the woman who had grown up in her stead had no part in the old scenes that he still fondly clung to, with a sentiment she ridiculed because she could not understand. _there must always be two when you turn back searching for your lost eldorado, and even the two cannot find it, unless they go hand in hand._ * * * * * next day bowser had another piece of news to impart. "mr. maxwell went home this morning. he told mrs. powers it was like taking a vacation in a graveyard, and he'd had enough. he'd have to get back to work again. so he paid her for the full month, and took the first train back to the city." "well, i'll be switched!" was bud hines's comment. "if i had as much money as he's got, i'd never bother my head about work. i'd sit down and take it easy all the rest of my born days." "i don't know," answered bowser, meditatively. "i reckon a man who's worked the way mr. maxwell has, gets such a big momentum on to himself that he can't stop, no matter how bad he wants a vacation." "he's a fool for coming back here for it," said bud hines, looking out across the fields that stretched away on every side in unbroken monotony. but miles away, in his city office, the busy millionaire was still haunted by an unsatisfied longing for those same level meadows. glimpses of the old mill-stream and the willows still rose before him in tantalising freshness, and whenever he closed his tired eyes, down twilight paths, where tinkling cowbells called, there came again the glimmer of a little pink gown, to wait for him as it had waited through all the years, beside the pasture bars. chapter xii the seat was an empty starch-box on the cross-roads porch, its occupant a barefoot boy with a torn straw hat pulled far down over his eyes. to the casual observer one of the most ordinary of sights, but to one possessed of sympathetic powers of penetration into a boy's inner consciousness there was a suggestion of the tragic. perkins's oldest had that afternoon in school been told to write a composition on september. it was to be handed in next morning. it was the hopelessness of accomplishing the fact even in æons, not to mention the limited time of a dozen short hours, that had bound him, a little prometheus, to the starch-box, with the vulture of absolute despair tearing at his vitals. two other boys had been assigned the same subject, and the three had kicked the dust up wrathfully all the way from the schoolhouse, echoing an old cry that had gone up ages before from the sons of jacob, under the lash of the egyptian, "how can we make bricks without straw?" "ain't nothin' to say 'bout september," declared riley hines, gloomily, "and i'll be dogged if i say it. i'm goin' to get my sister to write mine fer me. she'll do it ef i tease long enough, and give her something to boot." "i'll ask paw what to say," declared tommy bowser. "he won't write it for me, but he'll sort o' boost me along. then if it ain't what she wants, _i_ won't be to blame. i'll tell her paw said 'twas all right." this shifting of responsibility to paternal shoulders restored the habitual expression of cheerfulness to tommy's smudgy face, but there was no corresponding smile on sammy's. there was no help to be had in the household of perkins. that was why he was waiting on the starch-box while tommy was sent on an errand. it was in the vain hope that tommy would return and apply for his "boost" and share it with him before darkness fell. he was a practical child, not given to whimsical reflections, but as he sat there in desperate silence, he began wondering what the different customers would have to say if they were suddenly called upon, as he had been that afternoon, to write about september. mrs. powers, for instance, in her big crape bonnet, with its long wispy veil trailing down her back. he was almost startled, when, as if in answer to his thought, she uttered the word that was at the bottom of his present trouble, the subject assigned him for composition. "yes, mr. bowser, september is a month that i'm never sorry to say good-bye to. what with the onion pickle and peach preserves and the house-cleaning to tend to, i'm nearly broke down when it's over. there's so many odds and ends to see to on a farm this time of year, first in doors and then out. i tell jane it's like piecing a crazy quilt. you can't never count on what a day's going to bring forth in september. you may get a carpet up and beat, and have your stove settin' out waiting to be put up, and your furniture in a heap in the yard, and the hired man will have to go off and leave it all while he takes the cider-mill to be mended. and you in a stew all day long for fear it'll rain before he gets things under shelter. "then it's a sad time to me, too," she exclaimed with a mournful shake of the head in the black bonnet. "it was in september i lost my first and third husbands, two of the best that ever had tombstones raised to their memory, if i do say it as oughtn't. one died on the sixteenth, and his funeral was preached on the eighteenth, and the other died fifteen years later on the twenty-third, and we kept him three days, on account of waiting till his brother could get here from missouri. so you see that makes nearly a week altogether of mournful anniversaries for me every september." another breath and she had reached the three tombstones, and talking volubly on her favourite subject, she completed her purchases and went out. but her conversation had not lightened the woes of the little prometheus on the starch-box. despair still gnawed on. house-cleaning worries and onion pickle, and reminiscences of two out of three departed husbands, might furnish material for mrs. powers's composition, should the fates compel her to write one, but there was no straw of a suggestion for sammy perkins, and again he cried out inwardly as bitterly as the oppressed of old had cried out against pharaoh. a man in a long, sagging linen duster was the next comer. he squeaked back and forth in front of the counter in new high-heeled boots, and talked incessantly while he made his purchases, with a clumsy attempt at facetiousness. "put in a cake of shaving-soap, too, jim," he called, passing his hand over the black stubble on his chin. "county court begins to-morrer. reckon the lawyers will shave everything in sight when it comes to their bills, but i want to be as slick as them. i'll be settin' on the jury all week. did you ever think of it, jim, that's a mighty interesting way to earn your salt? jest set back and be entertained with the history of all the old feuds and fusses in the county, and collect your two bucks a day without ever turning your hand over. good as a show, and dead easy. "only one thing, it sort o' spiles your faith in human nature. the court stenographer said last year that in the shorthand he writes, the same mark that stands for lawyer stands for liar, too. he! he! he! isn't that a good one? you can only tell which one is meant by what comes before it, and this fellow said he'd come to believe that one always fit in the sentence as good as the other. either word was generally appropriate. you miss a lot of fun, jim, by not getting on the jury. i always look forrard to fall on that account." no help for perkins's oldest in _that_ conversation. he waited awhile longer. presently an old gentleman in a long-tailed, quaintly cut black coat, stepped up on the porch. he had a gold-headed cane under his arm, and the eyes behind the square-bowed spectacles beamed kindly on the little fellow. he stopped beside the starch-box a moment with a friendly question about school and the health of the perkins household. the boy's heart gave a jump up into his throat. the old minister knew everything. the minister could even tell him what to write in his composition if he dared but ask him. he opened his mouth to form the question, but his tongue seemed glued in its place, and the head under the torn hat drooped lower in embarrassed silence. his troubled face flushed to the roots of his tow hair, and he let the angel of opportunity pass him by unchallenged. "will you kindly give me one of those advertising almanacs, mr. bowser?" inquired the parson, when his packages of tea and sugar had been secured. "i've misplaced mine, and i want to ascertain at what hour to-morrow the moon changes." "certainly, certainly!" responded the storekeeper with obliging alacrity, rubbing his hands together, and stepping up on a chair to reach the pile on a shelf overhead. "help yourself, sir. i must answer the telephone." the parson, slowly studying the moon's phases as he stepped out of the store, did not notice that he had taken two almanacs until one fell at his feet. the boy sprang up to return it, but he waved it aside with a courtly sweep of his hand. "no, my son, i intended to take but one. keep it. they are for general distribution. you will find it full of useful information. have you ever learned anything about the signs of the zodiac? here is leo. i always take an especial interest in this sign, because i happened to be born under it. i'm the seventh son of a seventh son, born in the seventh month, and i always take it as a good omen, seven being the perfect number. you know the ancients believed a man's star largely affected his destiny. you will find some interesting historical events enumerated under each month. a good almanac is almost as interesting to study as a good dictionary, my boy. i would advise you to form a habit of referring to both of them frequently." with one of his rare, childlike smiles the good man passed on, and perkins's oldest was left with the almanac in his hands. for awhile he studied the signs of the zodiac, in puzzled awe, trying to establish a relationship between them and the man they surrounded, whose vital organs were obligingly laid open to public inspection, regardless of any personal inconvenience the display might cause him. then he turned to the historical events. there was one for each day in the month. on sunday, the first, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, had occurred the japanese typhoon. friday, the sixth, sixteen hundred and twenty, the _mayflower_ had sailed. mahomet's birth had set apart the eleventh in five hundred and seventy. the founding of mormonism, washington's farewell, and the battle of marathon were further down the list, but it was all greek to perkins's oldest. any one of these items would have been straw for the parson. out of the _mayflower_, mahomet, mormonism, or marathon, each one of them the outgrowth of some september, he could have pressed enough literary brick to build a fair sky-scraping structure that would have been the wonder of all who gazed upon it. this time the boy looked his angel of opportunity in the face and did not recognise it as such. the gate clicked across the road and he turned his head. miss anastasia dill was going up the path, her arms full of goldenrod and white and purple asters. september was a poem to miss anastasia, but the boy looked upon goldenrod and the starry asters simply as meadow weeds. the armful of bloom brought no suggestion to him. on the morrow riley hines would hand in two pages of allusions to them, beginning with a quotation from whittier's "autumn thoughts," and ending with a couplet from pope, carefully copied by maria hines from the "exercises for parsing" in the back of her grammar. somebody's supper-horn blew in the distance, and, grown desperate by tommy's long absence and the lateness of the hour, he took his little cracked slate from the strap of books on the floor beside him, and laid it across his knees. then with a stubby pencil that squeaked dismally in its passage across the slate, he began copying bodily from the almanac the list of historical events enumerated therein, just as they stood, beginning with the japanese typhoon on the first, and ending "_volunteer_ beat _thistle_" on the thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven. then he began to copy a few agricultural notes, inserted as side remarks for those who relied on their almanacs as guide-posts to gardening. "gather winter squashes now. they keep better when stored in a warm dry place. harvest sugar beets when the leaves turn yellowish green, etc." he was bending painfully over this task when a shadow fell across his slate, and, looking up, he saw the old miller looking over his shoulder. "doing your sums?" he asked, with a friendly smile. "let's see if you do them the way i was taught when i was a lad." he held out his hand for the slate. there had been a bond of sympathy between the two ever since christmas eve, when a certain pair of skates had changed owners, and now, although the boy's voice trembled almost out of his control, he managed to stammer out the reply that he was trying to write a composition. the old man looked from the straggling lines on the slate, then at the open almanac, then down at the boy's troubled face, and understood. drawing a chair across the porch he sat down beside him, and, catching the furtive, scared side-glance cast in his direction, he plunged at once into a story. it was about a shepherd boy who went out to fight a giant, and the king insisted on lending him his armour. but he couldn't fight in the heavy helmet and the coat of mail. the shield was in his way, and the spear more than he could lift. so he threw it aside, and going down to a little brook, chose five small pebbles, worn smooth by the running water. and with these in his hand, and only the simple sling he was accustomed to use every day, he went out against the philistine giant, and slew him in the first round. perkins's oldest wondered what the story had to do with his composition. he wasn't looking for a personal application. he had not been brought up at sunday schools and kindergartens. but all of a sudden he realised that the miller meant him; that his depending on tommy, or the customers, or the almanac, to furnish him ideas, was like going out in saul's armour, and that he could only come to failure in that, because it wouldn't fit him; that he could hit the mark the little schoolmistress had in mind for him, only with the familiar sling-shot of his own common every-day personal experiences. maybe the old miller recognised that it was a crisis in the little fellow's life, for he stayed beside him with helpful hints and questions, until the slate was full. when he carried it home in the gloaming it no longer bore the items from the almanac. there were other remarks straggling across it, not so well expressed, perhaps, but plainly original. they were to the effect that september is the month you've got to go back to school when you don't want to, 'cos it's the nicest time of all to stay out-doors, neither too hot nor too cold. there's lots of apples then, and it's the minister's birthday. he's the seventh son of a seventh son, and dick wiggins says if you're that you can pick wahoo berries in the dark of the moon and make med'cine out of them, that will cure the bone-break fever every time, when nothing else in the world will. then followed several items of information that he had discovered for himself, in his prowls through the september woods, about snakes and tree-toads, as to their habits at that season of the year. it closed with a suggestive allusion to the delights of sucking cider from the bung of a barrel through a straw. next day the little schoolmistress shook her head over the composition that riley hines handed in, and laid it aside with a hopeless sigh. she recognised too plainly the hand of maria in its construction. the sentiments expressed therein were as foreign to riley's nature as they would have been to a woodchuck's. she took up tommy bowser's. alas, four-syllabled words were not in tommy's daily vocabulary, nor were the elegant sentences under his name within the power of his composition. plainly it was the work of a plagiarist. she went through the pile slowly, and then wrote on the blackboard as she had promised, the names of the ten whose work was the best and most original. it was then that perkins's oldest had the surprise of his life, for lo! his name, like abou-ben-adhem's, "led all the rest." again the cross-roads had taught him more than the school,--to depend on the resources to which nature had adapted him, and never again to attempt to sally forth in borrowed armour, even though it be a king's. chapter xii it was cy akers who carried the news to the schoolhouse, galloping his old sorrel up to the open door just before the bell tapped for afternoon dismissal. he did not dismount, but drawing rein, leaned forward in his saddle, waiting for the little schoolmistress to step down from the desk to the doorstep. the rows of waiting children craned their necks anxiously, but only those nearest the door heard his message. "mr. asa holmes died this morning," he said. "the funeral is set for to-morrow afternoon at four, and you can announce to the children that there won't be any school. the trustees thought it would be only proper to close out of respect for him, as he was on the school board over thirty years, and has done so much for the community. he's one of the old landmarks, you might say, about the last of the old pioneers, and everybody will want to go." before she could recover from the suddenness of the announcement the rider was gone, and she was left looking out across the october fields with a lonely sense of personal loss, although her acquaintance with the old miller had extended over only two short school terms. a few minutes later the measured tramp of feet over the worn door-sill began, and forty children passed out into the mellow sunshine of the late autumn afternoon. they went quietly at first, awed by the tender, reverent words in which the little schoolmistress had given them the message to carry home. but once outside, the pent-up enthusiasm over their unexpected holiday, and the mere joy of being alive and free on such a day sent them rushing down the road pell-mell, shouting and swinging their dinner-pails as they ran. a shade of annoyance crossed the teacher's face as she stood watching from the doorstep. she wished she had cautioned them not to be so noisy, for she knew that their shouts could be plainly heard in the old house whose gables she could see through a clump of cedars, farther down the road. it was standing with closed blinds now, and she had a feeling that the laughing voices floating across to it must strike harshly across its profound silence. but presently her face brightened as she watched the children running on in the sunshine, in the joy of their emancipation. part of a poem she had read that morning came to her. she had thought when she read it that it was a beautiful way to look upon death, and now it bore a new significance, and she whispered it to herself: "'why should it be a wrench to leave this wooden bench? why not with happy shout, run home when school is out?' "that's the way the old miller has gone," she said, softly. "his lessons all learned and his tasks all done--so well done, too, that he has nothing to regret. i'm glad that i didn't stop the children. i am sure that's the way he would want them to go. dear old man! he was always a boy at heart." she turned the key in the door behind her presently, and started down the road to mrs. powers's, where she boarded. in every fence corner the sumachs flamed blood-red, and across the fields, where purple shadows trailed their royal lengths behind every shock of corn, the autumn woodlands massed their gold and crimson against the sunset sky. she walked slowly, loath to reach the place where she must go indoors. the perkins home lay in her way, and as she passed, mrs. perkins with a baby on her hip, and a child clinging to her skirts, leaned over the gate to speak to her. "isn't it sad," the woman exclaimed, grasping eagerly at this chance to discuss every incident of the death and illness, with that love for detail always to be found in country districts where happenings are few and interests are strong. "they sent for the family tuesday when he had the stroke, but he couldn't speak to them when they got here. they said he seemed to recognise miss polly, and smiled when she took his hand. she seemed to be his favourite, and they say she's taking it mighty hard--harder than any of the rest. it's a pity he couldn't have left 'em all some last message. i think it's always a comfort to remember one's dying words when as good a person as mr. holmes goes. and it's always so nice when they happen to be appropriate, so's they can be put on the tombstone afterward. i remember my aunt maria worked my grandfather's last words into a sampler, with an urn and weeping-willow-tree. she had it framed in black and hung in the parlour, and everybody who came to the house admired it. it's a pity that the miller couldn't have left some last word to each of 'em." "i don't think it was necessary," said the girl, turning away with a choke in her voice, as the eloquent face of the old man seemed to rise up before her. "his whole life speaks for him." mrs. perkins looked after the retreating figure regretfully, as the jaunty sailor hat disappeared behind a tall hedge. "i wish she hadn't been in such a hurry," she sighed, shifting the baby to the other hip. "i would have liked to ask her if she's heard who the pall-bearers are to be." at the turn in the road the little schoolmistress looked up to see miss anastasia dill leaning over her gate. she had just heard the news, and there were tears in her pale blue eyes. "and polly's wedding cards were to have been sent out this next week!" she exclaimed after their first words of greeting. "the poor child told me so herself when she was here in august on a visit. 'miss anastasia,' she said to me, 'i'm not going abroad for my honeymoon, as all my family want me to do. i'm going to bring jack back here to the old homestead where grandfather's married life began. somehow it was so ideal, so nearly perfect, that i have a feeling that maybe the mantle of that old romance will fall on our shoulders. besides, jack has never seen grandfather, and i tell him it's as much of an education to know such a grand old man as it is to go through yale. so we're coming in october. the woods will have on all their gala colours then, and i'll be the happiest bride the sun ever shone on, unless it was my grandmother polly.' and now to think," added miss anastasia, tearfully, "none of those plans can come to pass. it's bad luck to put off a wedding. oh, i feel so sorry for her!" * * * * * there is an undefined note of pathos in a country funeral that is never reached in any other. the little schoolmistress felt it as she walked up the path to the old house behind the cedars. the front porch was full of men, who, dressed in their unaccustomed best, had the uneasy appearance of having come upon a sunday in the middle of the week. their heavy boots tiptoed clumsily through the hall, with a painful effort to go silently, as one by one the neighbours passed into the old sitting-room and out again. the room across the hall had been filled with rows of chairs, and the women who came first were sitting there in a deep silence, broken only by a cough now and then, a hoarse whisper or a rustle, as some one moved to make room for a newcomer. it was a sombre assembly, for every one wore whatever black her wardrobe afforded, and many funeral occasions had left an accumulation of mourning millinery in every house in the neighbourhood. but the limp crape veils and black gloves and pall-like cashmere shawls were all congregated in the dimly lighted parlour. in the old sitting-room it was as cheerful and homelike as ever, save for the still form in the centre. through an open window the western sun streamed into the big, hospitable room, across the bright home-made rag carpet. the old clock in the corner ticked with the placid, steady stroke that had never failed or faltered, in any vicissitude of the generations for which it had marked the changes. no fire blazed on the old hearthstone that had warmed the hearts as well as the hands of the whole countryside on many a cheerful occasion. but a great bough of dogwood, laid across the shining andirons, filled the space with coral berries that glowed like live embers as the sun stole athwart them. "oh, if the old room could only speak!" thought miss anastasia, when her turn came to pass reverently in for a last look at the peaceful face. "there would be no need of man's eulogy." but man's eulogy was added presently, when the old minister came in and took his place beside the coffin of his lifelong friend and neighbour. the men outside the porch closed in around the windows to listen. the women in the back rows of chairs in the adjoining room leaned forward eagerly. those farthest away caught only a faltering sentence now and then. "a hospitality as warm as his own hearthstone, as wide as his broad acres.... no man can point to him and say he ever knowingly hurt or hindered a fellow creature.... he never measured out to any man a scant bushel. be it grain or good-will, it was ever an overflowing measure...." but those who could not hear all that was said could make the silent places eloquent with their own recollections, for he had taken a father's interest in them all, and manifested it by a score of kindly deeds, too kindly to ever be forgotten. it was a perfect autumn day, sunny and golden and still, save for the patter of dropping nuts and the dry rustle of fallen leaves. a purple haze rested on the distant horizon like the bloom on a ripened grape. down through the orchard, when the simple service was over, they carried their old friend to the family burying-ground, and, although voices had choked, and eyes overflowed before, there was neither sob nor tear, when the light of the sunset struck across the low mound, heaped with its covering of glowing autumn leaves. for if grief has no part in the sunset glory that ends the day, or in the perfect fulness of the autumn time, then it must indeed stand hushed, when a life comes both to its sunset and its harvest, in such royal fashion. * * * * * that evening at the cross-roads, bowser lighted the first fire of the season in the rusty old stove, for the night was chilly. one by one the men accustomed to gather around it dropped in and took their usual places. the event of the day was all that was spoken of. "do you remember what he said last thanksgiving, nearly a year ago?" asked bowser. "it came back to me as i stood and looked at him to-day, and if i'd never believed in immortality before, i'd 'a' had to have believed in it then. the words seemed to fairly shine out of his face. he said '_the best comes after the harvest, when the wheat goes to make up blood and muscle and brain; when it's raised to a higher order of life in man. and it's the same with me. at eighty-five, when it looks as if i'd about reached the end, i've come to believe that "the best is yet to be._"'" there was a long pause, and cy akers said, slowly, "somehow i can't feel that he is dead. seems as if he'd just gone away a while. but lord! how we're going to miss him here at the store." "no, don't say that!" exclaimed bud hines, with more emotion than he had ever been known to show before. "say, how we're going to feel him! i can't get him out of my mind. every time i turn around, most, seems to me i can hear him laugh, and say, 'don't cross your bridge till you come to it, bud.' that saying of his rings in my ears every time i get in the dumps. seems like he could set the calendar straight for us, all the year around. the winters wasn't so cold or the summers so hard to pull through, looking at life through his eyes." perkins's oldest crept up unnoticed. he added no word, but deep in his heart lay an impression that all the years to come could never erase; the remembrance of a kindly old man who had given him a new gospel, in that one phrase, "a brother to santa claus;" who had taught him to go out against his philistines with simple directness of aim and whatever lay at hand; who had left behind him the philosophy of a cheerful optimist, and the example of a sweet simple life, unswerving in its loyalty to duty and to truth. * * * * * over in the old homestead, polly, standing in the firelight, fair and slender in her black gown, looked up at the tall young fellow beside her, and placed two little books in his hands. the old house was not her only heritage. the little atlas of the heavens was hers also. standing there in the room where the beloved presence seemed to have left its benediction, polly told the story of the love that had outlived death. then across the yellowed page of the old grammar where the faded violets lay, two hands met in the same sure clasp that had joined the souls of those older lovers, who somewhere beyond the stars were still repeating the old conjugation--"we love--_for ever_!" the end. l. c. page & company's announcement list of new fiction =haunters of the silences.= by charles g. d. roberts, author of "red fox," "the watchers of the trails," etc. cloth, one volume, with many drawings by charles livingston bull, four of which are in full color $2.00 the stories in mr. roberts's new collection are the strongest and best he has ever written. he has largely taken for his subjects those animals rarely met with in books, whose lives are spent "in the silences," where they are the supreme rulers. mr. roberts has written of them sympathetically, as always, but with fine regard for the scientific truth. "as a writer about animals, mr. roberts occupies an enviable place. he is the most literary, as well as the most imaginative and vivid of all the nature writers."--_brooklyn eagle._ "his animal stories are marvels of sympathetic science and literary exactness."--_new york world._ =the lady of the blue motor.= by g. sidney paternoster, author of "the cruise of the motor-boat conqueror," "the motor pirate," etc. cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece by john c. frohn $1.50 the lady of the blue motor is an audacious heroine who drove her mysterious car at breakneck speed. her plea for assistance in an adventure promising more than a spice of danger could not of course be disregarded by any gallant fellow motorist. mr. paternoster's hero rose promptly to the occasion. across france they tore and across the english channel. there, the escapade past, he lost her. mr. paternoster, however, is generous, and allows the reader to follow their separate adventures until the lady of the blue motor is found again and properly vindicated of all save womanly courage and affection. a unique romance, one continuous exciting series of adventure. =clementina's highwayman.= by robert neilson stephens, author of "the flight of georgiana," "an enemy to the king," etc. cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 mr. stephens has put into his new book, "clementina's highwayman," the finest qualities of plot, construction, and literary finish. the story is laid in the mid-georgian period. it is a dashing, sparkling, vivacious comedy, with a heroine as lovely and changeable as an april day, and a hero all ardor and daring. the exquisite quality of mr. stephens's literary style clothes the story in a rich but delicate word-fabric; and never before have his setting and atmosphere been so perfect. =the sorceress of rome.= by nathan gallizier, author of "castel del monte," etc. cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 the love-story of otto iii., the boy emperor, and stephania, wife of the senator crescentius of rome, has already been made the basis of various german poems and plays. mr. gallizier has used it for the main theme of "the sorceress of rome," the second book of his trilogy of romances on the mediæval life of italy. in detail and finish the book is a brilliant piece of work, describing clearly an exciting and strenuous period. it possesses the same qualities as "castel del monte," of which the _chicago record herald_ said: "there is color, there is sumptuous word-painting in these pages; the action is terrific at times; vividness and life are in every part; brilliant descriptions entertain the reader; mystic scenes and prophecies give a singular fascination to the tale, which is strong and forceful in its portrayal." =hester of the hills.= by gilder clay. cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 "hester of the hills" has a motif unusual in life, and new in fiction. its hero, who has only acquired his own strength and resourcefulness by a lifelong struggle against constitutional frailty, has come to make the question of bodily soundness his dominant thought. he resolves to ensure strong constitutions to his children by marrying a physically perfect woman. after long search, he finds this ideal in hester, the daughter of a "cracker squatter," of the ozark mountains of missouri. but,--he forgot to take into consideration that very vital emotion, love, which played havoc with his well-laid plans. it is an ingenious combination of practical realism and imaginative fiction worked out to a thoroughly delightful and satisfying climax. =prisoners of fortune.= a tale of the massachusetts bay colony. by ruel perley smith, author of "the rival campers," etc. cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece by frank t. merrill $1.50 the period of mr. smith's story is the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the shores of the american colonies were harassed and the seas patrolled by pirates and buccaneers. these robbed and spoiled, and often seized and put to death, the sailors and fishers and other humbler folk, while their leaders claimed friendship alike with southern planters and new england merchants,--with whom it is said they frequently divided their spoils. the times were stern and the colonists were hardy, but they loved as truly and tenderly as in more peaceful days. thus, while the hero's adventures with pirates and his search for their hidden treasure is a record of desperate encounters and daring deeds, his love-story and his winning of sweet mary vane is in delightful contrast. =the rome express.= by major arthur griffiths, author of "the passenger from calais," etc. cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece by a. o. scott $1.25 a mysterious murder on a flying express train, a wily italian, a charming woman caught in the meshes of circumstantial evidence, a chivalrous englishman, and a police force with a keen nose for the wrong clue, are the ingredients from which major griffiths has concocted a clever, up-to-date detective story. the book is bright and spirited, with rapid action, and consistent development which brings the story to a logical and dramatic ending. =the morning glory club.= by george a. kyle. cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece by a. o. scott. $1.25 the doings of the morning glory club will furnish genuine amusement to the reader. originally formed to "elevate" the village, it quickly develops into an exchange for town gossip. it has a saving grace, however, in the person of motherly mrs. stout, the uncultured but sweet-natured and pure-minded village philosopher, who pours the oil of her saneness and charity on the troubled waters of discussion and condemnation. it is a series of clear and interesting pictures of the humor of village life. =the chronicles of martin hewitt, detective.= new illustrated edition. by arthur morrison, author of "the green diamond," "the red triangle," etc. cloth decorative, with six full-page drawings by w. kirkpatrick $1.50 the success of mr. morrison's recent books, "the green diamond" and "the red triangle," has led to an imperative demand for the reissue of "the chronicles of martin hewitt," which has been out of print for a number of years. it will be remembered that martin hewitt is the detective in "the red triangle," of whom the _new york tribune_ said: "better than sherlock holmes." his adventures in the london slums were of such a nature that the _philadelphia north american_ said: "the reader who has a grain of fancy or imagination may be defied to lay this book down once he has begun it until the last word is reached." =mystery island.= by edward h. hurst. cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece $1.50 a hunting camp on a swampy island in the florida everglades furnishes the background for this present-day tale. by the murder of one of their number, the secret of egress from the island is lost, and the campers find themselves marooned. cut off from civilization, conventional veneer soon wears away. love, hate, and revenge spring up, and after the sterner passions have had their sway the man and the woman are left alone to fulfil their own destiny. while there is much that is unusual in the plot and its development, mr. hurst has handled his subject with fine delicacy, and the tale of their love on the beautiful little island is told with deep sympathy and feeling. =the flying cloud.= by morley roberts, author of "the promotion of the admiral," "rachel marr," "the idlers," etc. cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece $1.50 mr. roberts's new book is much more than a ripping good sea story such as might be expected from the author of "the promotion of the admiral." in "the flying cloud" the waters and the winds are gods personified. their every mood and phase are described in words of telling force. there is no world but the waste of waters. mr. roberts glories and exults in the mystery, the passion, the strength of the elements, as did the viking chroniclers of old. he understands them and loves them and interprets them as no other writer has heretofore done. the book is too big for conventional phrases. it needs mr. roberts's own richness of imagery and masterly expression to describe adequately the word-pictures in this epic of wind and waves. selections from l. c. page and company's list of fiction works of robert neilson stephens _each one vol., library 12mo, cloth decorative_ $1.50 =the flight of georgiana= a romance of the days of the young pretender. illustrated by h. c. edwards. "a love-story in the highest degree, a dashing story, and a remarkably well finished piece of work."--_chicago record-herald._ =the bright face of danger= being an account of some adventures of henri de launay, son of the sieur de la tournoire. illustrated by h. c. edwards. "mr. stephens has fairly outdone himself. we thank him heartily. the story is nothing if not spirited and entertaining, rational and convincing."--_boston transcript._ =the mystery of murray davenport= (40th thousand.) "this is easily the best thing that mr. stephens has yet done. those familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure of this praise, which is generous."--_buffalo news._ =captain ravenshaw= or, the maid of cheapside. (52d thousand.) a romance of elizabethan london. illustrations by howard pyle and other artists. not since the absorbing adventures of d'artagnan have we had anything so good in the blended vein of romance and comedy. =the continental dragoon= a romance of philipse manor house in 1778. (53d thousand.) illustrated by h. c. edwards. a stirring romance of the revolution, with its scene laid on neutral territory. =philip winwood= (70th thousand.) a sketch of the domestic history of an american captain in the war of independence, embracing events that occurred between and during the years 1763 and 1785 in new york and london. illustrated by e. w. d. hamilton. =an enemy to the king= (70th thousand.) from the "recently discovered memoirs of the sieur de la tournoire." illustrated by h. de m. young. an historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the adventures of a young french nobleman at the court of henry iii., and on the field with henry iv. =the road to paris= a story of adventure. (35th thousand.) illustrated by h. c. edwards. an historical romance of the eighteenth century, being an account of the life of an american gentleman adventurer of jacobite ancestry. =a gentleman player= his adventures on a secret mission for queen elizabeth. (48th thousand.) illustrated by frank t. merrill. the story of a young gentleman who joins shakespeare's company of players, and becomes a friend and protégé of the great poet. works of charles g. d. roberts =red fox= the story of his adventurous career in the ringwaak wilds, and of his final triumph over the enemies of his kind. with fifty illustrations, including frontispiece in color and cover design by charles livingston bull. square quarto, cloth decorative $2.00 "infinitely more wholesome reading than the average tale of sport, since it gives a glimpse of the hunt from the point of view of the hunted."--_boston transcript._ "true in substance but fascinating as fiction. it will interest old and young, city-bound and free-footed, those who know animals and those who do not."--_chicago record-herald._ "a brilliant chapter in natural history."--_philadelphia north american._ =the kindred of the wild= a book of animal life. with fifty-one full-page plates and many decorations from drawings by charles livingston bull. square quarto, decorative cover $2.00 "is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal stories that has appeared; well named and well done."--_john burroughs._ =the watchers of the trails= a companion volume to "the kindred of the wild." with forty-eight full-page plates and many decorations from drawings by charles livingston bull. square quarto, decorative cover $2.00 "mr. roberts has written a most interesting series of tales free from the vices of the stories regarding animals of many other writers, accurate in their facts and admirably and dramatically told."--_chicago news._ "these stories are exquisite in their refinement, and yet robust in their appreciation of some of the rougher phases of woodcraft. among the many writers about animals, mr. roberts occupies an enviable place."--_the outlook._ "this is a book full of delight. an additional charm lies in mr. bull's faithful and graphic illustrations, which in fashion all their own tell the story of the wild life, illuminating and supplementing the pen pictures of the author."--_literary digest._ =earth's enigmas= a new edition of mr. roberts's first volume of fiction, published in 1892, and out of print for several years, with the addition of three new stories, and ten illustrations by charles livingston bull. library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover $1.50 "it will rank high among collections of short stories. in 'earth's enigmas' is a wider range of subject than in the 'kindred of the wild.'"--_review from advance sheets of the illustrated edition by tiffany blake in the chicago evening post._ =barbara ladd= with four illustrations by frank verbeck. library 12mo, gilt top $1.50 "from the opening chapter to the final page mr. roberts lures us on by his rapt devotion to the changing aspects of nature and by his keen and sympathetic analysis of human character"--_boston transcript._ =cameron of lochiel= translated from the french of philippe aubert de gaspé, with frontispiece in color by h. c. edwards. library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50 "professor roberts deserves the thanks of his reader for giving a wider audience an opportunity to enjoy this striking bit of french canadian literature."--_brooklyn eagle._ "it is not often in these days of sensational and philosophical novels that one picks up a book that so touches the heart."--_boston transcript._ =the prisoner of mademoiselle= with frontispiece by frank t. merrill. library 12mo, cloth decorative, gilt top $1.50 a tale of acadia,--a land which is the author's heart's delight,--of a valiant young lieutenant and a winsome maiden, who first captures and then captivates. "this is the kind of a story that makes one grow younger, more innocent, more light-hearted. its literary quality is impeccable. it is not every day that such a heroine blossoms into even temporary existence, and the very name of the story bears a breath of charm."--_chicago record-herald._ =the heart of the ancient wood= with six illustrations by james l. weston. library 12mo, decorative cover $1.50 "one of the most fascinating novels of recent days."--_boston journal._ "a classic twentieth-century romance."--_new york commercial advertiser._ =the forge in the forest= being the narrative of the acadian ranger, jean de mer, seigneur de briart, and how he crossed the black abbé, and of his adventures in a strange fellowship. illustrated by henry sandham, r. c. a. library 12mo, cloth, gilt top $1.50 a story of pure love and heroic adventure. =by the marshes of minas= library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated $1.50 most of these romances are in the author's lighter and more playful vein; each is a unit of absorbing interest and exquisite workmanship. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. page 80, "threatenin" changed to "threatening" (and a threatening swing) page 177, "fastidous" changed to "fastidious" (is fastidious, and only) conversation. conversation; its faults and its graces. compiled by andrew p. peabody. * * * * * boston and cambridge: james munroe and company. m dccc lv. entered according to act of congress, in the year 1855, by james munroe and company, in the clerk's office of the district court of the district of massachusetts. cambridge: thurston and torry, printers. dedicated to american teachers. advertisement. the compiler has attempted to bring together in this little volume the principles which should govern conversation among persons of true refinement of mind and character, and to point out some of the most common and easily besetting vulgarisms occurring in the colloquial english of our country and day. part i. is an address delivered before a young ladies' school, in newburyport. part ii. is a lecture addressed to the literary, scientific and mechanics' institution at reading, england. part iii. is a reprint from the fourth english edition of "a word to the wise, or hints on the current improprieties of expression in writing and speaking," by parry gwynne, a few passages not applicable to the habits of american society being omitted. part iv. is composed of selections from two little english books, entitled, "never too late to learn: mistakes of daily occurrence in speaking, writing and pronunciation corrected;" and "common blunders in speaking and writing." part i. an address delivered before the newburyport female high school, december 19, 1846, by andrew p. peabody. young ladies, you have made me happy by your kind invitation to meet you, and to address you on this anniversary. a day spent in this room at your annual examination, nearly two years ago, was a season of privilege and enjoyment not readily to be forgotten. i had previously entertained a high regard for your instructor. i then learned to know him by his work; and, were he not here, i should be glad to extend beyond a single sentence my congratulations with you that you are his pupils. i have said that i accepted your invitation with gladness. yet, in preparing myself to meet you, i find a degree of embarrassment. this is for you a season of recreation,--a high festival; and i am accustomed to use my pen and voice only on grave occasions, and for solemn services. i know not how to add to your amusement. should i undertake to make sport for you, my awkwardness would give you more mirth than my wit. the best that i can do is to select some subject that is or ought to be interesting to you, and to endeavor to blend a little instruction with the gayer and more lively notes of the occasion. the lesson shall be neither tediously long nor needlessly grave. i propose to offer you a few hints on _conversation_. how large a portion of life does it fill up! how innumerable are its ministries and its uses! it is the most refined species of recreation,--the most sparkling source of merriment. it interweaves with a never-resting shuttle the bonds of domestic sympathy. it fastens the ties of friendship, and runs along the golden links of the chain of love. it enriches charity, and makes the gift twice blessed. there is, perhaps, a peculiar appropriateness in the selection of this topic for an address to young ladies; for they do more than any other class in the community towards establishing the general tone and standard of social intercourse. the voices of many of you already, i doubt not, strike the key-note of home conversation; and you are fast approaching an age when you will take prominent places in general society; will be the objects of peculiar regard; and will, in a great measure, determine whether the social converse in your respective circles shall be vulgar or refined, censorious or kindly, frivolous or dignified. it was said by a wise man of antiquity,--"only give me the making of songs for the people, and i care not who makes the laws." in our unmusical age and land, talking occupies the place which songs did among the melody-loving greeks; and he who could tune the many-voiced harp of the social party, need crave no higher office or more potent sway. permit me now to enumerate some of the characteristics of graceful, elegant, and profitable conversation, commencing with the lower graces, and passing on to the higher. let me first beg you, if you would be good talkers, to form and fix now, (for you can do this only now,) habits of correct and easy pronunciation. the words which you now miscall, it will cost you great pains in after life to pronounce aright, and you will always be in danger of returning inadvertently to your old pronunciation. there are two extremes which you ought equally to shun. one is that of carelessness; the other, that of extreme precision, as if the sound of the words uttered were constantly uppermost in the mind. this last fault always suggests the idea of vanity and pedantry, and is of itself enough to add a deep indigo hue to a young lady's reputation. one great fault of new england pronunciation is, that the work is performed too much by the outer organs of speech. the tones of the voice have but little depth. instead of a generous play of the throat and lungs, the throat almost closes, and the voice seems to be formed in the mouth. it is this that gives what is called a _nasal_ tone to the voice, which, when denied free range through its lawful avenues, rushes in part through the nose. we notice the nasal pronunciation in excess here and there in an individual, while englishmen and southerners observe it as a prevailing characteristic of all classes of people in the northern states. southerners in general are much less careful and accurate in pronunciation than we are; but they more than compensate for this deficiency by the full, round tones in which they utter themselves. in our superficial use of the organs of speech, there are some consonants which we are prone to omit altogether. this is especially the case with _g_ in words that end with _ing_. nine persons out of ten say _singin_ instead of _singing_. i know some public speakers, and many private ones, who never pronounce the _t_ in such words as _object_ and _prospect_. very few persons give the right sound to _r_ final. _far_ is generally pronounced as if it were written _fah_. now, i would not have the full hibernian roll of the _r_; but i would have the presence of the letter more distinctly recognized, than it often is, even by persons of refined and fastidious taste. let me next beg you to shun all the ungrammatical vulgarisms which are often heard, but which never fail to grate harshly on a well-tuned ear. if you permit yourselves to use them now, you will never get rid of them. i know a venerable and accomplished lawyer, who has stood at the head of his profession in this state, and has moved in the most refined society for half a century, who to this day says _haint_ for _has not_, having acquired the habit when a schoolboy. i have known persons who have for years tried unsuccessfully to break themselves of saying _done_ for _did_, and _you and i_ for _you and me_. many well-educated persons, through the power of long habit, persist in saying _shew_ for _showed_, while they know perfectly well that they might, with equal propriety, substitute _snew_ for _snowed_; and there is not far hence a clergyman, marvellously precise and fastidious in his choice of words, who is very apt to commence his sermon by saying, "i _shew_ you in a recent discourse." a false delicacy has very generally introduced _drank_ as the perfect participle of _drink_, instead of _drunk_, which alone has any respectable authority in its favor; and the imperfect tense and perfect participle have been similarly confounded in many other cases. i know not what grammar you use in this school. i trust that it is an old one; for some of the new grammars sanction these vulgarisms, and in looking over their tables of irregular verbs, i have sometimes half expected to have the book dashed from my hand by the indignant ghost of lindley murray. great care and discretion should be employed in the use of the common abbreviations of the negative forms of the substantive and auxiliary verbs. _can't_, _don't_, and _haven't_, are admissible in rapid conversation on trivial subjects. _isn't_ and _hasn't_ are more harsh, yet tolerated by respectable usage. _didn't_, _couldn't_, _wouldn't_, and _shouldn't_, make as unpleasant combinations of consonants as can well be uttered, and fall short but by one remove of those unutterable names of polish gentlemen which sometimes excite our wonder in the columns of a newspaper. _won't_ for _will not_, and _aint_ for _is not_ or _are not_, are absolutely vulgar; and _aint_, for _has not_ or _have not_, is utterly intolerable. nearly akin to these offences against good grammar is another untasteful practice, into which you are probably more in danger of falling, and which is a crying sin among young ladies,--i mean the use of exaggerated, extravagant forms of speech,--saying _splendid_ for _pretty_, _magnificent_ for _handsome_, _horrid_ for _very_, _horrible_ for _unpleasant_, _immense_ for _large_, _thousands_ or _myriads_ for any number greater than _two_. were i to write down, for one day, the conversation of some young ladies of my acquaintance, and then to interpret it literally, it would imply that, within the compass of twelve or fourteen hours, they had met with more marvellous adventures and hair-breadth escapes, had passed through more distressing experiences, had seen more imposing spectacles, had endured more fright, and enjoyed more rapture, than would suffice for half a dozen common lives. this habit is attended with many inconveniences. it deprives you of the intelligible use of strong expressions when you need them. if you use them all the time, nobody understands or believes you when you use them in earnest. you are in the same predicament with the boy who cried wolf so often, when there was no wolf, that nobody would go to his relief when the wolf came. this habit has also a very bad moral bearing. our words have a reflex influence upon our characters. exaggerated speech makes one careless of the truth. the habit of using words without regard to their rightful meaning, often leads one to distort facts, to misreport conversations, and to magnify statements, in matters in which the literal truth is important to be told. you can never trust the testimony of one who in common conversation is indifferent to the import, and regardless of the power, of words. i am acquainted with persons whose representations of facts always need translation and correction, and who have utterly lost their reputation for veracity, solely through this habit of overstrained and extravagant speech. they do not mean to lie; but they have a dialect of their own, in which words bear an entirely different sense from that given to them in the daily intercourse of discreet and sober people. in this connection, it may not be amiss to notice a certain class of phrases, often employed to fill out and dilute sentences, such as, _i'm sure_,--_i declare_,--_that's a fact_,--_you know_,--_i want to know_,--_did you ever?_--_well! i never_,--and the like. all these forms of speech disfigure conversation, weaken the force of the assertions or statements with which they are connected, and give unfavorable impressions as to the good breeding of the person that uses them. you will be surprised, young ladies, to hear me add to these counsels,--"above all things, swear not at all." yet there is a great deal of swearing among those who would shudder at the very thought of being profane. the jews, who were afraid to use the most sacred names in common speech, were accustomed to swear by the temple, by the altar, and by their own heads; and these oaths were rebuked and forbidden by divine authority. i know not why the rebuke and prohibition apply not with full force to the numerous oaths by _goodness_, _faith_, _patience_, and _mercy_, which we hear from lips that mean to be neither coarse nor irreverent, in the schoolroom, street, and parlor; and a moment's reflection will convince any well-disposed person, that, in the exclamation _lor_, the cutting off of a single letter from a consecrated word can hardly save one from the censure and the penalty written in the third commandment. i do not regard these expressions as harmless. i believe them inconsistent with christian laws of speech. nor do they accord with the simple, quiet habit of mind and tone of feeling which are the most favorable to happiness and usefulness, and which sit as gracefully on gay and buoyant youth as on the sedateness of maturer years. the frame of mind in which a young lady says, in reply to a question, _mercy! no_, is very different from that which prompts the simple, modest _no_. were there any room for doubt, i should have some doubt of the truth of the former answer; for the unnatural, excited, fluttered state of mind implied in the use of the oath, might indicate either an unfitness to weigh the truth, or an unwillingness to acknowledge it. in fine, transparency is an essential attribute of all graceful and becoming speech. language ought to represent the speaker's ideas, and neither more nor less. exclamations, needless expletives, unmeaning extravagances, are as untasteful as the streamers of tattered finery which you sometimes see fluttering about the person of a dilapidated belle. let your thoughts be as strong, as witty, as brilliant, as you can make them; but never seek to atone for feeble thought by large words, or to rig out foolish conceits in the spangled robe of genuine wit. speak as you think and feel; and let the tongue always be an honest interpreter to the heart. but it is time that we passed to higher considerations. there are great laws of duty and religion which should govern our conversation; and the divine teacher assures us that even for our idle words we are accountable to him who has given us the power of speech. now, i by no means believe that there is any principle of our religion which frowns upon wit or merriment, or forbids playful speech at fit seasons and within due limits. the very fact that the almighty has created the muscles which produce the smile and the laugh, is a perpetual rebuke to those who would call all laughter madness, and all mirth folly. amusement, in its time and place, is a great good; and i know of no amusement so refined, so worthy an intellectual being, as that conversation which is witty and still kind, playful, yet always reverent, which recreates from toil and care, but leaves no sting, and violates no principle of brotherly love or religious duty. evil speaking, slander, detraction, gossip, scandal, are different names for one of the chief dangers to be guarded against in conversation; and you are doing much towards defending yourselves against it by the generous mental culture which you enjoy in this seminary. the demon of slander loves an empty house. a taste for scandal betrays a vacant mind. furnish your minds, then, by useful reading and study, and by habits of reflection and mental industry, that you may be able to talk about subjects as well as about people,--about events too long past or too remote to be interwoven with slander. but, if you must talk about people, why not about their good traits and deeds? the truest ingenuity is that which brings hidden excellences to light; for virtue is in her very nature modest and retiring, while faults lie on the surface and are detected with half an eye. you will undoubtedly be careful to have your words always just and kind, if you will only take a sufficiently thorough view of the influence of your habits of conversation, both in the formation of your own characters and in determining the happiness of others. but how low an estimate do many of us make of the power of the tongue! how little account we are apt to take of our words! have we not all at times said to ourselves, "oh! it is only a word!" when it may have been sharp as a drawn sword, have given more pain than a score of blows, and done more harm than our hands could have wrought in a month? why is it that the slanderer and the tale-bearer regard themselves as honest and worthy people, instead of feeling that they are accursed of god and man? it is because they deal in evil words only, and they consider words as mere nought. why is it that the carping tongue, which filches a little from everybody's good name, can hardly utter itself without a sneer, and makes every fair character its prey, thinks better of itself than a petty pilferer would? it is because by long, though baseless prescription, the tongue has claimed for itself a license denied to every other member and faculty. but, in point of fact, your words not only express, but help create, your characters. speech gives definiteness and permanence to your thoughts and feelings. the unuttered thought may fade from the memory,--may be chased away by better thoughts,--may, indeed, hardly be a part of your own mind; for, if suggested from without, and met without a welcome, and with disapproval and resistance, it is not yours. but by speech you adopt thoughts, and the voice that utters them is as a pen that engraves them indelibly on the soul. if you can suppress unkind thoughts, so that, when they rise in your breast, and mount to your very lips, you leave them unuttered, you are not on the whole unkind,--your better nature has the supremacy. but if these wrong feelings often find utterance, though you call it hasty utterance, there is reason to fear that they flow from a bitter fountain within. consider, also, how large a portion speech makes up of the lives of all. it occupies the greater part of the waking hours of many of us; while express acts of a moral bearing, compared with our words, are rare and few. indeed, in many departments of duty, words are our only possible deeds,--it is by words alone that we can perform or violate our duty. many of the most important forms of charity are those of speech. alms-giving is almost the only expression of charity of which the voice is not the chief minister; and alms, conferred in silent coldness, or with chiding or disdainful speech, freeze the spirit, though they may warm the body. speech, too, is the sole medium of a countless host of domestic duties and observances. there are, indeed, in every community many whose only activity seems to be in words. there are many young ladies, released from the restraints of school, and many older ladies, with few or no domestic burdens, with no worldly avocation and no taste for reading, whose whole waking life, either at their own homes or from house to house, is given to the exercise, for good or evil, of the tongue,--that unruly member. and how blessed might they make that exercise,--for how many holy ministries of love, sympathy, and charity might it suffice,--how many wounds might it prevent or heal,--did they only believe and feel that they were writing out their own characters in their daily speech! but too many of them forget this. so long as they do not knowingly and absolutely lie, they feel no responsibility for their words. they deem themselves virtuous, because they refrain from vices to which they have not the shadow of a temptation; but carp, backbite, and carry ill reports from house to house, with an apostle's zeal and a martyr's devotedness. to say nothing of the social effect of such a life, is not the tongue thus employed working out spiritual death for the soul in whose service it is busy? i know of no images too vile to portray such a character. the dissection of a slanderer's or talebearer's heart would present the most loathsome specimen of morbid anatomy conceivable. it is full of the most malignant poison. its life is all mean, low, serpent-like,--a life that cannot bear the light, but finds all its nourishment and growth in darkness. were these foul and odious forms of speech incapable of harming others,--did human reptiles of this class creep about in some outward guise, in which they could be recognized by all, and their words be taken for what they are worth, and no more,--still i would beg them, for their own sakes, not to degrade god's image, in which they were created, into the likeness of a creeping thing; i would entreat them not to be guilty of the meanest and most miserable of all forms of spiritual suicide; i would beseech them, if they are determined to sell their souls, to get some better price for them than the scorn and dread of all whose esteem is worth having. in this connection, we ought to take into account the very large class of literally idle words. how many talk on unthinkingly and heedlessly, as if the swift exercise of the organs of speech were the great end of life! the most trivial news of the day, the concerns of the neighborhood, the floating gossip, whether good-natured or malignant, dress, food, frivolous surmises, paltry plans, vanities too light to remain an hour upon the memory,--these are the sole staple of what too many call conversation; and many are the young people who are training themselves in the use of speech for no higher or better purpose. but such persons have the threatened judgment visibly following their idle speech. their minds grow superficial and shallow. they constantly lose ground, if they ever had any, as intellectual and moral beings. such speech makes a person, of however genteel training, coarse and vulgar, and that not only in character, but even in voice and manners, and with sad frequency it obliterates traits of rich loveliness and promise. the merely idle tongue is also very readily betrayed into overt guilt. one cannot indulge in idle, reckless talk, without being implicated in all the current slander and calumny, and acquiring gradually the envious and malignant traits of a hackneyed tale-bearer. and the person who, in youth, can attract the attention and win the favor of those of little reflection by flippant and voluble discourse, will encounter in the very same circles neglect, disesteem, and dislike, before the meridian of life is passed; for it takes all the charms that youth, sprightliness, and high animal spirits can furnish, to make an idle tongue fascinating or even endurable. let me ask you now to consider for a moment the influence which we exert in conversation upon the happiness or misery of others. it is not too much to say, that most of us do more good or harm in this way than in all other forms beside. look around you,--take a survey of whatever there is of social or domestic unhappiness in the families to which you belong, or among your kindred and acquaintance. nine tenths of it can be traced to no other cause than untrue, unkind, or ungoverned speech. a mere harsh word, repented of the next moment,--how great a fire can it kindle! the carrying back and forth of an idle tale, not worth an hour's thought, will often break up the closest intimacies. from every slanderous tongue you may trace numerous rills of bitterness, winding round from house to house, and separating those who ought to be united in the closest friendship. could persons, who, with kind hearts, are yet hasty in speech, number up, at the close of a day, the feelings that they had wounded, and the uncomfortable sensations that they had caused, they would need no other motive to study suavity of manner, and to seek for their words the rich unction of a truly charitable spirit. then, too, how many are the traits of suspicion, jealousy, and heart-burning, which go forth from every day's merely idle words, vain and vague surmises, uncharitable inferences and conjectures! these thoughts point to the necessity of religion as the guiding, controlling element in conversation. all conversation ought to be religious. not that i would have persons always talking on what are commonly called religious subjects. let these be talked of at fitting times and places, but never obtrusively brought forward or thrust in. but cannot common subjects be talked of religiously? cannot we converse about our plans, our amusements, our reading, nay, and our neighbors too, and no sacred name be introduced, and yet the conversation be strictly religious? yes,--if throughout the conversation we own the laws of honesty, frankness, kind construction, and sincere benevolence,--if our speech be pure, true, gentle, dignified,--if it seek or impart information that either party needs,--if it cherish friendly feeling,--if it give us kinder affections towards others,--if it bring our minds into vigorous exercise,--nay, if it barely amuse us, but not too long, and if the wit be free from coarseness and at no one's expense. but we should ever bear it in mind, that our words are all uttered in the hearing of an unseen listener and judge. could we keep this in remembrance, there would be little in our speech that need give us shame or pain. but that half hour spent in holding up to ridicule one who has done you no harm,--that breathless haste to tell the last piece of slander,--you would not want to remember in your evening prayer. from the flippant, irresponsible, wasteful gossip, in which so much time is daily lost, you could not with a safe conscience look up and own an almighty presence. young ladies, my subject is a large one, and branches out into so many heads, that, were i to say all that i should be glad to say, the setting sun would stop me midway. but it is time for me to relieve your patience. accept, with these fragmentary hints, my cordial congratulations and good wishes. life now smiles before you, and beckons you onward. heaven grant that your coming days may be even happier than you hope! to make them so is within your own power. they will not be cloudless. if you live long, disappointments and sorrows must come. there will be steep and rough passages in the way of life. but there is a guide, in whose footprints you may climb the steep places without weariness, and tread the rough ground without stumbling. add to your mental culture faith in him, and the self-consecration of the christian heart. then even trials will make you happier. when clouds are over your way, rays from heaven will struggle through their fissures, and fringe their edges. your path will be onward and upward, ever easier, ever brighter. on that path may your early footsteps be planted, that the beautiful bloom of your youth may not wither and perish, but may ripen for a heavenly harvest! part ii. a lecture delivered at reading, england, december 19, 1854, by francis trench. we are all of us more or less apt to overlook that which is continually going on around us. we omit to make it a matter of inquiry, and reserve our attention for that which is more rare, although of far less importance. what is it, for instance, which, after a course of long, sultry heat,--when the sun, day by day, has blazed in the sky above,--what is it, i ask, which has still preserved the verdure and freshness of all vegetable life? surely it has been nothing else than the dew of heaven, gently, regularly, plenteously falling, as each evening closed in. nevertheless, how little is it thought of,--how little are its benefits acknowledged! but when the clouds gather speedily and darkly, and perhaps unexpectedly, when the sense of coolness spreads once more through the parched atmosphere, when abundance of rain all at once descends, then all observe the change, all notice the beneficial results; yet perhaps they are trifling indeed compared with those of the nightly and forgotten dew, which has never ceased to fall, week by week, or even month by month, during the course of the drought. i feel no doubt that it will be acknowledged how it is the same, the very same, in all things calling for our observation. so, therefore, it is regarding conversation, as a thing of every day. we flock to hear and admire some mighty orator's address, but we think little of and little appreciate that daily, hourly thing which is our subject now,--i mean conversation. but i leave you to judge which has the most effect on our general interest, as social creatures,--which, in the long run, has most to do with the pleasure and the profit of all human intercourse. having made this claim on your attention, i would now observe that the subject is one of so wide a scope that i can do little more than present you with a few thoughts, which i have noted down as they have risen to my own mind, upon it. and i trust that they will prove not entirely unacceptable, though well indeed aware that the topic is one to which it must be very difficult indeed to do any justice. but i must first try to meet one objection, for which i am quite prepared, namely, that conversation is not a fit subject for a lecture at all, but should be considered as too independent and free to have any rules, principles, or guidance applied to it. this, however, is indeed a fallacy, and may briefly be exposed by a few such questions as those i am about to ask. what should be more free than the sword of the soldier in the battle-day?--than the pencil of the artist at the mountain side?--or than the poet's song in its upward flight? yet who would condemn the use of the drill, or the study of perspective, or the rules of poetic art? no less untenable is it to maintain that conversation can be subject to no principle, rule, or review, without checking its free and unfettered range. cowper has simply summed up the whole truth:- "though conversation in its better part may be esteemed a gift, and not an art; yet much depends, as in the tiller's toil, on culture and the sowing of the soil." nor shall i venture to suggest any measures which i do not believe already well sanctioned, well honored, and well practised too, even by many who have never yet thought of classifying them at all. but these i shall freely give, as my duty is, at your summons this night. conversation may be termed or defined as "the exchange and communication, by word, of that which is passing in the inward mind and heart." and none of all known creatures, except man, has this peculiar gift. the animal tribes approach us and even surpass us in many of their physical powers and capacities. as to their capacities in the five senses of the body, i conceive that, generally speaking, it is so; but none of them converse, like man, in expressive words, however they may and do comprehend one another through inferior means. homer has therefore defined our race as "word-dividing men." and surely such a capacity or power is not bestowed on us unaccompanied by an obligation and a claim to give due diligence how we do and how we may employ it. never to act thus is surely an undue disregard of our endowment,--a virtual depreciation and contempt of that which is at once among the most needful, the most useful, and, at the same time, most ornamental gifts of god to mankind. as, then, it is said of real wisdom, that first "it is pure," or free from error and wrong, so too, first of all, right and proper conversation must be free from everything evidently and positively inconsistent with our duty towards god and man. it has ever been well said that we must be just before we are generous. the one attribute is essential and indispensable in every transaction of life. the acts and deeds connected with the other are comparatively undefined and indefinable. so it is essential, it is indispensable, that our conversation, from our own choice and deliberate aim, should be utterly free from all things irreverent to god and injurious to our fellow-creatures. god's name must never be taken in vain. god's word, and divine things generally, must never be treated with any levity. no sentence must come forth from our lips having any tendency to undermine or subvert the principles and practices of true religion. these are among the mere dues and obligations to him who gives us the faculty of speech, and enables us to interchange conversation with our fellows; and, beyond all doubt, hour after hour of silence and reserve would be infinitely better--more to be desired by any christian--than the most entertaining and most captivating talk of a witty but unprincipled man. and so too, exactly, with regard to our fellow-creatures. they too have an absolute claim on us, that we should resolutely keep to the grand rule of speaking to them only such things as will do them no hurt,--no hurt to their minds, no hurt to their feelings, no hurt to their best and true and everlasting interest. as the words of one lead many to heaven and joy, so too the words of another lead many to hell and woe. better, again i say, would it be for you to be silent as a dumb man than to indulge carelessly and wickedly in any such utterances. he who does it is a cruel enemy of his fellow-creatures, however popular, however able and attractive he may be. thus much with regard to conversation--on the negative side. thus much as to that nature and character of which it must _not_ be, under any circumstances. and, having no intention to make my present address in any degree of that more solemn and absolutely serious kind, which it is my privilege so often to employ in my profession, i will only add here that, having now seen what it is essential and indispensable for us to shun in conversation, so again, to aim at pleasing god and serving our fellow-creatures is not less needful,--not less essential, as the one grand object and scope with which at all times we should use and interchange it. i am sure you will all admit that i could not rightly proceed without laying down this broad, this sure foundation. on it we may build the lighter superstructure; but, without laying it down, i could not conscientiously proceed. nay, farther, i feel equally convinced that many would perceive at once the deficiency, and regret it too, were i to adopt any other course. conversation, to be worthy of the name at all, is not child's play. it must be dealt with, if considered at all, as an important and substantial thing, not as the mere toy wherewith to trifle and sport each day and hour till we pass away to meet that judgment where our lord has himself declared,--"by your words ye shall be justified, and by your words ye shall be condemned." the subject may now branch out into many and various directions. to make a choice is the only difficulty. one of these may lead us to notice that, in all conversation, special attention should ever be paid to the feelings of all present. every subject should be studiously avoided likely to give needless pain, and perhaps, as it were, open the sluice-gate through which other observations might more plentifully flow in from others of the company, painful to one or more in the circle. nothing, of course, will teach this so much as true kindness and true sympathy of heart; and, if this be wanting, offences of this kind will continually abound,--yes, i am sorry to say, will sometimes be studiously and intentionally committed. but even the most loving and most kindly spirit will do well to be very watchful on this point, seeking to exercise all judgment and tact in the matter; and even beyond this a beautiful art is sometimes to be witnessed,--happy indeed are they who possess it,--which turns and leads away the general strain of talk, and that often with unperceived skill, when approaching dangerous ground, or perhaps already beginning to grieve or disturb another. among injurious practices in talk, the following may perhaps be enumerated:--an overbearing vehemence, challenging assertions, cold indifference to the statements of others, a love of argumentation, an inclination to regard fair liberty of mutual address as undue license, pressure on another to express more than he desires, all personalities which would be forbidden by the royal law of speaking unto others as you would like to be spoken to yourself. these and many more transgressions, in our address one to another, are not only of a grave, but also of a very evident kind, and therefore on them, perhaps, there is less need to dwell. others are more subtle,--more elude the grasp of ordinary observation. all social life, and even all family life, if rightly carried on, requires not only mutual forbearance in talk, but mutual sympathy too, mutual encouragement one from the other. in families and in society we find the old, the young; the busy and those comparatively unemployed; the studious or the literary, and those whose tastes are completely different; people occupied in various professions and trades; politicians and statesmen; soldiers and sailors; young men and women reared up at home, with young men and women reared up at schools and public institutions; travellers acquainted with divers parts of the globe, and those who never have quitted their own land; men of the city and men of the field;--in a word, persons and characters almost as various in the aspect of their inward taste as the very features which each countenance wears,--for i may venture to say that no two persons think or feel exactly and altogether alike. now, whenever there is such a thing as opinion, and whenever there is such a thing as feeling (which is the case in all members of families, and in all members of society with whom you can possibly live or be thrown), there at once is, or there arises, an immediate claim for a kind and proper treatment of these opinions and of these feelings. they may not be your own, they may be utterly different from your own, but that has nothing to do with the question. as a general rule, every one present has no less right to them than you have to yours. you had better go, like shakspeare's timon, altogether out of the concourse of your fellow-creatures, if you cannot realize this truth and apply it too. and it is in conversation that you will ever give the chief proofs and evidences whether you do so or not. in it there must be nothing despotic,--nothing to give any present the idea that you have any right to decide what his opinions, what his tastes, what his habits, what his pursuits, should be. you will, of course, not misunderstand me here,--not forget that i am supposing each opinion, each taste, each habit and pursuit, as, on the face of it, allowable and innocent, although not yours. i repeat it, there must be no despotism in society. equality must prevail as a general rule; i say a general rule, because there are, no doubt, certain seasons and times when the intercourse of social and of family life must partake of that special character which is adapted to the various relationships of man. the parent must, at times, simply direct the child by his words. the teacher, authoritatively, must instruct the pupil. the master or employer must tell the employed what to do. and occasionally, in society, the rule above laid down will, by general consent, lie in abeyance, if it may be so expressed. and, on certain subjects,--i mean those whereon we are ourselves ignorant, but others in our company are highly informed,--we may be content to be just listeners, merely demonstrating that sympathy and interest adequate to keep up the flow of instruction from another's lips. but intercourse of this kind scarcely can be termed conversation; and when circumstances like these occur in social and family life, they must be directed by other rules not altogether applicable to our present subject. now, to enter with full sympathy into the claims of all present in society for this equal right of interchanged sentiment, and to show this feeling at times by patient forbearance and at other times by manifest appreciation of that which others say, is no slight grace and gift. and here the various lessons on the subject, which experience or observation has taught, must be brought into play; and the information in any way gained as to the various feelings, habits, and tastes ordinarily entertained by people of different ages, different professions, and different characters, must be judiciously applied. nor will this, in the least, spoil free and fair discussion of any topic. on the contrary, it will promote it. and thus that principle will be rightly maintained which i have endeavored to lay down and commend, viz., that when any special opinion, feeling, or taste is expressed in society,--i mean, of course, in a proper and legitimate way,--it should always be treated by all present with that measure of respect which each one would wish exercised towards himself for his own personal views. just in proportion as men are boorish, coarse, and unsocial, in the true and extensive sense of the word, will they transgress here. yes, even put together one, ungainly tempered, from his field, and another of the same character from his shop or counting house, and very likely not five minutes will elapse before one or the other will say something to disparage those habits and tastes with which he himself happens to be not conversant. there ensues discord and disseverance, or, it may be, silence and separation. but, on the other hand, just in proportion as you are enabled to unite yourself with others through your demeanor and words,--not, of course, hypocritically or obsequiously, but from real sympathy with all the innocent tastes and engagements of our fellow-creatures,--just, i say, in proportion as you are enabled to do this, will your intercourse with them, in the way of conversation, be of that kind at which we should aim. none will be afraid of your indulging in rebuffs, or ridicule, or depreciation. none will meet from you a cold, heartless, and repulsive indifference. to you, and before you, the flower[a] of each human heart (if i may so speak) will then have a tendency to open and expand its varied forms and hues, instead of retaining them all closed and shut up; and many, many thoughts will be expressed to you and before you which will never be heard, or at all events rarely, indeed, by those of a sneering, unsympathizing, hard, and ungenial spirit. thus you will be known, or rather felt, instinctively felt, as one who will do nothing to chill, but, on the contrary, much to encourage that free spirit (in the best sense of the word) which should mark and imbue all social intercourse deserving the name at all; and you will be welcomed by all who can appreciate good taste, good tact, and (i will add) good feeling too,--for that is the chief spring of all such conduct; and you will be enabled to receive and communicate much pleasure and profit too, wheresover you may go. a word here may not be inappropriate as to what is sometimes called "drawing a person out"--_i. e._ leading another to tell you, or any company assembled in your presence, what they know, what they have seen, what they feel, what, in a word, they are able to communicate, if so disposed and led. now, this drawing out is a very delicate affair. when successfully done, it is most valuable. when the attempt proves unsuccessful, you are very likely to lose or interfere with the very object in view. questioning of all kinds,--up from that on the simplest topic, and with a purpose of the simplest kind, to that involving the most important results,--questioning, i say, of all kinds, requires judgment and tact. many persons much err in this department of address. some err by asking about matters on which it is quite clear that they have no real feeling and concern. some err by demands as to your own personal proceedings, wherewith they have no connection. some, again, err by putting questions, not wrongly or inappropriately, but merely too many at a time, or in too rapid a succession. this scarcely can be called conversation at all,--and, generally speaking, (though i do not deny that there are exceptions, which will at once recur to the intelligent,) yes, generally speaking, is most unsatisfactory. and the reason, if we analyze the matter, is, that all the statements, or observations, or call them what you will, proceed, under such circumstances, from one of the parties engaged. it is not reciprocal; it is not mutually communicated with due equality of interchanged thought. you will at once perceive that this must be detrimental; and i would suggest that when you may observe the damage which is thus done to conversation, you should seek at once to put the discourse on a better plan,--to shift it, as it were, on a better line for good progress. and that may sometimes be done by putting a question to those who question you, or even more, by making the number of questions on each side, in some measure, to correspond. this, of course, must not be done harshly or abruptly, nor so as to give the very least impression that you yourself desire to withhold and draw in; but it may often be advantageously done; and you will thus afford to another the natural and fit means of telling you something, as a response for that which you tell him. then true conversation will begin; then the due interchange of expression, which alone merits the name; then each party becomes rightly placed, and the intercourse will improve almost instantaneously. but if, in these very commonest forms of our mutual address, it is not an easy thing to put questions well,--neither too many, nor in their wrong place,--then we may be well assured that it is more difficult still when the object, expressly, is to lead on another, gifted perhaps in many ways, or having perhaps some special thing to tell, unknown to you or others present. and yet what a valuable art this is! much is lost in society by incapacity for its due exercise. much is gained by skill in its employment. but many reasons concur to render it very difficult. the following may be mentioned among many others. some are full of matter, but shy or reserved. some are unaware of the deep interest which certain things, well known to them, would have for others, if they would communicate them; (in illustration of this, i may perhaps quote scientific men, travellers, those who have led strange and peculiar lives.) some are too modest to put themselves in any prominent light. others are too proud so to do, lest they should fail in winning full attention to their words. some are jaded and worn with previous hours of intellectual toil, and the current of their thoughts is still flowing on in a channel of its own. some are laboring under a kind of awe of one or more persons in the company. some are young, and scarcely seem to realize or know how acceptable are the thoughts and fresh expressions of youth to those of maturer years. others are afraid of being too professional in their remarks. others are indolent in the use of their tongue and utterance. and numerous other causes might be mentioned, which sadly interfere with the full, free, and general flow of discourse or conversation. and yet, at the same time, there may be rich stores in the assembly,--much, very much, to communicate,--something, at least, in each either to please, or inform and improve,--something perhaps in every one present which, if told and expressed to those around him, would add and contribute no slight nor unprized contribution to the common stock. but how to elicit it--there is the difficulty. nevertheless, very much may be done by tact and kindness, by animation and by cordiality, by watching and waiting for fit opportunities, by that appreciation of each one in the circle which will encompass and arouse all, as it were, with a kind of electric chain,--by a constant and deliberate aim to converse yourself at the time when it may be requisite, and willingly to lapse into silence and the background when another takes up the subject. and, although it is a measure which requires no little taste and moderation in its use, still it is sometimes not only very graceful, but very effectual too, if you will open out on some few personal topics which may concern yourself, and thus win a response from others present, who may personally know or have personally gone through that which you and others in the company would desire, and rightly desire, to hear opened out without any reserve. in order, again, to promote conversation of a superior sort, endeavor must be made to expand and enlarge its bounds to the very utmost. it should be of a comprehensive kind,--not the gossip of some narrow set, not a mere comment on the persons and affairs of any one locality, not a wearisome and dull repetition of things already, perhaps long, familiar to all present. i repeat, it should be comprehensive,--brought forward, as it were, from a full treasury of "things new and old," and coined into various sums, larger for such occasions as may need, and small--yes, even to the smallest--for the fit use and time. it should be formed of various materials, of that which has been seen, and heard, and read. a monotonous character is fatal to it. at one time it should arouse and awaken,--at another it should calm and soothe. at one time it should lead into deep and grave questions,--at another it should play lightly over the surface of things. at one time it may touch the spirit of the hearer, almost into tears,--at another it may raise the full freedom of laughter and mirth. at one time it may be addressed to all within the convenient reach of your words,--at another to one listening ear. if possible, it should touch on many tastes, on many places, on various interests, giving to each present (however different each taste and character) the best and fairest opening for a share in the circling talk, which opportunity every one, at fit occasion and turn, should be willing to embrace, and thus to render his or her social dues to those who freely and fairly contribute theirs. no one, on the other hand, should seek dominion, nor ever two or three, over the remainder. again, conversation should never be allowed so to fall into separate or little knots, that one here or one there should remain alone or excluded altogether. it should be carried on in appropriate tones of voice. they should be somewhat raised, or rather, i would say, strengthened for the old and for those who are a little deaf, of whom there are many. this, however, not too obviously; not to remind any of infirmity. they should be quick, firm, and spirited for those in middle age, with their faculties in full strength. they should be somewhat gentler to the young, lest they be at all checked; and somewhat slower, that they may have more time and means to frame their own answer. for which the reason is, that as "practice makes perfect" in all things, so they, whose practice has, of course, been less than their seniors', need more time to make up for the want of it, even in conversation. at all times discourse is liable to alternations as to its interest and life. expect this, and even should it become at any moment what is called dull, or even should an awkward pause and silence come on, do not seem to notice it. this will only make it worse. rather try yourself to gather up the broken thread, or to introduce some new matter. every one should avoid bringing forward or needlessly dwelling on any topic whatsoever likely to affect any others present with any unfavorable reminiscences. the wealthy will avoid, as a general rule, allusions to their property and wealth before any persons who, although their equals in society, are known to be of poor and inadequate estate. the healthy and the vigorous of frame will not forget that others are invalids; those free as air in the disposition of their time, that others have but very little, and that with difficulty spared; the quick and intelligent, that others are more slow in apprehension; those of hardy spirit, well strung and braced, that others are nervous, sensitive, and tried by words, tones, gestures, and expressions, which would not try, nor vex, or affect them in the least degree. but what tact is requisite in all this! and many, many failures must there be; sins of commission and of omission too, even among those who earnestly seek in this matter to fulfil, always and everywhere, the rules of true courtesy, and, which is better still, the rules of true christian love. nevertheless, the aim at which we point is by no means without its value as a profitable exercise both of the mind and heart. no, nor is it ineffectual and unblessed. for, although at times words may be said which we would long to recall, and strings of feeling touched by our utterance which afterthought tells us we should not have moved, and topics handled with much want of that skill and judgment which we should have wished most truly to employ, still, with a good aim before us, and with right principles in some measure realized, and seeking to correct any error when discovered, as well as to advance more in all which improves and adorns right social intercourse, much will be done towards the goodly end. and large indeed will be the amount of pleasure and of benefit which you may thus hope to reap for yourself and communicate to others in the course of your life, and that, too, up to an age, should your days be prolonged, when you may be shut up, or at all events much restrained, from many other means of active usefulness. for the mellowed wisdom of age, showing and expressing itself in that charity and sympathy for all which nothing less than experience itself has taught, is indeed a strong and beautiful thing. hitherto i have spoken altogether on conversation with those whose rank and position of life corresponds with your own. a few words now on conversation, first, with those of a higher rank, and, secondly, with those in the humbler conditions of life--to use the common phrase; and every man should be qualified and prepared for any and for all kinds of association. to those of a higher rank than ourselves we may, without derogating in the least from our independence and self-respect, show that deference which not only the customs of all nations, but the scripture also most evidently inculcates. this, of course, will appear when engaged with them in conversation. it will, however, be shown rather in some occasional acknowledgment than in the manner or matter of discourse. the rank of another does not in the least demand that you should surrender your opinion to his, nor conceal your sentiments, nor assume any other line of subjects and topics than you would address to those more immediately your equals in worldly position. a vague, undefined notion seems to float through each rank of society in our land, that those in the stage above think, feel, and act in a manner different from those below. a very great mistake this, which oftentimes chills and checks and mars all open freedom of address when one of an higher and one of a lower rank are brought into those circumstances where the opportunity for conversation occurs, if not the absolute claim. but let it be remembered that the mind and heart of man or of woman varies but little through these mere distinctions of the world. i do not say that it does not vary at all, but very little. the main current of joy, the main current of sorrow, is the same in all classes, though the lesser streams may variously and separately flow. the main current of affections, of interests, is the same. all are subject to the same need of kind, friendly sympathy; all are made to interchange thought; all share in the manifold impressions of our common nature. wealth and nobility, and rank and station, are, after all, only artificial things, not the main staple of life in any man or woman. when, therefore, you are brought into the society of one or more like these, be to them appropriately courteous. acknowledge their position at once, and then let your intercourse with them flow freely on, just as with others. trouble not them, nor trouble yourself, with any other system of address. deprive not them, nor deprive yourself, of free, open, natural communication. and, depend upon it, that acting and speaking thus, you will not only be oftentimes pleased rather than silenced and embarrassed by such society, but you will be sure to please and to be valued,--yes, and to meet no less friendly sympathy, both of mind and heart, than is to be found in each other rank of life. and now a few words on conversation with our poorer friends or neighbors, or any persons in this class of life with whom, habitually, we may have to do, or whom we may meet at any time or place. and few of that class being, i conclude, here, i may speak to you as those who would gladly receive any hints for kind consideration as to the right way of fulfilling your own part in this matter. for i, too, would wish to be a learner on it, so important do i conceive it to be. so much has been said, and so much has been written, on the benefit of free, kindly intercourse between the rich and the poor, the employers and the employed, those who labor with their heads and those who labor with their hands, that any mere general or vague observations on the subject would be quite out of place here. i shall, accordingly, regard you not only as admitting this truth, but also as desirous yourselves to exemplify it; and, again, as admitting, and feeling too, that merely to pay wages, and to give directions and commands, and to bestow alms, and to support charitable institutions (however needful and good such things may be), is not enough for one desiring to secure the sympathy and love of his poorer brethren. for that you must be ready, willing, able to converse with them. to qualify yourself for doing this, is in many professions an indispensable and most evident duty,--for instance, with the ministers of religion and with medical men. they could do nothing without such conversation. and, considering it due at proper seasons from every one in a higher class of life to those below them, i shall just offer you a few hints, which seem to me not unworthy of note. avoid, then, on the one hand, all hard, overbearing address; while, on the other, there must be energy, spirit, firmness, and life. avoid all semblance of patronage and condescension, but at the same time never make any forced attempts to appear what you are not, or to assume a character not your own. do not imagine the range of subjects small; and, when you can, choose those topics in which you and those addressed both take an interest. many there are common to all classes. be not impatient to come to a point too quick, but give people a full opportunity to express themselves in their own way; nor count this waste time. it is very much otherwise. use short rather than long sentences,--language colloquial, not that of books,--giving emphasis, tone, and strength to your words,--never lapsing into cold, lifeless, inexpressive tones. trust oftentimes, in conversation with the poor and comparatively uneducated, that there is much more intelligence within than the answer which they make in words would lead you, at first sight, to expect. be willing and ready to tell something about yourself, your family, and concerns, when there appears any interest about them. remember that family ties and affections are strong in one as in another of the human family; and, as among your own friends and associates you would refer to these natural topics, so do here. let wants and necessities, and trials and difficulties, not be forgotten, but let them not be the whole subject-matter of discourse. no, let it range far more widely, far more attractively; and your looks and your demeanor, and your tones and words, being all directed by good will, and by practice too, you indeed will be no idler in good works during times and occasions thus employed. you will win much love, much esteem, much appreciation; you will hear much right feeling expressed, and, at times, much to inform you of a practical kind. you will do good and receive good too. it appears to me that i have now presented to your notice almost a sufficiency of topics, relative to conversation, for one single lecture. nevertheless, i feel unwilling to conclude without drawing your attention to a few facts connected with the subject. one is, that the ablest and mightiest authors of all times and countries have borne their strong testimony to the attraction which conversation presents, by casting a large portion of their writings into this form or mould. thus did homer in poetry, plato in philosophy, and dramatists, of all ages, in their plays. thus did cicero in his various treatises; and horace appears[b] talking to you in many and many a page. dante's grand poem, "il purgatorio," is chiefly a conversation. the french have ever excelled in such writings; and of such a character is that well-known gem in the literature of spain, i of course allude to "don quixote." in shakspeare and walter scott it is the same, and they, perhaps, are the most popular writers of our land, except one. who, do you ask, is that? john bunyan, the author of the "pilgrim's progress;" but that very book comes up with its testimony too, being a dialogue throughout,--rich in pathos and wit, rich in illustration, rich in experience, rich in all variety and combination,--in a word, the very perfection of talk; not less attractive than it is weighty, not less entertaining than heavenly, holy, and full of all things which make a book precious. but another book there is, of which it is well said:- "a glory gilds the sacred page, majestic like the sun! it gives a light to every age; it gives, but borrows none." and in that book of books there are four short but most mighty narratives. and each of those narratives contains the one most important record which ever had to be told upon this earth. each of them gives one concurrent history; namely, that of the life of our lord jesus christ, with his sayings and his deeds. and of conversation these holy narratives are full. god has chosen this mode of reaching our minds and influencing our hearts, by large--very large--portions of them written after this fashion. cowper felt this so deeply, that, in his poem on our present subject, he has beautifully told and paraphrased all that went on when jesus met and talked with the two disciples on the way to emmaus. moreover, in those gospels, there is one, penned by that "disciple whom jesus loved;" and if there is much conversation in all four of them, in it especially--in the gospel of st. john--conversation appears in all its full and continued glory. take one or two examples. mankind, all mankind, had to be taught about the complete atonement for our sins made by our saviour on the cross. where is it more clearly, more mightily told than in the third chapter of st. john's gospel? but what is that chapter? is it a law prescribed in set terms?--no. is it a sermon?--no. is it a mere address?--no. you will all remember it is a conversation,--christ's conversation with nicodemus by night. and so it is again in the very next chapter, where a subject of no less importance--i say it advisedly, no less importance--is set forth, viz. the work of the holy spirit in man's heart; and that is portrayed for us in a conversation with the woman of samaria, at sychar's well. what striking instances are these! and many others might be added to them. and thus we have before us even the sanction and proof from the word of god, that the most mighty and transcendent truth can reach us in no better form than that which conversation gives, and also that jesus christ put his own royal stamp of glory on it, by employing it himself continually, when upon the earth among men, though he was their lord and their god. having thus been led on,--i think very naturally, and, as i think, quite appropriately, too, for one of my office and position, at any time or place, or on any subject,--i will not return to any lighter theme. i do not in the least regret that i have selected my present topic out of very many which suggested themselves to my mind, when i was asked to exercise the privilege of thus addressing you, as i have now done for these four years. i might have chosen others far more entertaining, and, no doubt, some far more kindling and exciting at this present time,[c] when our thoughts and our feelings are all so concentrated on one distant spot of strife and of contest, and of danger, and of bravery, and wounds, and deaths, and bereavements,--and amidst all, of honor unexampled to our brave brethren in arms. but, for many reasons, i have done otherwise. i have chosen, as usual, a subject of general, of national, of wide-world, of never-failing interest, from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, among the vast race of our fellows,--born social creatures, born for mutual sympathy, with interchanged utterance, speech, and conversation. strongly do i feel its importance, and i cannot help expressing my surprise that so little, so very little, has systematically been written or said upon it. i have found it no ordinary theme, i assure you; and, though it is one on which we all instinctively are interested in any circle, or with whomsoever we may at any time be, still it is not one on which the arrangement and classification of thought is an easy thing. i therefore shall not feel disappointed, nor, do i trust, will you be disappointed either, in that good employment of your time which you have a right to expect from me, as your lecturer to-night here, if i shall have set before you any thoughts, for your attention, which may improve, in the least degree, the course and the current of ordinary conversation. when we remember how much of our innocent gratification,--how much of our daily harmony one with another,--how much of our mutual improvement,--depends on the right exercise of this goodly gift,--then, i am sure, you will not consider that the subject is one to be neglected or ignored. i verily believe that i do not over-state the fact, in asserting that for one time when we are liable to hurt, or distress, or offend another by our acts and deeds, there are fifty or an hundred, or perhaps more, occasions, when we are liable to do so by our words, and demeanor, and utterance. and again, for once that we can do kind and profitable actions to those around us, and associating with us, there are fifty or an hundred,--perhaps more occasions still,--when we can please or profit another by our words. i ask you, as those who can judge in this matter for yourselves, "is it not so? is it not so most undeniably?" well, then, if i have been successful in laying down any right principles, in exposing anything disadvantageous, or in presenting any available means for rendering your daily intercourse more evidently kind, more evidently sympathizing, more evidently, in a word, such as that which every good man would wish to exhibit, and which must render him not only welcome and not only useful, but a real and true ornament of society in the best sense of the word; if i have shown you anything whatever available to this end, whether for your use at home or abroad, in the cottage or the shop, in the humblest abode or in the noblest and in the wealthiest, then surely i shall not have spoken in vain. i speak on no narrow topic, and i speak for all. truly it is one which touches all; and in this lies its strength and its interest. there is no one, i believe, who does not intuitively and instinctively feel either his gain or his loss in conversation,--the effect of it on his own mind and on his own feelings at the time and afterwards,--either its harms or its charms. all must feel this, though unable perhaps to classify their thoughts or express them on it, and perhaps they have never thought of so doing. and i, for one, will not hesitate to say that, it having been my lot to mix much, and willingly, in all the various classes of society,--and having endeavored, so far as in my power has been, to cultivate and show a true brotherly and friendly spirit, both to high and low,--i have met nothing to confer more pleasure and more advantage in daily life than fit conversation. i have found it from the poorest. i have found it from those of middle station. i have found it among the noble and the rich. and, while without it the hours of social and of family life may drag on heavily, and in a wearisome and worthless way, under the roofs of splendor and magnificence, and in the midst of feasts, and pomp, and parade, with it, freely interchanged from well-informed heads and cordial hearts, expressing what they know and telling what they feel, without any restraint except that of love, and tact, and propriety,--with it, i say, the simplest home may be one of enjoyment and improvement every recurring day, and each coming guest will share its attractions,--and therefore i say to every one present, "despise not this gift, and try to improve it; and seek divine help for its right regulation, as well as for its use; and be well assured that, under god's blessing, in its direction you will gain for yourself, and promote for your fellow-creatures, no slight share of true enjoyment, no slight benefits both for this world and for the world to come." footnotes: [a] "quale i fioretti, dol notturno gielo chinati e chiusi, poi che 'l sol gl' imbianca, si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo, tal mi fece io di mia virtute stanca." _inf._ can. ii. 127-9. [b] "omne vafer vitium ridenti flaccus amico tangit, et admissus circum prã¦cordia ludit." pers. i. 116. [c] december, 1854. part iii. a word to the wise; by parry gwynne. a word to the wise. introduction. it is readily acknowledged, by all well educated foreigners, that english grammar is very easy to learn, the difficulties of the language lying in the numberless variations and licenses of its pronunciation. since to us then, children of the soil, pronunciation has no difficulties to offer, is it not a reproach that so many speak their own language in an inelegant and slatternly manner,--either through an inexcusable ignorance of grammatical rules, or a wanton violation of them? there are two sorts of bad speakers,--the educated and the uneducated. i write for the former, and i shall deal the less leniently with them, because "where much is given, much will be expected." ay, and where much has been achieved too, and intellectual laurels have been gathered, is it not a reproach that a _slatternly_ mode of expression should sometimes deteriorate from the eloquence of the scholar, and place the accomplished man or woman, in _this_ respect, on a level with the half-educated or the illiterate? some one, i think it is lord chesterfield, has wisely said, "whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well." then, if our native language is worth studying, surely it is worth _speaking well_, and as there is no standing still in excellence of any kind, so, even in language,--in so simple a thing as the expression of our thoughts by words,--if we do not improve we shall retrograde. it is a common opinion that a knowledge of latin supersedes the necessity of the study of english grammar. this must entail a strong imputation of carelessness on our latin students, who sometimes commit such solecisms in english as make us regret they did not _once_, at least, peruse the grammatical rules of their native language. we laugh at the blunders of a foreigner, but perpetrate our own offences with so much gravity that an observer would have a right to suppose we consider them what they really are,--_no laughing matter_. chapter i. i. some people speak of "so many _spoonsfull_," instead of "so many spoonfuls." the rule on this subject says: "compounds ending in _ful_, and all those in which the principal word is put last, form the plural in the same manner as other nouns,--as 'handfuls, spoonfuls, mouthfuls,'" &c., &c. logic will demonstrate the propriety of this rule. are you measuring by a plurality of spoons? if so, "so many _spoonsfull_" must be the correct term; but if the process of measuring be effected by _refilling the same spoon_, then it becomes evident that the precise idea meant to be conveyed is, the _quantity_ contained in the vessel by which it is measured, which is a "_spoonful_." ii. it is a common mistake to speak of "a disagreeable effluvia." this word is _effluvium_ in the singular, and _effluvia_ in the plural. the same rule should be observed with _automaton_, _arcanum_, _erratum_, _phenomenon_, _memorandum_, and several others which are less frequently used, and which change the _um_ or _on_ into _a_, to form the plural. it is so common a thing, however, to say _memorandums_, that i fear it would sound a little pedantic, in colloquial style, to use the word _memoranda_; and it is desirable, perhaps, that custom should make an exception of this word, as well as of _encomium_, and allow two terminations to it, according to the taste of the speaker and the style of the discourse,--_memorandums_ or _memoranda_, like _encomiums_ or _encomia_. iii. we have heard _pulse_ and _patience_ treated as pluralities, much to our astonishment. iv. it seems to be a position assumed by all grammarians, that their readers already understand the meaning of the word "case," as applied to nouns and pronouns; hence they never enter into a clear explanation of the simple term, but proceed at once to a discussion of its grammatical distinctions, in which it frequently happens that the student, for want of a little introductory explanation, is unable to accompany them. but i am not going to repeat to the scholar how the term "case" is derived from a latin word signifying "to fall," and is so named because all the other cases _fall_ or _decline_ from the nominative, in order to express the various relations of nouns to each other,--which in latin they do by a difference of termination, in english by the aid of prepositions,--and that an orderly arrangement of all these different terminations is called the declension of a noun, &c. i am not going to repeat to the scholar the things he already knows; but to you, my gentle readers, to whom latin is still an unknown tongue, to whom grammars are become obsolete things, and grammatical definitions would be bewildering preliminaries, "more honored in the breach than in the observance,"--to you i am anxious to explain, in the clearest manner practicable, all the mysteries of this case, because it was a cruel perplexity to myself in days of yore. and i will endeavor to make my lecture as brief and clear as possible, requesting you to bear in mind that no knowledge is to be acquired without a little trouble; and that whosoever may consider it too irksome a task to exert the understanding for a _short_ period, must be content to remain in inexcusable and irremediable ignorance. though, i doubt not, when you come to perceive how great the errors are which you daily commit, you will not regret having sat down quietly for half an hour to listen to an unscholastic exposition of them. v. we all understand the meaning of the word "case," as it is applied to the common affairs of life; but when we meet with it in our grammars, we view it as an abstruse term. we will not consent to believe that it means nothing more than _position of affairs_, _condition_, or _circumstances_, any one of which words might be substituted for it with equal propriety, if it were not indispensable in grammar to adhere strictly to the same term when we wish to direct the attention unerringly to the same thing, and to keep the understanding alive to the justness of its application; whilst a multiplicity of names to one thing would be likely to create confusion. thus, if one were to say, "this is a very hard case," or "a singular case occurred the other day," or "that poor man's case is a very deplorable one," we should readily comprehend that by the word "case" was meant "circumstance" or "situation;" and when we speak, in the language of the grammar, of "a noun in the nominative case," we only mean a person or thing placed in such circumstances as to become merely named, or named as the performer of some action,--as "the man," or "the man walks." in both these sentences, "man" is in the nominative case; because in the first he is simply _named_, without reference to any circumstance respecting him, and in the second he is named as the performer of the _act_ of _walking_ mentioned. when we speak of a noun in the possessive case, we simply mean a person or thing placed under such circumstances as to become named as the _possessor_ of something; and when we speak of a noun in the objective case, we only intend to express a person or thing standing in such a situation as to be, in some way or other, affected by the act of some other person or thing,--as "henry teaches charles." here henry is, by an abbreviation of terms, called _the nominative case_, (instead of the _noun_ in the nominative case,) because he stands in that situation in which it is incumbent on us to name him as the _performer_ of the act of teaching; and charles is, by the same abbreviating license, called the _objective case_, because he is in such a position of affairs as to _receive_ the act of teaching which henry performs. i will now tell you how you may always distinguish the three cases. read the sentence attentively, and understand accurately what the nouns are represented as doing. if any person or thing be represented as _performing_ an _action_, that person or thing is a noun in the nominative case. if any person or thing be represented as _possessing something_, that person or thing is a noun in the possessive case. and if any person or thing be represented as neither performing nor possessing, it is a noun in the objective case, whether directly or indirectly affected by the action of the nominative; because, as we have in english but _three_ cases, which contain the substance of the _six latin_ cases, _whatever is neither nominative nor possessive must be objective_. here i might wander into a long digression on passive and neuter verbs, which i may seem to have totally overlooked in the principle just laid down; but i am not writing a grammar,--not attempting to illustrate the various ramifications of grammatical laws to people who know nothing at all about them,--any more than i am writing for the edification of the accomplished scholar, to whom purity of diction is already familiar. i am writing, chiefly, for that vast portion of the educated classes who have never looked into a grammar since their school days were over, but who have ingeniously hewn out for themselves a middle path between ignorance and knowledge, and to whom certain little hillocks in their way have risen up, under a dense atmosphere, to the magnitude of mountains. i merely wish to give to them, since they will not take the trouble to search for themselves, one broad and general principle, unclogged by exceptions, to guide them to propriety of speech; and should they afterwards acquire a taste for grammatical disputation, they will of course apply to more extensive sources for the necessary qualifications. vi. it is scarcely possible to commit any inaccuracy in the use of these cases when restricted to nouns, but in the application of them to pronouns a woful confusion often arises; though even in this confusion exists a marked distinction between the errors of the ill-bred and those of the well-bred man. to use the objective instead of the nominative is a _vulgar_ error; to use the nominative instead of the objective is a _genteel_ error. no person of decent education would think of saying, "him and me are going to the play." yet how often do we hear even well educated people say, "they were coming to see my brother and _i_,"--"the claret will be packed in two hampers for mr. smith and _i_,"--"let you and _i_ try to move it,"--"let him and _i_ go up and speak to them,"--"between you and _i_," &c. &c.;--faults as heinous as that of the vulgarian who says, "him and me are going to the play," and with less excuse. two minutes' reflection will enable the scholar to correct himself, and a little exercise of memory will shield him from a repetition of the fault; but, for the benefit of those who may _not_ be scholars, we will accompany him through the mazes of his reflections. who are the persons that are performing the act of "coming to see"? "_they_." then the pronoun _they_ must stand in the nominative case. who are the persons to whom the act of "coming to see" extends? "my brother and i." then "my brother and i," being the _objects affected_ by the act of the nominative, must be a noun and pronoun standing in the objective case; and as nouns are not susceptible of change on account of cases, it is only the _pronoun_ which requires alteration to render the sentence correct: "they were coming to see my brother and _me_." the same argument is applicable to the other examples given. in the english language, the imperative mood of a verb is never conjugated with a pronoun in the nominative case, therefore, "let you and _i_ try to move it," "let him and _i_ go up and speak to them," are manifest improprieties. a very simple test may be formed by taking away the first noun or pronoun from the sentence altogether, and bringing the verb or preposition right against that pronoun which you use to designate yourself: thus, "they were coming to see _i_," "the claret will be packed in two hampers for _i_," "let _i_ try to move it," &c. by this means your own ear will correct you, without any reference to grammatical rules. and bear in mind that the number of _nouns_ it may be necessary to press into the sentence will not alter the _case_ respecting the pronouns. "between you and i" is as erroneous an expression as any. change the position of the pronouns, and say, "between i and you;" or change the sentence altogether, and say, "between i and the wall there was a great gap;" and you will soon see in what case the first person should be rendered. "prepositions govern the objective case," therefore it is impossible to put a nominative _after_ a preposition without a gross violation of a rule which ought to be familiar to everybody. vii. the same mistake extends to the relative pronouns "who" and "whom." we seldom hear the objective case used either by vulgar or refined speakers. "who did you give it to?" "who is this for?" are solecisms of daily occurrence; and when the objective "whom" _is_ used, it is generally put in the wrong place; as, "the person whom i expected would purchase that estate," "the man whom they intend shall execute that work." this intervening verb in each sentence, "i expected" and "they intend," coming between the last verb and its own nominative (the relative pronoun), has no power to alter the rule, and no right to violate it; but as the introduction of an intervening verb, in such situations, is likely to beguile the ear and confuse the judgment, it would be better to avoid such constructions altogether, and turn the sentence in a different way; as, "the person whom i expected _to be_ the purchaser of that estate," "the man whom they intend _to_ execute that work." if the reader will cut off the intervening verb, which has nothing to do with the construction of the sentence, except to mystify it, he will perceive at a glance the error and its remedy: "the person _whom_ would purchase that estate," "the man _whom_ shall execute that work." viii. it is very easy to mistake the nominative when another noun comes between it and the verb, which is frequently the case in the use of the indefinite and distributive pronouns; as, "one of those houses _were_ sold last week," "each of the daughters _are_ to have a separate share," "every tree in those plantations _have_ been injured by the storm," "either of the children _are_ at liberty to claim it." here it will be perceived that the pronouns "one," "each," "every," "either," are the true nominatives to the verbs; but the intervening noun in the plural number, in each sentence, deludes the ear, and the speaker, without reflection, renders the verb in the plural instead of the singular number. the same error is often committed when no second noun appears to plead an apology for the fault; as, "each city _have their_ peculiar privileges," "everybody has a right to look after _their_ own interest," "either _are_ at liberty to claim it." this is the effect of pure carelessness. ix. there is another very common error, the reverse of the last mentioned, which is that of rendering the adjective pronoun in the _plural_ number instead of the singular in such sentences as the following: "_these_ kind of entertainments are not conducive to general improvement," "_those_ sort of experiments are often dangerous." this error seems to originate in the habit which people insensibly acquire of supposing the prominent noun in the sentence (such as "entertainments" or "experiments") to be the noun qualified by the adjective "these" or "those;" instead of which it is "kind," "sort," or any word of that description _immediately following_ the adjective, which should be so qualified, and the adjective must be made to agree with it in the singular number. we confess it is not so agreeable to the ear to say, "_this_ kind of entertainments," "_that_ sort of experiments;" but it would be easy to give the sentence a different form, and say, "entertainments of this kind," "experiments of that sort," by which the requisitions of grammar would be satisfied, and those of euphony too. x. but the grand fault, the glaring impropriety, committed by "all ranks and conditions of men," rich and poor, high and low, illiterate and learned,--except, perhaps, one in twenty,--and from which not even the pulpit or the bar is totally free,--is, the substitution of the active verb _lay_ for the neuter verb _lie_ (to lie down). the scholar _knows_ that "active verbs govern the objective case," and therefore _demand_ an objective case after them; and that neuter verbs _will not admit_ an objective case after them, _except_ through the medium of a preposition. _he_, therefore, has no excuse for his error, it is a wilful one; for him the following is not written. and here i may as well say, once for all, that whilst i would _remind_ the _scholar_ of his lapses, my instructions and explanations are offered _only_ to the class which requires them. "to lay" is an active transitive verb, like _love_, _demanding_ an objective case after it, _without the intervention of a preposition_. "to lie" is a neuter verb, _not admitting an objective case after it, except through the intervention of a preposition_;--yet this "perverse generation" _will_ go on substituting the former for the latter. nothing can be more erroneous than to say, as people constantly do, "i shall go and lay down." the question which naturally arises in the mind of the discriminating hearer is, "_what_ are you going to lay down,--money, carpets, plans, or what?" for, as a transitive verb is used, an object is wanted to complete the sense. the speaker means, in fact, to tell us that he (himself) is going to _lie down_, instead of which he gives us to understand that he is going to _lay_ down or _put_ down something which he has not named, but which it is necessary to name before we can understand the sentence; and this sentence, when completed according to the rules of grammar, will never convey the meaning he intends. one might as well use the verb "to put" in this situation, as the verb "to lay," for each is a transitive verb, requiring an objective case immediately after it. if you were to enter a room, and, finding a person lying on the sofa, were to address him with such a question as "what are you doing there?" you would think it ludicrous if he were to reply, "i am _putting_ down;" yet it would not be more absurd than to say, "i am _laying_ down;" but custom, whilst it fails to reconcile us to the error, has so familiarized us with it, that we hear it without surprise, and good breeding forbids our noticing it to the speaker. the same mistake is committed through all the tenses of the verb. how often are nice ears wounded by the following expressions,--"my brother _lays_ ill of a fever,"--"the vessel _lays_ in st. katharine's docks,"--"the books were _laying_ on the floor,"--"he _laid_ on a sofa three weeks,"--"after i had _laid_ down, i remembered that i had left my pistols _laying_ on the table." you must perceive that, in every one of these instances, the wrong verb is used; correct it, therefore, according to the explanation given; thus, "my brother _lies_ ill of a fever,"--"the vessel _lies_ in st katherine's docks,"--"the books were _lying_ on the floor,"--"he _lay_ on a sofa three weeks,"--"after i had _lain_ down, i remembered that i had left my pistols _lying_ on the table." it is probable that this error has originated in the circumstance of the present tense of the verb "to lay" being conjugated precisely like the imperfect tense of the verb "to lie," for they are alike in orthography and sound, and different only in meaning; and in order to remedy the evil which this resemblance seems to have created, i have conjugated at full length the simple tenses of the two verbs, hoping the exposition may be found useful; for it is an error which _must_ be corrected by all who aspire to the merit of speaking their own language _well_. verb active. _to lay._ present tense. i lay } thou layest } money, he lays } carpets, we lay } plans,--any you lay } _thing_. they lay } imperfect tense. i laid } thou laidest } money, he laid } carpets, we laid } plans,--any you laid } _thing_. they laid } present participle, laying. perfect participle, laid. verb neuter. _to lie._ present tense. i lie } thou liest } down, he lies } too long, we lie } on a sofa,--any you lie } _where_. they lie } imperfect tense. i lay } thou layest } down, he lays } too long, we lay } on a sofa,--any you lay } _where_. they lay } present participle, lying, perfect participle, lain. in such sentences as these, wherein the verb is used reflectively,--"if i lay myself down on the grass i shall catch cold," "he laid himself down on the green sward,"--the verb "to lay" is with propriety substituted for the verb "to lie;" for the addition of the emphatic pronoun _myself_, or _himself_, constituting an objective case, and coming _immediately after_ the verb, _without the intervention of a preposition_, renders it necessary that the verb employed should be _active_, not _neuter_, because "active verbs govern the objective case." but this is the only construction in which "to lay" instead of "to lie" can be sanctioned by the rules of grammar. xi. the same confusion often arises in the use of the verbs _sit_ and _set_, _rise_ and _raise_. _sit_ is a neuter verb, _set_ an active one; yet how often do people most improperly say, "i have _set_ with him for hours," "he _set_ on the beach till the sun went down," "she _set_ three nights by the patient's bedside." what did they set,--potatoes, traps, or what? for as an objective case is evidently implied by the use of an active verb, an object is indispensable to complete the sense. no tense whatever of the verb "to sit" is rendered "set," which has but _one word_ throughout the whole verb, except the active participle "setting;" and "sit" has but two words, "sit" and "sat," except the active participle "sitting;" therefore it is very easy to correct this error by the help of a little attention. xii. _raise_ is the same kind of verb as _set_,--active-transitive, requiring an objective case after it; and it contains only two words, _raise_ and _raised_, besides the active participle _raising_. _rise_ is a neuter verb, not admitting an objective case. it contains two words, _rise_ and _rose_; besides the two participles, _rising_ and _risen_. it is improper, therefore, to say, "he _rose_ the books from the floor," "he _rises_ the fruit as it falls," "after she had _risen_ the basket on her head," &c. in all such cases use the other verb _raise_. it occurs to me, that if people would take the trouble to reckon how many different words a verb contains, they would be in less danger of mistaking them. "lay" contains two words, "lay" and "laid," besides the active participle "laying." "lie" has also two words, "lie" and "lay," besides the two participles "lying" and "lain;" and from this second word "lay" arises all the confusion i have had to lament in the foregoing pages. xiii. to the scholar i would remark the prevalent impropriety of adopting the subjunctive instead of the indicative mood, in sentences where doubt or uncertainty is expressed, although the former can only be used in situations in which "contingency and futurity" are combined. thus, a gentleman, giving an order to his tailor, may say, "make me a coat of a certain description, if it _fit_ me well i will give you another order;" because the "fit" alluded to is a thing which the future has to determine. but when the coat is made and brought home, he cannot say, "if this cloth _be good_ i will give you another order," for the quality of the cloth is _already_ determined; the future will not alter it. it may be good, it may be bad, but whatever it _may be_ it already _is_; therefore, as contingency only is implied, _without futurity_, it must be rendered in the indicative mood, "if this cloth _is_ good," &c. we may with propriety say, "if the book be sent in time, i shall be able to read it to-night," because the sending of the book is an event which the _future_ must produce; but we must not say, "if this book be sent for me, it is a mistake," because here the act alluded to is already performed,--the book has come. i think it very likely that people have been beguiled into this error by the prefix of the conjunction, forgetting that conjunctions may be used with the indicative as well as with the subjunctive mood. xiv. some people use the imperfect tense of the verb "to go," instead of the past participle, and say, "i should have _went_," instead of "i should have gone." this is _not_ a very common error, but it is a very great one; and i should not have thought it could come within the range of the class for which this book is written, but that i have heard the fault committed by people of even tolerable education. one might as well say, "i should have _was_ at the theatre last night," instead of "i should have _been_ at the theatre," &c., as say, "i should have _went_" instead of "i should have _gone_." xv. others there are who invert this error, and use the past participle of the verb "to do" instead of a tense of the verb, saying, "i _done_" instead of "i _did_." this is inadmissible. "i _did_ it," or "i _have done_ it," is a phrase correct in its formation, its application being, of course, dependent on other circumstances. xvi. there are speakers who are _too refined_ to use the past (or perfect) participle of the verbs "to drink," "to run," "to begin," &c., and substitute the _imperfect tense_, as in the verb "to go." thus, instead of saying, "i have drunk," "he has run," "they have begun," they say, "i have _drank_" "he has _ran_," "they have _began_" &c. these are minor errors, i admit; still, nice ears detect them. xvii. i trust it is unnecessary to warn any of my readers against adopting the flagrant vulgarity of saying "_don't_ ought," and "_hadn't_ ought," instead of "ought _not_." it is also incorrect to employ _no_ for _not_ in such phrases as, "if it is true or _no_ (not)," "is it so or _no_ (not)?" xviii. many people have an odd way of saying, "i expect," when they only mean "i think," or "i conclude;" as, "i expect my brother is gone to richmond to-day," "i expect those books were sent to paris last year." this is wrong. _expect_ can relate only to _future_ time, and must be followed by a future tense, or a verb in the infinitive mood; as, "i expect my brother _will go_ to richmond to-day," "i expect _to find_ those books were sent to paris last year." here the introduction of a future tense, or of a verb in the infinitive mood, rectifies the grammar without altering the sense; but such a portion of the sentence must not be omitted in expression, as no such ellipsis is allowable. xix. the majority of speakers use the imperfect tense and the perfect tense together, in such sentences as the following,--"i intended to _have called_ on him last night," "i meant to _have purchased_ one yesterday,"--or a pluperfect tense, and a perfect tense together i have sometimes heard, as, "you should _have written_ to _have told_ her." these expressions are illogical, because, as the _intention_ to perform an act _must_ be _prior_ to the act contemplated, the act itself cannot with propriety be expressed by a tense indicating a period of time _previous_ to the intention. the three sentences should be corrected thus, placing the second verb in the infinitive mood, "i intended _to call_ on him last night," "i meant _to purchase_ one yesterday," "you should have written _to tell_ her." but the imperfect tense and the perfect tense are to be combined in such sentences as the following, "i remarked that they appeared to have undergone great fatigue;" because here the act of "undergoing fatigue" _must_ have taken place _previous_ to the period in which you have had the opportunity of remarking its effect on their appearance; the sentence, therefore, is both grammatical and logical. xx. another strange perversion of grammatical propriety is to be heard occasionally in the adoption of the present tense of the verb "to have," most probably instead of the past participle, but in situations in which the participle itself would be a redundance; such as, "if i had _have_ known," "if he had _have_ come according to appointment," "if you had _have_ sent me that intelligence," &c. of what utility is the word "have" in the sentence at all? what office does it perform? if it stands in place of any other word, that other word would still be an incumbrance; but the sentence being complete without it, it becomes an illiterate superfluity. "if i had _have_ known that you would have been there before me, i would have written to you to _have_ waited till i had _have_ come." what a construction from the lips of an educated person! and yet we do sometimes hear this _slip-slop_ uttered by people who are considered to "speak french and italian _well_," and who enjoy the reputation of being "accomplished!" xxi. it is amusing to observe the broad line of demarcation which exists between _vulgar_ bad grammar and _genteel_ bad grammar, and which characterizes the violation of almost every rule of syntax. the vulgar speaker uses adjectives instead of adverbs, and says, "this letter is written _shocking_;" the genteel speaker uses adverbs instead of adjectives, and says, "this writing looks _shockingly_." the perpetrators of the latter offence may fancy they can shield themselves behind the grammatical law which compels the employment of an adverb, not an adjective, to qualify a verb, and behind the first rule of syntax, which says "a verb must agree with its nominative." but which _is_ the nominative in the expression alluded to? _which_ performs the act of looking,--the writing or the speaker? to say that a thing _looks_ when _we_ look _at_ it, is an idiom peculiar to our language, and some idioms are not reducible to rules; they are conventional terms which pass current, like bank notes, for the sterling they represent, but must not be submitted to the test of grammatical alchymy. it is improper, therefore, to say, "the queen looks beautifully," "the flowers smell sweetly," "this writing looks shockingly;" because it is the speaker that performs the act of looking, smelling, &c., not the noun looked _at_; and though, by an idiomatical construction necessary to avoid circumlocution, the sentence _imputes the act_ to the _thing beheld_, the qualifying word must express the quality of the thing spoken of, _adjectively_, instead of qualifying the act of the nominative understood, _adverbially_. what an adjective is to a noun, an adverb is to a verb; an adjective expresses the quality of a thing, and an adverb the manner of an action. consider what it is you wish to express, the _quality of a thing_, or the _manner of an action_, and use an adjective or adverb accordingly. but beware that you discriminate justly; for though you cannot say, "the queen looked _majestically_ in her robes," because here the act of _looking_ is performed by the spectator, who looks _at_ her, you can and _must_ say, "the queen looked _graciously_ on the petitioner," "the queen looked _mercifully_ on his prayer," because here the _act_ of _looking_ is performed _by_ the queen. you cannot say, "these flowers smell sweetly," because it is _you_ that smell, and not the flowers; but you can say, "these flowers perfume the air deliciously," because it is _they_ which impart the fragrance, not you. you cannot say, "this dress looks badly," because it is you that look, not the dress; but you can say, "this dress _fits_ badly," because it is the dress that performs the act of fitting either well or ill. there are some peculiar idioms which it would be better to avoid altogether, if possible; but if you feel compelled to use them, take them as they are,--you cannot prune and refine them by the rules of syntax, and to attempt to do so shows ignorance as well as affectation. xxii. there is a mistake often committed in the use of the adverbs of place, _hence_, _thence_, _whence_. people are apt to say, "he will go _from thence_ to-morrow," &c. the preposition "from" is included in these adverbs, therefore it becomes tautology in sense when prefixed to them. xxiii. "equally as well" is a very common expression, and a very incorrect one; the adverb of comparison, "as," has no right in the sentence. "equally well," "equally high," "equally dear," should be the construction; and if a complement be necessary in the phrase, it should be preceded by the preposition "with," as, "the wall was equally high with the former one," "the goods at smith's are equally dear with those sold at the shop next door," &c. "equally the same" is tautology. xxiv. "whether," sometimes an adverb, sometimes a conjunction, is a word that plainly indicates a choice of things (of course i cannot be supposed to mean a _freedom_ of choice); it is highly improper, therefore, to place it, as many do, at the head of each part of a sentence, as, "i have not yet made up my mind whether i shall go to france, or _whether_ i shall remain in england." the conjunction should not be repeated, as it is evident the alternative is expressed _only in the combination_ of the _two_ parts of the sentence, not in either of them taken separately; and the phrase should stand thus, "i have not yet made up my mind whether i shall go to france _or_ remain in england." xxv. there is an awkwardness prevalent amongst all classes of society in such sentences as the following: "he quitted his horse, and got _on to_ a stage coach," "he jumped _on to_ the floor," "she laid it _on to_ a dish," "i threw it _on to_ the fire." why use two prepositions where one would be quite as explicit, and far more elegant? nobody, at the present day, would think of saying, "he came up to london _for_ to go to the exhibition," because the preposition "for" would be an awkward superfluity. so is "to" in the examples given; in each of which there is an unwieldiness of construction which reminds one of the process of glueing, or fastening, one thing "on to" another. expunge the redundant preposition, and be assured, gentle reader, the sentence will still be found "an elegant sufficiency." there are some situations, however, in which the two prepositions may with propriety be employed, though they are never indispensable, as, "i accompanied such a one to islington, and then walked on to kingsland." but here _two_ motions are implied, the walking onward, and the reaching of a certain point. more might be said to illustrate the distinction, but we believe it will not be deemed necessary. xxvi. there seems to be a natural tendency to deal in a redundance of prepositions. many people talk of "continuing _on_." i should be glad to be informed in what other direction it would be possible to _continue_. xxvii. it is most illiterate to put the preposition _of_ after the adverb _off_, as, "the satin measured twelve yards before i cut this piece _off of_ it," "the fruit was gathered _off of_ that tree." many of my readers will consider such a remark quite unnecessary in this volume; but many others, who ought to know better, must stand self-condemned on reading it. xxviii. there is a false taste extant for the preposition "on" instead of "_of_" in songs, poetry, and many other situations in which there is still less excuse for borrowing the poetic license; such as, "wilt thou think _on_ me, love?" "i will think _on_ thee, love," "then think _on_ the friend who once welcomed it too," &c., &c. but this is an error chiefly to be met with among poetasters and melodramatic speakers. xxix. some people add a superfluous preposition at the end of a sentence,--"more than you think _for_." this, however, is an awkwardness rarely committed by persons of decent education. xxx. that "prepositions govern the objective case" is a golden rule of grammar; and if it were only _well remembered_, it would effectually correct that mistake of substituting the nominative for the objective pronoun, which has been complained of in the preceding pages. in using a relative pronoun in the objective case, it is more elegant to put the preposition before than after it, thus, "to whom was the order given?" instead of, "whom was the order given to?" indeed, if this practice were to be invariably adopted, it would obviate the possibility of confounding the nominative with the objective case, because no man would ever find himself able to utter such a sentence as, "to who was this proposal made?" though he might very unconsciously say, "who was this proposal made to?" and the error would be equally flagrant in both instances. xxxi. there is a great inaccuracy connected with the use of the disjunctive conjunctions _or_ and _nor_, which seem to be either not clearly understood, or treated with undue contempt by persons who speak in the following manner: "henry or john _are_ to go there to-night," "his son or his nephew _have_ since put in _their_ claim," "neither one _nor_ the other _have_ the least chance of success." the conjunctions disjunctive "or" and "nor" separate the objects in sense, as the conjunction copulative unites them; and as, by the use of the former, the things stand forth separately and singly to the comprehension, the verb or pronoun must be rendered in the singular number also; as, "henry _or_ john _is_ to go there to-night," "his son _or_ his nephew _has_ since put in _his_ claim," &c. if you look over the sentence, you will perceive that only _one_ is to do the act, therefore only _one_ can be the nominative to the verb. xxxii. many people improperly substitute the disjunctive "but" for the comparative "than," as, "the mind no sooner entertains any proposition, _but_ it presently hastens to some hypothesis to bottom it on."--_locke._ "no other resource _but_ this was allowed him." "my behavior," says she, "has, i fear, been the death of a man who had no other fault _but_ that of loving me too much."--_spectator._ xxxiii. sometimes a relative pronoun is used instead of a conjunction, in such sentences as the following: "i don't know but _what_ i shall go to brighton to-morrow," instead of, "i don't know but _that_," &c. xxxiv. sometimes the disjunctive _but_ is substituted for the conjunction _that_, as, "i have no doubt _but_ he will be here to-night." sometimes for the conjunction _if_, as, "i shouldn't wonder _but_ that was the case." and sometimes _two_ conjunctions are used instead of one, as, "_if that_ i have offended him," "_after that_ he had seen the parties," &c. all this is very awkward indeed, and ought to be avoided, and might easily be so by a little attention. chapter ii. i. it is obsolete now to use the article _an_ before words beginning with long _u_ or with _eu_, and it has become more elegant, in modern style, to say, "a university," "a useful article," "a european," "a euphonious combination of sentences," &c., &c. it is also proper to say "such a one," not "such an one." ii. some people pronounce the plural of handkerchief, scarf, wharf, dwarf, _handkerchieves_, _scarves_, _wharves_, _dwarves_. this is an error, as these words, and perhaps a few others, are exceptions to the rule laid down, that nouns ending in _f_ and _fe_ shall change these terminations into _ves_ to form the plural. iii. there is an illiterate mode of pronouncing the adverb _too_, which is that of contracting it into the sound of the preposition _to_; thus, "i think i paid _to much_ for this gun," "this line is _to long_ by half." the adverb _too_ should be pronounced like the numeral adjective _two_, and have the same full distinct sound in delivery, as, "i think i paid _two_ much for this gun," "this line is _two_ long by half." iv. one does not expect to hear such words as "necessi'ated," "preventative," &c., from people who profess to be educated; but one _does_ hear them, nevertheless, and many others of the same genus, of which the following list is a specimen, not a collection. "febuary" and "febbiwerry," instead of february. "seckaterry" instead of secretary. "gover'ment" " government. "eve'min" " evening. "sev'm" " seven. "holladiz" " holidays. "mossle" " morsel. "chapped," according to orthography, instead of _chopped_, according to polite usage. and we have even heard "continental" pronounced _continential_, though upon what authority we know not. besides these, a multitude of others might be quoted, which we consider too familiar to particularize and "too numerous to mention." v. there is an old jest on record of a person hearing another pronounce the word curiosity "_curosity_," and remarking to a bystander, "that man murders the english language." "nay," replies the person addressed, "he only knocks an eye (i) out." and i am invariably reminded of this old jest whenever i hear such pronunciations as the following,--"lat'n" for latin, "sat'n" for satin, and britain pronounced so as to rhyme with _written_,--of which a few examples will be given on a subsequent page, not with the wild hope of comprising in so short a space _all_ the perversions of prosody which are constantly taking place, but simply with the intention of reminding careless speakers of some general principles they seem to have forgotten, and of the vast accumulation of error they may engraft upon themselves by a lazy adherence to the custom of the crowd. before, however, proceeding to the words in question, it may be satisfactory to our readers to recall to their memory the observations of lindley murray on the subject. he says, "there is scarcely anything which more distinguishes a person of poor education from a person of a good one than the pronunciation of the _unaccented vowels_. when vowels are _under the accent_, the best speakers, and the lowest of the people, with very few exceptions, pronounce them in the same manner; but the _un_accented vowels in the mouths of the former have a distinct, open, and specific sound, while the latter often totally sink them, or change them into some other sound." the words that have chiefly struck me are the following, in which not only the i but some of the other vowels are submitted to the mutilating process, or, as i have heard it pronounced, _mutulating_. brit'n instead of britain. lat'n " latin. sat'n " satin. patt'n " patten. curt'n " curtain. cert'n " certain. bridle " bridal. idle " idol. meddle " medal. moddle " model. mentle " mental. mortle " mortal. fatle " fatal. gravle " gravel. travle " travel. sudd'n " sudden. infidle " infidel. _scroop_'-lous " _scru-pu_-lous. and a long train of _et cetera_, of which the above examples do not furnish a tithe. _note._--that to sound the _e_ in _garden_ and _often_, and the _i_ in _evil_ and _devil_, is a decided error. they should always be pronounced _gard'n_ and _oft'n_, _ev'l_ and _dev'l_. some people pronounce the _i_ in irish and its concomitants so as to make the words ireland, irishmen, irish linen, &c., sound as if they were written _arland_, _a-rishmen_, _arish_ linen, &c. this is literally "knocking an _i_ out." vi. it is affected, and contrary to authority, to deprive the _s_ of its sharp hissing sound in the words _precise_, _desolate_, _design_, and their derivatives. vii. there is one peculiarity which we feel bound to notice, because it has infected english speakers,--that of corrupting the _e_ and the _i_ into the sound of _a_ or _u_, in the words ability, humility, charity, &c.; for how often is the ear wrung by such barbarisms as, humi_lutty_, civi_lutty_, qua_laty_, quan_taty_, cru_alty_, char_aty_, human_aty_, barbar_aty_, horr_uble_, terr_uble_, and so on, _ad infinitum_!--an uncouth practice, to which nothing is comparable, except pronouncing _yalla_ for yellow. viii. there is in some quarters a bad mode prevalent of pronouncing the plural of such words as _face_, _place_, &c., _fazes_, _plazes_, whilst the plural of _price_ seems everywhere subject to the same strange mutation. the words should be _faces_, _places_, _prices_, without any softening of the _c_ into _z_. there is, too, an ugly fashion of pronouncing the _ng_, when terminating a word or syllable, as _we_ pronounce the same combination of letters in the word _finger_, and making such words as "singer," "ringer," &c., rhyme with _linger_. sometimes the double _o_ is elongated into the sound which we give to that dipthong in "room," "fool," "moon," &c., which has a very bad effect in such words as _book_, _look_, _nook_, _took_, &c.; and sometimes it is contracted into the sound of short _u_, making "foot," and some other words, rhyme with _but_. ix. and having remarked on the _lingering_ pronunciation, it is but fair to notice a defect, the reverse of this, namely, that of omitting the final _g_ in such words as _saying_, _going_, _shilling_, &c., and pronouncing them "sayin," "goin," "shillin." this is so common an error that it generally escapes notice, but is a greater blemish, where we have a right to look for perfection, than the peculiarities of the provinces in those who reside there. x. it is also a common fault to add a gratuitous _r_ to words ending with a vowel, such as emma_r_, louisa_r_, julia_r_, and to make _draw_, _law_, _saw_, _flaw_, with all others of the same class, rhyme with _war_; to omit the _r_ in such words as _corks_, _forks_, _curtains_, _morsel_, &c.; in the word _perhaps_, when they conscientiously _pronounce_ the _h_; and sometimes in _paris_; or to convert it into the sound of a _y_ when it comes between two vowels, as in the name _harriet_, and in the words _superior_, _interior_, &c., frequently pronounced _aah-yet_, _su-pe-yor_, _in-te-yor_, &c. xi. there is a vicious mode of amalgamating the final _s_ of a word (and sometimes the final _c_, when preceded and followed by a vowel) with the first letter of the next word, if that letter happens to be a _y_, in such a manner as to produce the sound of _sh_ or of _usu_ in _usual_; as, "a _nishe_ young man," "what _makesh_ you laugh?" "if he _offendsh_ you, don't speak to him," "_ash_ you please," "not _jush_ yet," "we always _passh_ your house in going to call on _missh_ yates,--she lives near _palash_ yard;" and so on through all the possibilities of such a combination. this is decided, unmitigated _cockneyism_, having its parallel in nothing except the broken english of the sons of abraham; and to adopt it in conversation is certainly "not speaking like a christian." the effect of this pronunciation on the ear is as though the mouth of the speaker were filled with froth, which impedes the utterance, and gives the semblance of a defect where nature had kindly intended perfection; but the radical cause of this, and of many other mispronunciations, is the carelessness, sometimes the ignorance, of teachers, who permit children to read and speak in a slovenly manner, without opening their teeth, or taking any pains to acquire a distinct articulation. xii. whilst we are on the subject of prosody, we must not omit to mention the vicious pronunciation occasionally given to the words _new_, _due_, _tuesday_, _stupid_, and a few others, sometimes corrupted into _noo_, _doo_, _toosday_, _stoopid_, &c., by way of refinement, perhaps, for lips which are too delicate to utter the clear, broad, english _u_. xiii. never say "cut it in _half_," for this you cannot do unless you could _annihilate one_ half. you may "cut it in two," or "cut it in halves," or "cut it through," or "divide it," but no human ability will enable you to _cut it in half_. xiv. never speak of "lots" and "loads" of things. young men allow themselves a diffusive license of speech, and of quotation, which has introduced many words into colloquial style that do not at all tend to improve or dignify the language, and which, when heard from _ladies_' lips, become absolute vulgarisms. a young man may talk recklessly of "lots of bargains," "lots of money," "lots of fellows," "lots of fun," &c., but a lady may _not_. man may indulge in any latitude of expression within the bounds of sense and decorum, but woman has a narrower range,--even her mirth must be subjected to rule. it may be _naã¯ve_, but must never be grotesque. it is not that we would have _primness_ in the sex, but we would have refinement. women are the purer and the more ornamental part of life, and when _they_ degenerate, the poetry of life is gone. xv. "loads" is a word quite as objectional as "lots," unless it can be reduced to a load of _something_, such as a _ship_-load, a _wagon_-load, a _cart_-load, a _horse_-load, &c. we often hear such expressions as "loads of shops," "loads of authors," "loads of compliments;" but as shops, authors, compliments, are things not usually piled up into loads, either for ships or horses, we cannot discover the propriety of the application. xvi. some people, guiltless of those absurdities, commit a great error in the use of the word _quantity_, applying it to things of _number_, as "a quantity of friends," "a quantity of ships," "a quantity of houses," &c. _quantity_ can be applied only where _bulk_ is indicated, as "a quantity of land," "a quantity of timber;" but we cannot say, "a quantity of fields," "a quantity of trees," because _trees_ and _fields_ are specific individualities. or we may apply it where individualities are taken in the gross, without reference to modes, as "a quantity of luggage," "a quantity of furniture;" but we cannot say "a quantity of boxes," "a quantity of chairs and tables," for the same reason which is given in the former instances. we also apply the term _quantity_ to those things of number which are too minute to be taken separately, as "a quantity of beans," "a quantity of oats," &c., &c. xvii. avoid favorite words and phrases; they betray a poverty of language or of imagination not creditable to a cultivated intellect. some people are so unfortunate as to find all things _vulgar_ that come "betwixt the wind and their nobility;" others find them _disgusting_. some are always _anticipating_, others are always _appreciating_. multitudes are _aristocratic_ in all their relations, other multitudes are as _distinguã©s_. these two words are chiefly patronized by those whose pretensions in such respects are the most questionable. to some timid spirits, born under malignant influences no doubt, most things present an _awful_ appearance, even though they come in shapes so insignificant as a cold day or an aching finger. but, thanks to that happy diversity of nature which throws light as well as shadow into the human character, there are minds of brighter vision and more cheerful temperament, who behold all things _splendid_, _magnificent_, down to a cup of small beer, or a half-penny orange. some people have a grandiloquent force of expression, thereby imparting a _tremendous_ or _thundering_ character even to little things. this is truly carrying their conceptions into the sublime,--sometimes a step beyond. we have, however, no intention of particularizing _all_ the "pet" phrases which salute the ear; but the enumeration of a few of them may make the _candid_ culprit smile, and avoid those trifling absurdities for the future. * * * * * we would, under favor, suggest to the reader the advantage of not relying too confidently on knowledge acquired by habit and example alone. there are many words in constant use which are perverted from their original meanings; and if we were to dip into some standard dictionary occasionally, search out the true meanings of words with which we have fancied ourselves acquainted, and convict ourselves of _all_ the errors we have been committing in following the crowd, our surprise, perhaps, would equal that of moliã¨re's _bourgeois gentilhomme_ when he discovered that he had been talking _prose_ for forty years. the words _feasible_, _ostensible_, _obnoxious_, _apparent_, _obtain_, _refrain_, _domesticated_, and _centre_, are expressions which, nine times out of ten, are misapplied, besides a host of others whose propriety is never questioned, so firmly has custom riveted the bonds of ignorance. in closing this little volume, the writer begs leave to say that the remarks offered are intended only as "hints," which they who desire perfection may easily improve, by a little exercise of the understanding, and a reference to more extensive sources, into a competent knowledge of their own tongue; also as _warnings_ to the careless, that their lapses do not pass so unobserved as they are in the habit of supposing. though many of the syntactical errors herein mentioned are to be found in the works of some of our best writers, they are _errors_ nevertheless, and stand as blemishes upon the productions of their genius, like unsightly excrescences upon a lovely skin. genius is above grammar, and this conviction may inspire in some bosoms an undue contempt for the latter. but grammar is a constituent part of good education, and a neglect of it _might_ argue a _want_ of education, which would, perhaps, be mortifying. it is an old axiom that "civility costs nothing," and surely grammatical purity need not cost _much_ to people disposed to pay a little attention to it, and who have received a respectable education already. it adds a grace to eloquence, and raises the standard of language where eloquence is not. a handsome man or handsome woman is not improved by a shabby or slatternly attire; so the best abilities are shown to a disadvantage through a style marked by illiteracies. part iv. mistakes and improprieties in speaking and writing corrected. 1. have you _learned_ french yet? say _learnt_, as _learned_ is now used only as an adjective,--as, _a learned man_. pronounce _learned_ in _two_ syllables. 2. the business would suit any one who _enjoys bad health_ [from an advertisement in a london newspaper]; say, any one _in a delicate state of health_, or, _whose health is but indifferent_. 3. "we have no _corporeal_ punishment here," said a schoolmaster once to the author of this little work. _corporeal_ is opposed to _spiritual_; say, _corporal_ punishment. _corporeal_ means _having a body_. the almighty is not a _corporeal_ being, but a _spirit_, as st. john tells us. 4. that was a _notable_ circumstance. pronounce the first syllable of _notable_ as _no_ in _notion_. mrs. johnson is a _notable_ housewife; that is to say, _careful_. pronounce the first syllable of _notable_ as _not_ in _nottingham_. 5. put an _advertisement_ in the "times." pronounce _advertisement_ with the accent on _ver_, and not on _tise_. 6. he _rose up_ and left the room; leave out _up_. 7. you have _sown_ it very badly; say, _sewed_ it. 8. mr. dupont _learnt_ me french; say, _taught_. the _master teaches_, but the _pupil learns_. 9. john and henry both read well, but john is the _best_ reader; say, the _better_ reader, as _best_ can only be said when _three or more persons_ or objects are compared. 10. the _two first_ pupils i had; say, the _first two_. 11. he has _mistook_ his true interest; say, _mistaken_. 12. have you _lit_ the fire, mary? say, _lighted_. 13. the doctor _has not yet came_; say, _has not yet come_. 14. i have always _gave_ him good advice; say, _given_. 15. to be is an _auxiliary_ verb. pronounce _auxiliary_ in _five_ syllables, sounding the second _i_, and _not in four_, as we so frequently hear it. 16. _celery_ is a pleasant edible; pronounce _celery_ as it is written, and _not salary_. 17. are you at _leisure_? pronounce _lei_ in _leisure_ the same as _lei_ in _leith_, and _not_ so as to rhyme with _measure_. 18. have you seen _the miss browns_ lately? say, _the misses brown_. 19. you have soon _forgot_ my kindness; say, _forgotten_. 20. he keeps _his coach_; say, _his carriage_. 21. john is my _oldest_ brother; say, _eldest_. _elder_ and _eldest_ are applied to _persons_,--_older_ and _oldest_ to _things_. 22. disputes have frequently _arose_ on that subject; say, _arisen_. 23. the cloth was _wove_ in a very short time; say, _woven_. 24. french is _spoke_ in every state in europe; say, _spoken_. 25. he writes as the best authors would have _wrote_, had they _writ_ on the same subject; say, would have _written_,--had they _written_. 26. i prefer the _yolk_ of an egg to the white; say, _yelk_, and sound the _l_. 27. he is now very _decrepid_; say, _decrepit_. 28. i am very fond of _sparrowgrass_; say, _asparagus_, and pronounce it with the accent on _par_. 29. you are very _mischievous_. pronounce _mischievous_ with the accent on _mis_, and _not on chie_, and do not say _mischievious_. 30. it was very _acceptable_. pronounce _acceptable_ with the accent on _cept_, and _not on ac_, as we so often hear it. 31. "no conversation be permitted in the reading room to the interruption of the company present. _neither smoking or refreshments allowed_" [from the prospectus of a "literary and scientific institution"]; insert _can_ after _conversation_, and say, _neither smoking nor refreshments_. 32. _no extras or vacations_[from the prospectus of a schoolmistress near london]; say, _neither extras nor vacations_. 33. he is very covetous. pronounce _covetous_ as if it were written _covet us_, and _not covetyus_, as is almost universally the case. 34. i intend to _summons_ him; say, _summon_. _summons_ is a _noun_, and _not a verb_. 35. dearly _beloved_ brethren. pronounce _beloved_ in _three_ syllables, and _never in two_, as some clergymen do. 36. he is now _forsook_ by every one; say, _forsaken_. 37. not _as i know_; say, _that i know_. 38. he came _for to do_ it; leave out _for_. 39. they have just _rose_ from the table; say, _risen_. 40. he is quite _as good as me_; say, _as good as i_. 41. _many an one_ has done the same; say, _many a one_. _a_, and _not an_, is used before the _long sound of u_, that is to say, when _u_ forms _a distinct syllable of itself_, as, _a unit_, _union_, _a university_. it is also used before _eu_, as, _a euphony_; and likewise before the word _ewe_, as, _a ewe_. we should also say, _a youth_, not _an youth_. 42. _many people_ think so; say, _many persons_, as _people_ means _a nation_. 43. "when our ships sail among the _people_ of the eastern islands, _those people_ do not ask for gold,--'iron! iron!' is the call." [from a work by a peer of literary celebrity.] say, among the _inhabitants_; and, instead of _those people_, which is ungrammatical, say, _those persons_. 44. _was you_ reading just now? say, _were you_. 45. i have _not had no dinner yet_; say, _i have had no dinner yet_, or, i have _not yet had my dinner_, or, _any dinner_. 46. she will _never be no taller_; say, she will _never be taller_, or, she will _never be any taller_. 47. i _see him_ last monday; say, _saw him_. 48. he was _averse from_ such a proceeding; say, _averse to_. 49. he has _wore_ his boots three months; say, _worn_. 50. he has _trod_ on my toes; say, _trodden_. 51. have you _shook_ the cloth? say, _shaken_. 52. i have _rang_ several times; say, _rung_. 53. i _knowed_ him at once; say, _knew_. 54. he has _growed_ very much; say, _grown_. 55. george has _fell_ down stairs; say, _fallen_. 56. he has _chose_ a very poor pattern; say, _chosen_. 57. they have _broke_ a window; say, _broken_. 58. give me _them books_; say, _those books_. 59. my brother gave me _them there pictures_; say, gave me _those pictures_. 60. whose are _these here books_? say, _these books_. 61. the men _which_ we saw; say, _whom_. 62. the books _what_ you have; say, _which_, or _that_. 63. the boy _as is_ reading; say, _who is_ reading. 64. the pond is _froze_; say, _frozen_. 65. he has _took_ my slate; say, _taken_. 66. he has often _stole_ money from him; say, _stolen_. 67. they have _drove_ very fast; say, _driven_. 68. i have _rode_ many miles to-day; say, _ridden_. 69. you cannot _catch_ him; pronounce _catch_ so as to rhyme with _match_, and not _ketch_. 70. who has _got_ my slate? leave out _got_. 71. what are you _doing of_? leave out _of_. 72. _if i was rich_ i would buy a carriage; say, _if i were_. 73. we have all within us an _impetus_ to sin; pronounce _impetus_ with the accent on _im_, and not on _pe_, as is very often the case. 74. he may go to the _antipodes_ for what i care; pronounce _antipodes_ with the accent on _tip_, and let _des_ rhyme with _ease_. it is a word of _four_ syllables, and _not of three_, as many persons make it. 75. _vouchsafe_, a word seldom used, but, when used, the first syllable should rhyme with _pouch_. _never say, vousafe._ 76. ginger is a good _stomachic_; pronounce _stomachic_ with the accent on _mach_, sounding this syllable _mak_, and _not mat_, as is often the case. 77. the land in those parts is very _fertile_; pronounce _fertile_ so as to rhyme with _pill_. the _ile_ in all words must be sounded _ill_, with the exception of _exile_, _senile_, _gentile_, _reconcile_, and _camomile_, in which _ile_ rhymes with _mile_. 78. _it is surprising the fatigue he undergoes_; say, _the fatigue he undergoes is surprising_. 79. _benefited_; often spelt _benefitted_, but _incorrectly_. 80. _gather_ up the fragments; pronounce _gather_ so as to rhyme with _lather_, and _not gether_. 81. i _propose_ going to town next week; say, _purpose_. 82. if i _am not mistaken_, you are in the wrong; say, if i _mistake not_. 83. _direct_ your letters to me at mr. jones's; say, _address_ your letters. 84. wales is a very _mountainious_ country; say, _mountainous_, and place the accent on _moun_. 85. of two evils choose _the least_; say, _the less_. 86. _exag'gerate_; pronounce _exad'gerate_, and _do not sound agger_ as in the word _dagger_, which is a very common mistake. 87. he knows _little or nothing of latin_; say, _little, if anything, of latin_. 88. he keeps a _chaise_; pronounce it _shaise_, and not _shay_. it has a regular plural, _chaises_. 88. the _drought_ lasted a long time; pronounce _drought_ so as to rhyme with _snout_, and not _drowth_. 90. the man was _hung_ last week; say, _hanged_; but say, i am fond of _hung beef_. _hang, to take away life by hanging_, is a regular verb. 91. we _conversed together_ on the subject; leave out _together_, as it is implied in _conversed_, _con_ being equivalent to _with_, that is to say, _we talked with each other_, &c. 92. the affair was _compromised_; pronounce _compromised_ in three syllables, and place the accent on _com_, sounding _mised_ like _prized_. the word has nothing to do with _promised_. the noun _compromise_ is accented like _compromised_, but _mise_ must be pronounced _mice_. 93. a _steam-engine_; pronounce _engine_ with _en_ as in _pen_, and _not like in_, and _gine_ like _gin_. 94. numbers were _massacred_; pronounce _massacred_ with the accent on _mas_, and _red_ like _erd_, as if _mas'saker'd_, never _mas'sacreed_. 95. the king of israel and the king of judah sat _either of them_ on his throne; say, _each of them_. _either_ signifies the _one_ or the _other_, but _not both_. _each_ relates to _two or more objects_, and signifies _both of the two_, or _every one of any number taken singly_. _never_ say "_either_ of the three," but "_each_ or _any one_ of the three." 96. a _respite_ was granted the convict; pronounce _respite_ with the accent on _res_, and sound _pite_ as _pit_. 97. he soon _returned back_; leave out _back_, which is implied by _re_ in _returned_. 98. the _horizon_ is the line that terminates the view; pronounce _horizon_ with the accent on _ri_, and not on _ho_. 99. she has _sang_ remarkably well; say, _sung_. 100. he had _sank_ before assistance arrived; say, _sunk_. 101. i have often _swam_ across the tyne; say, _swum_. 102. i found my friend better than i expected _to have found him_; say, _to find him_. 103. i intended _to have written_ a letter yesterday; say, _to write_, as however long it now is since i thought of writing, "_to write_" was then present to me, and must still be considered as present when i bring back that time and the thoughts of it. 104. his death _shall be_ long regretted [from a notice of a death in a newspaper]; say, _will be_ long, &c. _shall_ and _will_ are often confounded; the following rule, however, may be of use to the reader. mere _futurity_ is expressed by _shall_ in the _first_ person, and by _will_ in the _second_ and _third_; the _determination_ of the speaker by _will_ in the _first_, and _shall_ in the _second_ and _third_; as, i will go to-morrow, i shall go to-morrow. n. b. the latter sentence simply expresses a future event; the former expresses my determination. 105. "_without_ the grammatical form of a word can be recognized at a glance, little progress can be made in reading the language" [from a very popular work on the study of the latin language]; say, _unless_ the grammatical, &c. the use of _without_ for _unless_ is a very common mistake. 106. have you begun _substraction_ yet? say, _subtraction_. 107. he claimed admission to the _chiefest_ offices; say, _chief_. _chief_, _right_, _supreme_, _correct_, _true_, _universal_, _perfect_, _consummate_, _extreme_, &c., _imply_ the superlative degree without _est_ or _most_. in language sublime or impassioned, however, the word _perfect_ requires the superlative form to give it effect. a lover, enraptured with his mistress, would naturally call her the _most perfect_ of her sex. 108. the ship had _sprang_ a leak; say, _sprung_. 109. i _had rather_ do it now; say, i _would rather_. 110. he was served with a _subpoena_; pronounce _subpoena_ with the accent on _poe_, which you will sound like _tea_, and sound the _b_ distinctly. _never pronounce the word soopee'na._ 111. i have not travelled _this twenty years_; say, _these twenty years_. 112. he is _very much the gentleman_; say, he is _a very gentlemanly man_, or _fellow_. 113. the _yellow_ part of an egg is very nourishing; _never_ pronounce _yellow_ like _tallow_, which we so often hear. 114. we are going to the _zoological_ gardens; pronounce _zoological_ in _five_ syllables, and place the accent on _log_ in _logical_. sound _log_ like _lodge_, and _the first two o's in distinct syllables_. _never_ make _zool_ _one_ syllable. 115. he always preaches _extempore_; pronounce _extempore_ in _four_ syllables, with the accent on _tem_, and _never in three_, making _pore_ to rhyme with _sore_. 116. _naught_ and _aught_; _never_ spell these words _nought_ and _ought_. there is no such word as _nought_, and _ought_ is a verb. 117. allow me to _suggest_; pronounce _sug_ so as to rhyme with _mug_, and _gest_ like _jest_. never _sudjest_. 118. the emperor of russia is a _formidable_ personage; pronounce _formidable_ with the accent on _for_, and _not on mid_, as is often the case. 119. before the words _heir_, _herb_, _honest_, _honor_, _hostler_, _hour_, _humble_, and _humor_, and their compounds, instead of the article _a_, we make use of _an_, as the _h_ is not sounded; likewise before words beginning with _h_ that are _not_ accented on the _first syllable_, such as _heroic_, _historical_, _hypothesis_, &c., as, _an heroic action_, _an historical work_, _an hypothesis_ that can scarcely be allowed. n. b. the letter _h_ is seldom mute at the beginning of a word; but from the negligence of tutors and the inattention of pupils many persons have become almost incapable of acquiring its just and full pronunciation. it is, therefore, incumbent on teachers to be particularly careful to inculcate a clear and distinct utterance of this sound. 120. he was _such an extravagant young man_ that he soon spent his whole patrimony; say, _so extravagant a young man_. 121. i saw the _slough_ of a snake; pronounce _slough_ so as to rhyme with _rough_. 122. she is _quite the lady_; say, she is _very lady-like in her demeanor_. 123. he is _seldom or ever_ out of town; say, _seldom, if ever_, out of town. 124. death _unloosed_ his chains; say, _loosed_ his chains. 125. it is dangerous to walk _of a_ slippery morning; say, _on a_ slippery morning. 126. he who makes himself famous by his eloquence, illustrates his origin, let it be _never so mean_; say, _ever so mean_. 127. his fame is acknowledged _through_ europe; say, _throughout_ europe. 128. the bank of the river is frequently _overflown_; say, _overflowed_. 129. _previous to_ my leaving england i called on his lordship; say, _previously to_ my leaving, &c. 130. i doubt _if this_ will ever reach you; say, _whether this_, &c. 131. he was _exceeding kind_ to me; say, _exceedingly kind_. 132. i lost _near_ twenty pounds; say, _nearly_. 133. _bills are requested to be paid quarterly_; say, _it is requested that bills be paid quarterly_. 134. it was _no use asking_ him any more questions; say, _of no use to ask him_, &c. 135. the americans said they _had no right_ to pay taxes; say, they _were under no obligation_ to pay, &c. 136. i _throwed_ my box away, and _never took no more snuff_; say, i _threw_, &c., and _took snuff no more_. 137. she was _endowed_ with an exquisite taste for music; say, _endued_ with, &c. 138. i intend to _stop_ at home; say, to _stay_. 139. at this time i _grew_ my own corn; say, i _raised_, &c. 140. he _was_ no sooner departed than they expelled his officers; say, he _had_ no sooner, &c. 141. he _was_ now retired from public business; say, _had_ now retired, &c. 142. they _were_ embarked in a common cause; say, _had_ embarked, &c. 143. hostilities _were_ now become habitual; say, _had_ now become. 144. brutus and aruns killed _one another_; say, _each other_. 145. pray, sir, who _may you be_? say, who _are you_? 146. their character as a warlike people _is_ much degenerated; say, _has_ much, &c. 147. he is gone on an _errand_; pronounce _errand_ as it is written, and not _arrant_. 148. in a popular work on arithmetic we find the following sum,--"if for 7_s._ 8_d._, i can buy 9 lbs. of raisins, _how much_ can i purchase for â£56 16_s._?" say, "_what quantity_ can i," &c. who would think of saying "_how much raisins_?" 149. be very careful in distinguishing between _indite_ and _indict_; _key_ and _quay_; _principle_ and _principal_; _check_ and _cheque_; _marshal_ and _martial_; _counsel_ and _council_; _counsellor_ and _councillor_; _fort_ and _forte_; _draft_ and _draught_; _place_ and _plaice_; _stake_ and _steak_; _satire_ and _satyr_; _stationery_ and _stationary_; _ton_ and _tun_; _levy_ and _levee_; _foment_ and _ferment_; _fomentation_ and _fermentation_; _petition_ and _partition_; _practice_ and _practise_; _francis_ and _frances_; _dose_ and _doze_; _diverse_ and _divers_; _device_ and _devise_; _wary_ and _weary_; _salary_ and _celery_; _radish_ and _reddish_; _treble_ and _triple_; _broach_ and _brooch_; _ingenious_ and _ingenuous_; _prophesy_ and _prophecy_; _fondling_ and _foundling_; _lightning_ and _lightening_; _genus_ and _genius_; _desert_ and _dessert_; _currier_ and _courier_; _pillow_ and _pillar_; _executer_ and _executor_; _suit_ and _suite_; _ridicule_ and _reticule_; _lineament_ and _liniment_; _track_ and _tract_; _lickerish_ and _licorice_; _statute_ and _statue_; _ordinance_ and _ordnance_; _lease_ and _leash_; _recourse_ and _resource_; _straight_ and _strait_; _immerge_ and _emerge_; _style_ and _stile_; _compliment_ and _complement_; _bass_ and _base_; _contagious_ and _contiguous_; _eminent_ and _imminent_; _eruption_ and _irruption_; _precedent_ and _president_; _relic_ and _relict_. 150. i prefer _radishes_ to _cucumbers_; pronounce _radishes_ exactly as it is spelt, and not _redishes_, and the _u_ in the first syllable of _cucumber_ as in _fuel_, and not as if the word were _cowcumber_. 151. never pronounce _barbarous_ and _grievous_, _bartarious_ and _grievious_. 152. the _two last_ chapters are very interesting; say, the _last two_, &c. 153. the soil on these islands is so very thin, that little vegetation is produced upon them _beside_ cocoanut trees; say, _with the exception of_, &c. 154. he restored it _back_ to the owner; leave out _back_. 155. _here_, _there_, _where_, are generally better than _hither_, _thither_, _whither_, with verbs of motion; as, _come here_, _go there_. n. b. _hither_, _thither_, and _whither_, which were formerly used, are now considered stiff and inelegant. 156. _as far as i_ am able to judge, the book is well written; say, _so far as_, &c. 157. it is doubtful whether he will play _fairly or no_; say, _fairly or not_. 158. "the pilgrim's _progress_;" pronounce _progress_, _prog-ress_, not _pro-gress_. 159. he is a boy of a great _spirit_; pronounce _spirit_ exactly as it is written, and never _sperit_. 160. the _camelopard_ is the tallest of known animals; pronounce _camelopard_ with the accent on the _second_ syllable. never call it _camel leopard_, as is so often heard. 161. he is very _awkward_; never say, _awkard_. 162. he ran _again_ me; i stood _again_ the wall; instead of _again_, say _against_. do it _again_ the time i mentioned; say, _by_ the time, &c. 163. i always act _agreeable_ to my promise; say, _agreeably_. 164. the study of syntax should be _previously_ to that of punctuation; say, _previous_. 165. no one should incur censure for being tender of _their_ reputation; say, of _his_ reputation. 166. they were all _drownded_; say, _drowned_. 167. _jalap_ is of great service; pronounce _jalap_ exactly as it is written, never _jollop_. 168. he is gone on a _tour_; pronounce _tour_ so as to rhyme with _poor_, _never_ like _tower_. 169. the rain _is_ ceased; say, _has_ ceased. 170. _they laid their heads together_, and formed their plan; say, _they held a consultation_, &c. _laid their heads together_ savors of slang. 171. the _chimley_ wants sweeping; say, _chimney_. 172. i was walking _towards_ home; pronounce _towards_ so as to rhyme with _boards_. _never_ say _to wards_. 173. it is a _stupenduous_ work; say, _stupendous_. 174. a _courier_ is expected from paris; pronounce _cou_ in _courier_ so as to rhyme with _too_. _never_ pronounce _courier_ like _currier_. 175. let each of us mind _their_ own business; say, _his_ own business. 176. is this or that the _best_ road? say, the _better_ road. 177. _rinse_ your mouth; pronounce _rinse_ as it is written, and never _rense_. "_wrench your mouth_," said a fashionable dentist one day to the author of this work. 178. the book is not _as_ well printed as it ought to be; say, _so_ well printed, &c. 179. webster's _dictionary_ is an admirable work; pronounce _dictionary_ as if written _dik-shun-a-ry_; _not_, as is too commonly the practice, _dixonary_. 180. some disaster has certainly _befell_ him; say, _befallen_. 181. she is a pretty _creature_; never pronounce _creature_, _creeter_, as is often heard. 182. we went to see the _monument_; pronounce _monument_ exactly as it is written, and _not_ as many pronounce it, _moniment_. 183. i am very wet, and must go and _change myself_; say, _change my clothes_. 184. he has had a good _education_; _never_ say, _edication_, which is often heard, nor _edicate_ for _educate_. 185. he is much better _than me_; say, _than i_. 186. you are stronger _than him_; say, _than he_. 187. i had _as lief_ stand; say, i _would as soon_ stand. 188. he is _not a whit_ better; say, _in no degree_ better. 189. they are _at loggerheads_; say, _at variance_. 190. his character is _undeniable_,--a very common expression; say, _unexceptionable_. 191. bring me the _lantern_; never spell _lantern_, _lanthorn_. 192. the room is twelve _foot_ long, and nine _foot_ broad; say, twelve _feet_, nine _feet_. 193. he is _singular_, though _regular_ in his habits, and also very _particular_; beware of leaving out the _u_ in _singular_, _regular_, and _particular_, which is a very common practice. 194. they are detained _at_ france; say, _in_ france. 195. he lives _at_ london; say, _in_ london, and beware of pronouncing _london_, as many careless persons do, _lunnun_. _at_ should be applied to small towns. 196. no _less_ than fifty persons were there; say, no _fewer_, &c. 197. _such another_ mistake, and we shall be ruined; say, _another such_ mistake, &c. 198. it is _some distance_ from our house; say, _at some distance_, &c. 199. i shall call _upon_ him; say, _on_ him. 200. he is a doctor of _medicine_; pronounce _medicine_ in _three_ syllables, never in _two_. 201. they told me to enter _in_; leave out _in_, as it is implied in _enter_. 202. his _strength_ is amazing; never say, _strenth_. 203. "_mistaken_ souls, who dream of heaven,"--this is the beginning of a popular hymn; it should be, "_mistaking_ souls," &c. _mistaken wretch_, for _mistaking wretch_, is an apostrophe that occurs everywhere among our poets, particularly those of the stage; the most incorrigible of all, and the most likely to fix and disseminate an error of this kind. 204. give me both _of_ those books; leave out _of_. 205. whenever i try to write well, i _always_ find i can do it; leave out _always_, which is unnecessary. 206. he plunged _down_ into the stream; leave out _down_. 207. she is the _matron_; say _may-tron_, and not _mat-ron_. 208. give me _leave_ to tell you; never say _leaf_ for _leave_. 209. the _height_ is considerable; pronounce _height_ so as to rhyme with _tight_. never _hate_ nor _heighth_. 210. who has my _scissors_? _never_ call _scissors_, _sithers_. 211. first _of all_ i shall give you a lesson in french, and last _of all_ in music; leave out _of all_ in both instances, as unnecessary. 212. i shall have finished by the _latter_ end of the week; leave out _latter_, which is unnecessary. 213. they sought him _throughout_ the _whole_ country; leave out _whole_, which is implied in _throughout_. 214. iron sinks _down_ in water; leave out _down_. 215. i own that i did not come soon enough; but _because why_? i was detained; leave out _because_. 216. have you seen the new _pantomime_? never say _pantomine_, as there is no such word. 217. i _cannot by no means_ allow it; say, i _can by no means_, &c., or, i _cannot by any means_, &c. 218. he _covered it over_; leave out _over_. 219. i bought _a new pair of shoes_; say, _a pair of new shoes_. 220. he _combined together_ these facts; leave out _together_. 221. my brother called on me, and we _both_ took a walk; leave out _both_, which is unnecessary. 222. the _duke_ discharged his _duty_; sound the _u_ in _duke_ and _duty_ like the word _you_, and carefully avoid saying, _dook_ and _dooty_, or _doo_ for _dew_. 223. _genealogy_, _geography_, and _geometry_ are words of greek derivation; beware of saying, _geneology_, _jography_, and _jometry_, a very common practice. 224. he made out the _inventory_; place the accent in _inventory_ on the syllable _in_, and never on _ven_. 225. he deserves _chastisement_; say, _chas-tiz-ment_, with the accent on _chas_, and never on _tise_. 226. he threw the _rind_ away; never call _rind_, _rine_. 227. they contributed to his _maintenance_; pronounce _maintenance_ with the accent on _main_, and _never_ say, _maintainance_. 228. she wears a silk _gown_; never say, _gownd_. 229. sussex is a _maritime_ county; pronounce the _last_ syllable of _maritime_ so as to rhyme with _rim_. 230. he _hovered_ about the enemy; pronounce _hovered_ so as to rhyme with _covered_. 231. he is a powerful _ally_; _never_ place the accent on _al_ in _ally_, as many do. 232. she bought a _diamond_ necklace; pronounce _diamond_ in _three_ syllables, never in _two_, which is a very common practice. 233. he reads the "weekly _despatch_;" never spell the word _despatch_, _dispatch_. 234. he said _as how_ you _was_ to do it; say, he said _that you were to do it_. 235. never say, "_i acquiesce with you_;" but, "_i acquiesce in your proposal, in your opinion_," &c. 236. he is a distinguished _antiquarian_; say, _antiquary_. _antiquarian_ is an adjective; _antiquary_, a noun. 237. in goldsmith's "history of england" we find the following extraordinary sentence in one of the chapters on the reign of queen elizabeth:--"this" [a communication to mary, queen of scots] "they effected by conveying their letters to her by means of a brewer _that supplied the family with ale through a chink in the wall of her apartment_." a queer brewer that,--to supply his ale through a chink in the wall! how easy the alteration to make the passage clear! "this they effected by conveying their letters to her _through a chink in the wall of her apartment, by means of a brewer that supplied the family with ale_." 238. lavater wrote on _physiognomy_; in the last word sound the _g_ distinctly, as _g_ is always pronounced before _n_ when it is not in the same syllable; as, _indignity_, &c. 239. she is a very clever _girl_; pronounce _girl_ as if written _gerl_; never say _gal_, which is very vulgar. 240. he built a large _granary_; pronounce _granary_ so as to rhyme with _tannery_, never call the word _grainary_. 241. beware of using _oh!_ and _o_ indiscriminately; _oh!_ is used to express the emotion of _pain_, _sorrow_, or _surprise_; as, "oh! the exceeding grace of god, who loves his creatures so." _o_ is used to express _wishing_, _exclamation_, or a direct _address_ to a person; as, "o mother, will the god above, forgive my faults like thee?" 242. some writers make a distinction between _farther_ and _further_; they are, in fact, the very same word. _further_, however, is less used than _farther_, though it is the genuine form. 243. he did it _unbeknown_ to us; say, _unknown_, &c. 244. if i say "they retreated _back_," i use a word that is _superfluous_, as _back_ is implied in the syllable _re_ in _retreated_. never place the accent on _flu_ in _superfluous_, but always on _per_. 245. in reading paley's "evidences of christianity," i unexpectedly _lit on_ the passage i wanted; say, _met with_ the passage, &c. 246. he has ordered a _phaeton_ from his coach-maker; beware of saying, _pheton_ or _phaton_. the word should always be pronounced in _three_ syllables, with the accent on _pha_. n. b. in pha-e-ton the _a_ and _e_ do _not_ form a diphthong, as many suppose; the word is of greek origin. 247. be careful to use the hyphen (-) correctly; it joins compound words, and words broken by the ending of the line. the use of the hyphen will appear more clearly from the following example: "_many colored_ wings" means _many_ wings, which are _colored_; but "_many-colored_ wings" means "wings of _many colors_." 248. he had to wait in an _antechamber_; carefully avoid spelling the last word _antichamber_. n. b. an _antechamber_ is the chamber that leads to the chief apartment. _ante_ is a latin preposition, and means _before_, as, to ante_date_, that is, "to date beforehand." _anti_ is a greek preposition, and means _against_, as, anti_monarchical_, that is, "against government by a single person." 249. the _axe_ was very sharp; never spell _axe_ without the _e_. 250. the force of voice, which is placed on any particular word or words to distinguish the sense, is called _emphasis_ and those words are called _emphatical words_: as, "grammar is a _useful_ science." in this sentence the word _useful_ is emphatical. the great importance of _emphasis_ may be seen by the following example: 1. will you _call_ on me to-morrow? yes, i shall [_call_]. 2. will you call on _me_ to-morrow? no, but i shall call on your _brother_. 3. will you call on me _to-morrow_? no, but i shall on the _following day_. 4. will _you_ call on me to-morrow? no, but my _brother_ will. 251. never say _o-fences_ for _offences_; _pison_ for _poison_; _co-lection_ for _collection_; _voiolent_ for _violent_; _kiver_ for _cover_; _afeard_ for _afraid_; _debbuty_ for _deputy_. 252. he is a mere _cipher_; never spell _cipher_ with a _y_. 253. i was _necessitated_ to do it; a vile expression, and often made worse by _necessiated_ being used. say, i was _obliged_, or _compelled_, to do it. 254. gibbon wrote the "_rise_ and fall of the roman empire;" pronounce _rise_, the noun, so as to rhyme with _price_; _rise_, the verb, rhymes with _prize_. 255. have you been to the _national_ gallery? never pronounce _national_ as if it were written _nay-shun-al_, a very common error, and by no means confined to uneducated persons. 256. i bought a new _umbrella_; beware of pronouncing _umbrella_, _umberella_, or _umbereller_, both very common errors. 257. he is a supporter of the _government_; beware of omitting the _n_ in the second syllable of _government_. a very common practice. 258. he strenuously maintained the _contrary_; never place the accent on the _second_ syllable in _contrary_. in the ancient and time-honored ditty, however, of "mistress mary, quite _contrary_, how does your garden grow?" a ballad with which we are all more or less familiar, the word "_contrary_" _is_ accented on the _second_ syllable, so as to rhyme with the name of the venerable dame to whom these memorable lines were addressed. 259. "received this day _of_ mr. brown, ten pounds;" say, "received this day _from_", &c. 260. "in what case is the word _dominus_?" "in the _nominative_, sir." in the hurry of school pronunciation "_nominative_" is nearly always heard in _three_ syllables, as if written _nomnative_ or _nomative_, an error that should be very carefully avoided; it is a word of _four_ syllables. 261. of whatever you _get_, endeavor to save something; and, with all your _getting_, _get_ wisdom. carefully avoid saying _git_ for _get_, and _gitting_ for _getting_. 262. so intent was he on the song he was _singing_, as he stood by the fire, that he did not perceive that his clothes were _singeing_. n. b. verbs ending with a _single e_ omit the _e_ when the termination _ing_ is added; as, _give_, _giving_. in _singeing_, however, the _e_ must be retained, to prevent its being confounded with _singing_. 263. the boy had a _swingeing_ for _swinging_ without permission. _read the preceding note._ 264. the man who was _dyeing_ said that his father was then _dying_. read the note in no. 262, in reference to _dyeing_; and observe that _die_ changes the _i_ into _y_ before the addition of the termination _ing_. 265. his _surname_ is clifford; never spell the _sur_ in _surname_, _sir_, which shows an ignorance of is true derivation, which is from the latin. 266. in "bell's life in london," of saturday, jan. 13th, of the current year [1855], there is a letter from a scotchman to the editor on the subject of the declining salmon fisheries in scotland. in one passage the writer thus expresses himself: "the duke of sutherland has got _almost no rent_ for these [salmon] rivers for the last four years," &c. the writer should have said, _scarcely any rent_. "_almost no rent_" is a downright scotticism. 267. his _mamma_ sent him to a preparatory school; _mamma_ is often written with one _m_ only, which is not, as may at first be supposed, in imitation of the french [_maman_], but in sheer ignorance. the word is pure greek. 268. active verbs often take a neuter sense; as, _the house is building_. here _is building_ is used in a neuter signification, because it has no object after it. by this rule are explained such sentences as, _application is wanting_, _the grammar is printing_, &c. 269. he _attackted_ me without the slightest provocation; say, _attacked_. 270. i saw him _somewheres_ in the city; say, _somewhere_. n. b. _nowheres_, _everywheres_, and _anywheres_ are also very frequently heard. 271. he is still a _bacheldor_; say, _bachelor_. 272. his language was quite _blasphemous_; beware of placing the accent on _phe_ in _blasphemous_. a very common mistake. place the accent on the syllable _blas_. 273. i fear i shall _discommode_ you; say, _incommode_. 274. i can do it _equally as well as_ he; leave out _equally_, which is altogether superfluous. 275. we could not forbear _from_ doing it; leave out _from_, which is unnecessary. 276. they accused him _for_ neglecting his duty; say, _of_ neglecting, &c. 277. he was made much _on_ at bath; say, made much _of_, &c. 278. he is a man _on_ whom you can confide; say, _in_ whom, &c. 279. _i'm thinking_ he will soon arrive; say, _i think_, &c. 280. he was obliged to _fly_ the country; say, _flee_ the country. a very common mistake. 281. the snuffers _wants_ mending; say, _want_ mending. 282. his conduct admits _of_ no apology; leave out _of_, which is quite unnecessary. 283. a _gent_ has been here, inquiring for you,--a detestable, but very common, expression; say, a _gentleman_, &c. 284. that was _all along of_ you; say, that was _all your fault_. 285. you have no _call_ to be vexed with me; say, no _occasion_, &c. 286. i _don't_ know nothing about it,--a very common cockneyism; leave out _don't_. 287. i _had_ rather not, should be, i _would_ rather not. 288. i _had better_ go, should be, _it were better_ that i should go. 289. a _new pair_ of gloves, should be, a _pair of new_ gloves. 290. he is a _very rising_ man, should be, he is _rising rapidly_. 291. apartments _to let_, should be, apartments _to be let_. 292. no _less_ than ten persons, should be, no _fewer_ than ten persons. _less_ must be applied to quantity, as, no _less_ than ten pounds. _fewer_ must be applied to things. 293. i _never_ speak, _whenever_ i can help it, should be, i never speak _when_ i can help it. 294. _before_ i do that, i must _first_ be paid, should be, before i do that, i must be paid. 295. to _get over_ an illness, should be, to _survive_, or, to _recover from_ an illness. 296. to _get over_ a person, should be, to _persuade_ a person. 297. to _get over_ a fact, should be, to _deny_ or _refute_ it. 298. the _then_ duke of bedford, should be, the duke of bedford _of that day_, or, the _sixth_ duke of bedford. 299. the _then_ mrs. howard, should be, the mrs. howard _then living_. 300. a _couple_ of pounds, should be, _two_ pounds. couple implies union, as, a married couple. 301. he speaks _slow_, should be, he speaks _slowly_. 302. he is _noways_ in fault, should be, he is _nowise_ in fault. 303. he is _like_ to be, should be, he is _likely_ to be. 304. _all over_ the land, should be, _over all_ the land. 305. i am stout in comparison _to_ you, should be, i am stout in comparison _with_ you. 306. at _best_, should be, at _the best_. 307. at _worst_, should be, at _the worst_. 308. the dinner was _all eat up_, should be, the dinner was _all eaten_. 309. i _eat_ heartily, should be, i _ate_ heartily. 310. as i _take_ it, should be, as i _see_ it, or _understand_ it. 311. i shall _fall down_, should be, i shall _fall_. 312. it fell _on_ the floor, should be, it fell _to_ the floor. 313. he _again repeated_ it, should be, he _repeated_ it. 314. his conduct was _approved of_ by all, should be, his conduct was _approved_ by all. 315. he was killed _by_ a cannon ball, should be, he was killed _with_ a cannon ball. the gun was fired _by_ a man. 316. six weeks _back_, should be, six weeks _ago_, or _since_. 317. _every now and then_, should be, _often_, or _frequently_. 318. who finds him _in_ money? should be, who finds him money? 319. the _first of all_, should be, the _first_. 320. the _last of all_, should be, the _last_. 321. be that as it _will_, should be, be that as it _may_. 322. my _every_ hope, should be, _all_ my hopes. 323. since _when_, should be, since _which time_. 324. he put it _in_ his pocket, should be, he put it _into_ his pocket. 325. since _then_, should be, since _that time_. 326. the _latter_ end, should be, the _end_. 327. i saw it _in here_, should be, i saw it _here_. 328. that _ay'nt_ just, should be, that _is not_ just. 329. the hen is _setting_, should be, the hen is _sitting_. 330. the wind _sets_, should be, the wind _sits_. 331. to _lift up_, should be, to _lift_. 332. i said so _over again_, should be, i _repeated_ it. 333. from _here to there_, should be, from _this place to that_. 334. _nobody else_ but him, should be, _nobody_ but him. 335. the balloon _ascended up_, should be, the balloon _ascended_. 336. _this_ two days, should be, _these_ two days. 337. do you _mean_ to come? should be, do you _intend_ to come? 338. each of them _are_, should be, each of them _is_. _each_ means one _and_ the other of two. 339. _either_ of the _three_, should be, _any one_ of the three. _either_ means one _or_ the other of two. 340. _neither_ one _or_ the other, should be, neither one _nor_ the other. _neither_ (not either) means not the one _nor_ the other of two. 341. better _nor_ that, should be, better _than_ that. 342. _bad grammar_, should be, bad or ungrammatical _english_. 343. as soon as _ever_, should be, as soon as. 344. you will _some_ day be sorry, should be, you will _one_ day be sorry. 345. from _now_, should be, from _this time_. 346. therefore, i _thought_ it proper to write you, should be, therefore, i _think_ it proper to write _to_ you. 347. _there's_ thirty, should be, there _are_ thirty. 348. _subject matter_, should be, the subject. 349. a _summer's_ morning, should be, a _summer_ morning. 350. my clothes _have got_ too small, or too short, for me, should be, i have become too stout or too tall for my clothes. 351. a _most perfect_ poem, should be, a _perfect_ poem. perfect, supreme, complete, brief, full, empty, true, false, do not admit of comparison. 352. avoid using unmeaning or vulgar phrases in speaking, as, you don't say so? don't you know? don't you see? you know; you see; so, you see, &c. 353. is mr. smith _in_? should be, is mr. smith _within_? 354. the _other one_, should be, the other. 355. _another one_, should be, another. 356. i _left_ this morning. name the place left. 357. over head _and ears_, should be, over _head_. 358. i may _perhaps_, or _probably_, should be, i may. 359. whether he will or _no_, should be, whether he will or _not_. 360. _says_ i, should be, _said_ i, or, i _said_. 361. he spoke _contemptibly_ of him, should be, he spoke _contemptuously_ of him. 362. _was_ you? should be, _were_ you? 363. i am _oftener_ well than ill, should be, i am _more frequently_ well than ill. 364. for _good and all_, should be, for _ever_. 365. it is _above_ a month since, should be, it is _more_ then a month since. 366. he is a _superior_ man, should be, he is _superior to most_ men. 367. he _need_ not do it, should be, he _needs_ not do it. 368. go _over_ the bridge, should be, go _across_ the bridge. 369. i was some distance from home, should be, i was _at_ some distance from home. 370. he _belongs_ to the _mechanics'_ institution, should be, he is a _member_ of the _mechanics'_ institution. 371. for _such another_ book, should be, for _another such_ book. 372. they _mutually_ loved _each other_, should be, they loved _each other_. 373. i _ay'nt_, should be, i _am not_. 374. i am _up to you_, should be, i _understand_ you. 375. bread has _rose_, should be, bread has _risen_. 376. he was in _eminent_ danger, should be, he was in _imminent_ danger. 377. take hold _on_, should be, take hold _of_. 378. vegetables were _plenty_, should be, vegetables were _plentiful_. 379. avoid all slang and vulgar words and phrases, as, _any how_, _bating_, _bran new_, _to blow up_, _bother_, _cut_, _currying favor_, _fork out_, _half an eye_, _i am up to you_, _kick up_, _leastwise_, _nowheres_, _pell-mell_, _scrape_, _the scratch_, _rum_, _topsy-turvey_, _walk into_, _whatsomever_. 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"it is an admirably clear and simple introduction to dr. whately's 'elements of logic,' being designed, apparently, to facilitate the use of that work in academies and high schools."--_north american review._ "it is marked on every page by that same strong good-sense and solid learning, which have rendered his works on logic and rhetoric to universally valuable as text-books for students."--_boston daily advertiser._ "the work before us is an attempt to simplify the study of logic, and to set young persons at the good task of thinking,--thinking correctly, and speaking correctly. the attempt is admirable, and the volume deserves general patronage."--_united states gazette._ * * * * * bowen's virgil. p. virgilii maronis bucolica, georgica, et ã�neis. virgil; with english notes, prepared for the use of classical schools and colleges. by francis bowen, alford professor of moral and intellectual philosophy in harvard college. stereotype edition. 8vo. pp. 600. $2.25. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. page 6 "havn't" changed to "haven't" (and _haven't_, are) page 38, "recal" changed to "recall" (long to recall) page 109, "_i threw_" changed to "i _threw_ to match rest of usage advertising, page 2, "russells'" changed to "russell's" (russell's introduction to the reader) the genial idiot his views and reviews by john kendrick bangs harper & brothers publishers new york and london mcmviii books by john kendrick bangs the genial idiot. 16mo $1.25 three weeks in politics. 32mo .50 coffee and repartee, and the idiot. illustrated. (in one vol.) 16mo 1.25 coffee and repartee. 32mo .50 the water ghost. illustrated. 16mo 1.25 mr. bonaparte of corsica. ill'd. 16mo 1.25 a rebellious heroine. illustrated. 16mo 1.25 house-boat on the styx. ill'd. 16mo 1.25 the bicyclers, a dramatic evening, the fatal message, a proposal under difficulties. (in one vol.) 16mo 1.25 a proposal under difficulties. 16mo .50 pursuit of the house-boat. ill'd. 16mo 1.25 paste jewels. illustrated. 16mo 1.00 ghosts i have met. illustrated. 16mo 1.25 peeps at people. illustrated. 16mo 1.25 the dreamers. illustrated. 16mo 1.25 enchanted type-writer. ill'd. 16mo 1.25 booming of acre hill. illustrated. 16mo 1.25 cobwebs from a library corner. 16mo .50 the idiot at home. illustrated. 16mo 1.25 over the plum-pudding. post 8vo, net 1.15 bikey the skicycle. illustrated. post 8vo 1.50 the worsted man. illustrated. 32mo .50 mrs. raffles. illustrated. 16mo 1.25 r. holmes & co. illustrated. post 8vo 1.25 olympian nights. illustrated. 16mo 1.25 inventions of the idiot. 16mo 1.25 harper & brothers, publishers, n. y. copyright, 1908, by harper & brothers. _all rights reserved._ published october, 1908. contents chap. page i. he discusses maxims and proverbs 3 ii. he discusses the ideal husband 14 iii. the idiot's valentine 27 iv. he discusses finance 39 v. he suggests a comic opera 52 vi. he discusses fame 64 vii. on the decadence of april-fool's-day 77 viii. spring and its poetry 88 ix. on flat-hunting 100 x. the housemaid's union 112 xi. the gentle art of boosting 123 xii. he makes a suggestion to the poet 135 xiii. he discusses the music cure 147 xiv. he defends campaign methods 159 xv. on short courses at college 170 xvi. the horse-show 182 xvii. suggestion to christmas shoppers 194 xviii. for a happy christmas 205 the genial idiot i he discusses maxims and proverbs "good!" cried the idiot, from behind the voluminous folds of the magazine section of his sunday newspaper. "here's a man after my own heart. professor duff, of glasgow university, has come out with a public statement that the maxims and proverbs of our forefathers are largely hocus-pocus and buncombe. i've always maintained that myself from the moment i had my first copy-book lesson in which i had to scrawl the line, 'it's a long lane that has no turning,' twenty-four times. and then that other absurd statement, 'a stitch in the side is worth two in the hand'--or something like it--i forget just how it goes--what tommy-rot that is." "well, i don't know about that, mr. idiot," said mr. whitechoker, tapping his fingers together reflectively. "certain great moral principles are instilled into the minds of the young by the old proverbs and maxims that remain with them forever, and become a potent influence in the formation of character." "i should like to agree with you, but i can't," said the idiot. "i don't believe anything that is noble in the way of character was ever fostered by such a statement as that it's a long lane that has no turning. in the first place, it isn't necessarily true. i know a lane on my grandfather's farm that led from the hen-coop to the barn. there wasn't a turn nor a twist in it, and i know by actual measurement that it wasn't sixty feet long. you've got just as much right to say to a boy that it's a long nose that has no twisting, or a long leg that has no pulling, or a long courtship that has no kissing. there's infinitely more truth in those last two than in the original model. the leg that's never pulled doesn't go short in a stringent financial market, and a courtship without a kiss, even if it lasted only five minutes, would be too long for any self-respecting lover." "i never thought of it in that way," said mr. whitechoker. "perhaps, after all, the idea is ill-expressed in the original." "perfectly correct," said the idiot. "but even then, what? suppose they had put the thing right in the beginning and said 'it's a long lane that has no ending.' what's the use of putting a thing like that in a copy-book? a boy who didn't know that without being told ought to be spanked and put to bed. why not tell him it's a long well that has no bottom, or a long dog that has no wagging, or a long railroad that has no terminal facilities?" "oh, well," interposed the bibliomaniac, "what's the use of being captious? out of a billion and a half wise saws you pick out one to jump on. because one is weak, all the rest must come down with a crash." "there are plenty of others, and the way they refute one another is to me a constant source of delight," said the idiot. "there's 'procrastination is the thief of time,' for instance. that's a clear injunction to youth to get up and hustle, and he starts in with all the impulsiveness of youth, and the first thing he knows--bang! he runs slap into 'look before you leap,' or 'second thoughts are best.' that last is what samuel johnson would have called a beaut. what superior claims the second thought has over the first or the seventy-seventh thought, that it should become axiomatic, i vow i can't see. if it's morality you're after i am dead against the teachings of that proverb. the second thought is the open door to duplicity when it comes to a question of morals. you ask a small boy, who has been in swimming when he ought to have been at sunday-school, why his shirt is wet. his first thought is naturally to reply along the line of fact and say, 'why, because it fell into the pond.' but second thought comes along with visions of hard spanking and a supperless bed in store for him, and suggests the idea that 'there was a leak in the sunday-school roof right over the place where i was sitting,' or, 'i sat down on the teacher's glass of water.' that's the sort of thing second thought does in the matter of morals. "i admit, of course, that there are times when second thoughts are better than first ones--for instance, if your first thought is to name the baby jimmie and jimmie turns out to be a girl, it is better to obey your second thought and call her gladys or samantha--but it is not always so, and i object to the nerve of the broad, general statement that it _is_ so. sometimes fifth thoughts are best. in science i guess you'll find that the man who thinks the seven hundred and ninety-seventh thought along certain lines has got the last and best end of it. and so it goes--out of the infinitesimal number of numbers, every mother's son of 'em may at the psychological moment have a claim to the supremacy, but your self-sufficient old proverb-maker falls back behind the impenetrable wall of his own conceit, and announces that because he has nothing but second-hand thoughts, therefore the second thought is best, and we, like a flock of sheep, follow this leader, and go blatting that sentiment down through the ages as if it were proved beyond peradventure by the sum total of human experience." "well, you needn't get mad about it," said the lawyer. "i never said it--so you can't blame me." "still, there are some proverbs," said mr. whitechoker, blandly, "that we may not so summarily dismiss. take, for instance, 'you never miss the water till the well runs dry.'" "one of the worst of the lot, mr. whitechoker," said the idiot. "i've missed the water lots of times when the well was full as ever. you miss the water when the pipes freeze up, don't you? you--or rather i--i sometimes miss the water like time at five o'clock in the morning after a pleasant evening with some jovial friends, when there's no end of it in the well, but not a drop within reach of my fevered hand, and i haven't the energy to grope my way down-stairs to the ice-pitcher. there's more water in that proverb than tangible assets. from the standpoint of veracity that's one of the most immoral proverbs of the lot--and if you came to apply it to the business world--oh, lud! as a rule, these days, you never _find_ the water till the well has been pumped dry and put in the hands of a receiver for the benefit of the bond-holders. fact is, all these water proverbs are to be regarded with suspicion." "i don't recall any other," said mr. whitechoker. "well," said the idiot, "there's one, and it's the nerviest of 'em all--'water never runs up hill.' ask any man in wall street how high the water has run up in the last five years and see what he tells you. and then, 'you may drive a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink,' is another choice specimen of the waterbury school of philosophy. i know a lot of human horses who have been driven to water lately, and such drinkers as they have become! it's really awful. if i knew the name of that particular maximilian who invented those water proverbs i'd do my best to have him indicted for doing business without a license." "it's very unfortunate," said mr. whitechoker, "that modern conditions should so have upset the wisdom of the ancients." "it is too bad," said the idiot. "and i am just as sorry about it as you are; but, after all, the wisdom of the ancients, wise and wisdomatic as it was, should not be permitted to put at nought all modern thought. why not adapt the wisdom of the ancients to modern conditions? you can't begin too soon, for new generations are constantly springing up, and i know of no better outlet for reform than in these self-same spencerian proverbs which the poor kids have to copy, copy, copy, until they are sick and tired of them. now, in the writing-lessons, why not adapt your means to your ends? why make a beginner in penmanship write over and over again, 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?'--which it isn't, by-the-way, to a man who is a good shot--when you can bear in on his mind that 'a dot on the i is worth two on the t'; or, for the instruction of your school-teachers, why don't you get up a proverb like 'it's a long lesson that has no learning'? or if you are interested in having your boy brought up to the strenuous life, why don't you have him make sixty copies of the aphorism, 'a punch in the solar is worth six on the nose?' you tell your children never to whistle until they are out of the woods. now, where in the name of all that's lovely should a boy whistle if not in the woods? that's where birds whistle. that's where the wind whistles. if nature whistles anywhere, it is in the woods. woods were made for whistling, and any man who ever sat over a big log-fire in camp or in library who has not noticed that the logs themselves whistle constantly--well, he is a pachyderm." "well, as far as i can reach a conclusion from all that you have said," put in mr. whitechoker, "the point seems to be that the proverbs of the ancients are not suited to modern conditions, and that you think they should be revised." "exactly," said the idiot. "it's a splendid idea," said mr. brief. "but, after all, you've got to have something to begin on. possibly," he added, with a wink at the bibliomaniac, "you have a few concrete examples to show us what can be done." "certainly," said the idiot. "here is a list of them." and as he rose up to depart he handed mr. brief a paper on which he had written as follows: "you never find the water till the stock falls off twenty points." "a stitch in time saves nothing at all at present tailors' rates." "you look after the pennies. somebody else will deposit the pounds." "it's a long heiress that knows no yearning." "second thoughts are always second." "procrastination is the theme of gossips." "never put off to-day what you can put on day after to-morrow." "sufficient unto the day are the obligations of last month." "one good swat deserves another." * * * * * "by jove!" said mr. brief, as he read them off, "you can't go back on any of 'em, can you?" "no," said the bibliomaniac; "that's the great trouble with the idiot. even with all his idiocy he is not always a perfect idiot." ii he discusses the ideal husband "well, i see the ideal husband has broken out again," said the idiot, after reading a short essay on that interesting but rare individual by gladys waterbury shrivelton of the woman's page of the squehawkett _gazoo_. "i'd hoped they had him locked up for good, he's been so little in evidence of late years." "why should you wish so estimable an individual to be locked up?" demanded mr. pedagog, who, somehow or other, seemed to take the idiot's suggestion as personal. "to keep his idealness from being shattered," said the idiot. "nothing against the gentleman himself, i can assure you. it would be a pity, i think, once you have really found an ideal husband, to subject him to the coarse influences of the world; to let him go forth into the madding crowd and have the sweet idyllic bloom rubbed off by the attritions of the vulgar. i feel about the ideal husband just as i do about a beautiful peachblow vase which is too fragile, too delicate to be brought into contact with the ordinary earthen-ware of society. the earthen-ware isn't harmed by bumping into the peachblow, but the peachblow will inevitably turn up with a crack here and a nick there and a hole somewhere else after such an encounter. if i were a woman and suddenly discovered that i had an ideal husband, i think at my personal sacrifice i'd present him to the metropolitan museum of art or immure him in some other retreat where his perfection would remain forever secure--say, up among the egyptian mummies of the british museum. we cannot be too careful, mr. pedagog, of these rarely beautiful things that are now and again vouchsafed to us." "what is an ideal husband, anyhow?" asked mr. brief. "has the recipe for such an individual at last been discovered?" "yes," put in mrs. pedagog, before the idiot had a chance to reply, and here the dear old landlady fixed her eyes firmly and affectionately upon her spouse, the school-master. "i can tell you the recipe for the ideal husband. years, sixty-three--" "sixty-two, my dear," smiled mr. pedagog, "and--er--a fraction--verging on sixty-three." "years, verging on sixty-three," said mrs. pedagog, accepting the correction. "character developed by time and made secure. eyes, blue; disposition when vexed, vexatious; disposition when pleased, happy; irritable from just cause; considerate always; calm exterior, heart of gold; prompt in anger and quick in forgiveness; and only one old woman in the world for him." "a trifle bald-headed, but a true friend when needed, eh?" said the idiot. "i try to be," said mr. pedagog, pleasantly complacent. "well, you succeed in both," said the idiot. "for your trifling baldness is evident when you remove your hat, which, like a true gentleman, you never fail to do at the breakfast-table, and, after a fifteen years' experience with you, i for one can say that i have found you always the true friend when i needed you--i never told how, without my solicitation and entirely upon your own initiative, you once loaned me the money to pay mrs. pedagog's bill over which she was becoming anxious." "john," cried mrs. pedagog, severely, "did you ever do that?" "well, my dear--er--only once, you know, and you were so relieved--" began mr. pedagog. "you should have lent the money to me, john," said mrs. pedagog, "and then i should not have been compelled to dun the idiot." "i know, my dear, but you see i knew the idiot would pay me back, and perhaps--well, only perhaps, my love--you might not have thought of it," explained the school-master, with a slight show of embarrassment. "the ideal husband is ever truthful, too," said the landlady, with a smile as broad as any. "well, it's too bad, i think," said the lawyer, "that a man has to be verging on sixty-three to be an ideal husband. i'm only forty-four, and i should hate to think that if i should happen to get married within the next two or three years my wife would have to wait at least fifteen years before she could find me all that i ought to be. moreover, i have been told that i have black eyes." "with the unerring precision of a trained legal mind," said the idiot, "you have unwittingly put your finger on the crux of the whole matter, mr. brief. mrs. pedagog has been describing _her_ ideal husband, and i am delighted to know that what i have always suspected to be the case is in fact the truth: that _her_ husband in her eyes is an ideal one. that's the way it ought to be, and that is why we have always found her the sweetest of landladies, but because mrs. pedagog prefers mr. pedagog in this race for supremacy in the domain of a woman's heart is no reason why you who are only bald-headed in your temper, like most of us, should not prove to be equally the ideal of some other woman--in fact, of several others. women are not all alike. as a matter of fact, a gentleman named balzac, who was the marie corelli of his age in france, once committed himself to the inference that no two women ever were alike, so that, if you grant the truth of old balzac's inference, the ideal husband will probably vary to the extent of the latest count of the number of women in the world. so why give up hope because you are only forty-nine?" "forty-four," corrected the lawyer. "pardon me--forty-four," said the idiot. "when you are in the roaring forties, five or six years more or less do not really count. lots of men who are really only forty-two behave like sixty, and i know one old duffer of forty-nine who has the manners of eighteen. the age question does not really count." "no--you are proof of that," said the bibliomaniac. "you have been twenty-four years old for the last fifteen years." "thank you, mr. bib," said the idiot. "you are one of the few people in the world who really understand me. i have tried to be twenty-four for the past fifteen years, and if i have succeeded, so much the better for me. it's a beautiful age. you feel that you know so much when you're twenty-four. if it should turn out to be the answer to 'how old is ann?' the lady should be congratulated. but, as a matter of fact, you can be an ideal husband at any old age." "humph! at seven, for instance?" drawled mr. brief. "seven is not any old age," retorted the idiot. "it is a very certain old youth. nor does it depend upon the color of the eyes, so long as they are neither green nor red. nobody could ever make an ideal husband out of a green-eyed man, or a chap given to the red eye, either--" "it all depends upon the kind of a man you are, eh?" said the bibliomaniac. "not a bit of it," said the idiot. "it depends on the kind of wife you've got, and that's why i say that the ideal husband varies to the extent of the latest count of the women in the world. take the case of mr. pedagog here. mrs. pedagog accuses him of being an ideal husband, and he, without any attempt at evasion, acknowledges the corn, like the honorable gentleman he is. but can you imagine mr. pedagog being an ideal husband to some lady in the four hundred, with a taste for grand opera that strikes only on the box; with a love for paris gowns that are worth a fortune; with the midnight supper and cotillion after habit firmly intrenched in her character; with an ambition to shine all summer at newport, all autumn at lenox, all winter at new york, with a dash to england and france in the merry, merry springtime? do you suppose our friend john pedagog here would be in it with tommie goldilocks van varick as the ideal husband of such a woman? not on your life. well, then, take tommie goldilocks van varick, who'd be the ideal spouse of this brilliant social light mrs. van varick. how would he suit mrs. pedagog, rising at eleven-thirty every day and yelling like mad for the little blue bottle which clears the head from the left-over cobwebs of yesterday; eating his egg and drinking his coffee with a furrow in his brow almost as deep as the pallor of his cheek, and now and then making a most awful grimace because the interior of his mouth feels like a bargain day at the fur-counter of a department store; spending his afternoon sitting in the window of the hunky dory club ogling the passers-by and making bets on such important questions as whether more hansoms pass up the avenue than down, or whether the proportion of red-haired girls to white horses is as great between three and four p.m. as between five and six--" "i don't see how a woman could stand a man like that," said mrs. pedagog. "indeed, i don't see where his ideal qualities come in, anyhow, mr. idiot. i think you are wrong in putting him among the ideal husbands even for mrs. van varick." "no, i am not wrong, for he is indeed the very essence of her ideal because he doesn't make her stand him," said the idiot. "he never bothers mrs. van varick at all. on the first of every month he sends her a check for a good round sum with which she can pay her bills. he presents her with a town house and a country house, and a limousine car, and all the furs she can possibly want; provides her with an opera-box, and never fails, when he himself goes to the opera, to call upon her and pay his respects like a gentleman. if she sustains heavy losses at bridge, he makes them good, and when she gives a dinner to her set, or to some distinguished social lion from other zoos, van varick is always on hand to do the honors of his house, and what is supposed to be his table. he and mrs. van varick are on the most excellent terms; in fact, he treats her with more respect than he does any other woman he knows, never even suggesting the idea of a flirtation with her. in other words, he does not interfere with her in any way, which is the only kind of man in the world she could be happy with." "it's perfectly awful!" cried mrs. pedagog. "if they never see each other, what on earth did they ever get married for?" "protection," said the idiot. "and it is perfectly splendid in its results. mrs. van varick, being married to so considerate an absentee, is able to go about very much as she pleases backed with the influence and affluence of the van varick name. this as plain little miss floyd poselthwaite she was unable to do. she has now an assured position, and is protected against the chance of marrying a man who, unlike van varick, would growl at her expenditures, object to her friends, and insist upon coming home to dinner every night, and occasionally turn up at breakfast." "sweet life," said the bibliomaniac. "and what does the willieboy husband get out of it?" "pride, protection, and freedom," said the idiot. "he's as proud as punch when he sees mrs. van v. swelling about town with her name kept as standing matter in every society column in the country. his freedom he enjoys, just as she enjoys hers. if he doesn't turn up for six weeks she never asks any questions, and so van varick can live on easy terms with the truth. if he sits up all night over a game of cards, there's nobody to chide him for doing so, and--" "but where does his protection come in? that's what i can't see," said the bibliomaniac. "it's as plain as a pike-staff," said the idiot. "with mrs. van varick on the _tapis_, tommie is safe from designing ladies who might marry him for his money." "well, he's a mighty poor ideal!" cried mr. pedagog. "he certainly would not do for mrs. pedagog," said the idiot. "but you would yourself be no better for mrs. van varick. the red indian makes an ideal husband for the squaw, but he'd never suit a daughter of the british nobility any more than the duke of lacklands would make a good husband for dusky little minnehaha. so i say what's the use of discussing the matter any further with the purpose of arbitrarily settling on what it is that constitutes an ideal husband? we may all hope to be considered such if we only find the girl that likes our particular kind." "then," said mr. brief, with a smile, "your advice to me is not to despair, eh?" "that's it," said the idiot. "i wouldn't give up, if i were you. there's no telling when some one will come along to whom you appear to be the perfect creature." "good!" cried mr. brief. "you are mighty kind. i don't suppose you can give me a hint as to how soon i may expect to meet the lady?" "well--no, i can't," said the idiot. "i don't believe even edison could tell you about when to look for arrivals from mars." iii the idiot's valentine "well, old man," said the poet, as the idiot entered the breakfast-room on the morning of valentine's day, "how did old st. valentine treat you? any results worth speaking of?" "oh, the usual lay-out," returned the idiot, languidly. "nine hundred and forty-two passionate declarations of undying affection from unknown lady friends in all parts of the civilized world; one thousand three hundred and twenty-four highly colored but somewhat insulting intimations that i had better go 'way back and sit down from hitherto unsuspected gentlemen friends scattered from maine to california; one small can of salt marked 'st. valentine to the idiot,' with sundry allusions to the proper medical treatment of the latter's freshness, and a small box containing a rubber bottle-stopper labelled 'cork up and bust.' i can't complain." "well, you did come in for your share of it, didn't you?" said mr. brief. "yes," said the idiot, "i think i got all that was coming to me, and i wouldn't have minded it if i hadn't had to pay three dollars over-due postage on 'em. i don't bother much if some anonymous chap off in the wilds of kalikajoo takes the trouble to send me a funny picture of a monkey grinding a hand-organ with 'the loving regards of your brother,' or if somebody else who is afraid of becoming too fond of me sends me a horse-chestnut with a line to the effect that here is one i haven't printed, i don't feel like getting mad; but when i have to pay the postage on the plaguey things it strikes me it is rubbing it in a little too hard, and if i could find two or three of the senders i'd spend an hour or two of my time banging their heads together." "i got off pretty well," said the bibliomaniac. "i only got one valentine, and though it cast some doubt upon the quality of my love for books, i found it quite amusing. i'll read it to you." here the bibliomaniac took a small paper from his pocket and read the following lines: "the hungry bibliomaniac "if only you would cut your books as often as your butter, when people ask you what's inside you wouldn't sit and sputter. the reading that hath made _you_ full, the reading that doth chain you, is not from books, or woman's looks, but fresh from off the menu." "what do you think of that?" asked the bibliomaniac, with a chuckle, as he folded up his valentine and stowed it away in his pocket once more. "i think i can spot the sender," said the idiot, fixing his eyes sternly upon the poet. "it takes genius to get up a rhyme like 'menu' and 'chain you,' and i know of only one man at this board or at any other who is equal to the task." "if you mean me," retorted the poet, flushing, "you are mightily mistaken. i wouldn't waste a rhyme like that on a personal valentine when i could tack it on to the end of a sonnet and go out and sell it for two-fifty." "then you didn't do it, eh?" demanded the idiot. "no. did you?" asked the poet, with his eyes twinkling. "sir," said the idiot, "if i had done it, would i have had the unblushing effrontery to say, as i just now did say, that its author was a genius?" "well, we're square, anyhow," said the poet. "you cast me under suspicion, to begin with, and it was only fair that i should whack back. i got a valentine myself, and i suspect it was from the same hand. it runs like this: "to the minor poet "you do not pluck the fairy flowers that bloom on high parnassus, nor do you gather thistles like some of those mystic asses who browse about old helicon in hope to fill their tummies; yours rather are those dandy-lines- gilt-topped chrysanthemummies- quite pleasant stuff that ends in fluff- yet when they are beholden make all the world look golden." "well," ejaculated the idiot, "i don't see what there is in that to make you angry. seems to me there's some very nice compliments in that. for instance, your stuff when 'tis 'beholden makes all the world look golden,' according to your anonymous correspondent. if he'd been vicious he might have said something like this: '--withal so supercilious they make the whole earth bilious.'" the poet grinned. "i'm not complaining about it. it's a mighty nice little verse, i think, and my only regret is that i do not know who the chap was who sent it. i'd like to thank him. i had an idea you might help me," he said, with a searching glance. "i will," said the idiot. "if the man who sent you that ever reveals his identity to me i will tell him you fell all over yourself with joy on receiving his tribute of admiration. how did you come out, doctor?" "oh, he remembered me, all right," said the doctor. "quite in the same vein, too, only he's not so complimentary. he calls me 'the humane surgeon,' and runs into rhyme after this fashion: "o, doctor blank's a surgeon bold, a surgeon most humane, sir; and what he does is e'er devoid of ordinary pain, sir. "if he were called to amputate a leg hurt by a bullet, he wouldn't take a knife and cut- but with his bill he'd pull it." "he must have had some experience with you, doctor," said the idiot. "in fact, he knows you so well that i am inclined to think that the writer of that valentine lives in this house, and it is just possible that the culprit is seated at this table at this moment." "i think it very likely," said the doctor, dryly. "he's a fresh young man, five feet ten inches in height--" "pooh--pooh!" said the idiot. "that's the worst description of mr. brief i ever heard. mr. brief, in the first place, is not a young man, and he isn't fresh--" "i didn't mean mr. brief," said the doctor, significantly. "then you ought to be ashamed of yourself to intimate that mr. whitechoker, a clergyman, would stoop to the writing of such a rhyme as that," cried the idiot. "people nowadays seem to me to be utterly lacking in that respect for the cloth to which it is entitled. mr. brief, if you really wrote that thing you owe it to mr. whitechoker to own up and thus relieve him of the suspicion the doctor has so unblushingly cast upon him." "i can prove an alibi," said the lawyer. "i could no more turn a rhyme than i could play 'parsifal' on a piano with one finger, and i wouldn't if i could. i judge, from what i know of the market value of poems these days, that that valentine of the doctor's is worth about two dollars. it would take me a century to write it, and inasmuch as my time is worth at least five dollars a year it stands to reason that i would not put in five hundred dollars' worth of effort on a two-dollar job. so that lets me out. by-the-way, i got one of these trifles myself. want to hear it?" "i am just crazy to hear it," said the idiot. "if any man has reduced you to poetry, mr. brief, he's a great man. with all your many virtues, you seem to me to fit into a poetical theme about as snugly as an automobile with full power on in a china-shop. by all means let us have it." "this modern st. valentine of ours has reduced the profession to verse with a nicety that elicits my most profound admiration," said mr. brief. "just listen to this: "the lawyer is no wooer, yet to sue us is his whim. the lawyer is no tailor, but we get our suits from him. the longest things in all the world- they are the lawyer's briefs, and all the joys he gets in life are other people's griefs. yet spite of all the lawyer's faults he's one point rather nice: he'll not remain lest you retain and _never gives_ advice." "the author of these valentines," said the doctor, "is to be spotted, the way i diagnose the case, by his desire that professional people should be constantly giving away their services. he objects to the doctor's bill and he slaps sarcastically at the lawyer because he doesn't _give_ advice. that's why i suspect the idiot. he's a professional idiot, and yet he gives his idiocy away." "when did i ever give myself away?" demanded the idiot. "you are talking wildly, doctor. the idea of your trying to drag me into this thing is preposterous. suppose you show down your valentine and see if it is in my handwriting." "mine is typewritten," said the doctor. "so is mine," said the bibliomaniac. "mine, too," said the poet. "same here," said mr. brief. "well, then," said the idiot, "i'm willing to write a page in my own hand without any attempt to disguise it, and let any handwriting expert decide as to whether there is the slightest resemblance between my chirography and these typewritten sheets you hold in your hand." "that's fair enough," said mr. whitechoker. "besides," persisted the idiot, "i've received one of the things myself, and it'll make your hair curl, if you've got any. typewritten like the rest of 'em. shall i read it?" by common consent the idiot read the following: "idiot, zany, brain of hare, dolt and noodle past compare, buncombe, bosh, and verbal slosh, mind of nothing, full of josh, madman, donkey, dizzard-pate, u. s. zero syndicate, dull, depressing, lack of wit, incarnation of the nit. minus, numskull, drivelling baby, greenhorn, dunce, and dotard gaby; all the queer and loony chorus found in old roget's _thesaurus_, flat and crazy through and through, that, o idiot--that is you. let me tell you, sir, in fine, _i_ won't be your valentine. "what do you think of that?" asked the idiot, when he had finished. "wouldn't that jar you?" "i think it's perfectly horrid," said mrs. pedagog. "mary, pass the pancakes to the idiot. mr. idiot, let me hand you a full cup of coffee. john, hand the idiot the syrup. why, how a thing like that should be allowed to go through the mails passes me!" and the others all agreed that the landlady's indignation was justified, because they were fond of the idiot in spite of his faults. they would not see him abused, at any rate. * * * * * "say, old man," said the poet, later, "i really thought you sent those other valentines until you read yours." "i thought you would," said the idiot. "that's the reason why i worked up that awful one on myself. that relieves me of all suspicion." iv he discusses finance a messenger had just brought a "collect" telegram for the doctor, and that gentleman, after going through all his pockets, and finding nothing but a bunch of keys and a prescription-pad, made the natural inquiry: "anybody got a quarter?" "i have," said the idiot. "one of the rare mintage of 1903, circulated for a short time only and warranted good as new." "i didn't know the 1903 quarter was rare," said the bibliomaniac, who prided himself on being a numismatist of rare ability. "who told you the 1903 quarter was rare?" "my old friend, experience," said the idiot. "what's rare about it?" demanded the bibliomaniac. "why--it's what they call ready money, spot cash, the real thing with the water squeezed out, selling at par on sight," explained the idiot. "millions of people never saw one, and under modern conditions it is very difficult to amass them in any considerable quantity. what is worse, even if you happen to get one of them it is next to impossible to hang on to it without unusual effort. if you have a 1903 quarter in your pocket, somehow or other the idea that it is in your possession seems to communicate itself to others, and every effort is made to lure it away from you on some pretext or other." "excuse me for interrupting this lecture of yours, mr. idiot," said the doctor, amiably, "but would you mind lending me that quarter to pay this messenger? i've left my change in my other clothes." "what did i tell you?" cried the idiot, triumphantly. "the words are no sooner out of my mouth than they are verified. hardly a minute elapses from the time doctor capsule learns that i have that quarter before he puts in an application for it." "well, i renew the application in spite of its rarity," laughed the doctor. "it's even rarer with me than it is with you. shell out--there's a good chap." "i will if you'll put up a dollar for security," said the idiot, extracting the coin from his pocket, "and give me a demand note at thirty days for the quarter." "i haven't got a dollar," said the doctor. "well, what other collateral have you to offer?" asked the idiot. "i won't take buckwheat-cakes, or muffins, or your share of the sausages, mind you. they come under the head of wild-cat securities--here to-day and gone to-morrow." "my, but you're a shylock!" ejaculated mr. brief. "not a bit of it," retorted the idiot. "if i were shylock i'd be willing to take a steak for security, but there's none of the pound of flesh business about me. i simply proceed cautiously, like any modern financial institution that intends to stay in the ring more than two weeks. i'm not one of your fortnightly trust companies with an oak table, an unpaid bill for office rent, and a patent reversible disappearing president for its assets. i do business on the national-bank principle: millions for the rich, but not one cent for the man that needs the money." "i tell you what i'll do," said the doctor. "if you'll lend me that quarter, i won't charge you a cent for my professional services next time you need them." "that's a large offer, but i'm afraid of it," replied the idiot. "it partakes of the nature of a speculation. it's dealing in futures, which is not a safe thing for a financial institution to do, i don't care how solid it is. you don't catch the chemistry national bank lending money to anybody on mere prospects, and, what is more, in my case, i'd have to get sick to win out. no, doctor, that proposition does not appeal to me." "looks hopeless, doesn't it," said the doctor. "mary, tell the boy to wait while i run up-stairs--" "i wouldn't do that," said the idiot, interrupting. "the matter can be arranged in another way. i honestly don't like to lend money, believing with polonius that it's a bad thing to do. as the governor of north carolina said to the governor of south carolina, who owed him a hundred dollars, 'it's a long time between payments on account,' and that sort of thing breaks up families, not to mention friendships. but i will match you for it." "how can i match when i haven't anything to match with?" said the doctor, growing a trifle irritable. "you can match your credit against my quarter," said the idiot. "we can make it a mental match--a sort of christian science gamble. what am i thinking of, heads or tails?" "heads," said the doctor. "by jove, that's hard luck!" ejaculated the idiot. "you lose. i was thinking of tails." "oh, thunder!" cried the doctor, impatiently. "try it again, double or quits. what am i thinking of?" said the idiot. "heads," repeated the doctor. "somebody must have told you. heads it is. you win. we are quits, doctor," said the idiot. "but i am still without the quarter," the physician observed. "yep," said the idiot. "but there's one more way out of it. i'll buy the telegram from you--c.o.d." "done," said the doctor, holding out the message. "here's your goods." "and there's your money," said the idiot, tossing the quarter across the table. "if you want to buy this message back at any time within the next sixty days, doctor, i'll give you the refusal of it without extra charge." and he folded the paper up and put it away in his pocketbook. "do the banks really ask for so much security when they make a loan?" asked the poet. "hear him, will you!" cried the idiot. "there's your lucky man. he's never had to face a bank president in order to avoid the cold glances of the grocer. no cashier ever asked him how many times he had been sentenced to states-prison before he'd discount his note. do they ask security? security isn't the name for it. they demand a blockade, establish a quarantine. they require the would-be debtor to build up a wall as high as chimborazo and as invulnerable as gibraltar between them and the loss before they will part with a dime. why, they wouldn't discount a note to his own order for andrew carnegie for seventeen cents without his indorsement. do they ask security!" "well, i didn't know," said the poet. "i never had anything to do with banks except as a small depositor in the savings-bank." "fortunate man," said the idiot. "i wish i could say as much. i borrowed five hundred dollars once from a bank, and what the deuce do you suppose they did?" "i don't know," said the poet. "what?" "they made me pay it back," said the idiot, mournfully, "although i needed it just as much when it was due as when i borrowed it. the cashier was a friend of mine, too. but i got even with 'em. i refused to borrow another cent from their darned old institution. they lost my custom then and there. if it hadn't been for that inconsiderate act i should probably have gone on borrowing from them for years, and instead of owing them nothing to-day, as i do, i should have been their debtor to the tune of two or three thousand dollars." "don't you take any stock in what the idiot tells you in that matter, mr. poet," said mr. brief. "the national banks are perfectly justified in protecting themselves as they do. if they didn't demand collateral security they'd be put out of business in fifteen minutes by people like the idiot, who consider it a hardship to have to pay up." "as the lady said when she was asked the name of her favorite author, 'pshaw!'" retorted the idiot. "likewise fudge--a whole panful of fudges! i don't object to paying my debts; fact is, i know of no greater pleasure. what i do object to is the kind of collateral the banks demand. they always want something a man hasn't got and, in most cases, hasn't any chance of getting. if i had a thousand-dollar bond i wouldn't need to borrow five hundred dollars, yet when i go to the bank and ask for the five hundred the thousand-dollar bond is what they ask for." "not always," said mr. brief. "if you can get your note indorsed you can get the money." "that's true enough, but fellows like myself can't always find a captain of industry who is willing to take a long-shot to do the indorsing," said the idiot. "besides, under the indorsement plan you merely ask another man to be responsible for your debt, and that isn't fair. the whole system is wrong. every man to his own collateral, i say. give me the bank that will lend money to the chap that needs it on the security of his own product. mr. whitechoker, say, is short on cash and long on sermons. my style of bank would take one barrel of his sermons and salt 'em down in the safe-deposit company as security for the money he needs. the poet here, finding the summer approaching and not a cent in hand to replenish his wardrobe, should be able to secure an advance of two or three hundred dollars on his sonnets, rondeaux, and lyrics--one dollar for each two-and-a-half-dollar sonnet, and so on. the grocer should be able to borrow money on his dried apples, his vinegar pickles, his canned asparagus, and other non-perishable assets, such as dog-biscuit, roquefort cheese, and california raisins. the tailor seeking an accommodation of five hundred dollars should not be asked how many times he has been sentenced to jail for arson, and required to pay in ten thousand shares of steel common, in order to get his grip on the currency, but should be approached appropriately and asked how many pairs of trousers he is willing to pledge as security for the loan." "i don't know where i would come in on that proposition," said the doctor. "there are times when we physicians need money, too." "pooh!" said the idiot. "you are not a non-producer. it doesn't take a very smart doctor these days to produce patients, does it? you could assign your cases to the bank. one little case of hypochondria alone ought to be a sufficient guarantee of a steady income for years, properly managed. if you haven't learned how to keep your patients in such shape that they have to send for you two or three times a week, you'd better go back to the medical school and fit yourself for your real work in life. you never knew a plumber to be so careless of his interests as to clean up a job all at once, and what the plumber is to the household, the physician should be to the individual. same way with mr. brief. with the machinery of the law in its present shape there is absolutely no excuse for a lawyer who settles any case inside of fifteen years, by which time it is reasonable to suppose his client will get into some new trouble that will keep him going as a paying concern for fifteen more. there isn't a field of human endeavor in which a man applies himself industriously that does not produce something that should be a negotiable security." "how about burglars?" queried the bibliomaniac. "i stand corrected," said the idiot. "the burglar is an exception, but then he is an exception also at the banks. the expert burglar very seldom leaves any security for what he gets at the banks, and so he isn't affected by the situation one way or the other." "oh, well," said mr. brief, rising, "it's only a pipe-dream all the way through. they might start in on such a proposition, but it would never last. when you went in to borrow fifteen dollars, putting up your idiocy as collateral, the emptiness of the whole scheme would reveal itself." "you never can tell," observed the idiot. "even under their present system the banks have done worse than that." "never!" cried the lawyer. "yes, sir," replied the idiot. "only the other day i saw in the papers that a bank out in oklahoma had loaned a man ten thousand dollars on sixty thousand shares of hot air preferred." "and is that worse than idiocy?" demanded mr. brief. "infinitely," said the idiot. "if a bank lost fifteen dollars on my idiocy it would be out ninety-nine hundred and eighty-five dollars less than that oklahoma institution is on its hot-air loan." "bosh! what's hot air worth on the exchange to-day?" "as a selling proposition, zero and commissions off," said the idiot. "fact is, they've changed its name. it is now known as international nitting." v he suggests a comic opera "there's a harvest for you," said the idiot, as he perused a recently published criticism of a comic opera. "there have been thirty-nine new comic operas produced this year and four of 'em were worth seeing. it is very evident that the gilbert and sullivan industry hasn't gone to the wall whatever slumps other enterprises have suffered from." "that is a goodly number," said the poet. "thirty-nine, eh? i knew there was a raft of them, but i had no idea there were as many as that." "why don't you go in and do one, mr. poet?" suggested the idiot. "they tell me it's as easy as rolling off a log. all you've got to do is to forget all your ideas and remember all the old jokes you ever heard, slap 'em together around a lot of dances, write two dozen lyrics about some googoo belle, hire a composer, and there you are. hanged if i haven't thought of writing one myself." "i fancy it isn't as easy as it looks," observed the poet. "it requires just as much thought to be thoughtless as it does to be thoughtful." "nonsense," said the idiot. "i'd undertake the job cheerfully if some manager would make it worth my while, and, what's more, if i ever got into the swing of the business i'll bet i could turn out a libretto a day for three days of the week for the next two months." "if i had your confidence i'd try it," laughed the poet, "but, alas! in making me nature did not design a confidence man." "nonsense, again," said the idiot. "any man who can get the editors to print sonnets to 'diana's eyebrow,' and little lyrics of madison square, longacre square, battery place, and boston common, the way you do, has a right to consider himself an adept at bunco. i tell you what i'll do with you: i'll swap off my confidence for your lyrical facility, and see what i can do. why can't we collaborate and get up a libretto for next season? they tell me there's large money in it." "there certainly is if you catch on," said the poet. "vastly more than in any other kind of writing that i know. i don't know but that i would like to collaborate with you on something of the sort. what is your idea?" "mind's a blank on the subject," sighed the idiot. "that's the reason i think i can turn the trick. as i said before, you don't need ideas. better go without 'em. just sit down and write." "but you must have some kind of a story," persisted the poet. "not to begin with," said the idiot. "just write your choruses and songs, slap in your jokes, fasten 'em together, and the thing is done. first act, get your hero and heroine into trouble. second act, get 'em out." "and for the third?" queried the poet. "don't have a third," said the idiot. "a third is always superfluous; but, if you must have it, make up some kind of a vaudeville show and stick it in between the first and second." "tush!" said the bibliomaniac. "that would make a gay comic opera." "of course it would, mr. bib," the idiot agreed. "and that's what we want. if there's anything in this world that i hate more than another it is a sombre comic opera. i've been to a lot of 'em, and i give you my word of honor that next to a funeral a comic opera that lacks gayety is one of the most depressing functions known to modern science. some of 'em are enough to make an undertaker weep with jealous rage. i went to one of 'em last week called 'the skylark,' with an old chum of mine who is a surgeon. you can imagine what sort of a thing it was when i tell you that after the first act he suggested we leave the theatre and come back here and have some fun cutting my leg off. he vowed that if he ever went to another opera by the same people he'd take ether beforehand." "i shouldn't think that would be necessary," sneered the bibliomaniac. "if it was as bad as all that, why didn't it put you to sleep?" "it did," said the idiot. "but the music kept waking us up again. there was no escape from it except that of actual physical flight." "well, about this collaboration of ours," suggested the poet. "what do you think we should do first?" "write an opening chorus, of course," said the idiot. "what did you suppose? a finale? something like this: "if you want to know who we are, just ask the evening star, as he smiles on high in the deep-blue sky, with his tralala-la-la-la. we are maidens sweet with tripping feet, and the googoo eyes of the skippity-hi's, and the smile of the fair gazoo; and you'll find our names 'mongst the wondrous dames of the who's who-hoo-hoo-hoo." "get that sung with spirit by sixty-five ladies with blond wigs and gold slippers, otherwise dressed up in the uniform of a troop of russian cavalry, and you've got your venture launched." "where can you find people like that?" asked the bibliomaniac. "new york's full of 'em," replied the idiot. "i don't mean the people to act that sort of thing--but where would you lay your scene?" explained the bibliomaniac. "oh, any old place in the pacific ocean," said the idiot. "make your own geography--everybody else does. there's a million islands out there of one kind or another, and as defenceless as a two-weeks'-old infant. if you want a real one, fish it out and fire ahead. if you don't, make one up for yourself and call it 'the isle of piccolo,' or something of that sort. after you've got your chorus going, introduce your villain, who should be a man with a deep bass voice and a piratical past. he's the chap who rules the roost and is going to marry the heroine to-morrow. that will make a bully song: "i'm a pirate bold with a heart so cold that it turns the biggest joys to solemn sorrow; and the hero-ine, with her eyes so fine, i am going to--marry--to-morrow. chorus "he is go-ing to-marry--to-morrow the maid with a heart full of sorrow; for her we are sorry for she weds to-morry- she is going to-marry--to-morrow." "gee!" added the idiot, enthusiastically, "can't you almost hear that already?" "i am sorry to say," said mr. brief, "that i can. you ought to call your heroine drivelina." "splendid!" cried the idiot. "drivelina goes. well, then, on comes drivelina, and this beast of a pirate grabs her by the hand and makes love to her as if he thought wooing was a game of snap-the-whip. she sings a soprano solo of protest, and the pirate summons his hirelings to cast drivelina into a donjuan cell, when boom! an american war-ship appears on the horizon. the crew, under the leadership of a man with a squeaky tenor voice, named lieutenant somebody or other, comes ashore, puts drivelina under the protection of the american flag, while his crew sing the following: "we are jackies, jackies, jackies, and we smoke the best tobaccys you can find from zanzibar to honeyloo. and we fight for uncle sammy, yes, indeed we do, for damme you can bet your life that that's the thing to do, doodle-do! you can bet your life that that's the thing to doodle--doodle--doodle--doodle-do." "eh! what?" demanded the idiot. "well--what yourself?" asked the lawyer. "this is your job. what next?" "well--the pirate gets lively, tries to assassinate the lieutenant, who kills half the natives with his sword, and is about to slay the pirate when he discovers that he is his long-lost father," said the idiot. "the heroine then sings a pathetic love-song about her baboon baby, in a green light to the accompaniment of a lot of pink satin monkeys banging cocoanut-shells together. this drowsy lullaby puts the lieutenant and his forces to sleep, and the curtain falls on their capture by the pirate and his followers, with the chorus singing: "hooray for the pirate bold, with his pockets full of gold; he's going to marry to-morrow. to-morrow he'll marry, yes, by the lord harry, he's go-ing--to-marry--to-mor-row! and that's a thing to doodle--doodle-doo." "there," said the idiot, after a pause. "how is that for a first act?" "it's about as lucid as most of them," said the poet, "but, after all, you have got a story there, and you said you didn't need one." "i said you didn't need one to start with," corrected the idiot. "and i've proved it. i didn't have that story in mind when i started. that's where the easiness of the thing comes in. why, i didn't even have to think of a name for the heroine. the inspiration for that popped right out of mr. brief's mouth as smoothly as though the name drivelina had been written on his heart for centuries. then the title--'the isle of piccolo'--that's a dandy, and i give you my word of honor, i'd never even thought of a title for the opera until that revealed itself like a flash from the blue; and as for the coon song, 'my baboon baby,' there's a chance there for a zanzibar act that will simply make richard wagner and reginald de koven writhe with jealousy. can't you imagine the lilt of it: "my bab-boon--ba-habee, my bab-boon--ba-habee- i love you dee-her-lee yes dee-hee-hee-er-lee. my baboon--ba-ha-bee, my baboon--ba-ha-bee, my baboon--ba-hay-hay-hay-hay-hay-hay-bee-bee." "and all those pink satin monkeys bumping their cocoanut-shells together in the green moonlight--" "well, after the first act, what?" asked the bibliomaniac. "the usual intermission," said the idiot. "you don't have to write that. the audience generally knows what to do." "but your second act?" asked the poet. "oh, come off," said the idiot, rising. "we were to do this thing in collaboration. so far, i've done the whole blooming business. i'll leave the second act to you. when you collaborate, mr. poet, you've got to do a little colabbing on your own account. what did you think you were to do--collect the royalties?" "i'm told," said the lawyer, "that that is sometimes the hardest thing to do in a comic opera." "well, i'll be self-sacrificing," said the idiot, "and bear my full share of it." "it seems to me," said the bibliomaniac, "that that opera produced in the right place might stand a chance of a run." "thank you," said the idiot. "after all, mr. bib, you are a man of some penetration. how long a run?" "one consecutive night," said the bibliomaniac. "ah--and where?" demanded the idiot, with a smile. "at bloomingdale," answered the bibliomaniac, severely. "that's a very good idea," said the idiot. "when you go back there, mr. bib, i wish you'd suggest it to the superintendent." vi he discusses fame "mr. poet," said the idiot, the other morning as his friend, the rhymster, took his place beside him at the breakfast-table, "tell me: how long have you been writing poetry?" "oh, i don't know," said the poet, modestly. "i don't know that i've ever written any. i've turned out a lot of rhymes in my day, and have managed to make a fair living with them, but poetry is a different thing. the divine afflatus doesn't come to every one, you know; and i doubt if anybody will be able to say whether my work has shown an occasional touch of inspiration, or not until i have been dead fifty or a hundred years." "tut!" exclaimed the idiot. "that's all nonsense. i am able to say now whether or not your work shows the occasional touch of inspiration. it does. in fact, it shows more than that. it shows a semi-occasional touch of inspiration. how long have you been in the business?" "eighteen years," sighed the poet. "i began when i was twelve with a limerick. as i remember the thing, it went like this: "there was a young man of cohasset turned on the red-hot water-faucet. when asked: 'is it hot?' he answered, 'well, thot is a pretty mild way for to class it.'" "good!" said the idiot. "that wasn't a bad beginning for a boy of twelve." "so my family thought," said the poet. "my mother sent it to the under the evening lamp department of our town paper, and three weeks later i was launched. i've had the _cacoethes scribendi_ ever since--but, alas! i got more fame in that brief hour of success than i have ever been able to win since. it is a mighty hard job, mr. idiot, making a name for yourself these days." "that's the point i was getting at," said the idiot, "and i wanted to have a talk with you on the subject. i've read a lot of your stuff in the past eight or ten years, and, in my humble judgment, it is better than any of that rhymed nonsense of henry wintergreen boggs, whose name appears in the newspapers every day in the year; of susan aldershot spinks, whose portrait is almost as common an occurrence in the papers as that of lydia squinkham; of circumflex jones, the eminent sweet-singer of arizona; or of henderson hartley macfadd, the canadian browning, of whom the world is constantly hearing so much. i have wondered if you were going about it in the right way. what is your plan for winning fame?" "oh, i keep plodding away, doing the best i can all the while," said the poet. "if there's any good in my stuff, or any stuff in my goods, i'll get my reward some day." "fifty or a hundred years after you're dead, eh?" said the idiot. "yes," smiled the poet. "well--your board-bills won't be high then, anyhow," said the idiot. "that's one satisfaction, i presume. they tell me homer hasn't eaten a thing for over twenty centuries. seems to me, though, that if i were a poet i'd go in for a little fame while i was alive. it's all very nice to work the skin off your knuckles, and to twist your gray matter inside out until it crocks and fades, so that your great-grandchildren can swell around the country sporting a name that has become a household word, but i'm blessed if i care for that sort of thing. i don't believe in storing up caramels for some twenty-first-century baby that bears my name to cut his teeth on, when i have a sweet tooth of my own that is pining away for the lack of nourishment; and, if i were you, i'd go in for the new method. what if browning and tennyson and longfellow and poe did have to labor for years to win the laurel crown, that's no reason why you should do it. you might just as well reason that because your forefathers went from one city to another in a stage-coach you should eschew railways." "i quite agree with you," replied the poet. "but in literature there is no royal road to fame that i know of." "what!" cried the idiot. "no royal road to fame in letters! why, where have you been living all these years, mr. poet? this is the age of the get fame-quick scheme. you can make a reputation in five minutes, if you only know the ropes. i know of at least two department stores where you can go and buy all you want of it, and in all its grades--from notoriety down to the straight goods." "fame? at a department store!" put in mr. whitechoker, incredulously. "certainly," said the idiot. "ready-made laurels on demand. why not? it's the easiest thing in the world. fact is, between you and me, i am considering a plan now for the promoting of a corporation to be called the united states fame company, limited, the main purpose of which shall be to earn money for its stockholders by making its customers famous at so much per head. it won't make any difference whether the customer wishes to be famous as an actor, a novelist, or a poet, or any other old thing. we'll turn the trick for him, and guarantee him more than a taste of immortality." "you may put me down for four dollars' worth of notoriety," said mr. brief, with a laugh. "all right," said the idiot, dryly. "there's a lot in your profession who like the cheap sort. but i warn you in advance that if you go in for cheap notoriety, you'll find it a pretty hard job getting anybody to sell you any eighteen-karat distinction later." "well," said the poet, "i don't know that i can promise to be one of your customers until i know something of the quality of the fame you have to sell. tell me of somebody you've made a name for, and i'll take the matter into consideration if i like the style of laurel you have placed on his brow." "lean over here and i'll whisper," said the idiot. "i don't mind telling you, but i don't believe in giving away the secrets of the trade to the rest of these gentlemen." the poet did as he was bade, and the idiot whispered a certain great name in his ear. "no!" cried the poet, incredulously. "yes, sir. fact!" said the idiot. "he was made famous in a night. the first thing we did was to get him to elongate his signature. he was writing as--p. k. dubbins we'll call him, for the sake of the argument. now a name like that couldn't be made great under any circumstances whatsoever, so we made him write it out in full: philander kenilworth dubbins--regular broadside, you see. p. k. dubbins was a pop-shot, but philander kenilworth dubbins spreads out like a dum-dum bullet or hits you like a blast from a gatling gun. printed, it takes up a whole line of a newspaper column; put at the top of an advertisement, it strikes the eye with the convincing force of a circus-poster. you can't help seeing it, and it makes, when spoken, a mouthful that is nothing short of impressive and sonorous." "still," suggested mr. brief, with a wink at the bibliomaniac, "you have only multiplied your difficulties by three. if it was hard for your friend dubbins to make one name famous, i can't see that he improves matters by trying to make three names famous." "on the modern business principle that to accomplish anything you must work on a large scale," said the idiot. "philander kenilworth dubbins was a better proposition than p. k. dubbins. the difference between them in the mere matter of potentialities is the difference between a corner grocery and a department store, or a kite with a tail and one without. well, having created the name, the next thing to do was to exploit it, and we advertised dubbins for all there was in him. we got mr. william jones brickbat, the eminent novelist, to say that he had read dubbins's poems, and had not yet died; we got edward pinkham, the author of "the man with the watering-pot," to send us a type-written letter, saying that dubbins was a coming man, and that his latest book, _howls from helicon_, contained many inspired lines. but, best of all, we prevailed upon the manufacturers of celluloid soap to print a testimonial from dubbins himself, saying that there was no other soap like it in the market. that brought his name prominently before every magazine-reader in the country, because the celluloid-soap people are among the biggest advertisers of the day, and everywhere that soap ad went, why, dubbins's testimonial went also, as faithfully as mary's little lamb. after that we paid a shirt-making concern down-town to put out a new collar called "the helicon," which they advertised widely with a picture of dubbins's head sticking up out of the middle of it; and, finally, as a crowning achievement, we leased dubbins for a year to a five-cent cigar company, who have placarded the fences, barns, and chicken-coops from maine to california with the name of dubbins--'flora dubbins: the best five-cent smoke in the market.'" "and thus you made the name of dubbins famous in letters!" sneered the doctor. "that was only the preliminary canter," replied the idiot. "so far, dubbins's greatness was confined to fences, barns, chicken-coops, and the advertising columns of the magazines. the next thing was to get him written up in the newspapers. that sort of thing can't be bought, but you can acquire it by subtlety. plan one was to make an after-dinner speaker out of dubbins. this was easy. there are a million public dinners every year, but a limited supply of good speakers; so, with a little effort, we got dubbins on five toast-cards, hired a humorist out in wisconsin to write five breezy speeches for him, dubbins committed them to memory, and they went off like hot-cakes. morning papers would come out with dubbins's picture printed in between that of bishop potter and a member of the cabinet, who also spoke. copies of dubbins's speeches were handed to the reporters before the dinner began, so that it didn't make any difference whether dubbins spoke them or not--the papers had 'em next morning just the same, and inside of six months you couldn't read an account of any public banquet without running up against the name of philander kenilworth dubbins." "well, i declare!" ejaculated mr. whitechoker. "what a strange affair!" "then we got dubbins's publishers to take a hand," said the idiot. "they issued a monthly budget of gossip concerning their authors, which newspaper editors all over quoted in their interesting items of the day. from these paragraphs the public learned that dubbins wrote between 4 a.m. and breakfast-time; that dubbins never penned a line without having a tame rabbit, named romola, sitting alongside of his ink-pot; that dubbins got his ideas for his wonderful poem, 'the mystery of life,' from hearing a canary inadvertently whistle a bar of 'hiawatha;' that dubbins was the best-dressed author in the state of new york, affecting green plaid waistcoats, pink shirts, and red neckties; witty things that dubbins's boy had said about dubbins's work to dubbins himself were also spread all over the land, until finally philander kenilworth dubbins became a select series of household words in every town, city, and hamlet in the united states. and there he is to-day--a great man, bearing a great name, made for him by his friends. _howls from helicon_ is full of bad poems, but dubbins is a son of parnassus just the same. now we propose to do it for others. for five dollars down, mr. poet, i'll make you conspicuous; for ten, i'll make you notorious; for fifty, i'll make you famous; for a hundred, i'll give you immortality." "good!" cried the poet. "immortality for a hundred dollars is cheap. i'll take that." "you will?" said the idiot, joyfully. "put up your money." "all right," laughed the poet. "i'll pay--c. o. d." "another hundred gone!" moaned the idiot, as the party broke up and its members went their several ways. "i think it's abominable that this commercial spirit of the age should have affected even you poets. you ought to have gone into business, old man, and left the muses alone. you've got too good a head for poetry." vii on the decadence of april-fool's-day "i am sorry to observe," said the idiot, as he sat down at the breakfast-table yesterday morning, "that the good old customs of my youthful days are dying out by slow degrees, and the celebrations that once filled my childish soul with glee are no longer a part of the pleasures of the young. actually, mr. whitechoker, i got through the whole day yesterday without sitting on a single pin or smashing my toes against a brickbat hid beneath a hat. what on earth can be coming over the boys of the land that they no longer avail themselves of the privileges of the fool-tide?" "fool-tide's good," said mr. brief. "where did you get that?" "oh, i pried it out of my gray-matter 'way back in the last century," said the idiot. "it grew out of a simple little prank i played one april 1st upon an uncle of mine. i bored a hole in the middle of a pine log and filled it with powder. we had it that night on the hearth, and a moment later there wasn't any hearth. in talking the matter over later with my father and mother and the old gentleman, in order to turn the discussion into more genial channels, i asked why, if the yule-log was appropriate for the yule-tide, the fool-log wasn't appropriate for the fool-tide." "i hope you got the answer you deserved," said the bibliomaniac. "i did," sighed the idiot. "i got all there was coming to me--slippers, trunk-strap, hair-brush, and plain hand; but it was worth it. all the glories of vesuvius, etna, popocatepetl, and pelã©e rolled into one could never thereafter induce in me anything approaching that joyous sensation that i derived from the spectacle of that fool-log and that happy hearth soaring up through the chimney together, hand in hand, and taking with them such portions of the flues, andirons, and other articles of fireplace vertu as cared to join them in their upward flight." "you must have been a holy terror as a boy," said the doctor. "i should not have cared to live on your block." "oh, i wasn't so bad," observed the idiot. "i never was vicious or malicious in what i did. if i poured vitriol into the coffee-pot at breakfast my father and mother knew that i didn't do it to give pain to anybody. if i hid under my maiden aunt's bed and barked like a bull-dog after she had retired, dear old tabitha knew that it was all done in a spirit of pleasantry. when i glued my grandfather's new teeth together with stratina, that splendid old man was perfectly aware that i had no grudge i was trying thus to repay; and certainly the french teacher at school, when he sat down on an iron bear-trap i had set for him in his chair, never entertained the notion that there was the slightest animosity in my act." "by jingo!" cried the bibliomaniac. "i'd have spanked you good and hard if i'd been your mother." "don't you fret--she did it; that is, she did up to the time i was ten years old, and then she had such a shock she gave up corporeal punishment altogether," said the idiot. "had a shock, eh?" smiled the lawyer. "nearly killed you, i suppose, giving you what you deserved?" "no," said the idiot. "spanked me with a hair-brush without having removed a couple of excelsior torpedoes from my pistol-pocket. on the second whack i appeared to explode. poor woman! she didn't know i was loaded, and from that time on she was as afraid of me as most other women are of a gun." "i'd have turned you over to your father," said the bibliomaniac, indignantly. "she did," said the idiot, sadly. "i never used explosives again. in later years i took up the milder april-fool diversions, such as filling the mucilage-pot with ink and the ink-pot with mucilage; mixing the granulated sugar with white sand; putting powdered brick into the red-pepper pot; inserting kerosene-oil into the sweet-oil bottle, and little things like that. i squandered a whole dollar one april-fool's-day sending telegrams to my uncles and aunts, telling them to come and dine with us that night; and they all came, too, although my father and mother were dining out that evening, and--oh dear, april-fool's-day is not what it used to be. the boys and girls of the present generation are little old men and women with no pranks left in them. why, i don't believe that nine out of ten boys, who are about to enter college this spring, could rig up a successful tick-tack on a window to save their lives; and the joy of carrying a piece of twine across the sidewalk from a front-door knob to a lamp-post, hat-high, and then sitting back in the seclusion of a convenient area and watching the plug-hats of the people go down before it--that is a joy that seems to be wholly untasted of the present generation of infantile dignitaries that we call the youth of the land. what is the matter with 'em, do you suppose?" "i guess we're getting civilized," said mr. brief. "that seems to me to be the most likely explanation of this deplorable situation, as you appear to think it. for my part, i'm glad if what you say is true. of all rotten things in the world the practical jokes of april-fool's-day bear away the palm. there was a time, ten years ago, when i hardly dared eat anything on the first of april. i was afraid to find my coffee made of ink, my muffin stuffed with cotton, cod-liver oil in my salad-dressing, and mayonnaise in my cream-puffs. such tricks are the tricks of barbarians, and i shall rejoice when april 1st as a day of special privilege for idiots and savages has been removed from the calendar." "i am afraid," said mr. whitechoker, "that i, too, must join the ranks of those who rejoice if the old-time customs of the day are now honored more in the breach than in the observance. ever since that unhappy sunday morning some years ago when somebody substituted a breakfast bill-of-fare for the card containing the notes for my sermon, i have mistrusted the humor of the april-fool joke. instead of my text, as i glanced at what i supposed was my note-card, my eyes fell upon the statement that fruit taken from the table would be charged for; instead of my firstly, secondly, thirdly, and fourthly, my eyes were confronted by fish, eggs, hot bread, and to order. and, finally, in place of the key-line of my peroration, what should obtrude itself upon my vision but that coarse and vulgar legend: corkage, one dollar. i never found out who did it, and, as a christian man, i hope i never shall, for i should much deprecate the spirit of animosity with which i should inevitably regard the person who had so offended." "i'll bet you preached a bully good sermon, allee samee," said the idiot. "well," smiled mr. whitechoker, "the congregation did seem to think that it held more fire than usual; but i can assure you, my young friend, it was more the fire of external wrath than of an inward spiritual grace." "well," said the bibliomaniac, "we ought to be thankful the old tricks are going out. as mr. brief suggests, we are beginning to be civilized--" "i don't think it's civilization," said the idiot. "i think the kids are just discouraged, that's all. they're clever, these youngsters, but when it comes to putting up games, they're not in it with their far more foxy fathers. what's the use of playing april-fool jokes on your daddy, when your daddy is playing april-fool jokes on the public all the year round? that's the way they reason. no son of george w. midas, the financier, is going to get any satisfaction out of handing his father a loaded cigar, when he knows that the old man is handling that sort of thing every day in his business as a promoter of the united states hot air company. what fun is there in giving your sister a caramel filled with tabasco-sauce when you can watch your father selling eleven dollars' worth of amalgamated licorice stock to the dear public for forty-seven fifty? the gum-drop filled with cotton loses its charm when you contrast it with consolidated radium containing one part of radium and ninety-nine parts of water. who cares to hide a clay brick under a hat for somebody to kick, when there are concerns in palatial offices all over town selling gold bricks to a public that doesn't seem to have any kick left in it? i tell you it has discouraged the kid to see to what scientific heights the april-fool industry has been developed, and as a result he has abandoned the field. he knows he can't compete." "that's all right as an explanation of the youngster whose parent is engaged in that sort of business," said the doctor. "but there are others." "true," said the idiot. "the others stay out of it out of sheer pity. when they are tempted to sew up the legs of their daddy's trousers in order to fitly celebrate the day, or to fill his collar-box with collars five sizes too small for him, they say, 'no. let us refrain. the governor has had trouble enough with his international yukon anticipated brass shares this year. he's had all the fooling he can stand. we will give the old gentleman a rest!' fact is, come to look at it, the decadence of april 1st as a day of foolery for the young is no mystery, after all. the youngsters are not more civilized than we used to be, but they have had the intelligence to perceive the exact truth of the situation." "which is?" asked mr. brief. "that the ancient art of practical joking has become a business. april-fool's-day has been incorporated by the leading financiers of the age, and is doing a profitable trade all over the world all the year round. private enterprise is simply unable to compete." "i am rather surprised, nevertheless," said mr. brief, "that you yourself have abandoned the field. you are just the sort of person who would keep on in that kind of thing, despite the discouragements." "oh, i haven't abandoned the field," said the idiot. "i did play an april-fool joke last friday." "what was that?" asked mr. whitechoker, interested. "i told mrs. pedagog that i would pay my bill to-morrow," replied the idiot, as he rose from the table and left the room. viii spring and its poetry "well, mr. idiot," said mrs. pedagog, genially, as the idiot entered the breakfast-room, "what can i do for you this fine spring morning? will you have tea or coffee?" "i think i'd like a cup of boiled iron, with two lumps of quinine and a spoonful of condensed nerve-milk in it," replied the idiot, wearily. "somehow or other i have managed to mislay my spine this morning. ethereal mildness has taken the place of my backbone." "those tired feelings, eh?" said mr. brief. "yeppy," replied the idiot. "regular thing with me. every year along about the middle of april i have to fasten a poker on my back with straps, in order to stand up straight; and as for my knees--well, i never know where they are in the merry, merry spring-time. i'm quite sure that if i didn't wear brass caps on them my legs would bend backward. i wonder if this neighborhood is malarious." "not in the slightest degree," observed the doctor. "this is the healthiest neighborhood in town. the trouble with you is that you have a swampy mind, and it is the miasmatic oozings of your intellect that reduce you to the condition of physical flabbiness of which you complain. you might swallow the united states steel trust, and it wouldn't help you a bit, and ten thousand bottles of nerve-milk, or any other tonic known to science, would be powerless to reach the seat of your disorder. what you need to stiffen you up is a pair of those armored trousers the crusaders used to wear in the days of chivalry, to bolster up your legs, and a strait-jacket to keep your back up." "thank you, kindly," said the idiot. "if you'll give me a prescription, which i can have made up at your tailor's, i'll have it filled, unless you'll add to my ever-increasing obligation to you by lending me your own strait-jacket. i promise to keep it straight and to return it the moment you feel one of your fits coming on." the doctor's response was merely a scornful gesture, and the idiot went on: "it's always seemed a very queer thing to me that this season of the year should be so popular with everybody," he said. "to me it's the mushiest of times. mushy bones; mushy poetry; mush for breakfast, fried, stewed, and boiled. the roads are mushy; lovers thaw out and get mushier than ever. "in the spring the blasts of winter all are stilled in solemn hush. in the spring the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of mush. in the spring--" "you ought to be ashamed of yourself to trifle with so beautiful a poem," interrupted the bibliomaniac, indignantly. "who's trifling with a beautiful poem?" demanded the idiot. "you are--'locksley hall'--and you know it," retorted the bibliomaniac. "locksley nothing," said the idiot. "what i was reciting is not from 'locksley hall' at all. it's a little thing of my own that i wrote six years ago called 'spring unsprung.' it may not contain much delicate sentiment, but it's got more solid information in it of a valuable kind than you'll find in ten 'locksley halls' or a dozen etiquette columns in the _lady's away from home magazine_. it has saved a lot of people from pneumonia and other disorders of early spring, i am quite certain, and the only person i ever heard criticise it unfavorably was a doctor i know who said it spoiled his business." "i should admire to hear it," said the poet. "can't you let us have it?" "certainly," replied the idiot. "it goes on like this: "in the spring i'll take you driving, take you driving, maudy dear, but i beg of you be careful at this season of the year. it is true the birds are singing, singing sweetly all their notes, but you'll later find them wearing canton-flannel 'round their throats. it is true the lark doth warble, 'spring is here,' with bird-like fire, 'all is warmth and all is genial,' but i fear the lark's a liar. all is warmth for fifteen minutes, that is true; but wait awhile, and you'll find that april's weather has not ever changed its style; and beware of april's weather, it is pleasant for a spell, but, like little johnny's future, you can't always sometimes tell. often modest little violets, peeping up from out their beds in the balmy morn by night-time have bad colds within their heads; and the buttercup and daisy twinkling gayly on the lawn, sing by night a different story from their carollings at dawn; and the blossoms of the morning, hailing spring with joyous frenzy, when the twilight falls upon them often droop with influenzy. so, dear maudy, when we're driving, put your linen duster on, and your lovely easter bonnet, if you wish to, you may don; but be careful to have with you sundry garments warm and thick: woollen gloves, a muff, and ear-tabs, from the ice-box get the pick; there's no telling what may happen ere we've driven twenty miles, april flirts with chill december, and is full of other wiles. bring your parasol, o maudy--it is good for _tãªte-ã -tãªtes_; at the same time you would better also bring your hockey skates. there's no telling from the noon-tide, with the sun a-shining bright, just what kind of winter weather we'll be up against by night." "referring to the advice," said mr. brief, "that's good. i don't think much of the poetry." "there was a lot more of it," said the idiot, "but it escapes me at the moment. four lines i do remember, however: "pin no faith to weather prophets--all their prophecies are fakes, roulette-wheels are plain and simple to the notions april takes. keep your children in the nursery--never mind it if they pout- and, above all, do not let your furnace take an evening out." "well," said the poet, "if you're going to the poets for advice, i presume your rhymes are all right. but i don't think it is the mission of the poet to teach people common-sense." "that's the trouble with the whole tribe of poets," said the idiot. "they think they are licensed to do and say all sorts of things that other people can't do and say. in a way i agree with you that a poem shouldn't necessarily be a treatise on etiquette or a sequence of health hints, but it should avoid misleading its readers. take that fellow who wrote "'sweet primrose time! when thou art here i go by grassy ledges of long lane-side, and pasture mead, and moss-entangled hedges.' that's very lovely, and, as far as it goes, it is all right. there's no harm in doing what the poet so delicately suggests, but i think there should have been other stanzas for the protection of the reader like this: "but have a care, oh, readers fair, to take your mackintoshes, and on your feet be sure to wear a pair of stanch galoshes. "nor should you fail when seeking out the primrose, golden yeller, to have at hand somewhere about a competent umbrella. thousands of people are inspired by lines like the original to go gallivanting all over the country in primrose time, to return at dewy eve with all the incipient symptoms of pneumonia. then there's the case of wordsworth. he was one of the loveliest of the nature poets, but he's eternally advising people to go out in the early spring and lie on the grass somewhere, listening to cuckoos doing their cooking, watching the daffodils at their daily dill, and hearing the crocus cuss; and some sentimental reader out in new jersey thinks that if wordsworth could do that sort of thing, and live to be eighty years old, there's no reason why he shouldn't do the same thing. what's the result? he lies on the grass for two hours and suffers from rheumatism for the next ten years." "tut!" said the poet. "i am surprised at you. you can't blame wordsworth because some new jerseyman makes a jackass of himself." "in a way all writers should be responsible for the effect of what they write on their readers," said the idiot. "when a poet of wordsworth's eminence, directly or indirectly, advises people to go out and lie on the grass in early spring, he owes it to his public to caution them that in some localities it is not a good thing to do. a rhymed foot-note- "this habit, by-the-way, is good in climes south of the mersey; but, i would have it understood, it's risky in new jersey-would fulfil all the requirements of the special individual to whom i have referred, and would have shown that the poet himself was ever mindful of the welfare of his readers." the poet was apparently unconvinced, so the idiot continued: "mind you, old man, i think all this poetry is beautiful," he said; "but you poets are too prone to confine your attention to the pleasant aspects of the season. here, for instance, is a poet who asks 'what are the dearest treasures of spring?' and then goes on to name the cheapest as an answer to his question. the primrose, the daffodil, the rosy haze that veils the forest bare, the sparkle of the myriad-dimpled sea, a kissing-match between the sunbeams and the rain-drops, reluctant hopes, the twitter of swallows on the wing, and all that sort of thing. you'd think spring was an iridescent dream of ecstatic things; but of the tired feeling that comes over you, the spine of jelly, the wabbling knee, the chills and fever that come from sniffing 'the scented breath of dewy april's eve,' the doctor's bills, and such like things are never mentioned. it isn't fair. it's all right to tell about the other things, but don't forget the drawbacks. if i were writing that poem i'd have at least two stanzas like this: "and other dearest treasures of spring are daily draughts of withering, blithering squills, to cure my aching bones of darksome chills; and at the door my loved physician's ring; "the tender sneezes of the early day; the sudden drop of mr. mercury; the veering winds from s. to n. by e.- and hunting flats to move to in the may. you see, that makes not only a more comprehensive picture, but does not mislead anybody into the belief the spring is all velvet, which it isn't by any means." "oh, bosh!" cried the poet, very much nettled, as he rose from the table. "i suppose if you had your way you'd have all poetry submitted first to a censor, the way they do with plays in london." "no, i wouldn't have a censor; he'd only increase taxes unnecessarily," said the idiot, folding up his napkin, and also rising to leave. "i'd just let the board of health pass on them; it isn't a question of morals so much as of sanitation." ix on flat-hunting "aha!" cried the poet, briskly rubbing his hands together, and drawing a deep breath of satisfaction, "these be great days for people who are fond of the chase, who love the open, and who would commune with nature in her most lovely mood. just look out of that window, mr. idiot, and drink in the joyous sunshine. egad! sir, even the asphalted pavement and the brick-and-mortar faã§ade of the houses opposite, bathed in that golden light, seem glorified." "thanks," said the idiot, wearily, "but i guess i won't. i'm afraid that while i was drinking in those glorified flats opposite and digesting the golden-mellow asphalt, you would fasten that poetic grip of yours upon my share of the blossoming buckwheats. furthermore, i've been enjoying the chase for two weeks now, and, to tell you the honest truth, i am long on it. there is such a thing as chasing too much, so if you don't mind i'll sublet my part of the contract for gazing out of the window at gilt-edged nature as she appears in the city to you. mary, move mr. poet's chair over to the window so that he may drink in the sunshine comfortably, and pass his share of the sausages to me." "what have you been chasing, mr. idiot?" asked the doctor. "birds or the fast-flitting dollar?" "flats," said the idiot. "i didn't know you wall street people needed to hunt flats," said the bibliomaniac. "i thought they just walked into your offices and presented themselves for skinning." "i don't mean the flats we live on," explained the idiot. "it's the flats we live in that i have been after." the landlady looked up inquiringly. mr. idiot's announcement sounded ominous. "to my mind, flat-hunting," the idiot continued, "is one of the most interesting branches of sport. it involves quite as much uncertainty as the pursuit of the whirring partridge; your game is quite as difficult to lure as the speckled trout darting hither and yon in the grassy pool; it involves no shedding of innocent blood, as in the case of a ride across-country with a pack in full pursuit of the fox; and strikes me as possessing greater dignity than running forty miles through the cabbage-patches of long island in search of a bag of ainse seed. when the sporting instinct arises in my soul and reaches that full-tide where nothing short of action will hold it in control, i never think of starting for maine to shoot the festive moose, nor do i squander my limited resources on a foggy hunt for the elusive canvasback in the maryland marshes. i just go to the nearest cab-stand, strike a bargain with mr. jehu for an afternoon's use of his hansom, and go around the town hunting flats. it requires very little previous preparation; it involves no prolonged absences from home; you do not need rubber boots unless you propose to investigate the cellars or intend to go far afield into the suburban boroughs of this great city; and is in all ways pleasant, interesting, and, i may say, educational." "educational, eh?" laughed the bibliomaniac. "some people have queer ideas of what is educational. i must say i fail to see anything particularly instructive in flat-hunting." "that's because you never approached it in a proper spirit," said the idiot. "anybody who is at all interested in sociology, however, cannot help but find instruction in a contemplation of how people are housed. you can't get any idea of how the other halves live by reading the society news in the sunday newspapers or peeping in at the second story of the tenement-houses as you go down-town on the elevated railroads. you've got to go out and investigate for yourself, and that's where flat-hunting comes in as an educational diversion. of course, all men are not interested in the same line of investigation. you, as a bibliomaniac, prefer to go hunting rare first editions; dr. pellet, armed to the teeth with capsules, lies in wait for a pot-shot at some new kind of human ailment, and rejoices as loudly over the discovery of a new disease as you do over finding a copy of the rare first edition of the _telephone book for 1899_; another man goes to africa to investigate the condition of our gorillan cousin of the jungle; lieutenant peary goes and hides behind a snow-ball up north, so that his fellows of the arctic exploration society may have something to look for every other summer; and i--i go hunting for flats. i don't sneer at you and the others for liking the things you do. you shouldn't sneer at me for liking the things i do. it is, after all, the diversity of our tastes that makes our human race interesting." "but the rest of us generally bag something," said the lawyer. "what the dickens do you get beyond sheer physical weariness for your pains?" "the best of all the prizes of the hunt," said the idiot; "the spirit of content with my lot as a boarder. i've been through twenty-eight flats in the last three weeks, and i know whereof i speak. i have seen the gorgeous apartments of the redmere, where you can get a louis quinze drawing-room, a renaissance library, a superb grecian dining-room, and a cold-storage box to keep your high-balls in for four thousand dollars per annum." "weren't there any bedrooms?" asked mr. whitechoker. "oh yes," said the idiot. "three, automatically ventilated from holes in the ceiling leading to an air-shaft, size six by nine, and brilliantly lighted by electricity. there was also a small pigeon-hole in a corrugated iron shack on the roof for the cook; a laundry next to the coal-bin in the cellar; and a kitchen about four feet square connecting with the library." "mercy!" cried mrs. pedagog. "do they expect children to live in such a place as that?" "no," said the idiot. "you have to give bonds as security against children of any kind at the redmere. if you happen to have any, you are required by the terms of your lease to send them to boarding-school; and if you haven't any, the lease requires that you shall promise to have none during your tenancy. the owners of such properties have a lot of heart about them, and they take good care to protect the children against the apartments they put up." "and what kind of people, pray, live in such places as that?" demanded the bibliomaniac. "very nice people," said the idiot. "people, for the most part, who spend their winters at palm beach, their springs in london, their summers at newport or on the continent, and their autumns in the berkshires." "i don't see why they need a home at all if that's the way they do," said mrs. pedagog. "it's very simple," said the idiot. "you've got to have an address to get your name in the _social register_." "four thousand dollars is pretty steep for an address," commented the bibliomaniac. "it would be for me," said the idiot. "but it is cheap for them. moreover, in the case of the redmere it's the swellest address in town. three of the most important divorces of the last social season took place at the redmere. social position comes high, mr. bib, but there are people who must have it. it is to them what baked beans are to the bostonian's sunday breakfast--a _sine qua non_." "may i ask whatever induced you to look for a four-thousand-dollar apartment?" asked mr. pedagog. "you have frequently stated that your income barely equalled twenty-four hundred dollars a year." "why shouldn't i?" asked the idiot. "it doesn't cost any more to look for a four-thousand-dollar apartment than it does to go chasing after a two-dollar-a-week hall-bedroom, and it impresses the cab-driver with a sense of responsibility. but bagging these gorgeous apartments does not constitute the real joy of flat-hunting. for solid satisfaction and real sport the chase for a fifteen-hundred-dollar apartment in a decent neighborhood bears away the palm. you can get plenty of roomy suites in the neighborhood of a boiler-factory, or next door to a distillery, or back of a fire-engine house, at reasonable rents, and along the elevated railway lines much that is impressive is to be found by those who can sleep with trains running alongside of their pillows all night; but when you get away from these, the real thing at that figure is elusive. over by the park you can get two pigeon-holes and a bath, with a southern exposure, for nineteen hundred dollars a year; if you are willing to dispense with the southern exposure you can get three black holes of calcutta and a butler's pantry, in the same neighborhood, for sixteen hundred dollars, but you have to provide your own air. farther down-town you will occasionally find the thing you want with a few extras in the shape of cornet-players, pianola-bangers, and peroxide sopranos on either side of you, and an osteopathic veterinary surgeon on the ground floor thrown in. then there are paper flats that can be had for twelve hundred dollars, but you can't have any pictures in them, because the walls won't stand the weight, and any nail of reasonable length would stick through into the next apartment. a friend of mine lived in one of these affairs once, and when he inadvertently leaned against the wall one night he fell through into his neighbor's bath-tub. of course, that sort of thing promotes sociability; but for a home most people want just a little privacy. and so the list runs on. you would really be astonished at the great variety of discomfortable dwelling-places that people build. such high-art decorations as you encounter--purple friezes surmounting yellow dadoes; dragons peeping out of fruit-baskets; idealized tomatoes in full bloom chasing one another all around the bedroom walls. then the architectural inconveniences they present with their best bedrooms opening into the kitchen; their parlors with marble wash-stands with running water in the corner; their libraries fitted up with marvellous steam-radiators and china-closets, and their kitchens so small that the fire in the range scorches the wall opposite, and over which nothing but an asbestos cook, with a figure like a third rail, could preside. and, best of all, there are the janitors! why, mr. bib, the study of the janitor and his habits alone is worthy of the life-long attention of the best entomologist that ever lived--and yet you say there is nothing educational in flat-hunting." "oh, well," said the bibliomaniac, "i meant for me. there are a lot of things that would be educational to you that i should regard as symptomatic of profound ignorance. everything is relative in this world." "that is true," said the idiot; "and that is why every april 1st i go out and gloat over the miseries of the flat-dwellers. as long as i can do that i am happy in my little cubby-hole under mrs. pedagog's hospitable roof." "ah! i am glad to hear you say that," said mrs. pedagog. "i was a bit fearful, mr. idiot, that you had it in mind to move away from us." "no indeed, mrs. pedagog," replied the idiot, rising from the table. "you need have no fear of that. you couldn't get me out of here with a crow-bar. if i did not have entire confidence in your lovely house and yourself, you don't suppose i would permit myself to get three months behind in my board, do you?" x the housemaid's union "potatoes, sir?" said mary, the waitress at mrs. smithers-pedagog's high-class home for single gentlemen, stopping behind the idiot's chair and addressing the back of his neck in the usual boarding-house fashion. "yes, i want some potatoes, mary; but before i take them," the idiot replied, "i must first ascertain whether or not you wear the union label, and what is the exact status also of the potatoes. my principles are such that i cannot permit a non-union housemaid to help me to a scab potato, whereas, if you belong to the sisterhood, and our stewed friend murphy here has been raised upon a union farm, then, indeed, do i wish not only one potato but many." mary's reply was a giggle. "ah!" said the idiot. "the merry ha-ha, eh? all right, mary. that is for the present sufficient evidence that your conscience is clear on this very important matter. as for the potatoes, we will eat them not exactly under protest, but with a distinctly announced proviso in advance that we assume that they have qualified themselves for admission into a union stomach. i hesitate to think of what will happen in my interior department if murphy is deceiving us." whereupon the idiot came into possession of a goodly portion of the stewed potatoes, and mary fled to the kitchen, where she informed the presiding genius of the range that the young gentleman was crazier than ever. "he's talkin' about the unions, now, bridget," said she. "is he agin 'em?" demanded bridget, with a glitter in her eye. "no, he's for 'em; he wouldn't even drink milk from a non-union cow," said mary. "he's a foine gintleman," said bridget. "oi'll make his waffles a soize larger." meanwhile the bibliomaniac had chosen to reflect seriously upon the idiot's intelligence for his approval of unions. "they are responsible for pretty nearly all the trouble there is at the present moment," he snapped out, angrily. "oh, go along with you," retorted the idiot. "the trouble we have these days, like all the rest of the troubles of the past, go right back to that old original non-union apple that eve ate and adam got the core of. you know that as well as i do. even adam and eve, untutored children of nature though they were, saw it right off, and organized a union on the spot, which has in the course of centuries proven the most beneficent institution of the ages. with all due respect to the character of this dwelling-place of ours--a home for single gentlemen--the union is the thing. if you don't belong to one you may be tremendously independent, but you're blooming lonesome." "the matrimonial union," smiled mrs. pedagog, "is indeed a blessed institution, and, having been married twice, i can testify from experience; but, truly, mr. idiot, i wish you wouldn't put notions into mary's head about the other kind. i should be sorry if she were to join that housemaid's union we hear so much about. i have trouble enough now with my domestic help without having a walking delegate on my hands as well." "no doubt," acquiesced the idiot. "in their beginnings all great movements have their inconveniences, but in the end, properly developed, a housemaid's union wouldn't be a bad thing for employers, and i rather think it might prove a good thing. suppose one of your servants misbehaves herself, for instance--i remember one occasion in this very house when it required the united efforts of yourself, mr. pedagog, three policemen, and your humble servant to effectively discharge a three-hundred-pound queen of the kitchen, who had looked not wisely but too often on the cooking sherry. now suppose that highly cultivated inebriate had belonged to a self-respecting union? you wouldn't have had to discharge her at all. a telephone message to the union headquarters, despatched while the lady was indulging in one of her tantrums, would have brought an inspector to the house, the queen would have been caught with the goods on, and her card would have been taken from her, so that by the mere automatic operation of the rules of her own organization she could no longer work for you. thus you would have been spared some highly seasoned language which i have for years tried to forget; mr. pedagog's eye would not have been punched so that you could not tell your blue-eyed boy from your black-eyed babe; i should never have lost the only really satisfactory red necktie i ever owned; and three sturdy policemen, one of whom had often previously acted as the lady's brother on her evenings at home, and the others, of whom we had reason to believe were cousins not many times removed, would not have been confronted by the ungrateful duty of clubbing one who had frequently fed them generously upon your cold mutton and my beer." "is that one of the things the union would do?" queried mrs. pedagog, brightening. "it is one of the things the union _should_ do," said the idiot. "similarly with your up-stairs girl, if perchance you have one. suppose she got into the habit, which i understand is not all an uncommon case, of sweeping the dust under the bureau of your bedroom or under the piano in the drawing-room. suppose she is really an adept in the art of dust concealment, having a full comprehension of all sixty methods--hiding it under tables, sofas, bookcases, and rugs, in order to save her back? you wouldn't have to bother with her at all under a properly equipped union. upon the discovery of her delinquencies you would merely have to send for the union inspector, lift up the rug and show her the various vintages of sweepings the maid has left there: november ashes; december match-ends; threads, needles, and pins left over from the february meeting of the ibsen sewing-circle at your house; your missing tortoise-shell hair-pin that you hadn't laid eyes on since september; the grocer's bill for october that you told the grocer you never received--all this in march. do you suppose that that inspector, with all this evidence before her eyes, could do otherwise than prefer charges against the offender at the next meeting of the committee on discipline? not on your life, madam. and, what is more, have you the slightest doubt that one word of reprimand from that same committee on discipline would prove far more effective in reforming that particular offender than anything you could say backed by the eloquence of burke and the thunderbolts of jove?" "you paint a beautiful picture," said the doctor. "but suppose you happened to draw a rotten cook in the domestic lottery--a good woman, but a regular scorcher. where does your inspector come in there? going to invite her to dine with you so as to demonstrate the girl's incompetence?" "not at all," said the idiot. "that would make trouble right away. the cook very properly would say that the inspector was influenced by the social attention she was receiving from the head of the house, and the woman's effectiveness as a disciplinarian would be immediately destroyed. i'd put half portions of the burned food in a sealed package and send it to the committee on culinary improvement for their inspection. a better method which time would probably bring into practice would be for the union itself to establish a system of domiciliary visits, by which the cook's work should be subjected to a constant inspection by the union--the object being, of course, to prevent trouble rather than to punish after the event. the inspector's position would be something like that of the bank examiner, who turns up at our financial institutions at unexpected moments, and sees that everything is going right." "oh, bosh!" said the doctor. "you are talking of ideals." "certainly i am," returned the idiot. "why shouldn't i? what's the use of wasting one's breath on anything else?" "well, it's all rot!" put in mr. brief. "there never was any such union as that, and there never will be." "you are the last person in the world to say a thing like that, mr. brief," said the idiot--"you, who belong to the nearest approach to the ideal union that the world has ever known!" "what! me?" demanded the lawyer. "me? i belong to a union?" "of course you do--or at least you told me you did," said the idiot. "well, you are the worst!" retorted mr. brief, angrily. "when did i ever tell you that i belonged to a union?" "last friday night at dinner, and in the presence of this goodly company," said the idiot. "you were bragging about it, too--said that no institution in existence had done more to uplift the moral tone of the legal profession; that through its efforts the corrupt practitioner and the shyster were gradually being driven to the wall--" "well, this beats me," said mr. brief. "i recall telling at dinner on friday night about the bar association--" "precisely," said the idiot. "that's what i referred to. if the bar association isn't a lawyer's union number six of the highest type, i don't know what is. it is conducted by the most brilliant minds in the profession; its honors are eagerly sought after by the brainiest laborers in the field of coke and blackstone; its stern, relentless eye is fixed upon the evil-doer, and it is an effective instrument for reform not only in its own profession, but in the state as well. what i would have the housemaid's union do for domestic servants and for the home, the bar association does for the legal profession and for the state, and if the lawyers can do this thing there is no earthly reason why the housemaids shouldn't." "pah!" ejaculated mr. brief. "you place the bar and domestic service on the same plane of importance, do you?" "no, i don't," said the idiot. "shouldn't think of doing so. twenty people need housemaids, where one requires a lawyer; therefore the domestic is the more important of the two." "humph!" said mr. brief, with an angry laugh. "intellectual qualifications, i suppose, go for nothing in the matter." "well, i don't know about that," said the idiot. "i guess, however, that there are more housemaids earning a living to-day than lawyers--and, besides--oh, well, never mind--what's the use? i don't wish to quarrel about it." "go on--don't mind me--i'm really interested to know what further you can say," snapped mr. brief. "besides--what?" "only this, that when it comes to the intellectuals--well, really, mr. brief," asked the idiot, "really now, did you ever hear of anybody going to an intelligence office for a lawyer?" mr. brief's reply was not inaudible, for just at that moment he swallowed his coffee the wrong way, and in the effort to bring him to, the thread of the argument snapped, and up to the hour of going to press had not been tied together again. xi the gentle art of boosting the idiot was very late at breakfast--so extremely late, in fact, that some apprehension was expressed by his fellow-boarders as to the state of his health. "i hope he isn't ill," said mr. whitechoker. "he is usually so prompt at his meals that i fear something is the matter with him." "he's all right," said the doctor, whose room adjoins that of the idiot in mrs. smithers-pedagog's select home for single gentlemen. "he'll be down in a minute. he's suffering from an overdose of vacation--rested too hard." just then the subject of the conversation appeared in the doorway, pale and haggard, but with an eye that boded ill for the larder. "quick!" he cried, as he entered. "lead me to a square meal. mary, please give me four bowls of mush, ten medium soft-boiled eggs, a barrel of saute potatoes, and eighteen dollars' worth of corned-beef hash. i'll have two pots of coffee, mrs. pedagog, please, four pounds of sugar, and a can of condensed milk. if there is any extra charge you may put it on the bill, and some day, when the common stock of the continental hen trust goes up thirty or forty points, i'll pay." "what's the matter with you, mr. idiot?" asked mr. brief. "been fasting for a week?" "no," replied the idiot. "i've just taken my first week's vacation, and, between you and me, i've come back to business so as to get rested for the second." "doesn't look as though vacation agreed with you," said the bibliomaniac. "it doesn't," said the idiot. "hereafter i am an advocate of the rest-while-you-work system. never take a day off if you can help it. there's nothing so restful as paying attention to business, and no greater promoter of weariness of spirit and vexation of your digestion than the modern style of vacating. no more for mine, if you please." "humph!" sneered the bibliomaniac. "i suppose you went to coney island to get rested up, bumping the bump and looping the loop, and doing a lot of other crazy things." "not i," quoth the idiot. "i didn't have sense enough to go to some quiet place like coney island, where you can get seven square meals a day, and then climb into a ferris-wheel and be twirled around in the air until they have been properly shaken down. i took one of the four hundred vacations. know what that is?" "no," said mr. brief. "i didn't know there were four hundred vacations with only three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. what do you mean?" "i mean the kind of vacation the people in the four hundred take," explained the idiot. "i've been to a house-party up in newport with some friends of mine who're 'in the swim,' and i tell you it's hard swimming. you'll never hear me talking about a leisure class in this country again. those people don't know what leisure is. i don't wonder they're always such a tired-looking lot." "i was not aware that you were in with the smart set," said the bibliomaniac. "oh yes," said the idiot. "i'm in with several of 'em--'way in; so far in that i'm sometimes afraid i'll never get out. we're carrying a whole lot of wild-cats on margin for billie van gelder, the cotillon leader. tommy de cahoots, the famous yachtsman, owes us about eight thousand dollars more than he can spare from his living expenses on one of his plunges into copper, and altogether we are pretty long on swells in our office." "and do you mean to say those people invite you out?" asked the bibliomaniac. "all the time," said the idiot. "just as soon as one of our swell customers finds he can't pay his margins he comes down to the office and gets very chummy with all of us. the deeper he is in it the more affable he becomes. the result is there are house-parties and yacht-cruises and all that sort of thing galore on tap for us every summer." "and you accept them, eh?" said the bibliomaniac, scornfully. "as a matter of business, of course," replied the idiot. "we've got to get something out of it. if one of our customers can't pay cash, why, we get what we can. in this particular case mr. reginald squandercash had me down at newport for five full days, and i know now why he can't pay up his little shortage of eight hundred dollars. he's got the money, but he needs it for other things, and, now that i know it, i shall recommend the firm to give him an extension of thirty days. by that time he will have collected from the de boodles, whom he is launching in society, c. o. d., and will be able to square matters with us." "your conversation is greek to me," said the bibliomaniac. "who are the de boodles, and for what do they owe your friend reginald squandercash money?" "the de boodles," explained the idiot, "are what are known as climbers, and reginald squandercash is a booster." "a what?" cried the bibliomaniac. "a booster," said the idiot. "there are several boosters in the four hundred. for a consideration they will boost wealthy climbers into society. the climbers are people like the de boodles, who have suddenly come into great wealth, and who wish to be in it with others of great wealth who are also of high social position. they don't know how to do the trick, so they seek out some booster like reggie, strike a bargain with him, and he steers 'em up against the 'among-those-present' game until finally you find the de boodles have a social cinch." "do you mean to say that society tolerates such a business as that?" demanded the bibliomaniac. "tolerates?" laughed the idiot. "what a word to use! tolerate? why, society encourages, because society shares the benefits. take this especial vacation of mine. society had two five-o'clock teas, four of the swellest dinners you ever sat down to, a cotillon where the favors were of solid silver and real ostrich feathers, a whole day's clam-bake on reggie's steam-yacht, with automobile-runs and coaching-trips galore. nobody ever declines one of reggie's invitations, because what he has from a society point of view is the best the market affords. why, the floral decorations alone at the _fãªte champãªtre_ he gave in honor of the de boodles at his villa last thursday night must have cost five thousand dollars, and everything was on the same scale. i don't believe a cent less than seventy-five hundred dollars was burned up in the fire-works, and every lady present received a souvenir of the occasion that cost at least one hundred dollars." "your story doesn't quite hold together," said mr. brief. "if your friend reggie has a villa and a steam-yacht, and automobiles and coaches, and gives _fãªtes champãªtres_ that cost fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, i don't see why he has to make himself a booster of inferior people who want to get into society. what does he gain by it? it surely isn't sport to do a thing like that, and i should think he'd find it a dreadful bore." "the man must live," said the idiot. "he boosts for a living." "when he has the wealth of monte cristo at his command?" demanded mr. brief. "reggie hasn't a cent to his name," said the idiot. "i've already told you he owes us eight hundred dollars he can't pay." "then who in thunder pays for the villa and the lot and all those hundred-dollar souvenirs?" asked the doctor. "why, this year, the de boodles," said the idiot. "last year it was colonel and mrs. moneybags, whose daughter, miss fayette moneybags, is now clinching the position reggie sold her at newport over in london, whither reggie has consigned her to his sister, an impecunious american duchess--the duchess of nocash--who is also in the boosting business. the chances are miss moneybags will land one of england's most deeply indebted peers, and, if she does, reggie will receive a handsome check for steering the family up against so attractive a proposition." "and you mean to tell us that a plain man like old john de boodle, of nevada, is putting out his hard-earned wealth in that way?" demanded mr. brief. "i didn't mean to mention any names," said the idiot. "but you've spotted the victim. old john de boodle, who made his sixty million dollars in six months, after having kept a saloon on the frontier for forty years, is the man. his family wants to get in the swim, and reggie is turning the trick for them; and, after all, what better way is there for de boodle to get in? he might take sixty villas at newport and not get even a peep at the divorce colony there, much less a glimpse of the monogamous set acting independently. not a monkey in the zoo would dine with the de boodles, and in his most eccentric moment i doubt if tommy dare would take them up, unless there was somebody to stand sponsor for them. a cool million might easily be expended without results by the de boodles themselves; but hand that money over to reggie squandercash, whose blood is as blue as his creditors' sometimes get, and you can look for results. what the frohman's are to the stage, reggie squandercash is to society. he's right in it; popular as all spenders are; lavish as all people spending other people's money are apt to be. old de boodle, egged on by mrs. de boodle and miss mary ann de boodle (now known as miss marianne de boodle), goes to reggie and says: 'the old lady and my girl are nutty on society. can you land 'em?' 'certainly,' says reggie, 'if your pocket is long enough.' 'how long is that?' asks de boodle, wincing a bit. 'a hundred thousand a month, and no extras, until you're in,' says reggie. 'no reduction for families?' asks de boodle, anxiously. 'no,' says reggie. 'harder job.' 'all right,' says de boodle, 'here's my check for the first month.' that's how reggie gets his newport villa, his servants, his horses, yacht, automobiles, and coaches. then he invites the de boodles up to visit him. they accept, and the fun begins. first it's a little dinner to meet my friends mr. and mrs. de boodle, of nevada. everybody there, hungry, dinner from sherry's, best wines in the market. de boodles covered with diamonds, a great success, especially old john de boodle, who tells racy stories over the _demi-tasse_ when the ladies have gone into the drawing-room. de boodle voted a character. next thing, bridge-whist party. everybody there. society a good winner. the de boodles magnificent losers. popularity cinched. next, yachting-party. everybody on board. de boodle on deck in fine shape. champagne flows like niagara. poker game in main cabin. food everywhere. de boodles much easier. stiffness wearing off, and so on and so on, until finally miss de boodle's portrait is printed in nineteen sunday newspapers all over the country. they're launched, and reggie comes into his own with a profit for the season in a cash balance of fifty thousand dollars. he's had a bully time all summer, entertained like a prince, and comes to the rainy season with a tidy little umbrella to keep him out of the wet." "and can he count on that as a permanent business?" asked mr. whitechoker. "my dear sir, the rock of gibraltar is no solider and no more permanent," said the idiot. "for as long as there is a four hundred in existence, human nature is such that there will also be a million who will want to get into it." "at such a cost?" demanded the bibliomaniac. "at any cost," replied the idiot. "even people who know they cannot swim want to get in it." xii he makes a suggestion to the poet "good-morning, homer, my boy," said the idiot, genially, as the poet entered the breakfast-room. "all hail to thee. thou art the bright particular bird of plumage i most hoped to see this rare and beauteous summer morning. no sweet-singing robin-redbreast or soft-honking canvasback for yours truly this a.m., when a living, breathing, palpitating son of the muses lurks near at hand. i fain would make thee a proposition, shakespeare dear!" "back pedal there! avaunt with your flowery speech, oh idiot!" cried the doctor. "else will i call an ambulance." "no ambulance for mine," chortled the idiot. "nay, sweet gas-bags," quoth the doctor. "but for once i fear me we may be scorched by this pelã©e of words that thou spoutest forth." "what's the proposition, mr. idiot?" asked the poet. "i'm always open to anything of the kind, as the subway said when an automobile fell into it.'" "i thirst for laurels," said the idiot, "and i propose that you and i collaborate on a book of poems for early publication. with your name on the title-page and my poems in the book i think we can make a go of it." "what's the lay?" asked the poet, amused, but wary. "sonnets, or french forms, or just plain snatches of song?" "any old thing as long as it runs smoothly," replied the idiot. "only the poems must fit the title of the book, which is to be _now_." "_now?_" said the poet. "_now!_" repeated the idiot. "i find in reading over the verse of the day that the 'now' poem always finds a ready market. therefore, there must be money in it, and where the money goes there the laurels are. you know what browning robinson, the laureate of wall street, wrote in his 'message to posterity': "'oh, when you come to crown my brow, bring me no bay nor sorrel; give me no parsley wreath, but just the legal long green laurel.'" "i never heard that poem before," laughed the poet, "though the sentiment in these commercial days is not unfamiliar." "true," said the idiot. "alfred austin biggs, of texas, voiced the same idea when he said: "'crown me not with spinach, wreathe me not with hay; place no salad on my head when you bring the bay. give me not the water-cresses to adorn my flowing tresses, but at e'en crown my pockets good and strong with the green- the green that's long.'" "do you remember that?" asked the idiot. "only faintly," said the poet. "i think you read it to me once before, just after you--er--ah--rather just after alfred austin biggs, of texas--wrote it." the idiot laughed. "i see you're on," he said. "anyhow, it's good sentiment, whether i wrote it or biggs. fact is, in my judgment, what the poet of to-day ought to do is to collect the long green from the present and the laurel from posterity. that's a fair division. but what do you say to my proposition?" "well, it's certainly--er--cheeky enough," said the poet. "do i understand it?--you want me to father your poems. to tell the truth, until i hear some of them, i can't promise to be more than an uncle to them." "that's all right," said the idiot. "you ought to be cautious, as a matter of protection to your own name. i've got some of the goods right here. here's a little thing called 'summer-tide!' it shows the whole 'now' principle in a nutshell. listen to this: "now the festive frog is croaking in the mere, and the canvasback is honking in the bay, and the summer-girl is smiling full of cheer on the willieboys that chance along her way. "now the skeeter sings his carols to the dawn, and bewails the early closing of the bar that prevents the little nips he seeks each morn on the sea-shore where the fatling boarders are. "now the landlord of the pastoral hotel spends his mornings, nights, and eke his afternoons, scheming plans to get more milk from out the well, and a hundred novel ways of cooking prunes. "now the pumpkin goes a pumpking through the fields, and the merry visaged cows are chewing cud; and the profits that the plumber's business yields come a-tumbling to the earth with deadly thud. "and from all of this we learn the lesson sweet, the soft message of dame nature, grand and clear, that the winter-time is gone with storm and sleet, and the soft and jolly summer-tide is here. how's that? pretty fair?" "well, i might consent to be a cousin to a poem of that kind. i've read worse and written some that are quite as bad. but you know, mr. idiot, even so great a masterpiece as that won't make a book," said the poet. "of course it won't," retorted the idiot. "that's only for the summer. here's another one on winter. just listen: "now the man who deals in mittens and in tabs is a-smiling broadly--aye, from ear to ear- as he reaches out his hand and fondly grabs all the shining, golden shekels falling near. "now the snow lies on the hill-side and the roof, and the birdling to the sunny southland flies; while the frowning summer landlord stands aloof, and to solemncholy meditation hies. "now the tinkling of the sleigh-bells tinge the air, and the coal-man is as happy as can be; while the hulking, sulking, grizzly seeks his lair, and the ice-man's soul is filled with misery. "clad in frost are all the distant mountain-peaks, and the furnace is as hungry as a boy; while the plumber, as he gloats upon the leaks, is the model that the painter takes for 'joy.' "and from all of this we learn the lesson sweet- the glad message of dame nature, grand and clear: that the summer-time has gone with all its heat, and the crisp and frosty winter days are here. you see, mr. poet, that out of that one idea alone--that cataloguing of the things of the four seasons--you can get four poems that are really worth reading," said the idiot. "we could call that section 'the seasons,' and make it the first part of the book. in the second part we could do the same thing, only in greater detail, for each one of the months. just as a sample, take the month of february. we could run something like this in on february: "now o'er the pavement comes a hush as pattering feet wade deep in slush that every feb. doth flow and ebb." "i see," said the poet. "it wouldn't take long to fill up a book with stuff like that." "to make the appeal stronger, let me take the month of july, which is now on," resumed the idiot. "you may find it even more convincing: "now the fly- the rhubarb-pie- the lightning in the sky- thermometers so spry- that leap up high- the roads all dry, the hoboes nigh, the town a-fry, the mad ki-yi a-snarling by, the crickets cry- all tell us that it is july. eh?" "i don't believe anybody would believe i wrote it, that's all," said the poet, shaking his head dubiously. "they'd find out, sooner or later, that you did it, just as they discovered that will carleton wrote 'paradise lost,' and dick davis was the real author of shakespeare. why don't you publish the thing over your own name?" "too modest," said the idiot. "what do you think of this: "now the festive candidate goes a-sporting through the state, and he kisses babes from quogue to kalamazoo; for he really wants to win without spending any tin, and he thinks he has a chance to kiss it through." "that's fair, only i don't think you'll find many candidates doing that sort of thing nowadays," said the poet. "most public men i know of would rather spend their money than kiss the babies. that style of campaigning has gone out." "it has in the cities," said the idiot. "but back in the country it is still done, and the candidate who turns his back on the infant might as well give up the race. i know, because a cousin of mine ran for supervisor once, and he was licked out of his boots because he tried to do his kissing by proxy--said he'd give the kisses in a bunch to a committee of young ladies, who could distribute them for him. result was everybody was down on him--even the young ladies." "i guess he was a cousin of yours, all right," laughed the doctor; "that scheme bears the idiot brand." "here's one on the opening of the opera season," said the idiot: "now the fiddlers tune their fiddles to the lovely taradiddles of old wagner, mozart, bizet, and the rest. now the trombone is a-tooting out its scaley shute-the-chuteing and the oboe is hoboing with a zest. "now the dressmakers are working- not a single minute shirking- making gowns with frills and fal-lals mighty queer, for the autumn days are flying, and there's really no denying that the season of the opera is near." mr. brief took a hand in the discussion at this moment. "then you can have a blanket verse," he said, scribbling with his pencil on a piece of paper in front of him. "something like this: "and as time goes on a-stalking, and the idiot still is talking in his usual blatant manner, loud and free, with his silly jokes and rhyme, it is--well it's any time from creation to the jumping-off place that you'll find at the far end of eterni-tie." "that settles it," said the idiot, rising. "i withdraw my proposition. let's call it off, mr. poet." "what's the matter?" asked mr. brief. "isn't my verse good?" "yes," said the idiot. "just as good as mine, and that being the case it isn't worth doing. when lawyers can write as good poetry as real poets, it doesn't pay to be a real poet. i'm going in for something else. i guess i'll apply for a job as a motorman, and make a name for myself there." "can a motorman make a name for himself?" asked the doctor. "oh yes," said the idiot. "easily. by being civil. a civil motorman would be unique." "but he wouldn't make a fortune," suggested the poet. "yes he would, too," said the idiot. "if he could prove he really was civil, the vaudeville people would pay him a thousand dollars a week and tour the country with him. he'd draw mobs." with which the idiot left the dining-room. "i think his poems would sell," smiled mrs. pedagog. "yes," said mr. pedagog. "chopped up fine and properly advertised, they might make a very successful new kind of breakfast food--provided the paper on which they were written was not too indigestible." xiii he discusses the music cure "good-morning, doctor," said the idiot, as capsule, m.d., entered the dining-room, "i am mighty glad you've come. i've wanted for a long time to ask you about this music cure that everybody is talking about, and get you, if possible, to write me out a list of musical nostrums for every-day use. i noticed last night, before going to bed, that my medicine-chest was about run out. there's nothing but one quinine pill and a soda-mint drop left in it, and if there's anything in the music cure, i don't think i'll have it filled again. i prefer wagner to squills, and, compared to the delights of mozart, hayden, and offenbach, those of paregoric are nit." "still rambling, eh?" vouchsafed the doctor. "you ought to submit your tongue to some scientific student of dynamics. i am inclined to think, from my own observation of its ways, that it contains the germ of perpetual motion." "i will consider your suggestion," replied the idiot. "meanwhile, let us consult harmoniously together on the original point. is there anything in this music cure, and is it true that our medical schools are hereafter to have conservatories attached to them, in which aspiring young m.d.'s are to be taught the _materia musica_ in addition to the _materia medica_?" "i had heard of no such idiotic proposition," returned the doctor. "and as for the music cure, i don't know anything about it; haven't heard everybody talking about it; and doubt the existence of any such thing outside of that mysterious realm which is bounded by the four corners of your own bright particular cerebellum. what do you mean by the music cure?" "why, the papers have been full of it lately," explained the idiot. "the claim is made that in music lies the panacea for all human ills. it may not be able to perform a surgical operation like that which is required for the removal of a leg, and i don't believe even wagner ever composed a measure that could be counted on successfully to eliminate one's vermiform appendix from its chief sphere of usefulness; but for other things, like measles, mumps, the snuffles, or indigestion, it is said to be wonderfully efficacious. what i wanted to find out from you was just what composers were best for which specific troubles." "you'll have to go to somebody else for the information," said the doctor. "i never heard of the theory, and, as i said before, i don't believe anybody else has, barring your own sweet self." "i have seen a reference to it somewhere," put in mr. whitechoker, coming to the idiot's rescue. "as i recall the matter, some lady had been cured of a nervous affection by a scientific application of some musical poultice or other, and the general expectation seems to be that some day we shall find in music a cure for all our human ills, as the idiot suggests." "thank you, mr. whitechoker," said the idiot, gratefully. "i saw that same item and several others besides, and i have only told the truth when i say that a large number of people are considering the possibilities of music as a substitute for drugs. i am surprised that dr. capsule has neither heard nor thought about it, for i should think it would prove to be a pleasant and profitable field for speculation. even i, who am only a dabbler in medicine and know no more about it than the effects of certain remedies upon my own symptoms, have noticed that music of a certain sort is a sure emollient for nervous conditions." "for example?" said the doctor. "of course, we don't doubt your word; but when a man makes a statement based upon personal observation it is profitable to ask him what his precise experience has been, merely for the purpose of adding to our own knowledge." "well," said the idiot, "the first instance that i can recall is that of a wagner opera and its effects upon me. for a number of years i suffered a great deal from insomnia. i could not get two hours of consecutive sleep, and the effect of my sufferings was to make me nervous and irritable. suddenly somebody presented me with a couple of tickets for a performance of 'parsifal,' and i went. it began at five o'clock in the afternoon. for twenty minutes all went serenely, and then the music began to work. i fell into a deep and refreshing slumber. the intermission came, and still i slept on. everybody else went home, dressed for the evening part of the performance, had their dinner, and returned. still i slept, and continued so to do until midnight, when one of the gentlemanly ushers came and waked me up, and told me that the performance was over. i rubbed my eyes, and looked about me. it was true--the great auditorium was empty, and was gradually darkening. i put on my hat and walked out refreshed, having slept from five-twenty until twelve, or six hours and forty minutes straight. that was one instance. two weeks later i went again, this time to hear 'gã¶tterdã¤mmerung.' the results were the same, only the effect was instantaneous. the curtain had hardly risen before i retired to the little ante-room of the box our party occupied and dozed off into a fathomless sleep. i didn't wake up this time until nine o'clock the next day, the rest of the party having gone off without awakening me as a sort of joke. clearly wagner, according to my way of thinking, then, deserves to rank among the most effective narcotics known to modern science. i have tried all sorts of other things--sulfonal, trionel, bromide powders, and all the rest, and not one of them produced anything like the soporific results that two doses of wagner brought about in one instant. and, best of all, there was no reaction: no splitting headache or shaky hand the next day, but just the calm, quiet, contented feeling that goes with the sense of having got completely rested up." "you run a dreadful risk, however," said the doctor, with a sarcastic smile. "the wagner habit is a terrible thing to acquire, mr. idiot." "that may be," said the idiot; "worse than the sulfonal habit by a great deal, i am told; but i am in no danger of becoming a victim to it while it costs from five to seven dollars a dose. in addition to this experience, i have also the testimony of a friend of mine who was cured of a frightful attack of the colic by sullivan's 'lost chord,' played on a cornet. he had spent the day down at asbury park, and had eaten not wisely but too copiously. among other things that he turned loose in his inner man were two plates of lobster salad, a glass of fresh cider, and a saucerful of pistache ice-cream. he was a painter by profession, and the color scheme he thus introduced into his digestive apparatus was too much for his artistic soul. he was not fitted by temperament to assimilate anything quite so strenuously chromatic as that, and, as a consequence, shortly after he had retired to his studio for the night, the conflicting tints began to get in their deadly work, and within two hours he was completely doubled up. the pain he suffered was awful. agony was bliss alongside of the pangs that now afflicted him, and all the palliatives and pain-killers known to man were tried without avail, and then, just as he was about to give himself up for lost, an amateur cornetist who occupied a studio on the floor above began to play the 'lost chord.' a counter-pain set in immediately. at the second bar of the 'lost chord' the awful pain that was gradually gnawing away at his vitals seemed to lose its poignancy in the face of the greater suffering, and physical relief was instant. as the musician proceeded, the internal disorder yielded gradually to the external and finally passed away, entirely leaving him so far from prostrate that by 1 a. m. he was out of bed and actually girding himself with a shot-gun and an indian club to go up-stairs for a physical encounter with the cornetist." "and you reason from this that sullivan's 'lost chord' is a cure for cholera morbus, eh?" sneered the doctor. "it would seem so," said the idiot. "while the music continued my friend was a well man, ready to go out and fight like a warrior; but when the cornetist stopped the colic returned, and he had to fight it out in the old way. in these incidents in my own experience i find ample justification for my belief, and that of others, that some day the music cure for human ailments will be recognized and developed to the full. families going off to the country for the summer, instead of taking a medicine-chest along with them, will be provided with a music-box with cylinders for mumps, measles, summer complaint, whooping-cough, chicken-pox, chills and fever, and all the other ills the flesh is heir to. scientific experiment will demonstrate before long just what composition will cure specific ills. if a baby has whooping-cough, an anxious mother, instead of ringing up the doctor, will go to the piano and give the child a dose of 'hiawatha.' if a small boy goes swimming and catches a cold in his head and is down with a fever, his nurse, an expert on the accordion, can bring him back to health again with three bars of 'under the bamboo tree' after each meal. instead of dosing the kids with cod-liver oil when they need a tonic, they will be set to work at a mechanical piano and braced up on 'narcissus.' 'there'll be a hot time in the old town to-night' will become an effective remedy for a sudden chill. people suffering from sleeplessness can dose themselves back to normal conditions with wagner the way i did. tchaikowsky, to be well shaken before taken, will be an effective remedy for a torpid liver, and the man or woman who suffers from lassitude will doubtless find in the lively airs of our two-step composers an efficient tonic to bring their vitality up to a high standard of activity. nothing in it? why, doctor, there's more in it that's in sight to-day that is promising and suggestive of great things in the future than there was of the principle of gravitation in the rude act of that historic pippin that left the parent tree and swatted sir isaac newton on the nose." "and the drug stores will be driven out of business, i presume," said the doctor. "no," said the idiot. "they will substitute music for drugs, that is all. every man who can afford it will have his own medical phonograph, or music-box, and the drug stores will sell cylinders and records for them instead of quinine, carbonate of soda, squills, paregoric, and other nasty-tasting things they have now. this alone will serve to popularize sickness, and, instead of being driven out of business, their trade will pick up." "and the doctor, and the doctor's gig, and all the appurtenances of his profession--what becomes of them?" demanded the doctor. "we'll have to have the doctor just the same to prescribe for us, only he will have to be a musician, but the gig--i'm afraid that will have to go," said the idiot. "and why, pray?" asked the doctor. "because there are no more drugs, must the physician walk?" "not at all," said the idiot. "but he'd be better equipped if he drove about in a piano-organ or, if he preferred, an auto on a steam-calliope." xiv he defends campaign methods "good-morning, gentlemen," said the idiot, cheerily, as he entered the breakfast-room. "this is a fine sunday morning in spite of the gloom into which the approaching death of the campaign should plunge us all." "you think that, do you?" observed the bibliomaniac. "well, i don't agree with you. i for one am sick and tired of politics, and it will be a great relief to me when it is all over." "dear me, what a blasã© old customer you are, mr. bib," returned the idiot. "do you mean to say that a presidential campaign does not keep your nerve-centres in a constant state of pleasurable titillation? why, to me it is what a bag full of nuts must be to a squirrel. i fairly gloat over these quadrennial political campaigns of ours. they are to me among the most exhilarating institutions of modern life. they satisfy all one's zest for warfare without the distressing shedding of blood which attends real war, and regarded from the standpoint of humor, i know of nothing that, to the eye of an ordinarily keen observer, is more provocative of good, honest, wholesome mirth." "i don't see it," said mr. bib. "to my mind, the average political campaign is just a vulgar scrap in which men who ought to know better descend to all sorts of despicable trickery merely to gain the emoluments of office. this quest for the flesh-pots of politics, so far from being diverting, is, to my notion, one of the most deplorable exhibitions of human weakness that modern civilization, so called, has produced. a couple of men are put up for the most dignified office known to the world--both are gentlemen by birth and education, men of honor, men who, you would think, would scorn baseness as they hate poison--and then what happens? for three weary months the followers of each attack the character and intelligence of the other until, if you really believed what was said of either, neither in your estimation would have a shred of reputation left. is that either diverting or elevating or educational or, indeed, anything but deplorable?" "it's perfectly fine," said the idiot, "to think that we have men in the country whose characters are such that they can stand four months of such a test. that's what i find elevating in it. when a man who is nominated for the presidency in june or july can emerge in november unscathed in spite of the minute scrutiny to which himself and his record and the record of his sisters and his cousins and his aunts have been subjected, it's time for the american rooster to get upon his hind legs and give three cheers for himself and the people to whom he belongs. even old diogenes, who spent his life looking for an honest man, would have to admit every four years that he could spot him instantly by merely coming to this country and taking his choice from among the several candidates." "you must admit, however," said the bibliomaniac, "that a man with an honorable name must find it unpleasant to have such outrageous stories told of him." "not a bit of it," laughed the idiot. "the more outrageous the better. for instance, when _the sunday jigger_ comes out with a four-page revelation of your republican candidate's past, in which we learn how, in 1873, he put out the eyes of a maiden aunt with a red-hot poker, and stabbed a negro cook in the back with a skewer, because she would not permit him to put rat-poison in his grandfather's coffee, you know perfectly well that that story has been put forth for the purpose of turning the maiden aunt, negro, and grandfather votes against him. you know well enough that he either never did what is charged against him, or at least that the story is greatly exaggerated--he may have stuck a pin into the cook, and played some boyish trick upon some of his relatives--but the story on the face of it is untrue and therefore harmless. similarly with the democratic candidate. when the _daily flim flam_ asserts that he believes that the working-man is entitled to four cents a day for sixteen hours' work, and has repeatedly avowed that bread and water is the proper food for motormen, everybody with common-sense realizes at once that even the _flim flam_ doesn't believe the story. it hurts no one, therefore, and provokes a great deal of innocent mirth. you don't yourself believe that last yarn about the prohibition candidate, do you?" "i haven't heard any yarn about him," said the bibliomaniac. "that he is the owner of a brewery up in rochester, and backs fifteen saloons and a pool-room in new york?" said the idiot. "of course i don't," said the bibliomaniac. "who does?" "nobody," said the idiot; "and therefore the story doesn't hurt the man's reputation a bit, or interfere with his chances of election in the least. take that other story published in a new york newspaper that on the 10th of last august thompson bondifeller's yacht was seen anchored for six hours off tom watson's farm, two hundred miles from the sea, and that the populist candidate, disguised as a bank president, went off with the trust magnate on a cruise from atlanta, georgia, to oklahoma--you don't believe that, do you?" "it's preposterous on the face of it," said mr. bib. "well, that's the way the thing works," said the idiot. "and that's why i think there's a lot of bully good fun to be had out of a political campaign. i love anything that arouses the imagination of a people too much given over to the pursuit of the cold, hard dollar. if it wasn't for these quadrennial political campaigns to spur the fancy on to glorious flights we should become a dull, hard, prosaic, unimaginative people, and that would be death to progress. no people can progress that lacks imagination. politics is an emery-wheel that keeps our wits polished." "well, granting all that you say is true," said the bibliomaniac, "the intrusion upon a man's private life that politics makes possible--surely you cannot condone that." the idiot laughed. "that's the strangest argument of all," he said. "the very idea of a man who deliberately chooses public life as the sphere of his activities seeking to hide behind his private life is preposterous. the fellow who does that, mr. bib, wants to lead a double life, and that is reprehensible. the man who offers himself to the people hasn't any business to tie a string to any part of him. if jim jones wants to be president of the united states the people who are asked to put him there have a right to know what kind of a person jim jones is in his dressing-gown and slippers. if he beats his mother-in-law, and eats asparagus with the sugar-tongs, and doesn't pay his grocer, the public have a right to know it. if he has children, the voters are perfectly justified in asking what kind of children they are, since the voters own the white house furniture, and if the jim jones children wipe their feet on plush chairs, and shoot holes in the paintings with their bean-snappers and putty-blowers, uncle sam, as a landlord and owner of the premises, ought to be warned beforehand. you wouldn't yourself rent a furnished residence to a man whose children were known to have built bonfires in the parlor of their last known home, would you?" "i think not," smiled the bibliomaniac. "then you cannot complain if uncle sam is equally solicitous about the personal paraphernalia of the man who asks to occupy his little cottage on the potomac," said the idiot. "so it happens that when a man runs for the presidency the persons who intrude upon his private life, as you put it, are conferring a real service upon their fellow-citizens. when i hear from an authentic source that mr. so-and-so, the candidate of the thisorthatic party for the presidency, is married to an estimable lady who refers to all frenchmen as parricides, because she believes they have come from paris, i have a right to consider whether or not i wish to vote to place such a lady at the head of my official table at white house banquets, where she is likely, sooner or later, to encounter the french ambassador, and the man who gives me the necessary information is doing me a service. you may say that the lady is not running for a public office, and that, therefore, she should be protected from public scrutiny, but that is a fallacy. a man's wife is his better half and his children are a good part of the remainder, and what they do or don't do becomes a matter of legitimate public concern. as a matter of fact, a public man _can_ have no private life." "then you approve of these stories of candidates' cousins, the prattling anecdotes of their grandchildren, these paragraphs narrating the doings of their uncles-in-law, and all that?" sneered the bibliomaniac. "certainly, i do," said the idiot. "when i hear that judge torkin's grandson, aged four, has come out for his grandfather's opponent i am delighted, and give the judge credit for the independent spirit which heredity accounts for; when it is told to me that tom watson's uncle is going to vote for tom because he knows tom doesn't believe what he says, i am almost inclined to vote for him as the uncle of his country; when i hear that debs's son, aged three, has punched his daddy in the eye, on general principles i feel that there's a baby i want in the white house; and when it is told to me that the prohibition candidate's third cousin has just been cured of delirium tremens, i feel that possibly there is a family average there that may be struck to the advantage of the country." "say, mr. idiot," put in the poet, at this point, "who are you going to vote for, anyhow?" "don't ask me," laughed the idiot. "i don't know yet. i admire all the candidates personally very much." "but what are your politics--republican or democratic?" asked the lawyer. "oh, that's different," said the idiot. "i'm a sammycrat." "a what?" cried the idiot's fellow-boarders in unison. "a sammycrat," said the idiot. "i'm for uncle sam every time. he's the best ever." xv on short courses at college mr. pedagog threw down the morning paper with an ejaculation of impatience. "i don't know what on earth we are coming to!" he said, stirring his coffee vigorously. "these new-fangled notions of our college presidents seem to me to be destructive in their tendency." "what's up now? somebody flunked a football team?" asked the idiot. "no, i quite approve of that," said mr. pedagog; "but this matter of reducing the college course from four to two years is so radical a suggestion that i tremble for the future of education." "oh, i wouldn't if i were you, mr. pedagog," said the idiot. "your trembling won't help matters any, and, after all, when men like president eliot of harvard and dr. butler of columbia recommend the short course the idea must have some virtue." "well, if it stops where they do i don't suppose any great harm will be done," said mr. pedagog. "but what guarantee have we that fifty years from now some successor to these gentlemen won't propose a one-year course?" "none," said the idiot. "fact is, we don't want any guarantee--or at least i don't. they can turn colleges into bicycle academies fifty years from now for all i care. i expect to be doing time in some other sphere fifty years from now, so why should i vex my soul about it?" "that's rather a selfish view, isn't it, mr. idiot?" asked mr. whitechoker. "don't you wish to see the world getting better and better every day?" "no," said the idiot. "it's so mighty good as it is, this bully old globe, that i hate to see people monkeying with it all the time. of course, i wasn't around it in the old days, but i don't believe the world's any better off now than it was in the days of adam." "great heavens! what a thing to say!" cried the poet. "well, i've said it," rejoined the idiot. "what has it all come to, anyhow--all this business of man's trying to better the world? it's just added to his expenses, that's all. and what does he get out of it that adam didn't get? money? adam didn't need money. he had his garden truck, his tailor, his fuel supply, his amusements--all the things we have to pay cash for--right in his backyard. all he had to do was to reach out and take what we fellows nowadays have to toil eight or ten hours a day to earn. literature? his position was positively enviable as far as literature is concerned. he had the situation in his own hands. he wasn't prevented from writing 'hamlet,' as i am, because somebody else had already done it. he didn't have to sit up till midnight seven nights a week to keep up with the historical novels of the day. art? there were pictures on every side of him, splendid in color, instinct of life, perfect in their technique, and all from the hand of that first of old masters, nature herself. he hadn't any rosa bonheurs or landseers on his farm, but he could get all the cow pictures he wanted from the back window of his bungalow without their costing him a cent. drama? life was a succession of rising curtains to adam, and while, of course, he had the errant eve to deal with, the garden was free from notorious mrs. ebbsmiths, there wasn't a magda from one end of the apple-orchard to the other, and not a first, second, or third mrs. tanqueray in sight. music? the woods were full of it--the orioles singing their cantatas, the nightingales warbling their concertos, the eagles screeching out their wagnerian measures, the bluejays piping their intermezzos, and no italian organ-grinders doing de koven under his window from one year's end to the other. gorry! i wish sometimes adam had known a good thing when he had it and hadn't broken the monologue." "the what?" demanded mr. brief. "the monologue," repeated the idiot. "the one commandment. if ten commandments make a decalogue, one commandment makes a monologue, doesn't it?" "you're a philologist and a half," said the bibliomaniac, with a laugh. "no credit to me," returned the idiot. "a ten years' residence in this boarding-house has resulted practically in my having enjoyed a diet of words. i have literally eaten syllables--" "i hope you haven't eaten any of your own," said the bibliomaniac. "that would ruin the digestion of an ostrich." "that's true enough," said the idiot. "rich foods will overthrow any kind of a digestion in the long run. but to come back to the college tendencies, mr. pedagog, it is my belief that in this short-course business we haven't more than started. it's my firm conviction that some day we shall find universities conferring degrees 'while you wait,' as it were. a man, for instance, visiting boston for a week will some day be able to run out to harvard, pay a small fee, pass an examination, and get a bachelor's degree, as a sort of souvenir of his visit; another chap, coming to new york for a brief holiday, instead of stealing a spoon from the waldorf for his collection of souvenirs, can ring up columbia college, tell 'em all he knows over the wire, and get a sheepskin by return mail; while at new haven you'll be able to stop off at the railway station and buy your b. a. at the lunch-counter--they may even go so far as to let the newsboys on the train confer them without making the applicant get off at all. then the golden age of education will begin. there'll be more college graduates to the square inch than you can now find in any ten square miles in massachusetts, and our professional men, instead of beginning the long wait at thirty, will be in full practice at twenty-one." "that is the limit!" ejaculated mr. brief. "oh, no indeed," said the idiot. "there's another step. that's the gramophone course, in which a man won't have to leave home at all to secure a degree from any college he chooses. by tabulating his knowledge and dictating it into a gramophone he can send the cylinder to the university authorities, have it carefully examined, and receive his degree on a postal-card within forty-eight hours. that strikes me as being the limit, unless some of the ten-cent magazines offer an ll. d. degree with a set of kipling and a punching-bag as a premium for a one year's subscription." "and you think that will be a good thing?" demanded the bibliomaniac. "no, i didn't say so," said the idiot. "in one respect i think it would be a very bad thing. such a method would involve the utter destruction of the football and rowing seasons, unless the universities took some decided measures looking toward the preservation of these branches of undergraduate endeavor. it is coming to be recognized as a fact that a man can be branded with the mark of intellectual distinction in absentia, as the aryan tribes used to put it, but a man can't win athletic prowess without giving the matter attention in propria persona, to adopt the phraseology of the days of uncle remus. you can't stroke a crew by mail any more than you can stroke a cat by freight, and it doesn't make any difference how wonderful he may be physically, a yale man selling dry-goods out in nebraska can't play football with a harvard student employed in a grocery store at new orleans by telephone. you can do it with chess, but not with basket ball. there are some things in university life that require the individual attention of the student. unless something is done by our colleges, then, to care for this very important branch of their service to growing youth, the new scheme will meet with much opposition from the public." "what would you, in your infinite wisdom, suggest?" asked the doctor. "the wise man, when he points out an objection to another's plans, suggests a remedy." "that's easy," said the idiot. "i should have what i should call residential terms for those who wished to avail themselves of athletic training under academic auspices. the leading colleges could announce that they were open for business from october 1st to december 1st for the study of the theory and practice of gridirony--" "excuse me," said mr. pedagog. "but what was that word?" "gridirony," observed the idiot. "that would be my idea of the proper academic designation of a course in football, a game which is played on the gridiron. it is more euphonious than goalology or leather spheroids, which have suggested themselves to me." "go on!" sighed the doctor. "as a word-mint you are unrivalled." "there could be a term in baseballistics; another in lacrossetics; a fourth in aquatics, and so on all through the list of intercollegiate sports, each in the season best suited to its completest development." "it's not a bad idea, that," said mr. pedagog. "a parent sending his boy to college under such conditions would have a fairly good idea of what the lad was doing. as matters are now, it's a question whether the undergraduate acquires as much of euripides as he does of travis, and as far as i can find out there are more yale men around who know all about bob cook and hinkey than there are who are versed in chaucer, milton, and shakespeare." "but what have these things to do with the arts?" asked mr. whitechoker. "a man may know all about golf, base and foot ball and rowing, and yet be far removed from the true ideals of culture. you couldn't give a man a b. a. degree because he was a perfect quarter rush, or whatever else it is they call him." "that's a good criticism," observed the idiot, "and there isn't a doubt in my mind that the various faculties of our various colleges will meet it by the establishment of a new degree which shall cover the case." "again i would suggest that it is up to you to cover that point," said mr. brief. "you have outlined a pretty specific scheme. the notion that you haven't brains enough to invent a particular degree is to my mind preposterous." "right," said the idiot. "and i think i have it. when i was in college they used to confer a degree upon chaps who didn't quite succeed in passing their finals which was known as a. b. sp. gr.--they were mostly fellows who had played more football than herodotus who got them. the sp. gr. meant 'by special favor of the faculty.' i think i should advocate that, only changing its meaning to 'great sport.'" mr. pedagog laughed heartily. "you are a great idiot," he said. "i wonder they don't call you to a full professorship of idiocy somewhere." "i guess it's because they know i wouldn't go," said the idiot. "did you say you were in college ever?" sneered the bibliomaniac, rising from the table. "yes," said the idiot. "i went to columbia for two weeks in the early nineties. i got a special a. b. at the beginning of the third week for my proficiency in sciolism and horseplay. i used a pony in an examination and stuck too closely to the text." "you talk like it," snapped the bibliomaniac. "thank you," returned the idiot, suavely. "i ought to. i was one of the few men in my class who really earned his degree by persistent effort." xvi the horse show "i suppose, mr. idiot," observed mr. brief, as the idiot took his accustomed place at the breakfast-table, "that you have been putting in a good deal of your time this week at the horse show?" "yes," said the idiot, "i was there every night it was open. i go to all the shows--horse, dog, baby, flower, electrical--it doesn't matter what. it's first-rate fun." "pretty fine lot of horses, this year?" asked the doctor. "don't know," said the idiot. "i heard there were some there, but i didn't see 'em." "what?" cried the doctor. "went to the horse show and didn't see the horses?" "no," said the idiot. "why should i? i don't know a cob from a lazy back. of course i know that the four-legged beast that goes when you say get ap is a horse, but beyond that my equine education has been neglected. i can see all the horses i want to look at on the street, anyhow." "then what in thunder do you go to the horse show for?" demanded the bibliomaniac. "to sleep?" "no," rejoined the idiot. "it's too noisy for that. i go to see the people. people are far more interesting to me than horses, and i get more solid fun out of seeing the nabobs go through their paces than could be got out of a million nags of high degree kicking up their heels in the ring. if they'd make the horses do all sorts of stunts, it might be different, but they don't. they show you the same old stuff year in and year out, and things that you can see almost any fine day in the park during the season. you and i know that a four-horse team can pull a tally-ho coach around without breaking its collective neck. we know that two horses harnessed together fore and aft instead of abreast are called a tandem, and can drag a cart on two wheels and about a mile high a reasonable distance without falling dead. there isn't anything new or startling in their performance, and why anybody should pay to see them doing the commonplace, every-day act i don't know. it isn't as if they had a lot of thoroughbreds on exhibition who could sit down at a table and play a round of bridge whist or poker. that would be worth seeing. so would a horse that could play 'cavalleria rusticana' on the piano, but when it comes to dragging a hansom-cab or a grocery-wagon around the tanbark, why, it seems to me to lack novelty." "the idea of a horse playing bridge whist!" jeered the bibliomaniac. "what a preposterous proposition!" "well, i've seen fellows with less sense than the average horse make a pretty good stab at it at the club," said the idiot. "perhaps my suggestion is extreme, but i put it that way merely to emphasize my point. i've seen an educated pig play cards, though, and i don't see why they can't put the horse through very much the same course of treatment and teach him to do something that would make him more of an object of interest when he has his week of glory. i don't care what it is as long as it is out of the ordinary." "there is nothing in the world that is more impressive than a fine horse in action," said the doctor. "what you suggest would take away from his dignity and make him a freak." "i didn't say it wouldn't," rejoined the idiot. "in fact, my remarks implied that it would. you don't quite understand my meaning. if i owned a stable i'd much rather my horses didn't play bridge whist, because, in all probability, they'd be sending into the house at all hours of the night asking me to come over to the barn and make a fourth hand. it's bad enough having your neighbors doing that sort of thing without encouraging your horse to go into the business. nor would it please me as a lover of horseback-riding to have a mount that could play grand opera on the piano. the chances are it would spoil three good things--the horse, the piano, and the opera--but if i were getting up a show and asking people from all over the country to pay good money to get into it, then i should want just such things. in the ordinary daily pursuits of equine life the horse suits me just as he is, but for the extraordinary requirements of an exhibition he lacks diverting qualities. he's more solemn than a play by sudermann or blanketty bjornsen; he is as lacking in originality as a comic-opera score by sir reginald de bergerac, and his drawing powers, outside of cab-work, as far as i am concerned, are absolutely nil. a horse that can draw a picture i'd travel miles to see. a horse that can't draw anything but a t-cart or an ice-wagon hasn't two cents' worth of interest in my eyes." "but can't you see the beauty in the action of a horse?" demanded the doctor. "it all depends on his actions," said the idiot. "i've seen horses whose actions were highly uncivilized." "i mean his form--not his behavior," said the doctor. "well, i've never understood enough about horses to speak intelligently on that point," observed the idiot. "it's incomprehensible to me how your so-called judges reason. if a horse trots along hiking his fore-legs 'way up in the air as if he were grinding an invisible hand-organ with both feet, people rave over his high-stepping and call him all sorts of fine names. but if he does the same thing with his hind-legs they call it springhalt or stringhalt, or something of that kind, and set him down as a beastly old plug. the scheme seems to me to be inconsistent, and if i were a horse i'm blessed if i think i'd know what to do. how a thing can be an accomplishment in front and a blemish behind is beyond me, but there is the fact. they give a blue ribbon to the front-hiker and kick the hind-hiker out of the show altogether--they wouldn't even pin a bryan button on his breast." "i fancy a baby show is about your size," said the doctor. "well--yes," said the idiot, "i guess perhaps you are right, as far as the exhibit is concerned. there's something almost human about a baby, and it's the human element always that takes hold of me. it's the human element in the horse show that takes me and most other people as well. fact is, so many go to see the people and so few to see the horses that i have an idea that some day they'll have it with only one horse--just enough of a nag to enable them to call it a horse show--and pay proper attention to the real things that make it a success even now." the doctor sniffed contemptuously. "what factors in your judgment contribute most to the success of the horse show?" he asked. "duds chiefly," said the idiot, "and the people who are inside of them. if there were a law passed requiring every woman who goes to the horse show to wear a simple gown in order not to scare the horses, ninety per cent. of 'em would stay at home, and all the blue-ribbon steeds in creation couldn't drag them to the garden--and nobody'd blame them for it, either. similarly with the men. you don't suppose for an instant, do you, that young hawkins van bluevane would give seven cents for the horse show if it didn't give him a chance to appear every afternoon in his carnegie plaid waistcoat?" "that's a new one on me," said mr. brief. "is there such a thing as a carnegie plaid?" "it's the most popular that ever came out of scotland," said the idiot. "it's called the carnegie because of the size of the checks. then there's poor old jimmie varickstreet--the last remnant of a first family--hasn't enough money to keep a goat-wagon, and couldn't tell you the difference between a saw-horse and a crupper. he gives up his hall bedroom horse-show week and lives in the place day and night, covering up the delinquencies of his afternoon and evening clothes with a long yellow ulster with buttons like butter-saucers distributed all over his person--" "where did he get it, if he's so beastly poor?" demanded the lawyer. "he's gone without food and drink and clothes that don't show. he has scrimped and saved, and denied himself for a year to get up a gaudy shell in which for six glorious days to shine resplendent," said the idiot. "jimmie lives for those six days, and as you see him flitting from box to box and realize that he is an opulent swell for six days of every year, and a poor, down-trodden exile for the rest of the time, you don't grudge him his little diversion and almost wish you had sufficient will power to deny yourself the luxuries and some of the necessities of life as well to get a coat like that. if i had my way they'd award jimmie varickstreet at least an honorable mention as one of the most interesting exhibits in the whole show. "and there are plenty of others. there's raw material enough in that horse show to make it a permanent exhibition if the managers would only get together and lick it into shape. as a sort of social zoo it is unsurpassed, and why they don't classify the various sections of it i can't see. in the first place, imagine a dozen boxes filled with members of the four hundred, men and women whose names have become household words, and wearing on their backs garments made by the deft fingers of the greatest sartorial artists of the ages. you and i walk in and are permitted to gaze upon this glorious assemblage--the american nobility--in its gayest environment. wouldn't it interest you to know that that very beautiful woman in the lavender creation, wrapped up in a billion-dollar pearl necklace, is the famous mrs. bollington-jones, who holds the divorce championship of south dakota, and that those two chaps who are talking to her so vivaciously are two of her ex-husbands, van bibber beaconhill and 'tommy' fitz greenwich? wouldn't it interest you more than any horse in the ring to know that her gown was turned out at mrs. robert bluefern's dud studio at a cost of nine thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, hat included? yet the programme says never a word about these people. every horse that trots in has a number so that you can tell who and what and why he is, but there are no placards on mrs. bollington-jones by which she may be identified. "then on the promenade, there is hooker van winkle. he's out on bail for killing a farmer with his automobile up in connecticut somewhere. there is young walston addlepate, whose father pays him a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year for keeping out of business. there's jimson gooseberry, the cotillon leader, whose name is on every lip during the season. approaching you, dressed in gorgeous furs, is mrs. dinningforth winter, who declined to meet prince henry when he was here, because of a previous engagement to dine with tolby robinson's pet monkey just in from a cruise in the indies. and so it goes. the place fairly shrieks with celebrities whose names appear in the _social register_, and whose photographs in pink and green are the stock in trade of the sunday newspapers of saffron tendencies everywhere--but what is done about it? nothing at all. they come and go, conspicuous but unidentified, and wasting their notoriety on the desert air. it is a magnificent opportunity wasted, and, unless you happen to know these people by sight, you miss a thousand and one little points which are the _sine qua non_ of the show." "i wonder you don't write another baedeker," said the bibliomaniac--"_the idiot's hand-book to the horse show, or who's who at the garden._" "it would be a good idea," said the idiot. "but the show people must take the initiative. the whole thing needs a live manager." "a sort of ward macallister again?" asked mr. brief. "no, not exactly," said the idiot. "society has plenty of successors to ward macallister. what they seem to me to need most is a p. t. barnum. a man like that could make society a veritable klondike, and with the horse show as a nucleus he wouldn't have much trouble getting the thing started along." xvii suggestion to christmas shoppers "by jingo!" said the idiot, as he wearily took his place at the breakfast-table the other morning, "but i'm just regularly tuckered out." "late hours again?" asked the lawyer. "not a late hour," returned the idiot. "matter of fact, i went to bed last night at half-after seven and never waked until nine this morning. in spite of all that sleep and rest i feel now as if i'd been put through a threshing-machine. every bone in my body from the funny to the medulla aches like all possessed, and my joints creak like a new pair of shoes on a school-boy in church, they are so stiff." "oh well," said the doctor, "what of it? the pace that kills is bound to have some symptoms preliminary to dissolution. if you, like other young men of the age, burn the candle at both ends and in the middle, what can you expect? you push nature into a corner and then growl like all possessed because she rebels." "not i," retorted the idiot. "mr. pedagog and the poet and mr. bib may lead the strenuous life, but as for mine the simple life is the thing. i'm not striving after the unattainable. i'm not wasting my physical substance in riotous living. the cold and clammy touch of dissipation is not writing letters of burning condemnation proceedings on my brow. excesses in any form are utterly unknown to me, and from one end of the subway to the other you won't find another man of my age who in general takes better care of himself. i am as watchful of my own needs as though i were a baby and my own nurse at one and the same time. no mother could watch over her offspring more tenderly than i watch over me, and--" "well, then, what in thunder is the matter with you?" cried the lawyer, irritated. "if this is all true, why on earth are you proclaiming yourself as a physical wreck? there must be some cause for your condition." "there is," said the idiot, meekly. "i went christmas shopping yesterday without having previously trained for it, and this is the result. i sometimes wonder, doctor, that you gentlemen, who have the public health more or less in your hands, don't take the initiative and stave off nervous prostration and other ills attendant upon a run-down physical condition instead of waiting for a fully developed case and trying to cure it after the fact. the ounce-of-prevention idea ought to be incorporated, it seems to me, into the _materia medica_." "what would you have us do, move mountains?" demanded the doctor. "i'm not afraid to tackle almost any kind of fever known to medical science, but the shopping-fever--well, it is incurable. once it gets hold of a man or a woman, and more especially a woman, there isn't anything that i know of can get it out of the system. i grant you that it is as much of a disease as scarlet, typhoid, or any other, but the mind has not yet been discovered that can find a remedy for it short of abject poverty, and even that has been known to fail." "that's true enough," said the idiot, "but what you can do is to make it harmless. there are lots of diseases that our forefathers used to regard as necessarily fatal that nowadays we look upon as mere trifles, because people can be put physically into such a condition that they are practically immune to their ravages." "maybe so--but if people will shop they are going to be knocked out by it. i don't see that we doctors can do anything to mitigate the evil effects of the consequences _ab initio_. after the event we can pump you full of quinine and cod-liver oil and build you up again, but the ounce of prevention for shopping troubles is as easily attainable as a ton of radium to a man with eight cents and a cancelled postage-stamp in his pocket," said the doctor. "nonsense, doctor. you're only fooling," said the idiot. "a college president might as well say that boys will play football, and that there's nothing they can do to stave off the inevitable consequences of playing the game to one who isn't prepared for it. you know as well as anybody else that from november 15th to december 24th every year an epidemic of shopping is going to break out in our midst. you know that it will rage violently in the last stage beginning december 15th, thanks to our habit of leaving everything to the last minute. you know that the men and women in your care, unless they have properly trained for the exigencies of the epidemic period, will be prostrated physically and nervously, racked in bone and body, aching from tip to toe, their energy exhausted and their spines as limp as a rag, and yet you claim you can do nothing. what would we think of a football trainer who would try thus to account for the condition of his eleven at the end of a season? we'd bounce him, that's what." "perhaps that gigantic intellect of yours has something to suggest," sneered the doctor. "certainly," quoth the idiot. "i dreamed it all out in my sleep last night. i dreamed that you and i together had started a series of establishments all over the country--" "to eradicate the shopping evil?" laughed the doctor. "a sort of keeley cure for shopping inebriates?" "nay, nay," retorted the idiot. "the shopping inebriate is too much of a factor in our commercial prosperity to make such a thing as that popular. my scheme was a sort of shopnasium." "a what?" roared the doctor. "a shopnasium," explained the idiot. "we have gymnasiums in which we teach gymnastics. why not have a shopnasium in which to teach what we might call shopnastics? just think of what a boon it would be for a lot of delicate women, for instance, who know that along about christmas-time they must hie them forth to the department stores, there to be crushed and mauled and pulled and hauled until there is scarcely anything left to them, to feel that they could come to our shopnasium and there be trained for the ordeal which they cannot escape." "very nice," said the doctor. "but how on earth can you train them? that's what i'd like to know." "how? why, how on earth do you train a football team except by practice?" demanded the idiot. "it wouldn't take a very ingenious mind to figure out a game called shopping that would be governed by rules similar to those of football. take a couple of bargain-counters for the goals. place one at one end of the shopnasium and one at the other. then let sixty women start from number one and try to get to number two across the field through another body of sixty women bent on getting to the other one, and _vice versa_. you could teach 'em all the arts of the rush-line, defence, running around the ends, breaking through the middle, and all that. at first the scrimmage would be pretty hard on the beginners, but with a month's practice they'd get hardened to it, and by christmas-time there isn't a bargain-counter in the country they couldn't reach without more than ordinary fatigue. an interesting feature of the game would be to have automatic cars and automobiles and cabs running to and fro across the field all the time so that they would become absolute masters of the art of dodging similar vehicles when they encounter them in real life, as they surely must when the holiday season is in full blast and they are compelled by the demands of the hour to go out into the world." "the women couldn't stand it," said the doctor. "they might as well be knocked out at the real thing as in the imitation." "not at all," said the idiot. "they wouldn't be knocked out if you gave them preliminary individual exercise with punching-bags, dummies for tackle practice, and other things the football player uses to make himself tough and irresistible." "but you can't reason with shopping as you do with football," suggested the lawyer. "think of the glory of winning a goal which sustains the football player through the toughest of fights. the knowledge that the nation will ring with its plaudits of his gallant achievement is half the backing of your quarter-back." "that's all right," said the idiot, "but the make-up of the average woman is such that what pursuit of fame does for the gladiator, the chase after a bargain does for a woman. i have known women so worn and weary that they couldn't get up for breakfast who had a lion's strength an hour later at a monday marked-down sale of laundry soap and yeats's poems. what the goal is to the man the bargain is to the woman, so on the question of incentive to action, mr. brief, the sexes are about even. i really think, doctor, there's a chance here for you and me to make a fortune. dr. capsule's shopnasium, opened every september for the training and development of expert shoppers in all branches of shopnastics, under the medical direction of yourself and my business management would be a winner. moreover, it would furnish a business opening for all those football players our colleges are turning out, for, as our institution grew and we established branches of it all over the country, we should, of course, have to have managers in every city, and who better to teach all these things than the expert footballist of the hour?" "oh, well," said the doctor, "perhaps it isn't such a bad thing, after all; but i don't think i care to go into it. i don't want to be rich." "very well," said the idiot. "that being the case, i will modify my suggestion somewhat and send the idea to president taylor of vassar and other heads of women's colleges. as things are now they all ought to have a course of shopping for the benefit of the young women who will soon graduate into the larger institution of matrimony. that is the only way i can see for us to build up a woman of the future who will be able to cope with the strenuous life that is involved to-day in the purchase of a cake of soap to send to one's grandmother at christmas. i know, for i have been through it; and rather than do it again i would let the all-american eleven for 1908 land on me after a running broad jump of sixteen feet in length and four in the air." xviii for a happy christmas "i have a request to make of you gentlemen," observed the idiot, as the last buckwheat-cake of his daily allotment disappeared within. "and i sincerely hope you will all grant it. it won't cost you anything, and will save you a lot of trouble." "i promise beforehand under such conditions," said the doctor. "the promise that doesn't cost anything and saves a lot of trouble is the kind i like to make." "same here," said mr. brief. "none for me," said the bibliomaniac. "my confidence in the idiot's prophecies is about as great as a defeated statesman's popular plurality. my experience with him teaches me that when he signals no trouble ahead then is the time to look out for squalls. therefore, you can count me out on this promise he wants us to make." "all right," said the idiot. "to tell the truth, i didn't think you'd come in because i didn't believe you could qualify. you see, the promise i was going to ask you to make presupposes a certain condition which you don't fulfil. i was going to ask you, gentlemen, when christmas comes to give me not the rich and beautiful gifts you contemplate putting into my stocking, but their equivalent in cash. now you, mr. bib, never gave me anything at christmas but advice, and your advice has no cash equivalent that i could ever find out, and even if it had i'm long on it now. that piece of advice you gave me last march about getting my head shaved so as to give my brain a little air i've never been able to use, and your kind suggestion of last august, that i ought to have my head cut off as a sure cure of chronic appendicitis, which you were certain i had, doctors tell me would be conducive to heart failure, which is far more fatal than the original disease. the only use to which i can put it, on my word of honor, is to give it back to you this christmas with my best wishes." "bosh!" sneered the bibliomaniac. "it was, indeed," said the idiot. "and there isn't any market for it. but the rest of you gentlemen will really delight my soul if you will do as i ask. you, mr. brief--what is the use of your paying out large sums of money, devoting hour after hour of your time, and practically risking your neck in choosing it, for a motor-car for me, when, as a matter of fact, i'd rather have the money? what's the use of giving thirty-six hundred dollars for an automobile to put in my stocking when i'd be happier if you'd give me a certified check for twenty-five hundred dollars? you couldn't get any such discount from the manufacturers, and i'd be more greatly pleased into the bargain. and you, doctor--generous heart, that you are--why in thunder should you wear yourself out between now and christmas-day looking for an eighteen-hundred-dollar fur-lined overcoat for me, when, as a matter of actual truth, i'd prefer a twenty-two-dollar ulster with ten crisp one-hundred-dollar bills in the change-pocket?" "i'm sure i don't see why i should," said the doctor. "and i promise you i won't. what's more, i'll give you the ulster and the ten crisp one hundred dollars without fail if you'll cash my check for eighteen hundred dollars and give me the change." "certainly," said the idiot. "how will you have it, in dimes or nickels?" "any way you please," said the doctor, with a wink at mr. brief. "all right," returned the idiot. "send up the ulster and the ten crisps and i'll give you my check for the balance. then i'll do the same by you, mr. poet. my policy involves a square deal for everybody whatever his previous condition of servitude. last year, you may remember, you sent me a cigar and a lovely little poem of your own composition: "when i am blue as indigo, you wrote, and cold as is the arctic snow, give me no megrims rotting. i choose the friend the heavens send who takes me idiyachting. remember that? well, it was a mighty nice present, and i wouldn't sell it for a million abandoned farms up in new hampshire, but this year i'd rather have the money--say one thousand dollars and five cents--a thousand dollars instead of the poem and five cents in place of the cigar." "i am afraid you value my verse too high," smiled the poet. "not that one," said the idiot. "the mere words don't amount to much. i could probably buy twice as many just as good for four dollars, but the way in which you arranged them, and the sentiment they conveyed, made them practically priceless to me. i set their value at a thousand dollars because that is the minimum sum at which i can be tempted to part with things that on principle i should always like to keep--like my word of honor, my conscience, my political views, and other things a fellow shouldn't let go of for minor considerations. the value of the cigar i may have placed too high, but the poem--never." "and yet you don't want another?" asked the poet, reproachfully. "indeed i do," returned the idiot, "but i can't afford to own so much literary property any more than i can afford to possess mr. brief's automobile--and this is precisely what i am driving at. so many people nowadays present us at christmas with objects we can't afford to own, that we cannot possibly repay, and overwhelm us with luxuries when we are starving for our necessities, so that christmas, instead of bringing happiness with it, brings trial and tribulation. i know of a case last year where a very generous-hearted individual sent a set of ruskin, superbly bound in full calf that would have set the bibliomaniac here crazy with joy, to a widow who had just pawned her wedding-ring to buy a christmas turkey for her children. a bundle of kindling-wood would have been far more welcome than a carnegie library at that moment, and yet here was a generous soul who was ready to spend a good hundred dollars to make the recipient happy. do you suppose the lady looked upon that sumptuous ruskin with anything but misery in her heart?" "oh, well, she could have pawned that instead of her wedding-ring," sniffed the bibliomaniac. "she couldn't for two reasons," said the idiot. "in the first place, her sensibilities were such that she could not have pawned a present just received, and, in the second place, she lived in the town of hohokus on the nepperhan, and there isn't a pawnshop within a radius of fifty miles of her home. besides, it's easier to sneak into a pawnshop with a wedding-ring for your collateral than to drive up with a van big enough to hold a complete set of ruskin bound in full calf. it takes nerve and experience to do that with a cool and careless _mien_, and, whatever you may have in that respect, mr. bib, there are few refined widows in reduced circumstances who are similarly gifted. then take the case of my friend billups--some sharp of a tailor got out a judgment against billups for ninety-eight dollars for a bill he couldn't pay on the fifteenth of december. billups got his name in the papers, and received enough notoriety to fill him with ambition to go on the stage, and it nearly killed him, and what do you suppose his friends did when christmas came around? did they pay off that judgment and relieve him of the odium of having his name chalked up on the public slate? not they. they sent him forty dollars' worth of golf-clubs, sixteen dollars' worth of cuff-buttons, eight ten-dollar umbrellas, a half-dozen silver match-boxes, a cigar-cutter, and about two hundred dollars' worth of other trash that he's got to pay storage-room for. and on top of that, in order to keep up his end, billups has had to hang up a lot of tradesmen for the match-cases and cigar-cutters and umbrellas and trash he's sent to his generous friends in return for their generosity." "oh, rot," interrupted the bibliomaniac. "what an idiot your friend billups must be. why didn't he send the presents he received to others, and so saved his money to pay his debts with?" "well, i guess he didn't think of that," said the idiot. "we haven't all got the science of christmas-giving down as fine as you have, mr. bib. but that is a valuable suggestion of yours and i'll put it down among the things that can be done in the plan i am formulating for the painless christmas." "we can't relieve one another's necessities unless we know what they are, can we?" asked mr. whitechoker. "we can if we adopt my cash system," said the idiot. "for instance, i know that i need a dozen pairs of new socks. modesty would prevent my announcing this fact to the world, and as long as i wear shoes you'd never find it out, but if, when christmas came, you gave me twenty-five dollars instead of foxe's _book of martyrs_ in words of one syllable, you would relieve my necessities and so earn my everlasting gratitude. dr. capsule here wouldn't acknowledge to you or to me that his suspenders are held together in three places with safety-pins, and will so continue to be until these prosperous times moderate; but if we were to present him with nine dollars and sixty-eight cents on christmas morning, we should discern a look of gratitude in his eye on that suspender account that would be missing if we were to hand him out a seven-dollar gold-mounted shaving-mug instead. we should have shown our generous spirit on his behalf, which is all a christmas present ever does, whether it is a diamond tiara or a chain of sausages, and at the same time have relieved his anxieties about his braces. his gratitude would be double-barrelled, and his happiness a surer shot. give us the money, say i, and let us relieve our necessities first, and then if there is anything left over we can buy some memorial of the day with the balance." "well, i think it's a pretty good plan," said mrs. pedagog. "it would save a lot of waste, anyhow. but it isn't possible for all of us to do it, mr. idiot. i, for instance, haven't any money to give you." "you could give me something better," said the idiot. "i wouldn't accept any money from you for a christmas present." "then what shall it be?" asked the landlady. "well--a receipt in full for my bill to date," said the idiot. "mercy!" cried the landlady. "i couldn't afford that--" "oh, yes you could," said the idiot. "because for your christmas i'd give you a check in full for the amount." "oh--i see," smiled the landlady. "then what do we get for our christmas? strikes me it's about as broad as it is long." "precisely," said the idiot. "we get even--and that's about as conducive to a happy christmas, to peace on earth and good-will to men, as any condition i know of. if i can get square for christmas i don't want anything else." the end transcriber's note: punctuation has been standardised. spelling has been retained as in the original publication except as follows: page 29 do you think or that _changed to_ do you think of that page 52 its as easy as rolling _changed to_ it's as easy as rolling page 75 went there several ways _changed to_ went their several ways i think its abominable _changed to_ i think it's abominable page 102 a bag of aniseseed _changed to_ a bag of ainse seed page 150 said the idiot, gratefuly _changed to_ said the idiot, gratefully page 156 tchaikowski, to be well _changed to_ tchaikowsky, to be well scanned images of public domain material from the internet archive. [illustration: book cover] [illustration: john kendrick bangs] the idiot at home by john kendrick bangs illustrated by f. t. richards [illustration] new york and london harper & brothers _publishers_ 1900 by the same author. * * * * * the booming of acre hill. illustrated. 16mo, cloth, $1.25. the enchanted typewriter. illustrated by peter newell. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. coffee and repartee and the idiot. 1 vol. illustrated. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. the dreamers: a club. illustrated by edward penfield. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. a rebellious heroine, a story. illustrated by w. t. smedley. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, uncut edges, $1.25. a house-boat on the styx. illustrated by peter newell. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. the pursuit of the house-boat. illustrated by peter newell. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. paste jewels. being seven tales of domestic woe. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.00. ghosts i have met, and some others. with illustrations by newell, frost, and richards. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. the bicyclers, and three other farces. illustrated, 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. peeps at people. illustrated by edward penfield. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. mr. bonaparte of corsica. illustrated by h. w. mcvickar. 16mo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. the water ghost, and others. illustrated. 16mo, cloth, ornamental $1.25. three weeks in politics. illustrated. 32mo, cloth, ornamental, 50 cents. * * * * * new york and london: harper & brothers, publishers. * * * * * copyright, 1900, by john kendrick bangs. to "miss bangs of london" from "mr. barnes of new york" contents page i. by way of introduction 1 ii. a little dinner to some old friends 21 iii. in the library 43 iv. as to a small dinner 63 v. on the maintenance of an attic 84 vi. the idiot's garden 105 vii. household poetry 125 viii. some consideration of the hired man 145 ix. on social accounts 165 x. as to santa claus 185 xi. as to new-year's day 205 xii. some domestic intentions 228 xiii. a suburban complication 249 xiv. some consideration of the moth 269 xv. some consideration of the burglar 288 xvi. conclusion 301 illustrations page john kendrick bangs _frontispiece_ "possessed a library of first editions" 5 "'they never had the fun of buying them'" 9 "'guaranteed to hang onto a garment in a gale'" 13 "'and some people say wagner is more important than that'" 17 "tommy and mollie gave the cook a great deal of trouble" 23 "'let the fathers look after the children at night'" 29 "a little figure clad in white" 35 "'i'd rather be spanked than not noticed at all'" 39 "'i did not smoke until i was fifty'" 45 "'smoking keeps insects from the plants'" 49 "the bibliomaniac was investigating the contents of the lower shelves" 53 "'i preferred to pay the $49.50'" 57 "the cook had taken wings onto herself" 65 "'two big boxes of potatoes, a can of french pease, and a bottle of sarsaparilla'" 69 "'the people down-stairs borrowed our dining-room chairs'" 75 "'who was it?' asked mrs. idiot" 79 "'i set off a giant cracker under his chair'" 87 "'would hang that portrait upon the wall of my bedroom'" 91 "'started to preach with the recipe for a washington pie'" 95 "'a little bundle of my own letters'" 101 "'we sprinkled it in person'" 107 "'he discovered the one perfect stalk'" 111 "'it would de deucedly awkward ... if they would explode in the mouth of the person who was eating them'" 115 "she could slam them down on the hearth-stones like torpedoes'" 119 "'the joys and woes of the toilers who mined it'" 127 "'for though i'm but a carpet-tack,'" etc. 131 "'i should hesitate to try to drive a canal-boat'" 137 "'i haven't ever had a home; i've always boarded'" 141 "'i feel that i could go out and mow three acres of grass'" 147 "'he would go out day after day and sit down beside it'" 151 "'he shovels off a foot-path'" 155 "'spend a whole day on one window'" 161 "'well, i'm fond of golf'" 167 "'an anthropological tea'" 171 "'the baby is rocked to sleep every night'" 175 "'poor dick dawkins isn't taken care of at all'" 179 "'dr. preachly only got eight pairs last xmas'" 189 "'a china doll to the daughter of a carpenter'" 193 "'hullo, sonny! had a good time?'" 197 "'i gave my dolly away to-day'" 201 "'i don't quite catch your drift'" 207 "'i felt as if i had swallowed an overshoe'" 213 "'i found eight sandwiches and a pint of salted almonds'" 219 "'they were found some days later when the room was put in order'" 223 "'there's not much money in stocks'" 231 "'a nice little basket-hat on her head to hold the pins in'" 235 "'an electric notice to quit'" 239 finding out what is being cooked for dinner 245 "'courting his best girl on some other fellow's stone wall'" 251 "'holding up a great osage orange'" 255 "'the picture of a heart with an arrow drawn through it'" 259 "'it took my hired man two weeks to scrub it out'" 265 "'an unpaid grocer's bill becomes an absolute pleasure'" 271 "'the lion, the elephant, the tiger, all have their work to do'" 275 "'they eat up my new clothes'" 279 "'wasted my energy upon the unresponsive air'" 283 i by way of introduction "my dear," said the idiot one morning, as he and his good wife and the two little ones, mollie and tommy, sat down at the breakfast-table, "now that we are finally settled in our new house i move we celebrate. let's give a dinner to my old friends of mrs. smithers's; they were nice old people, and i should like to get them together again. i saw dr. pedagog in the city yesterday, and he inquired most affectionately, not to say anxiously, about the children." "why should he be anxious about the children?" asked mrs. idiot, placidly, as she sweetened her husband's coffee. "does he suspect them of lacking completeness or variety?" the idiot tapped his forehead significantly. "he didn't know whether they take after you or after me, but i relieved his mind on that score," he said. "i told him that they didn't take after anybody that either of us ever knew. they have started in on a line of idiocy that is entirely their own. he seemed very much pleased when i said that, and observed that he was glad to hear it." mrs. idiot laughed. "it was very nice of the doctor to ask about them, but i am a little afraid he wants to take a hand in their bringing up," she said. "no doubt of it," said the idiot. "pedagog always was anxious to experiment. many a time i have suspected him of having designs even on me." "mrs. pedagog told me last year that he had devised an entirely new system of home training," observed mrs. idiot, "and they both regretted that they had no children of their own to try it on." "and of course you offered to lend tommy to them?" said the idiot, with a sly glance at his son, who was stowing away his oatmeal at a rate that bade fair to create a famine. "of course," said mrs. idiot. "he's got to get raw material somewhere, and i thought tommy would be just the thing." "well, i ain't a-goin'," said tommy, helping himself liberally and for the third time to the oatmeal. "my son," said the idiot, with a mock show of sternness, "if your mother chooses to lend you to any one it is not for you to say that you 'ain't a-goin'. it may be that i shall interfere to the extent of demanding to know what security for your safe return is offered, but otherwise neither you nor i shall intervene. what your mother says is law for you as well as for me. please understand that, thomas." "all right, pa," said tommy; and then he added in an undertone, presumably to the butter, "but i ain't a-goin', just the same." "i'll go," said mollie, who rather liked the idea of being lent to somebody, since it involved a visit to some strange and therefore fascinating spot away from home. "lend me to somebody, will you, mamma?" "yes, ma, lend mollie to 'em," said tommy, with, a certain dry enthusiasm, "and then maybe you can borrow a boy from somebody else for me to play with. i don't see why you don't swap her off for a boy, anyhow. i like her well enough, but what you ever wanted to buy her for in the beginning i don't know. girls isn't any good." "thomas," said the idiot, "you talk too much, and, what is more, you say vain things which some day you will regret. when you get older you will recall this dictum of yours, that 'girls isn't any good,' with a blush of shame, and remember that your mother was once a girl." "well, she's outgrown it," said tommy; and then reverting to his father's choice of words, he added, "what is dictums, anyhow?" "pooh!" cried the little girl. "smarty don't know what dictums is!" "suppose you two young persons subside for a few minutes!" interrupted the idiot. "i wish to talk to your mother, and i haven't got all day. you'll be wanting some bread and butter to-morrow, and i must go to town and earn it." "all right, pa," said tommy. "i ain't got anything to say that i can't say to myself. i'd rather talk to myself, anyhow. you can be as sassy--" "thomas!" said the idiot, severely. "all right, pa," said tommy; and with a side remark to the cream-jug, that he still thought mollie ought to be swapped off for something, it didn't matter what as long as it wasn't another girl, the boy lapsed into a deep though merely temporary silence. "you said you'd like to give a dinner to mr. and mrs. pedagog and the others," said mrs. idiot. "i quite approve." "i think it would be nice," returned the idiot. "it has been more than six years since we were all together." "you wouldn't prefer having them at breakfast, would you?" asked mrs. idiot, with a smile. "i remember hearing you say once that breakfast was your best time." "how long is six years, pa?" asked tommy. "really, thomas," replied the idiot, severely, "you are the most absurd creature. how long is six years!" "i meant in inches," said tommy, unabashed. "you always told me to ask you when i wanted to know things. of course, if you don't know--" "it's more'n a mile, i guess," observed mollie, with some superiority of manner. "ain't it, pa?" the idiot glanced at his wife in despair. "i don't think, my dear, that i am as strong at breakfast as i used to be," said he. "there was a time when i could hold my own, but things seem to have changed. make it dinner; and, tommy, when you have deep problems to solve, like how long is six years in inches, try to work them out for yourself. it will fix the results more firmly in your mind." "all right, pa," replied tommy; "i thought maybe you knew. i thought you said you knew everything." [illustration: "possessed a library of first editions"] in accordance with the idiot's suggestion the invitations were sent out. it was a most agreeable proposition as far as his wife was concerned, for the idiot's old associates, his fellow-boarders at mrs. smithers-pedagog's "high-class home for single gentlemen," had proved to be the stanchest of his friends. they had, as time passed on, gone their several ways. the poet had made himself so famous that even his bad things got into print; the bibliomaniac, by an unexpected stroke of fortune, had come into possession of his own again, and now possessed a library of first editions that auctioneers looked upon with envious eyes, and which aroused the hatred of many another collector. the doctor had prospered equally, and was now one of the most successful operators for appendicitis; in fact, could now afford to refuse all other practice than that involved in that delicate and popular line of work. the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed had not wholly reformed, but, as the idiot put it, had developed into one who occasionally did _not_ imbibe. mr. brief had become an assistant district attorney, and was prominently mentioned for a judgeship, and mr. and mrs. pedagog lived placidly along together, never for an instant regretting the inspiration which led them to economize by making two into one. in short, time and fortune had dealt kindly with all, even with mary, the housemaid, who was now general manager of the nursery in the idiot's household. the home life of "mr. and mrs. idiot" had been all that either of the young people could have wished for, and prosperity had waited upon them in all things. the idiot had become a partner in the business of his father-in-law, and even in bad times had managed to save something, until now, with two children, aged five and six, he found himself the possessor of his own home in a suburban city. it had been finished only a month when the proposed dinner was first mentioned, and the natural pride of its master and mistress was delightful to look upon. "why, do you know, my dear," said the idiot one evening, on his return from town, "they are talking of asking me to resign from the club because they say i am offensive about this place, and watson says my conversation has become a bore to everybody because the burden of my song yesterday was pots and pans and kettles and things like that?" "i suppose clubmen are not interested in pots and pans and kettles and things," mrs. idiot observed. "some people aren't, you know." "not interested?" echoed the idiot. "what kind of people can they be not to be interested in pots and pans and kettles and things? i guess it's because of their dense ignorance." [illustration: "'they never had the fun of buying them'"] "they never had the fun of buying them, perhaps," suggested mrs. idiot. [illustration: "'guaranteed to hang onto a garment in a gale'"] "possibly," assented the idiot. "and i'll tell you one thing, pollie, dear," he added, "if they had had that fun just once, instead of squandering their savings on clothes and the theatre, and on horses, you'd find every blessed one of those chaps thronging the hardware shops all day and spending their money there. why, do you know i even enjoyed getting the clothes-pins, and what is more, it was instructive. i never knew before what countless varieties of clothes-pins there were. there's the plain kind of commerce that look like a pair of legs with a polo-cap on. i was brought up on those, and i used to steal them when i was a small boy, to act as understudies for noah and shem and ham and japheth in my noah's ark. then there's the patent kind with a spring to it that is guaranteed to hang onto a garment in a gale if it has to let go of the rope. very few people realize the infinite variety of the clothes-pin, and when i try to tell these chaps at the club about it they yawn and try to change the subject to things like german opera and impressionism and international complications." "how foolish of them!" laughed mrs. idiot. "the idea of preferring to talk of wagner when one can discourse upon clothes-pins!" "i am afraid you are sarcastic," rejoined the idiot. "but you needn't be; if you'd only reason it out you'd see at once that my view is correct. anybody can talk about wagner. any person who knows a picture from a cable-car can talk with seeming intelligence on art, and even a member of congress can talk about international complications off-hand for hours; but how many of these people know about clothes-pins?" "very few," said mrs. idiot, meekly. "very few, indeed," observed the idiot. "and the same way with egg-beaters. i'll bet you a laundry-stove that if i should write to the _recorder_ to-morrow morning, and ask a question about wagner, the musical editor would give me an answer within twenty-four hours; but with reference to egg-beaters it would take 'em a week to find out. and that's just the trouble. the newspapers are filled up with stuff that everybody knows about, but they don't know a thing about other things on the subject of which the public is ignorant." "i think," said mrs. idiot, reflectively, "that that is probably due to the fact that they consider wagner more important than an egg-beater." [illustration: "'and some people say wagner is more important than that'"] "well, then, they don't know, that's all," rejoined the idiot, rising and walking out into the kitchen and taking the fascinating object over which he was waxing so enthusiastic from the dresser drawer. "just look at that!" he cried, turning the cog-wheel which set the three intersecting metal loops whizzing like a squirrel in its wheel-cage. "just look at that! it's beautiful, and some people say wagner is more important than that." "well, i must say, my dear," said mrs. idiot, "that i have a leaning that way myself. of course, i admit the charm of the egg-beater, but--" "tell me one thing," demanded the idiot. "can you get along without wagner?" "why, yes," mrs. idiot replied, "if i have to." "and can you get along without an egg-beater?" he cried, triumphantly. the evidence was overwhelming, and mrs. idiot, with an appreciative ebullition of mirth, acknowledged herself defeated, and so charmingly withal, that the next day when her husband returned home he brought her two tickets for the opera of siegfried as a reward for her graceful submission. "i could have bought ten dozen muffin-rings for the same money," said he, as he gave them to her, "but people who know when to give in, and do give in as amiably as you do, my dear, deserve to be rewarded; and, on the whole, when you use these tickets, if you'll ask me, i think i'll escort you to siegfried myself." ii a little dinner to some old friends [illustration: "tommy and mollie gave the cook a great deal of trouble"] ten days later all was excitement at the idiot's new home. tommy and mollie were in a state bordering upon frenzy, and gave the cook a great deal of trouble, requesting a taste of this, that, and the other thing, which she was preparing for the dinner to mr. and mrs. pedagog, the bibliomaniac, and the others. inwardly, too, they were somewhat wrathful, for they could not understand why they were not permitted to dine with their parents as usual. "i guess maybe it's your manners that keeps you away, tommy," said mollie. "hoh!" said tommy. "it can't be that, because pa says i ain't got any. it's because you're too young to be introdoosed into society, and i've got to stay up-stairs and look after you. if you weren't a girl!" here tommy clenched his fists and looked unutterable things. mollie shuddered and was glad she was a girl as she imagined the awful things tommy would do to her had she been a boy. "neither of 'em's it, tommy," she said, in a conciliatory manner. "it's because they ain't got enough dining-room chairs, that's why. i know, because i counted 'em, and there's only eight, and there's nine people comin'." "i guess maybe that's it," said tommy, pacified somewhat. "and anyhow, i don't care. i saw that piece of paper ma gave jennie, and she wrote down all the things they're goin' to have, and it's goin' to be two hours between the soup and the ice-cream. i couldn't ever wait that long for the ice-cream. i don't see why they don't begin with ice-cream." "i guess maybe we're better off as it is," said mollie. "popper and mommer ain't likely to forget us, and, besides, we can talk." and with this comforting reflection the little ones retired to their nursery contented in mind and spirit--and they didn't suffer a bit. their "popper and mommer" didn't forget them. the ice-cream was excellent, and they had their share of it almost before the guests began with their oysters. at seven o'clock mr. and mrs. pedagog had arrived, and at seven-ten all the invited guests were present. "if it hadn't been for my wife," mr. pedagog whispered in his host's ear, "i should have been late, too." "don't apologize, old man," replied the idiot, gripping the schoolmaster's hand warmly. "i sometimes go to dinners on time myself." in a few moments dinner was announced, and shortly after all were seated, and in memory of old times the guests naturally waited for the idiot to begin. "do you know," he said, as he squeezed the juice from a luscious lemon over an unprotesting oyster, at the same time glancing affectionately over the company, "i haven't felt so much at home for years as i do now." "not very complimentary to your wife," said mr. brief. "oh, i know what he means," observed mrs. idiot. "and i have so many other opportunities to compliment her," said the idiot. "but really, mrs. pedagog," he added, addressing the good lady who sat at his right, "i feel absolutely contented to-night. all the good things of the past and of the present seem to be concentrated about this board--except the three up-stairs, who can't very well be here." "three?" asked mr. pedagog. "i thought there were only two--" "certainly," said the idiot. "tommy and mollie, but there is mary, your old housemaid. we can't very well ask them to dine with us, you know." "i don't see why tommy and mollie can't be invited," said mr. pedagog, much to the idiot's surprise, it seemed so like a violation of his system, as it might be presumed to be. "you believe in having children at table, then, mr. pedagog?" asked mrs. idiot. "most certainly," said the schoolmaster. mrs. pedagog glanced smilingly at mrs. idiot, as much as to say, "oh, these men!" "i certainly do approve of having children at table on all occasions," he continued. "how else are they to learn how to conduct themselves? the discipline of the nursery is apt to be lax, and it is my belief that many of the bad table manners of the present-day child are due to the sense of freedom which eating dinner in the nursery naturally inculcates." "there is something in what you say," said the idiot. "tommy, for instance, never learned to throw a french pancake across the table at his sister by watching his mother and myself here in the dining-room, yet in the freedom of the nursery i have known it done." "precisely," said mr. pedagog. "that very little incident illustrates my point exactly. and i have no doubt that in the nursery the offence seemed less heinous than it would had it occurred in the dining-room, and hence did not meet with the full measure of punishment that it deserved." "i have forgotten exactly what was done on that occasion," said the idiot, calmly. "it is my impression that i compelled thomas to eat the pancake." "i am sure i never heard of the incident before," said mrs. idiot, her cheeks growing very red. "he didn't really, did he, dear?" "by jove!" cried the idiot, snapping his forefinger against his thumb, "what a traitor i am, to be sure. i promised thomas never to tell, and here i've given the poor little chap away; but the boy was excusable, i assure you all--that is, he was excusable in a sense. mollie had previously hit him in the eye with a salted almond, and--" "it is quite evident," put in mrs. pedagog, her womanly sympathy leading her to rush to the aid of mrs. idiot, who seemed somewhat mortified over the idiot's confidences, "that you were not at home, my dear. i have myself observed that extraordinary episodes of this nature generally happen when it is the father who is left in charge of the children." "quite right, mrs. pedagog," said the doctor, nodding his head gravely. "i have noticed the same thing in my professional practice. as long as the mother is about discipline is maintained, but once leave the father in charge and riot is the order of the day." "that's exactly what i was going to say," said the idiot. "many a time when mrs. idiot has gone out shopping, as she did on the day in question, and i have remained at home for a rest, i have wished before evening came that i had gone shopping and let my wife have the rest. as a matter of fact, the bringing up of children should be left to the mother--" "oh, but the father should have something to do with it," interrupted mrs. idiot. "it is too great a responsibility to place on a woman's shoulders." "you didn't let me finish, my dear," said the idiot, amiably. "i was going to say that the mother should bring the children up, and the father should take 'em down when they get up too high." "my views to a dot," said mr. pedagog, with more enthusiasm than he had ever yet shown over the idiot's dicta. "just as in ordinary colonial government, the home authorities should govern, and when necessary a stronger power should intervene." "ideal--is it not?" laughed mrs. idiot, addressing mrs. pedagog. "the mother, spain. the children, cuba. papa, the great and glorious united states!" "ahem! well," said mr. pedagog, "i didn't mean that exactly, you know--" "but it's what you said, john," said mrs. pedagog, somewhat severely. [illustration: "'let the fathers look after the children at night'"] "well, i don't see why there can't be a division of responsibility," said the poet, who had never married, and who knew children only as a theory. "let the mothers look after them in the daytime, and the fathers at night." this sally was greeted with an outburst of applause, it was so practical. "excuse me!" said the idiot. "i'm not selfish, but i don't want to have charge of the children at night. why, when tommy was cutting his teeth i suffered agonies when night came on. i was down-town all day, and so wasn't very much bothered then, but at night it was something awful. not only tommy's tooth, but the fear that his mother would tread on a tack." "that was unselfish," said mr. pedagog, dryly. "you weren't afraid of treading on one yourself." "how could i?" said the idiot. "i had all i could do trying to keep my wife from knowing that i was disturbed. it is bad enough to be worried over a crying babe, without being bothered by an irritated husband, so i simply lay there pretending to be asleep and snoring away for dear life." "you are the most considerate man i ever heard of," said mrs. pedagog, smiling broadly. "you don't mean to say," said the poet, with a frown, "that you made your wife get up and take all the trouble and bother--" "i'd only have been in the way," said the idiot, meekly. "so he kept quiet and pretended to snore like the good old idiot that he is," put in the doctor. "and he did the right thing, too," he added. "if all fathers would obliterate themselves on occasions of that sort, and let the mothers rule, the tommys and dickies and harrys would go to sleep a great deal more quickly." "we are rambling," said mr. pedagog. "the question of a father's duty towards a teething son has nothing to do with the question of a child's right to dine with his parents." "oh, i don't know," said the idiot. "if we are to consider this matter scientifically we must start right. teething is a natural first step, for if a child hath no teeth, wherewithal shall he eat dinners with his parents or without them?" "that is all very well," retorted mr. pedagog, "but to discuss fire-engines intelligently it is not necessary to go back to the times of elisha to begin it." mr. whitechoker--now the rev. theophilus whitechoker, d.d., for he, too, had prospered--smiled deprecatingly. there is no man in the world who more thoroughly appreciates a biblical joke than the prosperous clergyman. "well," said the idiot, reflectively, "i quite agree with your proposition that children should dine in the dining-room with their parents and not up-stairs in the nursery, with a lot of tin soldiers and golliwogs. the manners of parents are no better than those of tin soldiers and golliwogs, but their conversation is apt to prove more instructive; and as for the stern father who says his children must dine in the kitchen until they learn better manners, i never had much confidence in him or in his manners, either." "i don't see," said the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed, "how you can discipline children in the nursery. if they misbehave in the dining-room you can send them up-stairs to the nursery, but if they misbehave in the nursery, where the deuce can you send them?" "to bed," said mr. brief. "never!" cried the idiot. "children, mr. brief, as i understand them--and i have known three very well; myself as a boy, and tommy and mollie--children, as i understand them, are never naughty for the mere fun of being so. their wickedness grows out of their wonderful stores of unexpended and unexpendable energy. take my son thomas on last saturday afternoon, for instance. it was a rainy saturday, and tommy, instead of being out-of-doors all morning and afternoon getting rid of his superfluous vitality, had been cooped up in the house all day doing nothing. shortly before dinner we had a difference of opinion which lasted for more time than i like to think about. i was tired and irritable. tommy wasn't tired, but he _was_ irritable, and, from his point of view, was as right as i was. he had the best of me to the extent that i was tired and he wasn't. i had the best of him to the extent that i had authority and he hadn't--" "and who came out ahead?" asked mr. pedagog. "i did," said the idiot, "because i was bigger than he was; but what i was going to say was this: mr. brief would have sent him to bed, thereby adding to the boy's stock of energy, already too great for his little mind to control." "and what did you do?" asked mr. brief. "nothin'," said a small but unmistakably masculine voice from behind the portieres. "thomas!" said the idiot, severely, as all turned to see who had spoken. [illustration: "a little figure clad in white"] a little figure clad in white, ably supported by a still smaller figure, also clad in white, but with an additional ruffle about the neck, both of them barefooted, appeared in the doorway. "why, mollie!" said mrs. idiot. "we comed down to thee how you wath gettin' along," said the little girl. "yes, we did," said the boy. "but he didn't do a thing to me that day," he added, climbing on his father's knee and snuggling down against his vest-pocket with a sweet little sigh of satisfaction. "did you, pa?" "yes, thomas," said the idiot. "don't you remember that i ignored you utterly?" [illustration: "'i'd rather be spanked than not noticed at all'"] "yes, i do," said tommy. "but i'd rather be spanked than not noticed at all." "i am afraid," said mr. pedagog a few hours later, as he and mrs. pedagog were returning home, "i am very much afraid that the idiot's children are being spoiled." "i hope they are!" returned the good lady, "for really, john, i never knew a boy or a girl to grow into man or womanhood and amount to anything who hadn't been spoiled in childhood. spoiling is another name for the attitude of parents who make comrades of their children and who do not set themselves up as tyrants--" "but the veneration of a child for his father and mother--" mr. pedagog began. "should not degenerate into the awe which one feels for an unrelenting despot!" interrupted mrs. pedagog. the old gentleman discreetly retired from the field. as for mrs. and mr. idiot, they retired that night satisfied with the evening's diversion, and just before he turned out the light the idiot walked into the nursery to say good-night to the children. "you're a good old pop!" said tommy, with an affectionate hug. "_the best i ever had!_" as for mollie, she was sleeping soundly, with a smile on her placid little face which showed that, "spoiled" as she was, she was happy; and what should the idiot or any one else seek to bring into a child's life but happiness? iii in the library the bibliomaniac had come off into the country to spend sunday with the idiot, and, as fortune would have it, mr. and mrs. pedagog also appeared on the scene. after the mid-day dinner the little party withdrew to the library, where the bibliomaniac began to discourse somewhat learnedly upon his hobby. "i am glad to see, my dear idiot," he observed, as he glanced about the room at the well-filled shelves, "that as you grow older you are cultivating a love of good literature." "i heartily echo the sentiment," said mr. pedagog, as he noted the titles of some of the volumes. "i may add that i am pleasurably surprised at some of your selections. i never knew, for instance, that you cared for dryden, and yet i see here on the top shelf a voluminous edition of that poet." "yes," said the idiot. "i have found dryden very useful indeed. particularly in that binding and in so many volumes. the color goes very well with the hangings, and the space the books occupy, eked out by a dozen others of the same color, gives to that top shelf all the esthetic effect of an attractive and tasteful frieze. then, too, it is always well," he added, with a sly wink at mrs. idiot, "to have a lot of books for a top shelf that is difficult to reach that nothing under the canopy could induce you to read. it is not healthful to be stretching upward, and with dryden upon the top shelf my wife and i are never tempted to undermine our constitutions by taking him down." the bibliomaniac laughed. "your view is at least characteristic," said he, "and to tell you the absolute truth, i do not know that your judgment of the literary value of dryden is at variance with my own. somebody called him the greatest poet of a little age. perhaps if the age had been bigger he'd not have shone so brilliantly." "lowell," observed mr. pedagog, "was responsible for that remark, if i remember rightly, and i have no doubt it is a just one, and yet i do not hold it up against dryden. man does not make the age. the age makes the man. had there been any inspiring influences at work to give him a motive, an incentive, dryden might have been a greater poet. to excel his fellows was all that could rightly be expected of him, and that he did." "assuredly," said the idiot. "that has always been my view, and to-day we benefit by it. if he had gone directly to oblivion, mrs. idiot and i should have been utterly at a loss to know what to put on that top shelf." the idiot offered his visitors a cigar. "thank you," said the bibliomaniac, taking his and sniffing at it with all the airs and graces of a connoisseur. [illustration: "'i did not smoke until i was fifty'"] "i don't know but that i will join you," said mr. pedagog. "i did not smoke until i was fifty, and i suppose i ought not to have taken it up then, but i did, and i have taken a great deal of comfort out of it. my allowance is fifty-two cigars a year, one for each sunday afternoon," he added, with a kindly smile. "well, you want to look out you don't get smoker's heart," said the idiot. "when a man plunges into a bad habit as rashly as that, he wants to pull up before it is too late." "i have felt no ill effects since the first one," rejoined mr. pedagog. "but you, my dear idiot, how about your allowance? is it still as great as ever? as i remember you in the old days you were something of a cigarette fiend." [illustration: "'smoking keeps insects from the plants'"] "i smoke just as much, but with this difference: i do not smoke for pleasure any more, mr. pedagog," the idiot replied. "as a householder i smoke from a sense of duty. it keeps moths out of the house, and insects from the plants." [illustration: "the bibliomaniac was investigating the contents of the lower shelves"] the bibliomaniac meanwhile had been investigating the contents of the lower shelves. "you've got a few rare things here, i see," he observed, taking up a volume of short sketches illustrated by leech, in color. "this small tome is worth its weight in gold. where did you pick it up?" "auction," said the idiot. "i didn't buy it by weight, either. i bought it by mistake. the colored pictures fascinated me, and when it was put up i bawled out 'fifteen.' another fellow said 'sixteen.' i wasn't going to split nickels so i bid 'twenty.' so we kept at it until it was run up to 'thirty-six.' then i thought i'd break the other fellow's heart by bidding fifty, and it was knocked down to me." "that's a stiff price, but on the whole it's worth it," said the bibliomaniac, stroking the back of the book caressingly. "but," said mr. pedagog, "if you bid on it consciously where did the mistake come in?" the idiot sighed. "i meant cents," he said, "but the other chap and the auctioneer meant dollars. i went up and planked down a half-dollar and was immediately made aware of my error." "but you could have explained," said mr. pedagog. [illustration: "'i preferred to pay the $49.50'"] "oh, yes," said the idiot, "i _could_, but after all i preferred to pay the extra $49.50 rather than make a public confession of such infernal innocence before some sixty or seventy _habitues_ of a book-auction room." "and you were perfectly right!" said the bibliomaniac. "you never would have dared set your foot in that place again if you had explained. they would have made life a burden to you. furthermore, you have not paid too dearly for the experience. the book is worth forty dollars; and to learn better than to despise the man who makes his bid cautiously, and who advances by small bids rather than by antelopian jumps, is worth many times ten dollars to the man who collects rare books seriously. in the early days i scorned to break a five-dollar bill when i was bidding, just as you refused, as you put it, to split nickels, and many a time i have paid as high as twenty-five dollars for books that could have been had for twenty-one, because of that foolish sentiment." "i have often wondered," mr. pedagog put in at this point, holding his cigar in a gingerly and awed fashion, taking a puff at it between words, by which symptoms the man who seldom smokes may always be identified, "i have often wondered what was the mission of a private library, anyhow. and now that i find you two gentlemen interested in a phase of book-collecting with which i have had little sympathy myself, possibly i may, without being offensive, ask a question. do you, for instance, mr. idiot, collect books because you wish to have something nobody else has got, or do you buy your books to read?" "that is a deep question," said the idiot, "and i do not know that i can answer it off-hand. i have already confessed that i bought dryden for his decorative quality. i purchased my thackeray to read. i bought my pepys diary because i find it better reading than a sunday newspaper, quite as gossipy, and with weather reports that are fully as reliable. but that particular leech i bought because of my youthful love for colored pictures." "but you admit that it is valuable because of its rarity, and that compared to fifty dollars' worth of books that are not rare it is not to be compared with them from a literary point of view?" said mr. pedagog. "i presume," said the idiot, "that the fifty dollars i expended on that book would have provided me with a complete shakespeare in one volume; all of byron in green cloth and gold top; all of dickens, thackeray, bulwer, and austen in six volumes, with a margin of forty-five dollars left with which for nine years i could have paid for a subscription to the mercantile library, containing all the good reading of the present day and all the standard works of the past. but i rather like to have the books, and to feel that they are my own, even if it is only for the pleasure of lending them." "still, if a man collects books merely for their contents--" persisted mr. pedagog. "he is a wild, extravagant person," said the idiot. "he might save himself hundreds of dollars, not to say thousands. the library on that plan need not occupy an honored place among the rooms of the house. a mere pigeon-hole with a subscriber's card to a circulating library filed away in it will do as well, or if the city or town in which he lives maintains a public library he may spare himself even that expense." "good for you!" exclaimed the bibliomaniac. "that's the best answer to the critics of book-collectors i have heard yet." "i agree with you," said mr. pedagog. "it is a very comprehensive reply. as for you, my dear bibliomaniac, why do you collect books?" "because i love 'em as books," replied the bibliomaniac. "because of their associations, and because when i get a treasure i have the bliss of knowing i have something that others haven't." "then it is selfishness?" asked mr. pedagog. "just as everything else is," returned the bibliomaniac. "you, sir, if i may be personal without wishing to be offensive, are wedded to mrs. pedagog. you take pleasure in knowing that she belongs to you and not to any one else. the idiot here is proud of his children, and is glad they are his children and nobody else's. _i_ am wedded to my rare books, and it rejoices my soul to pick up a volume that is unique, and to know that it belongs to me and to no one else. if that is selfishness, then all possession is selfish." "that's about it," said the idiot. "you collect books just as mormons and solomon used to collect wives. you are called a bibliomaniac. i suppose brigham young and solomon would have been known as gamyomaniacs--though i don't suppose that age in women as in books is a requisite of value to marrying men--and they are both of them supposed to be rather canny persons." mr. pedagog puffed away in silence. it was evident that the _argumentum ad hominem_ did not please him. "well," he said, after awhile, "possibly you are right. if a man wants a library to be a small british museum--" "he will take better care of his rarities than the idiot does," said the bibliomaniac, putting the rare leech back into its place. "if that were mine i'd put it out of the reach of my children." "i didn't know you had any," said the idiot, eagerly. "oh, you know what i mean," retorted the bibliomaniac. "you place dryden on the top shelf where tommy and mollie cannot get at him. but this book, which is worth ten larger paper editions of dryden, you keep below, where the children can easily reach it. it's a wonder to me you've been able to keep it in its present superb condition." "the mind of a child," said mr. pedagog, sententiously, "is above values, above all conceits. it is the mind of sincerity, and a rare book has no greater attraction to the boy or girl than one not so favored." "that is not my reason," said the idiot. "i know children pretty well, and i have observed that they are ambitious, and in a sense rebellious. they want to do what they cannot do. that is why, when mothers place jam on the top shelf of the pantry, the children always climb up to get it. if they would leave it on the dining-room table, within easy reach, the children would soon cease to regard it as a thing to be sought for. make jam a required article of diet and the little ones will soon cease to want it. so with that book. if i should put that out of tommy's reach, tommy would lie awake nights to plan his campaign to get it. leaving it where it is he doesn't think about it, doesn't want it, is not forbidden to have it, and so it escapes his notice." "you have the right idea, the human idea," said mr. pedagog, and even the bibliomaniac was inclined to agree. but just then tommy happened in, with mollie close after. the boy walked straight to the bookcase, and mollie gathered up the large shears from the idiot's table, and together they approached their father. "pa," said mollie, holding up the scissors, "can i borrow these?" "what for?" asked the idiot. "we want to cut the pictures out o' this," said tommy, holding up the fifty-dollar leech. after all, it is difficult to lay down a cast-iron rule as to how a private library should be constructed or arranged, particularly when one's loyalty is divided between one's children and one's merely bookish treasures. iv as to a small dinner [illustration: "the cook had taken wings unto herself"] it was sad but true. mr. and mrs. idiot had invited mr. whitechoker and mr. and mrs. pedagog and the poet to dinner, and for some reason or another the cook had taken wings unto herself and flown, and the guests were expected within two hours. "i see now," said the idiot, "why they call it taking french leave. nobody who doesn't understand french understands it. if it wasn't french, or if somebody would translate it for us, we might be able to comprehend it; as it is, it is one of the mysteries, and, as usual, we must make the best of it. life, after all, my dear, consists largely of making the best of things." "well, i'm sure i don't know what to do," said mrs. idiot, despairfully, "unless you telegraph them all not to come, and tell them why." "it is too late to do that," said the idiot, looking at his watch. "they've probably all left home by this time. poets and clergymen and old people like mr. and mrs. pedagog always do start an hour too early, for fear of missing their train." "i wouldn't care so much about the poet," said mrs. idiot; "he doesn't know enough about housekeeping, anyhow, to make it matter. but mr. whitechoker and mr. and mrs. pedagog--i simply can't ask them to camp out, as it were. the very fact that mrs. pedagog would become sympathetic immediately she learned what had happened would in itself be unbearable." "i thought women liked sympathy?" said the idiot, with a proper manifestation of surprise. "so they do; but you might just as well talk about claret as meaning one thing as of sympathy being all of the same brand," mrs. idiot answered. "certain kinds of claret are insufferable--sour and heady. i suppose there are sixty different kinds." "sixty-two," said the idiot, blandly. "the sixty you mean and two more whose names i have forgotten." "i wish you would be serious for a moment," mrs. idiot retorted, with as near an approach to irritation as was possible to one of her amiable disposition. "and it's just the same way with sympathy," she continued; "mrs. pedagog will lay this whole trouble to my inexperience. probably she never had a servant take french leave in her life on the eve of a dinner-party." "i'll bet she didn't," said the idiot. "and for why? because she never gave a dinner-party in all her life. the habits of early life cling unto old age, and even as in her early days as a boarding-house keeper she never gave anything, so now she doubtless considers giving a dinner as a reckless waste of opportunity. and she is quite right. does a lawyer invite his friends to join him in an opinion? never. does mr. tiffany request mr. and mrs. idiot to accept a diamond tiara given in their honor? not. does a true poet, with three names on his autograph, give a poem to anybody when he can sell it? not if he knows it. why, then, expect a landlady, by birth and previous training, to _give_ a dinner?" "i notice," said mrs. idiot, severely, "that you are always willing to give your views!" [illustration: "'two big boxes of potatoes, a can of french pease, and a bottle of sarsaparilla'"] "precisely, my dear, and that proves my point," replied the idiot, amiably. "i am not a professional viewer, and i am not a photographer by trade. therefore, why should i not _give_ my views? but really," he added, "i wouldn't bother; it'll all come out right. i don't know just how, but i am confident we shall have the most glorious dinner of our lives. when i was down cellar this morning looking at the gas-meter i saw two big boxes full of potatoes, a can of french pease, and a bottle of sarsaparilla, and if they don't like what they get it will be because they are exacting. and i'll wager you from what i know of their manners that if you gave them dried apples, cold tongue, and milk they'd say it was the most delightful repast they ever sat down to." "but _i'd_ know they didn't mean it," said mrs. idiot, smiling in spite of her woe. "and that brings up the question, why should your conscience be troubled by the insincerity of others?" said he. "now, i'll tell you what we'll do. you fry the potatoes and i'll boil the can of pease; i think four minutes will boil them hard, like an egg, and together we'll put the sarsaparilla on ice, and bluff the whole thing through. bluffing was always my strong point, and i have noticed, my dear, that in whatever i have tried to do since we were married you have contributed at least ninety per cent. to success. my bluff plus your efforts to make the thing a go will send our dinner to a premium." mrs. idiot remained properly silent. as a matter of fact, she was not even listening. she was considering. what on earth to do was the question in her mind, and it so entirely absorbed it that she fortunately had little left for the rather easy views of the idiot himself. "what is a dinner, anyhow?" the idiot added, after the silence had to his mind become oppressive. "is it a mere meal? do the poet and mr. and mrs. pedagog and mr. whitechoker come here merely to get something to eat? or do they come for the pleasure of our society, or for the pleasure of leaving home, or what? as i understand it, people go out to dine not because they have not a sufficiency of food at home, but because they wish to meet other people. that's what i do. i can always have something better to eat at home than i can get at somebody else's house; and furthermore, it is a more natural meal. dinners generally are made up of pretty little things that nobody likes, and have no sustenance in them. a successful dinner lies not in successful cooking, but in pleasing conversation. wherefore, it is not the cook, but the host and hostess who make a failure or a success of a dinner." "then i presume if we simply spread the table and let you talk our guests will be satisfied?" said mrs. idiot, blandly. "precisely," the idiot replied. "it will be delightful. just think of the menu! instead of oysters i will indulge in a few opinions as to the intellectual qualities of bivalves generally, finishing up with a glowing tribute to the man who is content to be a clam and not talk too much. in the place of _purã©e_ we will tackle some such subject as the future of spain. i think i could ladle out a few sound ideas on that subject that would be as clear as the purest _consommã©_. then for fish, that would be easy. a good trout story, with imagination sauce, would do very well. for the _entrã©e_ i will give you one of my most recent poems, and the roast will be--" "and the rest of us are to sit and twiddle our thumbs while you soliloquize?" demanded mrs. idiot. "i rather think not. i will provide the roast, my dear john, and it will consist largely of remarks upon the ways of cooks." "a very proper subject for a roast," observed the idiot, complacently, "and in your present frame of mind i think it will be not only well done, but rare as well, with plenty of crisp. and so we can simply talk this dinner through. it will be novel, certainly, and if you provide plenty of bread and butter no one need go away hungry." "very true," mrs. idiot answered. "and now that you have had your fun, suppose we put our minds on the serious aspect of the case. two hours from now four people are coming here hungry--" "i have it!" cried the idiot, delightedly. "let's _borrow_ a cook! i don't believe it's ever been done before. it would be splendid, not only in getting us out of our troubles, but in establishing an entirely new principle in domestic science. what is the use of neighbors who will not be neighborly and lend you their most cherished possession?" "none at all," sighed mrs. idiot, despairingly. [illustration: "'the people down-stairs borrowed our dining-room chairs'"] "now, when we lived in our flat in new york the people up-stairs borrowed our ice," said the idiot; "the people down-stairs borrowed our dining-room chairs; the people across the hall borrowed butter and milk and eggs, and i think we once borrowed a lemon from the people on the top floor." "never!" cried mrs. idiot. "yes, we did, my dear," insisted the idiot. "at least i did. you and the children were off in the country, and one hot summer's night, two years ago, i was consumed with a desire for a glass of lemonade, and as there were no lemons in the house, or the flat, i sent out to borrow. i began at the basement and worked up towards the roof, and ultimately got what i wanted, although, as i have said, it was the top-flat people i got it from." "and did you ever return it?" demanded mrs. idiot. "i regret to say that i didn't," said the idiot. "but i will, and with interest. i wonder what two years' interest on a lemon is!" he added. "i suppose that a borrowed lemon compounded at the rate of six per cent. could be paid off by a lemon and one small bermuda potato. i will send my check for both to those people to-morrow. what was their name?" "i never knew," said mrs. idiot. "i never liked them, and i never called. i am sorry you are under obligations to them." "only for a lemon, though, dear," said the idiot, "at six per cent." "but what does all this prove?" demanded the poor little housekeeper. "that the principle of lending is recognized among neighbors," the idiot explained. "if a neighbor will lend a lemon, surely a neighbor will lend a cook. the principle involved is the same in both cases. particularly so in this case, for my experience with cooks has been that they are, after all, for the most part nothing but human lemons. if the departed bridget had been anything but full of sourness she would not have left us so unexpectedly." "you don't really think for a moment, do you, that the jimpsonberrys would lend us their cook, or that she would come, or that i would ask them?" said mrs. idiot. "well, i suppose not," said the idiot. "i suppose not. _but i don't see why!_ first, the jimpsonberrys, as our neighbors, ought to be willing to get us out of our trouble. second, we don't ask their cook to come for nothing. by coming she will receive an addition to her wages which will help her to endow a policeman with a moderate fortune some day when she marries him. as for your asking mrs. jimpsonberry to lend us her cook for a few hours, that is the main objection. when one borrows one must give collateral, and it may be that it would embarrass you to offer mike as security for the safe return of the jimpsonberrys' cook. anyhow, i see weak points in my plan, and we'd better abandon it. if the jimpsonberrys' cook is the only available incendiary in the neighborhood, we'd better stop where we are. when we dined at jimpsonberrys' last week i went away feeling that jimpsonberry ought to collect fire insurance on that dinner. it wasn't cooked; it was a plain case of arson." it was at this precise moment, when poor mrs. idiot was beginning to despair of getting any advice of value from her husband, that the telephone-bell rang, and the idiot rose up to answer the call. "hello!" he said. "oh! hello, old man!" he added. "that you? glad to see you." "yes," he continued, after a pause. "of course we expect you." "seven o'clock sharp," he remarked, a moment later. "you'll surely be here?" then after a second pause, he added: "good! you can stay all night if you wish; we've plenty of room. good-bye." [illustration: "'who was it?' asked mrs. idiot"] "who was it?" asked mrs. idiot, as the idiot hung up the receiver of the telephone. "the poet," replied the idiot. "he wanted to know at what hour dinner was." "oh, dear!" cried mrs. idiot. "why didn't you tell him the dinner isn't for to-night, but to-morrow night?" "didn't need to, my dear," said the idiot, lighting a cigarette. "we've made a slight mistake. you invited these people, it now appears, for the twenty-ninth." "certainly," said mrs. idiot. "well, my love," said the idiot, with an affectionate glance, "to-day is the--ah--the twenty-eighth." mrs. idiot drew a sigh of relief. "my!" she cried, "what a blessing! i wonder how i got so mixed!" "it's economy, perhaps," suggested the idiot. "if you will insist on buying out-of-date diaries and last year's calendars at bargain-counters because they are cheap, i don't really see how you can expect to keep up with the times." mrs. idiot laughed heartily. her relief of mind was unmistakable. "what would you have done, john, if this had really been the night?" she asked later. "oh, i don't know," said the idiot. "i think i should have taken you to new york to dinner, and bluffed our guests into believing they had come up on the wrong night. it is very easy for a host to put his guests in the wrong if he wants to. i don't, but if i must, i must." as it was, the family dinner that night was a great success in spite of the absence of the cook, because mrs. idiot, who is an expert with the chafing-dish, found several odds and ends in the late cook's domains, which, under her expert manipulation, became dishes which the idiot said afterwards "remained long in the memory without proving too permanent a tax upon the digestion." v on the maintenance of an attic the idiot had been laid up for a week. that is to say, he was too indisposed to attend to business at his office, and the family physician thought it would be a good idea if his patient would be content to remain quietly indoors for a little while. to this the idiot cheerfully consented. "if there is one thing that i can do to perfection," he said, "it is resting. some men are born leisurely, some achieve leisure, and some are discharged by their employers. i belong to the first two classes. i can never become one of the third class, because, being my own employer, i am naturally pleased with myself, and am not likely to dispense with my own services." and so he stayed at home, and for a week pottered about the house, as he put it, and he had a glorious time. "what are you going to do with yourself this morning, dear?" asked mrs. idiot on the morning of the first day. "i've got to go to market, and there are one or two other little things to be attended to which will keep me out for some hours. do you think you can amuse yourself while i am out?" "well, i don't know," said the idiot. "i can try. of course, you know, my dear, that i am a good deal of a baby yet. however, if you can trust me to stay all by my lonesome for two or three hours i'll try to behave. i promise not to take the piano apart, and i vow i won't steal any jam, and i sha'n't float hair-brushes in the bath-tub pretending that they are armored cruisers looking for spaniards, and i'll try to be good, but i can't make any promises." mrs. idiot smiled, as an indulgent guardian should, and went forth. the idiot stayed at home and enjoyed himself. what he did is perhaps best indicated by his remarks some time later at a sunday-night tea at which mr. and mrs. pedagog, and mr. brief, the lawyer, were present. "mrs. pedagog," said the idiot, "did you ever have an attic?" "a what?" demanded the schoolmaster, naturally somewhat nonplussed. "an attic," said the idiot. "a favored spot wherein to potter, to root, to rummage." "why, yes," said mrs. pedagog, after a moment of deliberation. "i have had an attic, but it never seemed to me to be a particularly interesting spot. i've used it as a sort of store-room for things i didn't know what to do with." "useless things," suggested mr. pedagog. "entirely so," acquiesced the good lady. "then if they are useless, why keep them?" queried the idiot. "useless things might better be thrown away than stored away even in an attic." "oh, as for that," rejoined mrs. pedagog, "they were useless in the sense that there was nothing i could do with them, and yet there was generally some quality of association or something about them that so appealed to me that i couldn't quite throw them away, or even bring myself to give them away." "that is the idea," said the idiot. "one's cherished possessions are often stored away up-stairs and forgotten, and then sometimes years after you'll go rummaging about the house for lack of some other employment; an old trunk, a wooden box, will be unearthed in the attic, and then what a flood of memories will come rushing back over you as the long-forgotten objects come to light, one by one." "i have had much the same experience," said mr. brief, "in what i might term my professional attic. we keep a room for the storage of old papers, and strange exhibits in litigation turn up there frequently that bring back old-time lawsuits in a most interesting fashion." "i suppose, then," observed mr. pedagog, with a shrug of tolerant contempt, "that the attic is, in your estimation, a sort of repository for family archives." [illustration: "'i set off a giant cracker under his chair'"] "that's about it," said the idiot. "you ought to see mine. there are archives from the ark in mine. i've got all the portraits of my unpopular relatives up there, and such a gallery of smug-looking individuals you never saw. there's uncle jedediah, who hated me because i set off a giant cracker under his chair one fourth of july, and who from that day vowed i was born to be hanged; and who sent me a crayon portrait of himself the following christmas--" "that seems to me to show a kindly feeling, not one of hatred, towards you," suggested mrs. pedagog. [illustration: "'would hang that portrait upon the wall of my bedroom'"] "oh no," said the idiot, with a laugh. "you never knew my dear old uncle jed. he sent it in a pure spirit of revenge. he had to send something, and he picked out the one thing he had reason to know i didn't want; and he was likewise aware that my mother had a sense of the proprieties and would hang that portrait upon the wall of my bedroom, whence it could stare at me, disapprovingly, forevermore. still, when i became the head of my own house, i did not take a mean-spirited revenge on uncle jedediah's portrait by selling it to one of the comic papers with a joke under it; i gave it the nicest, warmest, most comfortable spot i could find for it under a pile of old magazines in the attic, and the other day when it came to light again i greeted it with an affectionate smile; and the picture of the old gentleman rising hurriedly from over the giant cracker on that long-forgotten fourth, brought vividly to mind by the portrait, brought tears to my eyes, i laughed so heartily. it really was very affecting." mr. pedagog gazed at the idiot fondly. "you are a great boy," he said. "you'd never suspect it, but i had a similar case of uncle jed, but the years i have lived since have softened my feelings so that i remember my old relative with a certain degree of affection." "i shall never believe, my dear john," said mrs. pedagog, "that in your day boys ever placed giant crackers under their uncles' chairs." "we never did, my love," mr. pedagog responded, quickly. "why, of course not," laughed the idiot. "they couldn't, you know. they hadn't been invented. what was your trouble with uncle jed, mr. pedagog?" "oh, our difference of opinion was rather of an ethical import," replied mr. pedagog, genially. "my uncle jed was a preacher, and he used to speak entirely from notes which he would make out the night before and place in the pocket of his black coat. all i did was to take the notes of his next day's sermon out of his pocket one saturday evening, and put in their stead a--ah--a recipe for what we called washington pie--and a very good pie it was." "john!" ejaculated mrs. pedagog. [illustration: "'started to preach with the recipe for a washington pie'"] "i _did_, my dear," confessed the schoolmaster, "and really i have never regretted it, although my particular uncle gave me a distressingly acrid and dreary lecture on my certain future when he found out what had happened. yet what did happen, though mischievously intended, resulted in great good, for when the dear old gentleman stood up in the pulpit and started to preach the next morning, with the recipe for a washington pie as the only available note at hand, he pulled himself together and preached off-hand the finest sermon of his life, and he discovered then the secret of his after-success. he became known ultimately as one of the most brilliant preachers of his time, and from that moment never went into the pulpit with any factitious aids to his memory." "you mean cribs, don't you?" asked the idiot. "that is what college-boys call them, i believe," said mr. pedagog. "i will say further that a year before he died _my_ uncle jed told me that it was my mischievous act that had given him the hint which became the keynote of his eloquence," he added, complacently. "i shall always remember him affectionately." "of course," said the idiot. "no doubt we all remember our uncle jeds affectionately. i certainly do. he was my mother's brother, and he meant well. i never really blamed him for not knowing how to sympathize with a boyish prank, because there has never been a school of instructions for uncles. unclehood is about the hardest hood man has to wear, and as i have observed uncles and their habits, they either spoil or repel the small chaps and chappesses who happen to be made their nephews and nieces by an accident of birth. uncles are either intensely genial or intensely irritable, and as far as i am concerned it is my belief that our colleges should include in their curriculum a chair of 'uncleism.' unclehood is a relationship that man has to accept. it is thrust upon him. he can't help himself. to be a father or a mother is a matter of volition. but even in a free country like our own, if a man has a brother or a sister he is liable to find himself an uncle at any time whether he wishes to be one or not. then when it happens he's got to reason out a course of procedure without any basis in previous experience." "why don't you write a book on 'hints to uncles,' or 'the complete aunt,'" suggested mr. brief. "i have no doubt it would make good reading." "thanks for the idea," said the idiot. "i think i'll do it. not in the hope of profit, but for the benefit of the race." "what has all this to do with attics?" asked mrs. idiot. "the natural resting-place of the bad uncle," explained the idiot. "still, i maintain that it is every man's duty to keep an attic for the useless things, as mrs. pedagog calls them, which some day, when he least expects it, will carry his mind back to other days. the word itself, attic, carries the mind back to the splendors of athens and other things that are out of date. when i was ill i found sincerest pleasure in rummaging. you can't rummage in a library if your library is properly looked after. you can't rummage in a bedroom in a well-kept house. you all know what parlors are--designed largely for the reception of people who come out to call upon you in their best sunday clothes, and who would never think of calling upon you intimately, as a friend might, in his knickerbockers. you can't rummage there. the only place where one may rummage with any degree of success is in the attic, and my experience has been such that i believe my recent illness has contributed to my health. my mind has been carried back to conditions that used to be. conditions which existed then and which were inferior to conditions which now prevail make me satisfied with the present. where old-time conditions were better than the existing one i have naturally discovered how to improve. rummaging, therefore, is improving to the mind and contributes to one's contentment." [illustration: "'a little bundle of my own letters'"] "then there are good economical reasons for the maintenance of an attic," the idiot continued. "i found enough old boyhood collections of various things there to keep tommy and mollie happy for years without my having to pay out a penny for birthday presents--old stamps, old coins, old picture papers, and, i assure you, a lot of old newspapers, too, with better and more readable news in them than is now to be found in any of our modern bilious journals. then the bundles of letters that came out of that place--my mother's letters to me, written while i was away at school; my father's letters in the old days at your house, mrs. pedagog, which did much to keep me straight then and re-reading of which doesn't hurt now; and, best of all," he added, with an affectionate glance at mrs. idiot, "a little bundle of my own letters to a certain person tied up with a blue ribbon, and full of pressed roses and autumn leaves and promises--" "in the attic?" asked mr. brief, with a dry smile. "is that where mrs. idiot keeps your promises?" mrs. idiot blushed. "i have a cedar chest full of treasures up there," she said. "i thought it was locked." "well, anyhow, i found them," said the idiot, cheerfully; "and while they were not especially good reading, they were good reminders of other days. it wouldn't be a bad idea if every married man were to read over the letters of his days of courtship once a year. i think it would bring back more forcibly than anything else the conditions of the contract which he was inviting the young partner of his joys to sign. if an attic never held anything but bundles of one's old love-letters it would demonstrate its right to become an institution." "very true," said the lawyer; "but," he added, prompted by that cautious spirit which goes always with the professional giver of advice, "suppose that side by side with that little bundle of pressed flowers and autumn leaves and promises one should chance to find another little bundle of pressed flowers and autumn leaves and promises--the promises written by some other hand than the hand that is rummaging in the cedar chest? what then? would that prove a pleasing find?" "oh, as for that," the idiot remarked, "when i advocate the maintenance of an attic as one of the first duties of mankind, i mean its intelligent maintenance. the thing which makes of the british museum, the national attic of great britain, a positive educational force is its intelligent direction. it is the storehouse of the useless possessions of the british empire which have an inspiring quality. there is nothing in it which makes a briton think less of himself or which in any way unpleasantly disturbs his equanimity. so with the attic of the humble citizen. it must be intelligently directed if it is to become an institution, and should not be made the repository of useless things which ought to be destroyed, among which i class that other possible bundle to which you refer." and inasmuch as the whole party agreed to the validity of this proposition, the subject was dropped, and the idiot and his guests wandered on to other things. vi the idiot's garden "i should think, my dear idiot," mr. pedagog observed one summer evening, as his host stood upon the back piazza of "castle idiot," as they had come to call the dwelling-place of their friend, "that with all this space you have about you, you would devote some of it to a garden." "why, i do," said the idiot. "i've got a small patch down there behind the tennis-court, fifty by one hundred feet, under cultivation. the stuff we get is almost as good as the average canned goods, too. we had a stalk of asparagus the other night that was magnificent as far as it went. it was edible for quite a sixteenth of an inch, or at least i was told so. that portion of it had already been nibbled off by my son thomas while it was resting in the pantry waiting to be served. however, the inedible end which arrived was quite sturdy, and might have stood between my family and starvation if the necessity had arisen." "one stalk of asparagus is a pretty poor crop, i should say," observed the lawyer, with a laugh. "you might think so," said the idiot. "but everything in the world is comparative, after all. ants build ant-hills which are several feet lower than the alps, and yet they are monumental, considering that they were made by ants. all things considered, mrs. idiot and i were proud of our asparagus crop, and distinctly regretted that it did not survive to be served in proper state at dinner. if i remember rightly, thomas was severely reprimanded for his privateering act in biting off the green end of it before i had a chance to see it." "'twasn't specially good," said tommy, loftily. "i am very glad it was not, my son," said the idiot. "i should be very sorry to hear that you had derived the slightest sensation of pleasure from your piratical and utterly inexcusable act." "do you usually serve so small a portion of the product of your garden?" asked mr. brief. [illustration: "'we sprinkled it in person'"] [illustration: "'he discovered the one perfect stalk'"] "sometimes we don't serve anything at all from it," said the idiot, "which you will observe is smaller yet. in this instance mrs. idiot intended a little surprise for me. we had struggled with that asparagus-bed for some time. the madame had studied up asparagus in her botany. i had looked it up in the cyclopedia and the century dictionary. we had ordered it in various styles when we dined out at the new york hotels, and we had frequently bought cans of it in order to familiarize ourselves more intimately with its general personal appearance. then we consulted people we thought would be likely to know how to obtain the best results, and what they told us to do we did, but somehow it didn't work. our asparagus crop languished. we sprinkled it in person. we put all sorts of garden cosmetics on it to improve its complexion, but it seemed hopeless, and finally when i footed up the asparagus item in my account-book, and discovered that we had paid out enough money without results of a satisfactory nature to have kept us in canned asparagus for four years, we got discouraged, and resolved to give it up. it was while michael, our gardener, was removing the evidences of our failure that he discovered the one perfect stalk, and like the honest old gardener that he is, he immediately brought it into the house and presented it to my wife. she naturally rejoiced that our efforts had not been entirely vain, and in her usual spirit of self-sacrifice had the stalk cooked as a surprise for me. as i have told you, that small circumstance thomas, over which we seem to have no control, got ahead of us--" "you was surprised, wasn't you, pa?" demanded the boy. "somewhat, my son," said the idiot, "but not in the way your mother had designed, exactly." "is asparagus the extent of your gardening?" queried mrs. pedagog. "oh no, indeed!" replied mrs. idiot. "we've had peas and beets and beans and egg-plant and corn--almost everything, in fact, including potatoes." "yes, ma'am," said the idiot, "almost everything, including potatoes. our pea crop was lovely. we had five podfuls for dinner on the fourth of july, and the children celebrated the day by podding them for the cook. they popped open almost as noisily as a torpedo. it was really very enjoyable. indeed, one of the results of that pea crop has been to give me an idea by which i may some day redeem my losses on the asparagus-bed. an explosive pea which should be edible, and yet would pop open with the noise of a small fire-cracker, would be a delight to the children and serviceable for the table. i don't exactly know how to bring about the desired results, but it seems to me if i were to mix a little saltpetre in the water with which we irrigate our pea-trees the required snap would be obtained. then on the fourth of july the children, instead of burning their fingers and filling their parents with nervous dread setting off fire-crackers, could sit out on the back piazza and shell the peas for the cook--" "i'd rather shell spangyards," said mollie. "i am surprised at you, my child," said the idiot. "a little girl like you should be an advocate of peace, not of war." "you can't eat spaniards, either, can you, pa?" said tommy, who, while he shared mollie's views as to the comparative value for shelling purposes of peas and spaniards, was nevertheless quite interested in the development of a pea-pod that would open with a bang. "no, tommy," said the idiot, "you can't eat spaniards, and they'd be sure to disagree with you if you could." "that is a very interesting proposition of yours," said mr. brief, "but it has its dangers. a dynamite pea would prove very attractive so long as its explosive qualities were confined to the pod and its opening. but how are you going to keep the saltpetre out of the peas themselves?" "that is where the difficulty comes in," said the idiot. "i frankly don't know how we could insulate the peas from the effects of the saltpetre." [illustration: "'it would be deucedly awkward ... if they would explode in the mouth of the person who was eating them'"] "it would be deucedly awkward," observed the bibliomaniac, "if, as might very well happen, one or two of the peas should become so thoroughly impregnated with the stuff that they would explode in the mouth of the person who was eating them, like bombs in miniature." [illustration: "'she could slam them down on the hearth-stones like torpedoes'"] "true," said the idiot. "the only safeguard against that would be to compel the cook to test every pea before she cooked it. she could slam them down on the hearth-stone like torpedoes, and every one that didn't go off could be cooked and served with safety. still, there would be danger even then. a careless cook might forever ruin the tooth of a favored guest. i guess i'd better give up the idea." "oh, don't, pa!" cried tommy, his interest in explosive vegetables worked up to a high pitch. "i'll test 'em all for you, and if they work i don't see why you couldn't raise dynamite punkins!" "it would be a strong temptation, my son," said the idiot, "which is all the more reason why i should abandon the plan. a dynamite punkin, as you call it, would wreck the whole neighborhood if one should set it off properly. no, we will, after all, confine our attention to vegetables of a more pacific nature. the others might prove more profitable at first, but when the novelty of them wore off, and one realized only their danger, a great deal of the pleasure one derives from eating fresh vegetables would be utterly destroyed." tommy looked out over the railing of the piazza, deep regret and disappointment depicted in his brown little face; but if the glitter of his eyes meant anything it meant that the idea of putting vegetables on a war footing was not going to be allowed to drop into oblivion; and if the small youth progresses in inventive genius in a fair ratio to his past achievements in that line, i have no doubt that if a vesuvian pumpkin _can_ be produced at all, the day will dawn when thomas is hailed as its inventor. "is it true," asked mr. brief, "that home-raised peas are sweeter than any other?" "we think so," said mrs. idiot. "we know so," amended the idiot. "that fourth-of-july night when we ate those five podfuls we discovered that fact. five podfuls of peas are not enough to feed a family of four on, so we mixed them in with a few more that we bought at the grocer's, and we could tell ours from the others every time, they were so much sweeter." the bibliomaniac laughed scornfully. "pooh!" said he. "how did you know that they were yours that were sweet, and not the grocery-bought peas?" "how does a father know his own children?" said the idiot. "if you'd labored over those five pods as hard and assiduously as we did, nursing them through their infant troubles, guarding them against locusts and potato-bugs, carefully watching their development from infancy into the full vigor of a mature peahood, i guess you'd know your own from those of others. it's instinct, my dear bibliomaniac." "tell about the strawberry, pa," said tommy, who liked to hear his father talk, in which respect i fear he takes strongly after his parent. "well," said the idiot, "it's not much of a story. there was one. we had a strawberry patch twenty feet by ten. we had plenty of straw and plenty of patch, but the berries were timid about appearing. the results were similar to those in our asparagus venture. one berry was discovered trying to hide itself under half a bale of straw one morning, and while i was looking for mrs. idiot, to ask her to come down to the garden and see it grow, a miserable robin came along and bit its whole interior out. i hope the bird enjoyed it, because on a bed-rock estimate that berry cost twenty dollars. that is one of the things about gardening that make me especially weary. one doesn't mind spending forty-four dollars on a stalk of asparagus that is eaten, even surreptitiously, by a member of one's own family; but to pay twenty dollars for a strawberry to be wasted on a fifteen-cent robin is, to say the least, irritating." "you forget, john," said mrs. idiot, with a somewhat mirthful look in her eyes, "that we got fifteen boxes out of the strawberry-patch later." "no, i don't," said the idiot. "i was coming to that, and it involves a confession. you were so blue about the loss of our one beautiful berry that i entered into a conspiracy with michael to make that patch yield. the fifteen boxes of berries that we took out subsequently were bought at a new york fruit-store and judiciously scattered about the patch where you would find them. i had hoped you would never find it out, but when you spoke the other day of expending thirty-eight dollars on that strawberry-patch next year, i resolved then to undeceive you. this is the first favorable opportunity i have had." mrs. idiot laughed heartily. "i knew it all along," she said. "michael came to me with them and asked for instructions as to where to put them. really, i--ah--i arranged them under the straw myself." "what an ass a hired man can be!" ejaculated the idiot. "i shall discharge michael to-morrow." "i wish you would," said mrs. idiot. "ever since the conspiracy he has been entirely too independent." "don't discharge michael, papa," said mollie. "he's awful nice. he's always willin' to stop anything he's doing to play with tommy and me." "you bet he is!" cried tommy. "he's a dandy, mike is. he never says a word when i sit under the sprinkler, and he told me the other day that his grandfather would have been king of ireland if queen victoria hadn't come in. he said the queen was a lady, and his grandfather gave up his seat to her because he was a gentleman and couldn't do anything else." "very well," said the idiot, suavely. "then i won't discharge michael. one feels a better american, a better republican, if he has a royal personage in his employ. i always wondered where michael got his imperious manner; now i know. as a descendant of a long line of kings it could not be otherwise. i will give him another chance. but let me give you all fair warning. if next summer michael does not succeed in producing from my garden four beets, ten pods of peas, three string-beans, and less than ten thousand onions, he goes. i shall not pay a gardener forty dollars a month unless he can raise three dollars' worth of vegetables a year." "but really," said mr. pedagog, "haven't you raised anything in your garden?" "oh yes," said the idiot. "i've raised my water bill in the garden. i used to pay twelve dollars a quarter for water, but now the bills come to at least twenty-five dollars. truly, a garden is not without profit to some one." vii household poetry "yes," said the idiot, in response to an inquiry from the poet, who was passing a sunday with him at castle idiot, "i have found that there is a great deal of poetry in the apparently uninspiring little things of a household. there is to me as much poetry in a poker as there is in a snow-clad alp, if you only have an eye to find it; and i am sure that to thousands of housewives the whole land over a sonnet to a clothes-pin, written by one who knows the clothes-pin's nature intimately, would be far more appealing than a similar number of lines trying to prove that we are all miserable phantoms flitting across a morass of woe." the poet pulled away thoughtfully at his pipe. he was a broad-minded poet, and while he had never owned a poker of his own, he was ready to admit its possibilities; but he could not follow his friend closely enough to admit that it contained as much that was inspiring as did mont blanc, for instance, a bright particular alp of which he was very fond. the idiot continued: [illustration: "'the joys and woes of the toilers who mined it'"] "a ton of coal contains far more warmth than a woman's eyebrow; sends the mind of a thoughtful person chasing backward to the time when it lay snugly hid in the fair breast of nature; to the joys and woes of the toilers who mined it; through a variety of complexities of life, every one of them fraught with noble thoughts. yet who ever wrote dainty verses to a ton of coal, and who hasn't at one time or another in his life written about the eyebrows of some woman?" the poet laughed this time. "a triolet to a ton of coal would be a glorious thing now, wouldn't it?" he observed. "no," said the idiot. "a triolet could never be a glorious thing under any circumstances; but to the extent that a ton of coal contains a certain amount of grandeur in the service it renders to mankind, i think the form would be ennobled somewhat by the substance. let's try it and see." "you do it," said the poet; "i really don't think i could do the subject justice." the idiot got out a pencil and a pad of paper and began. "i don't think i'll make it a triolet," he said, after biting the end of his pencil for a few moments. "a whole ton is a good deal to cram into a triolet. i'll just make it a plain poem of the go-as-you-please variety instead, eh?" "in the manner of whitman, perhaps?" suggested the poet, dryly. "just so," said the idiot. "in the manner of whitman; in fact, i think the manner of whitman is the only manner for the poetic description of a ton of coal." he began to scribble on the pad. "i'm going to call this 'content,'" he said in a few moments. "contentment strikes me as the main lesson a ton of coal teaches." he scribbled on, and in four or five minutes he put down his pencil and read the following lines: "i'm glad i'm not as men are- always worrying about something, and often about nothing; about what was and what wasn't; fretting about what may be and what might have been; wondering whether when they are called upon to do their duty they'll be able to do it, and generally deciding they won't, to their own discomfort. and if so be they're women, cogitating from morn till night, from night till morn, wherewithal shall they be clothed, and if their hats are on straight! yea! i am glad i am not like one of these, but am myself- a ton of coal--jetty in my blackness and luminous in my bituminosity. lying here in the cellar content and not bothering a bit. not needing income or clothes, and wearing no hat, and with no complexion to bother about. happy and serene about my duty, certain that i shall succeed when the time for action comes; knowing that i shall burn, and in the burning glow like the polar star. cackling and crackling, hissing and smoking, full of heat, a satisfaction to mankind, and never worth less than $5.65, delivered! ah, me! what bliss to be a ton of coal! i am content." the poet nodded his pleasure at the effort. "it is charmingly put," he said. "i must confess, my dear idiot, that the idea of contentment is the last one that i should ever have extracted from contemplation of a binful of anthracite, and yet when i consider how you put it i wonder it has not occurred to every one. you have the manner of the whitman parodist down fine, too." "thank you," said the idiot. "it is entirely natural to me. i think, too, that using the whitman lack of form carries with it the notion of the coal sliding down the chute, don't you? coal runs into the cellar in such an irresponsible, formless way, eh?" "precisely," smiled the poet. "you have the right notion about that. the form of a poem should really be adapted to the substance. it should be descriptive, always. tennyson's 'charge of the light brigade' has in its rhythm nothing more or less than the clatter of the horses' hoofs as they and their riders dashed through the valley of death at balaklava. and how vividly southey's brook comes before the mind in its mad rush downward as one reads that wonderfully lyrical poem. why don't you write a book of household poetry? you seem to me to be eminently well qualified to undertake it." "i intend to," said the idiot. "in fact, i've begun it already. written five or six. like to see 'em?" "indeed i should," said the poet. "anything you do interests me." the idiot went to his desk and took from it a few pages of manuscript. "here is a thing on pokers i did the other night. i called it 'the song of the poker bold.'" and then he read these lines: "warder of the grate am i, ever standing near; poking, poking all day long, knowing naught of fear. "keeping coals up to their work, setting them aglow, minding not the scorching heat, rather like it so. "knocking ashes right and left, flirting with the tiles; bossing tongs and seeing that the brazen kettle biles. "and the little girls and boys as they watch me pause, wishing that i'd talk and tell 'bout old santa claus! "cracking jokes with crickets on the merry hearth, elate; happy lot indeed is mine- warder of the grate!" "splendid!" cried the poet, clapping his hands with enthusiasm. "splendid! a good stiff pokeresque lyric, and your characterization of the poker as the 'warder of the grate' gives it a flavor of romance. you could almost imagine the implement going out into a mediã¦val world in search of knightly adventure--a sort of hearth-stone quixote. have you tackled the clothes-pin yet?" "yes," replied the idiot. "indeed, my first effort was a lyric on the clothes-pin. i started one night to do the contents of the kitchen-dresser drawer in french forms, but the first thing i took out was an egg-beater, and it wouldn't go, so i did the clothes-pin lyric. i call it "fidelity "blow, ye winds, i fear ye not; blast, ye simoon, sere and hot! "hurricane, and cyclone, too, blow, i have no fear of you. "lacking beauty, lacking grace, lacking handsome form and face; "lacking soul and intellect, still i stand up, proud, erect. "for the fates have given me wondrous great tenacity. "and success, both fair and fine, comes to him who holds his line. "burrs can stick and so can glue- mucilage, stratena, too; "but there's nothing holds so fast as the clothes-pin to the last." "and you gave up the egg-beater altogether?" asked the poet, restraining a natural inclination to find flaws in the construction of the clothes-pin poem. "oh no," said the idiot, "i knocked off a little quatrain on that. i called it 'the speedy egg-beater,' and it goes like this: "great maude s. can beat all steeds, however speedy be their legs; but i distance her with ease when it comes to beating eggs." "i really think that you would have done better to give up the egg-beater," said the poet, grown critical. "i've no patience with one-rhymed quatrains. now if you had written: "great maude s. can beat all steeds, however speedy be their legs; but despite her doughty deeds; i can beat her beating eggs, "i should not have objected." "i accept the amendment," replied the idiot, meekly. "i realized the weakness of the thing myself, and thought of changing it into a couplet, where you only need one rhyme. how's this on a 'carpet-tack'?" [illustration: "'for though i'm but a carpet-tack afar from moil and strife, no one can ever truly say that mine's a pointless life'"] "however dull the day, however dull the skies, however dark the night may be, my spirits ever rise. "for though i'm but a carpet-tack, afar from moil and strife, no one can ever truly say that mine's a pointless life." "that is very good," said the poet. "i think almost any editor of any comic paper would be willing to pay you three dollars for that. it is as good as your poem on a ton of coal--simple in its expression and sweet in sentiment." "i thought you'd think so," said the idiot. "it struck me so. i've got one on a screw-driver, too, that is very much of the same order, and conveys a moral lesson to the reader who is always reaching out after the unattainable. it reads as follows: "i cannot tool a tally-ho, i cannot drive a nag; i dare not hold the ribbons on a hack or rumbling drag. "i could not guide the reins upon a simple billy-goat, and i should hesitate to try to drive a can-al boat. "but i don't mind these things at all, for i can drive a screw, and i am happy, for that's just what i was meant to do." [illustration: "'i should hesitate to try to write a can-al boat'"] "the fourth line of the second verse is weak, but otherwise it's good," commented the poet. "it's not a _can_-al boat; it's a can-_al_ boat, and all the poetic license in the world wouldn't excuse your taking such a liberty with language." "i appreciate that," said the idiot. "but i don't see how i could get around it." "there's only one way," said the poet. "i think if you omitted that verse altogether you'd improve the poem." "then i should have to eliminate the billy-goat," said the idiot. "that takes a great deal of humor out of it. i always laugh when i encounter a beast like that in poetry; he seems so helpless when incarcerated in a poem." "that may be," observed the poet. "but it is my belief that the goat, of all animals in the kingdom, was the last one designed to be used in poetry, anyhow. he is bad enough in prose, and in this case will butt your poem to oblivion if you insist on keeping him in it. any more?" "no," said the idiot; "that's the last." "well, you've got a good start," said the poet, rising to light his pipe, which had gone out. "and if i were you i'd go on and finish the book. 'the idiot's book of household poetry' would have a great sale. it has but one drawback that i can see. you harp on one string too much. every one of your poems preaches contentment, satisfaction--nothing else." "that," said the idiot, "is not an objection, but a virtue; for what other lesson," he added, with a glance of pride at his surroundings, "what other lesson, my dear poet, should a home try to teach, and what other sentiment can mean so much to mankind?" [illustration: "'i haven't ever had a home; i've always boarded'"] "i don't know," said the poet, with a little sigh. "i haven't ever had a home; i've always boarded." whereupon the idiot rose up from his chair, and putting his arm about his friend's shoulder, said: "how you do talk! never had a home? why, my dear fellow, what's this? it's yours as long as it's mine!" viii some consideration of the hired man "who is that sitting down on your tennis-court, mr. idiot?" asked mr. brief, the lawyer. "or is it anybody? i've been trying for the last half-hour to make out whether it's a man or one of those iron figures with which some people decorate their lawns." "that," replied the idiot, calmly, "is my hired man. i pay him forty dollars a month to sit down there and let the grass grow under his feet. i heard you and mr. pedagog discussing the wonderful grassiness of my lawn after dinner last night, and i meant to have told you then that the credit thereof belongs entirely to the restful nature of that man's soul. he will stand for hours rooted to one spot and looking with apparent aimlessness out over the river. to most people this would seem to be prompted by a sheer indisposition to work, but this would do him a rank injustice, for his immovability is due entirely to his system. he is letting the grass grow beneath him, and the fact that our grass is so nourishing everywhere is due to his having stood for hours at various times over every square inch of territory to which i hold the title-deeds." the idiot gazed out of the window at his retainer with affectionate admiration. "he certainly clings closely to his system," said the lawyer. [illustration: "'i feel that i could go out and mow three acres of grass'"] "he is a model," said the idiot. "he has done more to make my life here easy than any one in my service. for instance, you know the hurly-burly of existence in town. i go to my office in the morning, and whether i have much work or little to do, i come home in the afternoon absolutely worn out. the constant hustling and bustling of others in the city wears upon my mind, and consequently upon my body. the rush and roar of cables and electric-cars; the activity of messengers running to and fro in the streets; the weary horses dragging great lumbering wagons up and down the crowded thoroughfares, all affect my nature and impair my energy; and then, the day's work done, i return here, where all is quiet and still, and the very contrast between that man, standing silently on his appointed spot, or leaning against the house, or lying off in sheer content under some tree, and the mad scramble for lucre in the city, invigorates my tired body until i feel that i could go out and mow three acres of grass before dinner; in fact, i generally do." "i did not know that a restful nature was a requisite of a successful career as a hired man," said mr. pedagog. "it is evident, then, that you have never had a hired man," rejoined the idiot. "nor can you ever have studied the species at close range. ceaseless activity would be his ruin. if he did to-day all there is to do, he would be out of employment to-morrow, consequently he never does to-day's work to-day, and cultivates that leisurely attitude towards life upon which you have commented. do you see that small beech-tree over there?" he added, pointing to a scrawny little sapling whose sole virtue appeared to be its rigid uprightness. "is that a beech-tree?" asked mr. brief. "i thought it was a garden stake." [illustration: "'he would go out day after day and sit down beside it'"] "it is a beech-tree," said the idiot. "i planted it myself last autumn, and while it has as yet borne no beeches, i think if we give it time, and it withstands the rigors of the climate, it will produce its fruit. but it was not of its possibilities as a beech-bearing tree that i intended to speak. i wanted to indicate to you by a material object the value of having a hired man who likes to lean against things. at the close of this last winter that tree, instead of being as erect as a grenadier, as it now is, was all askew. the strong westerly winds which are constantly blowing across that open stretch bent the thing until it seemed that the tree was bound to be deformed; but mike overcame the difficulty. he would go out day after day and sit down beside it and lean against it for two and three hours at a time, with the result that the tendency to curve was overcome, and a tree that i feared was doomed to fail now bids fair to resemble a successful telegraph-pole in its uprightness. and, of course, the added warmth of his body pressing down upon the earth which covers its roots gave it an added impulse to grow." "it is a wonderful system," smiled mr. brief. "i wonder it is not adopted everywhere." "it is, pretty much," said the idiot. "most hired men do the same thing. i don't think mike differs radically from others of his kind. of course, there are exceptions. my neighbor jimpsonberry, for instance, has a man who is so infernally unrestful that he makes everybody tired. he is up every morning mowing jimpsonberry's lawn at five o'clock, waking up every sleepy soul within ear-shot with the incessant and disturbing clicking of his machine. mike would never think of making such a nuisance of himself. furthermore, jimpsonberry's lawn is kept so close-cropped that the grass doesn't get any chance, and in the heat of midsummer turns to a dull brick-red." after a pause, during which the company seemed to be deeply cogitating the philosophical bearing of the subject under discussion, the idiot resumed: "there is another aspect of this matter," he said, "which jimpsonberry's man brings to my mind. you know as well as i do that heat is contagious. if you feel as cool as a cucumber, and then all of a sudden see somebody who is dripping with perspiration and looking for all the world like a human kettle simmering on a kitchen-range, you begin to simmer yourself. it is mere sympathy, of course, but you simmer just the same, get uncomfortable and hot in the collar, and are shortly as badly off as the other fellow. so it is with jimpsonberry's man. time and time again he has spoiled all my pleasure by making me realize by a glance at his red face and sweating arms how beastly hot it is, when before i had seen him i felt tolerably comfortable. mike, on the other hand, is not so inconsiderate, and i am confident would let the grass grow a mile high before he would consent to interfere with my temperature by pushing the mower up and down the lawn on a humid day." "do you keep this interesting specimen of still life all through the year?" asked mr. brief, "or do you give him a much-needed vacation in winter? i should think he would be worn out with all this standing around, for nothing that i know of is more tiresome than doing nothing." "no," said the idiot. "mike never seems to need a vacation. sitting down and leaning against things and standing around don't seem to tire him in the least. it might tire you or me, but you see he's used to it. the only effect it has on him, as i view the matter, is that it wears out his clothes. it doesn't impair his lack of vigor at all. so by the simple act of occasionally renewing his wardrobe, which i do every time i discard a suit of my own, i revive his wasted vitality, and he does not require to be sent to europe, or to take an extended tour in the white mountains to recuperate. i keep him all through the winter, and his system is quite the same then as in summer, except that he does his sitting around and leaning indoors instead of in the open." "i suppose he looks after the furnace and keeps the walks clear of snow in winter time?" suggested mr. pedagog, who was beginning to take an interest in this marvellously restful personage. [illustration: "'he shovels off a foot-path'"] "yes," said the idiot; "and he attends to the windows as well. as a minder of the furnace he is invaluable. my house is as cool as a roof-garden all through the winter, and thanks to his unwillingness to over-exert himself shovelling coal into the furnace, i burn only about half as much as my neighbors, and my house is never overheated. this in itself is an indication of the virtue of mike's method. one-half of the colds contracted by children nowadays are the result of overheated houses. mike's method gives me a cool house at very moderate expense, owing to the great saving of coal, the children do not get colds because of overheating, and the expense of having a doctor every other day is averted. then his snow-shovelling scheme goes back to the first principles of nature. mike is not overawed by convention, and instead of following the steps of other men who shovel the snow entirely off, he shovels off a footpath to enable me to go to business, and then sits down and oversees the sun while it melts the balance. sometimes, if the sun does not do the work promptly enough to suit him, he gets up little contests for the children. he divides up certain portions of the walk into equal parts, and starts the small boys on a race to see which one will get the portion assigned to him cleaned off first, the prize being something in the nature of an apple, which the cook orders from the market. i believe my son thomas won ten apples last winter, although i am told that the jimpsonberry boy, whose father's man is cross, and insists on doing all the work himself, is the champion snow-shoveller of the street." "yes, he is, pa," put in tommy. "mike owes him 'leven apples. i only won eight." "well, that is a very good record, thomas," said the idiot, "and i will see to it that next winter you have a brand-new snow-shovel with which to enter the contest." "mike lets us chop the kindling-wood, too," said tommy, suddenly perceiving a chance to put in a good word for the genial mike. "i think he's the nicest hired man as ever was." "he'll stop anything he's doing to talk to me," ventured mollie, not wishing to be backward in laying wreaths upon the brow of their friend. "yes, i have noticed that," said the idiot. "indeed, next to his extreme restfulness there is no quality that i know of in mike that shines out so conspicuously as his intense love for children. he will neglect his own interests, as mollie has suggested, to talk to the little ones, and i rather like him for it. no boy dares go near the jimpsonberry man, who has exerted himself into a perpetual state of nervous exhaustion." "well, if he cleans your windows, that is something," observed mrs. pedagog, whose experience in keeping a boarding-house years before entitled her to speak as one having authority. "unless his system is the same in that work as in the other branches committed to his care," said mr. brief. [illustration: "'spend a whole day on one window'"] "it isn't quite," said the idiot. "he really does exert himself in window-cleaning. i have frequently seen him spend a whole day on one window. his window-washing system is a very ingenious one, nevertheless." "it is, indeed," said mrs. idiot, with a show of feeling. "a new window-washing system?" grinned mr. pedagog. "yes," said the idiot. "it is his own invention. he washes them on the outside in summer and on the inside in winter. the result is this opalescent glass which you see. you would hardly guess that these windows are of french plate. still, we don't mind so much. i couldn't ask him to wash them on the outside in winter, it is so dreadfully cold, and in the summer, of course, they are always open, and no one, unless he were disagreeable enough to go snooping about after unpleasant details, would notice that they are not immaculate." "and you pay this man forty dollars for this?" demanded mr. brief. "oh, for this and other things. i pay him two dollars a month for the work he does. i pay him ten dollars a month because he's good to the children. i pay him ten dollars more for his civility, which is unvarying--he always puts his hat on when he comes into the house, having noticed, perhaps, that only those who are my social equals are entitled to appear bareheaded in my presence." "and the other eighteen?" persisted the lawyer, by nature a cross-examiner. "well, i don't grudge him that because--" a sort of a fond light lit up the idiot's eyes as he gazed down upon mike, still sitting on the tennis-court--"i don't grudge him that other eighteen dollars because it costs mike twenty dollars a month to live; and he uses the rest of it to put his boy through college, so that when he grows up to be a man he will be something more than a hired man." "ah!" said mr. brief. "yes," said the idiot; "i found that out from a third party some time ago, and i thought after all i'd keep him, for i know nobody else would have him, and then what would become of the boy in college?" ix on social accounts "it's rather strange, i think," observed mrs. idiot one evening, as she and the idiot sat down to dine, "that the dawkinses haven't been here for three or four months." "i've noticed it myself," said the idiot. "we used to see 'em every day about. what's up? you and polly dawkins had a fight?" "not that i know of," said mrs. idiot. "the last time we met she was very cordial, and asked most affectionately after you and the children. i presumed that possibly you and dick had had some kind of a falling out." "not a bit of it. dick and i couldn't quarrel any more than you and polly could. perhaps as we grow older our ideals differ. polly's rather anthropological in her talks, isn't she?" "a trifle," said mrs. idiot. "and musical and literary and scientific." "while you?" queried the idiot. [illustration: "'well, i'm fond of golf'"] "well, i'm fond of golf and--ah--well--" "golf again," laughed the idiot. "i guess that's it, bess. when a woman wants to talk about the origin of the species and has to hear about a splendid putt, and her observations upon the sonata are invariably interrupted by animadversions upon the morals of caddies, and her criticisms of browning end in a discussion of the st. andrew's rules, she's apt to shy off into a more congenial atmosphere, don't you think?" "i am sure," retorted mrs. idiot, "that while i admit i am more interested in golf than in anything else outside of you and the children, i can and do talk sometimes of other things than caddies, and beautiful drives, and stymies. you are very much mistaken if you think otherwise." "that is very true, my dear," said the idiot. "and nobody knows it better than i do. i've heard you talk charmingly about lots of things besides stymies, and foozles, and putts, and drives, but you don't know anything about the men of the stone age, and you couldn't tell the difference between a sonata and a fugue any more than i. furthermore, you have no patience with browning, so that when polly dawkins asks if you like _sordello_, you are more likely than not to say that you never ate any, but on the whole for small fish prefer whitebait." mrs. idiot laughed. "no, indeed," she replied. "i'd fall back on golf if polly mentioned _sordello_ to me. you may remember that you sent it to me when we were engaged, and i loved you so much--then--that i read it. if i hadn't loved you i couldn't have done it." "well," smiled the idiot, "what did you think of it?" "i think browning had a good lie, but he foozled," said mrs. idiot, with her eyes atwinkle, and the idiot subsided for at least ten seconds. "i wish you'd say that to polly some time," he observed. "it's so very true, and put with an originality which cannot but appeal to the most hardened of literary women." "i will if i ever get the chance," said mrs. idiot. "suppose we make the chance?" suggested the idiot. "let's go down there and call to-night. i'll work the conversation up so that you can get that off as an impromptu." [illustration: "an anthropological tea"] "no," said mrs. idiot. "i don't think we'd better. in the first place, mrs. whalker told me yesterday that polly is to read a paper on balzac before the s. f. m. e. to-morrow evening, and on friday morning she is to discuss the 'influence of mozart on de koven' before the musical mothers' meeting, and on saturday afternoon she is going to have an anthropological tea at her house, which she is to open with some speculations as to whether in the glacial period dudes were addicted to the use of cigarettes." "great scott!" said the idiot. "this is her busy week." "tolerably so," said mrs. idiot. "she has probably reserved this evening to read up on balzac for to-morrow's essay, so i think, my dear, we'd better not go." "right as usual," said the idiot. and then he added, "poor dawkins, who is taking care of him now?" "i think," said mrs. idiot, "that possibly mrs. dawkins has sublet the contract for looking after her husband and children to the united states housekeeping company limited." the idiot gazed blankly at his wife, and awaited an explanation. [illustration: "'the baby is rocked to sleep every night'"] "an organization, my dear," she continued, "formed by a number of well-meaning and remorseful widows who, having lost their husbands, begin to appreciate their virtues, and who, finding themselves sympathetic when it is too late, are devoting themselves to the husbands of others who are neglected. a subscription of five hundred dollars will secure the supervision of all the domestic arrangements of a home--marketing, engagement and discharge of domestics, house-cleaning, buttons sewed on, darning done, care of flowers, wifely duties generally; for one thousand dollars they will bring up the children, and see that the baby is rocked to sleep every night, and suitably interested in elevating narratives and poems like joseph's coat of many colors, and tom, tom the piper's son. this enables an advanced woman like mrs. dawkins to devote her mornings to the encyclopedias, her afternoons to the public libraries, and her evenings to the functions whereat she may read the papers which her devotion to the encyclopedias and the libraries has brought forth." "excuse me, my dear bess," said the idiot, rising. "i wish to telephone dr. simmons." "for what--for whom?" demanded the lady. "you, of course," returned the idiot. "you are developing alarming symptoms. you give every indication of a bad attack of professional humor. your 'international widows company for the protection and amelioration of neglected husbandry' proves that!" mrs. idiot laughed again. [illustration: "poor dick dawkins isn't taken care of at all'"] "oh, i didn't say that there really is such an institution!" she cried. "i said that i supposed there was, for if there isn't, poor dick dawkins isn't taken care of at all." "well, i'm sorry for it all, anyhow," said the idiot, seriously. "they're both of 'em good friends of ours, and i hate to see two families that have been so close drawing apart." just then mollie and tommy came in. "mamma, willie dawkins says he can't come to our party because his ma won't let him," said mollie. "she says we don't never go down there." "that's it," said the idiot. "mrs. dawkins has got so many irons in the fire she's begun to keep social books. i'll bet you she's got a ledger and a full set of double-entry account-books charging up calls payable and calls receivable." "i don't see how she can get along unless she has," replied mrs. idiot. "with all her clubs and church societies and varied social obligations she needs an expert accountant to keep track of them all." "i suppose a promise to read a paper on balzac," put in the idiot, "is something like a three-months' note. it's easy to promise to pay, with three months in which to prepare, but you've got to keep track of the date and meet the obligation when it falls due. as for me, i'd rather meet the note." "that is about it," said mrs. idiot. "if a woman goes into society properly she's got to make a business of it. for instance, there are about ten dances given at the club here every year. polly is patroness for every one of 'em. there are twenty-five teas during the spring and summer months. polly assists at half of them, and gives a fifth of them. she's president of the king's daughters, corresponding secretary of the dorcas, treasurer of the red cross society, and goodness knows what all!" "i can quite understand why she needs to keep accounts--social accounts," said the idiot. "but it's rather queer, don't you think, that she has the children on her books? the idea of saying that jimmie and gladys can't come to mollie's party because mollie hasn't been down there--why, it's nonsense!" "no," said mrs. idiot, "it is merely logical. whatever polly dawkins does she tries to do thoroughly. i've no doubt she'll do balzac up completely. if she keeps social books showing call balances in her favor or against herself she might as well go the whole thing and write the children in--only she's made a mistake, as far as we are concerned, unless she means to write us off without squaring up." "you talk like a financier," said the idiot, admiringly. "what do you know about writing off?" "i used to help my father with his accounts, occasionally," said mrs. idiot. "polly dawkins's books ought to show a balance of one call in our favor. that's really the reason i'm not willing to call there to-night. she's so queer about it all, and, as a matter of fact, she owes me a call. i'm not going to overwhelm her with an added obligation." "ho!" smiled the idiot. "you keep books yourself, eh?" "i keep score," said mrs. idiot. "i learned that playing golf." "it's a bad thing to keep score in golf," said the idiot. "so they say, but i find it amusing," she replied. "and how many calls does mrs. wilkins owe you?" demanded the idiot. "i don't know," returned the wife. "and i don't care. when i want to see mrs. wilkins i call on her whether she owes me a call or not, but with polly dawkins it's different. she began the book-keeping, and as long as she likes it i must try to live up to her ideas. if social intercourse develops into a business, business requirements must be observed." "it's a good idea in a way," said the idiot, reflectively. "but if you make a business of society, why don't you carry it to a logical conclusion? balance your books, if you mean business, every month, and send your debtors a statement of their account." "well, i will if you wish me to," said mrs. idiot. "suppose they don't pay?" "dun 'em," said the idiot. and then the matter dropped. on the fifth of the following month mr. and mrs. idiot were seated comfortably in their library. the children had gone to bed, and they were enjoying the bliss of a quiet evening at home, when the door-bell rang, and in a moment or two the maid ushered in mr. and mrs. richard dawkins, preceded, of course, by their cards. the young householders were delighted, and polly dawkins was never more charming. she looked well, and she talked well, and there was not a symptom of any diminution of the old-time friendship perceptible--only she did appear to be tired and care-worn. the evening wore away pleasantly. the chat reverted to old times, and by degrees mrs. dawkins seemed to grow less tired. about ten o'clock the idiot invited his neighbor to adjourn to the smoking-room, where they each lit a cigar and indulged in a companionable glass. "idiot," said dawkins, when his wife called out to him that it was time to go home, "your wife is a wonder. i've been trying for three months to make polly come up here and she wouldn't. keeps books, you know--now. has to--so much to do. thought you owed us a call, but received your bill wednesday--looked it up--questioned servants--found you were right." "bill," cried the idiot. "what bill?" "why, the one mrs. idiot sent--this," said dawkins, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket. "confoundedly good joke." the idiot took up the piece of paper. it was type-written--on tommy's machine--and read as follows: november 1 1898 mr. and mrs. richard dawkins _to mr. and mrs. idiot dr._ september 20 evening call 1 account overdue. please remit. "great scott!" laughed the idiot. "my dear," said the idiot after the dawkinses had gone, "that bill of yours was a great idea." "it wasn't my idea at all--it was yours," said mrs. idiot, laughing. "you said we ought to be business-like to the last and send out a statement on the first of the month. i sent it. and they paid up." "richard," said mrs. dawkins, as they drove home, "did you get a receipt?" x as to santa claus "i am very glad i didn't take tommy and mollie to church with me this morning," said mrs. idiot, on her return from service. "it would have broken their hearts to have heard the sermon. i don't know what gets into dr. preachly sometimes. he gave us a blast about santa claus." "a blast about santa claus, eh!" said the idiot. "and how did he blast the good old saint?" "he said he was a lie," rejoined mrs. idiot, indignantly, "and that it was the duty of every christian in the land to see that the lie was exposed." "great heavens!" cried the idiot, in astonishment. "doesn't dr. preachly believe in santa claus? poor old preachly! how much he has lost! did he say anything about hop o' my thumb and cinderella?" "no, of course not. why should he?" returned mrs. idiot. "oh, because; i suppose that a man who doesn't believe in santa claus is a skeptic on the subject of hop o' my thumb, and rumpelstiltzken, and cinderella, and jack the giant-killer, and all the rest of that noble army of childhood friends," explained the idiot. "he didn't mention them," said mrs. idiot. "he--" "he's going to preach a series of sermons on lies, i presume," said the idiot. "he's tackled santa claus first, as being the most seasonable of the lot, eh? jack the giant-killer ought to be a good subject for a ministerial attack." "well, he pulled poor old santa claus to pieces," said mrs. idiot, with a sigh. "why didn't you bring me a piece of him as a souvenir?" demanded the idiot. "just a lock of his hair for my collection of curios? what was done with the remains?" mrs. idiot laughed as she pulled over her gloves and smoothed them upon her lap. "there weren't any remains," she answered. "when dr. preachly got through with him there wasn't a vestige of the old chap left. to begin with, he was a lie, the doctor said. then he went on and showed that he was a wickedly partial old fellow--a very snob, he called him--because he gives fine things to the children of the rich and little or nothing to the children of the poor. he filled the little folk with hope and brought them disappointment, and so on. it was a powerful sermon, although i wanted to weep over it." "go ahead and weep," said the idiot; "it's the appropriate thing to do. i don't wonder you wanted to cry; you've always liked dr. preachly." "of course," said mrs. idiot. "and you hate to see him make a--ah--a--well, you know--of himself in the pulpit; and i quite agree with you. i rather like preachly myself. it is too bad to see a well-meaning man like that batting his brains out against the rock of gibraltar, whether suicide is sin or not. what has put him in this despondent mood? do you suppose he has heard?" "heard what?" demanded mrs. idiot. "about the slippers," said the idiot. "what slippers?" asked his wife. "oh, the same old slippers," said the idiot. "you know the ones i mean--the ones he's going to get from santa claus. really, i'm not surprised, after all. if i were a minister, and realized that truckloads of embroidered slippers of every size and color, covered with stags of red worsted jumping over rivulets of yellow floss, with split agates for eyes set in over the toe, were to be dumped in my front yard every christmas eve by that old reprobate, santa claus, i think i, too, would set him down as a fraud, or an overworked cobbler, anyhow." [illustration: "'dr. preachly only got eight pairs last xmas'"] "that's exaggerated--a comic-paper idea," said mrs. idiot. "i don't believe the average clergyman gets so many slippers. dr. preachly only got eight pairs last christmas." "is that all?" cried the idiot. "mercy, what a small income of slippers! dear me! how can he live with only eight pairs of slippers? but, after all, slippers are an appropriate gift for a clergyman," he added, "and santa claus should be credited with that fact. slippers have soles, and the more slippers he gets the easier it is to save their soles, and therefore--" "really, my dear, you are flippant," said mrs. idiot. "not at all," rejoined the idiot. "i am merely trying to sit on two stools at once--to retain my respect for dr. preachly without giving up my everlasting regard for santa claus. if i can't do both i am very much afraid it will be dr. preachly, and not santa claus, who will go to the wall in this establishment, and that would be sad. i can't say i think much of the doctor's logic. do you?" "i didn't notice his logic," mrs. idiot replied. "very likely," said the idiot; "from what you tell me of his discourse i imagine he must have left it at home, which is a bad thing to do in an argument. to begin, he called santa a lie, did he?" "yes; said he didn't exist at all." "good! then how could he have been a snob?" "why, while of course i have no sympathy with his conclusions, dr. preachly handled that point pretty well. it certainly is true that in the homes of the rich there is a lavishness of gifts that you don't find in the homes of the poor, and therefore santa claus treats the rich better than he does the poor. we all know that." "hum!" said the idiot. "and so it is santa claus who is the snob, eh, and not fortune?" "well, dr. preachly did not touch upon that. all he said was that santa claus was a snob for favoring 'high society' and in many cases absolutely ignoring the submerged." "but i don't see how," said the idiot. "suppose he brings a diamond necklace to the daughter of a croesus?" "precisely," said the idiot. [illustration: "'a china doll to the daughter of a carpenter'"] "and a china doll to the daughter of a carpenter?" said mrs. idiot. "that's tact, not snobbishness," said the idiot. "what would the daughter of a carpenter do with a diamond necklace? the china doll is not only more appropriate, but a better plaything." "well, anyhow, he gives richly to those that have, and sparsely, if at all, to those that haven't, dr. preachly said," said mrs. idiot. "there is scriptural authority for that," observed the idiot. "i wonder if dr. preachly reads his bible! perhaps i'd better send him one for christmas instead of a pair of galoshes. he'll find in the bible that 'to him that hath shall be given,' and so forth. but to return to the logic--" "i told you i didn't notice it," said mrs. idiot. "nor did dr. preachly, my dear; passed it by as if it were a poor relation, apparently. but this is true, a lie is an untruth. truth alone lives, therefore an untruth does not live. santa claus is a lie and does not live, and is a snob, according to our reverend logician. now, how can one who does not live be a snob or anything else? truly, i wish dr. preachly would be more careful in his statements. as a pew-holder in his church i do not like to hear him denounce something that does not exist as having unworthy qualities. it's like shaking a sword at nothing and patting yourself on the back afterwards for your courage; still more in this instance is it like batting your poor mortal head against the hard surface of an everlasting rock, and our clergy should be in better business. "let 'em fight the harmful lies--the lies of false social ideas as propagated by distinctions of pew-holding, for instance. the man who sits in the front of the church is no better than the man who sits at the back, and is frequently his inferior; but has he more or has he less influence? the man who hands in his check for ten thousand dollars, having that and more to spare, is not more the friend of religion and christianity than the poor beggar who stumbles in and puts his penny in the plate, thus diminishing by one-fifth his capital. suppose santa claus is in a material sense a fancy or a lie; heaven help dr. preachly if he can't see the beauty and the ethical value of the deception. is he not the embodiment of the golden rule, and is he not, after all--god bless him and them!--something beautiful in the eyes of the children?" "i'm flippant, and i know it, but there are some things i cling to," he added, after a pause. "santa claus is one of them, and dr. preachly can preach through all eternity, and, with all due respect to him, he can't remove from my mind the beauty of an idea that was planted there by two people who were practical enough, my father and my mother. i've inherited santa claus, and i'm not going to give him up, and no preacher in our church or in the church of others can take him away from me by one sermon, or by an infinite number of sermons, however sincere they may be. is dinner ready?" dinner was ready. it was eaten reflectively, and after it the children went to sunday-school. from this tommy returned with a swollen eye, which later became dark. "hullo, pop!" he said, addressing the idiot as he entered the house. [illustration: "'hullo, sonny! had a good time?'"] "hullo, sonny!" replied the idiot, observing the swollen eye. "had a good time?" "yep," said the boy; "pretty good." "been fighting?" suggested the idiot. "not so very much," said the boy; "only a little." and he began to sing a popular air, as if he didn't care much about life in general, and didn't mind an aching eye, which was rapidly, by its inflammation, giving away the fact that he had met with trouble. "what did you learn at sunday-school?" asked the idiot. "more blessed to give than to receive," said tommy. "good!" said the idiot. "i hope you will remember that, sonny. there is no satisfaction in all the world like that of giving if you can afford it." [illustration: "'i gave my dolly away to-day'"] "i think tho, too," said mollie, sitting down on her father's lap with the contented sigh of a little girl who has discovered that life is not all an illusion. "i gave my dollie away to-day, papa," she added. "she wath only thawdust, and pollie harrington hath her now. she was a drefful care, and i'm glad to be ridden of her." but the idiot's mind was not on dolls, and he showed it. his boy's eye proved a greater care. "come here, my boy," he said. the boy approached inquiringly. "how did this happen?" the idiot asked. "your eye is swollen." "oh, i don't know," cried tommy, exultantly. "jimmie roberts said there wasn't no santy claus." "well?" "i said there was, an' then i gave him one on the end of his nose." here the boy struggled away from his father, as if he had done something he was willing to stand by. "let me understand this," said the idiot. "jimmie said--" "there wasn't any santy claus," interrupted tommy. "then what did you say?" asked the idiot. "i told him he didn't know what he was talking about," said tommy. "why did you say that?" "because he was wrong, papa," said tommy. "i've seen santy claus; i saw him last year." "ah! you did, eh? i was not aware of that fact." tommy began to laugh. "you can't fool me, daddy," he said, climbing onto his father's knee. "of course i've seen him, and he's the bulliest feller in all the world. _you're him!_" and a hug followed. later on mrs. idiot and the idiot sat together. the latter was deep in thought. "children have queer notions," said he, after a while. "they are generally pretty right, though," observed mrs. idiot. "you are a pretty good santa claus, after all," she added. "pollie," said the idiot, rising, "i believe in santa claus because he represents the spirit of the hour, and whoever tries to turn him down tries to turn down that spirit--the most blessed thing we have. let's keep the children believing in santa claus, eh?" "i agree," said mrs. idiot. "for the secret is out. you are santa claus to them." "heaven grant i may always be as much," said the idiot. "for if a father is santa claus, and a boy or a girl believes in santa claus as a friend, as a companion, as something that brings them only sincerity and love and sympathy, then may we feel that tiny tim's prayer has been answered, and that god has blessed us all." xi as to new-year's day it was new-year's eve, and mr. and mrs. idiot with their old friends were watching the old year die. the old year had been a fairly successful one for them all, and they were properly mournful over its prospective demise, but the promise of the new was sufficiently bright to mitigate their sorrow. "what a sandwich life is, after all!" ejaculated the idiot. mr. pedagog started nervously. the remark was so idiotic that even its source seemed to make it inexcusable. [illustration: "'i don't quite catch your drift'"] "i don't quite catch your drift," said he. "as the man said when an avalanche of snow fell off his neighbor's roof and missed him by an inch," said the idiot. "why, just think a moment, doctor, and my drift will overwhelm you. look about you and consider what we have ourselves demonstrated to-night. if that does not prove life a series of emotional sandwiches, then i don't know what a sandwich is. twenty minutes ago we were all gladness over the prosperity of the year gone by. five minutes ago we were all on the verge of tears because the good old year is going the way of all years. an hour from now we will be joyously acclaiming the new. two thick slices of joy with a thin slice of grief between." "ah!" said mr. pedagog. "i see. there is something in the analogy, after all. the bread of joy and the ham of sorrow, as you might put it; do make up the sum of human existence; but in some cases, my lad, i am afraid you will find there is only one slice of bread to two of ham." "no doubt," replied the idiot, "but that does not affect my proposition that life is a sandwich. if one slice of ham between two slices of bread is a ham sandwich, why is not one slice of bread between two slices of ham a bread sandwich? what is a sandwich, anyhow? the dictionary says that a sandwich is something placed between two other things; hence, all things are sandwiches, because there is nothing in the world, the world being round, that is not between two other things. therefore, all things being sandwiches, life is a sandwich, q. e. d." "is life a thing?" demanded mr. pedagog. "certainly," said the idiot. "and a mighty good thing, too. if you don't believe it look the word thing up in the dictionary. all things are things." "but," continued the schoolmaster, his old spirit of antagonism rising up in his breast, "granted that life is a thing, what is it between so that it becomes a sandwich?" "the past and the future," said the idiot. "it is a slice of the immediate between a slice of past and one of future." mr. pedagog laughed. "you are still the same old idiot," he said. "yes," said the idiot. "gibraltar and i and truth are the three unchangeable things in this life, and that's why i am so happy. i'm in such good company. gibraltar and truth are good enough companions for anybody." meanwhile mollie and tommy, who had been allowed to sit up upon this rare occasion, stirred uneasily. "ith i a thandwich, popper?" said the little girl, sleepily, raising her head from her father's shoulder and gazing into his eyes. "yes, indeed, you are," said her father, giving her an affectionate squeeze. "a sugar sandwich, mollie. you're really good enough to eat." "well, i'd rather be a pie," put in tommy; "an apple pie." "very well, my son," returned the idiot. "have your own way. henceforth be a pie if you prefer--an apple pie. but may i ask why you express this preference?" "oh, because," said tommy, "if i'm to be an apple pie somebody's got to fill me chock-full of apple sauce." "the son of his father," observed mr. whitechoker. "i think it is a pity," mrs. pedagog put in at this point, "that some of the good old customs of the new year have gone out." "as to which, mrs. pedagog?" asked the idiot. "well, new-year's calling particularly," explained the lady. "it is no longer the thing for people to make new-year's calls, and i must confess i regret it. it used to be a great pleasure to me in the old days to receive the gentlemen--my old friends, and relatives, and boarders." "why distinguish between your old friends and your boarders, mrs. pedagog?" interrupted the idiot. "they are synonymous terms." "they are now," said the good lady, "but--ah--they weren't always. i used sometimes to think you, for instance, didn't like me as much as you might." "i didn't dare," explained the idiot. "if i'd liked you as much as i might i'd have told you so, and then mr. pedagog would have got jealous and there'd have been a horrid affair." the lady smiled graciously, and mr. pedagog threw a small paper pellet at the idiot. "i'm much obliged to you for holding off, idiot," he said. "i don't know where i'd have been to-day if you'd got in ahead of me. mrs. pedagog has always had a soft spot in her heart for you." "i've got the other spot," said the idiot, "and a pair of aces are hard to beat in pairs; but i think i voice mrs. pedagog's sentiments in the matter, mr. pedagog, when i say that she and i would always have been glad to see you every other new-year's day if i had been the fortunate winner of her hand." "and mr. pedagog and i would have been glad to see you and mrs. pedagog in the sandwich years," said mrs. idiot to her husband; and then, turning to the schoolmaster, added, "wouldn't we, mr. pedagog?" "no, madame," returned mr. pedagog, courteously. "you might have been, but i would not. if i had married you i could never have seen any one else with pleasure. i should have kept my eyes solely for you." "john!" cried mrs. pedagog, arching her eyebrows. "pleasantry, my dear--mere pleasantry," returned the schoolmaster, tapping his fingers together and smiling sweetly upon mrs. idiot. "you didn't finish, mrs. pedagog," said the idiot. "you were telling us how you used to enjoy new-year's calling before it went out." "yes," replied mrs. pedagog. "it was charming. i used positively to look forward to its coming with delight. we women, mr. idiot, found the old custom very delightful." "but the men, mrs. pedagog," said the idiot, "did you ever think of them?" "what else did we think of? what else is there for a woman to think about?" replied mrs. pedagog. "jane!" cried mr. pedagog. "_pleasantry, my dear--mere pleasantry_," returned mrs. pedagog, frigidly. and mr. pedagog lit a cigar. it is not always pleasant to be quoted. "still," said the idiot, "you thought of men only as creatures of the moment--" "entirely," said mrs. pedagog. "and not as creatures of the week following," said the idiot. "what has that to do with it?" asked mrs. pedagog. "much--from the man's stand-point," returned the idiot. "his digestion was butchered to make a woman's holiday. take myself as an example. i used to make new-year's calls; and to get through with my list by midnight, i had to start in at nine o'clock in the morning." "nine o'clock is not so early," said mr. whitechoker. "it's early for cake and pickled oysters," said the idiot. "and for chicken salad and wedding-cake, and for lemonade and punch, and for lobster and egg-nog, and for ice-cream and _pã¢tã©-de-foie-gras_." "h'm!" said mr. pedagog, reflectively. "that's true." "quite so," observed mr. whitechoker, brushing off his vest, upon which the ashes of his cigar had rested. "especially for the punch." "there was no punch in my house," said mrs. pedagog. "indeed, i always served a very simple luncheon. we did have chicken salad, of course, but the chicken was good and the salad was crisp--" "i'd swear to it," said the idiot. "and we had egg-nog, but there was more egg than nog in it--" "again i'd swear to it," said the idiot, smacking his lips. "and as for the lobsters, nobody ever complained--" "he'd have been a lobster himself who would," said the idiot. "but that does not prove that no one ever suffered." "and as for the pickled oysters, no one ever suffered from them that i knew of," continued the good lady. "they are harmless eaten in moderation." [illustration: "'i felt as if i had swallowed as overshoe'"] "exactly right," cried the idiot. "no gentleman would ever complain of pickled oysters, even if they were made of inferior rubber, eaten in moderation. yet i recall in my own experience a pickled oyster of most impressive quality. he was not a pickled oyster of the moment. he was the admiral dewey of pickled oysters. in appearance he resembled every other pickled oyster i ever met, but--well, he kept me in a state of worry for a month. just eating him alone was eating pickled oysters in immoderation. i felt as if i had swallowed an overshoe. he was a charming pickled oyster, mrs. pedagog, and he was devoted to me, but he involved me in complications alongside of which the philippine question is child's play. if a new-year's caller could have confined his attentions to the ladies he met no harm would have come to him, but he couldn't, you know. the day was one continuous round of effort and indigestibles. what a man got at your house and had to eat merely to show his appreciation of your hospitality was all right and wholesome. your lobster and egg-nog could do him no harm, but he couldn't stop with yours; he had to continue, and consume lobsters and egg-nog everywhere else and all day long. the day resolved itself into a magnificent gorge alongside of which that of niagara seems like a wagon-rut. it finally came down to the point where either man or the custom had to die, and man being selfish, the custom went. did you ever consider exactly how much indigestible food an amiable, well-meaning person had to consume in a round of, say, three dozen calls, mrs. pedagog?" mr. brief nodded his approval. "now you've struck it," he said. "i've been there, idiot." "i must confess," said mrs. pedagog, "that i never looked into that question." "well, i'll tell you," the idiot resumed. "the last time i made new-year's calls i figured it out for the doctor the next morning, and as i recall the statistics, in the course of that day i ate one hundred and twenty-nine pickled oysters, thirteen plates of chicken salad, seven plates of lobster salad, five plates of mulled sardines, twenty-three plates of ice-cream, four hundred and sixty-three macaroons, eighty-seven sandwiches ranging from lettuce and ham to chicken and potted goose-liver, enough angel-cake to feed all the angels there are and two more, sixteen welsh rarebits that were being made just as i happened in, and crystallized ginger and salted almonds and marrons to the extent of about eighteen pounds." "mercy!" cried mrs. pedagog. "say, pa, where was i then?" asked tommy, his eyes glittering with delight. "you were eating green cheese on the moon, tommy," said the idiot. "wisht i'd been with you," said tommy. "must o' been better than bein' a pie." "and all of these things," continued the idiot, with a wink at his son, "i washed down with six gallons of lemonade, nineteen cups of coffee, eighteen cups of tea, and a taste of claret punch." "and how about the egg-nog?" asked the bibliomaniac, slyly. "i judge there were about six crates of eggs in it," said the idiot. "i never had the nerve to estimate the nog-end of it." "what did the doctor say when you told him all that?" asked mrs. pedagog. the idiot chuckled. "what did he say?" he cried. "why, i should think you could guess. he blamed it all on the welsh rarebits, but he thought he could get me into shape again in time for the next new year. i've never been the same man since." "well, the way i look at it," said mrs. pedagog, "is that it is a great pity that women must be deprived of a function that gives them pleasure because the men make pigs of themselves." "but you don't understand, mrs. pedagog," the idiot persisted. "i grant you that the man who eats all that makes a pig of himself, but he has no choice. he can't help himself. when a charming hostess insists, he'd be a greater pig if he refused to partake of her hospitality. the custom involved an inevitable sacrifice of man's digestion upon the altar of woman. that's all there was about it. if it could have been arranged so that a man could take a hamper about with him and stow all the cakes and salads and other good things away in that, and eat them later as he happened to need or want them, instead of in his own inner self, the good old custom might have been preserved, but that is impossible in these conventional days." "you needn't have eaten it all," put in mrs. idiot. "you could have pretended to eat it and put it down somewhere." [illustration: "'i found eight sandwiches and a pint of salted almonds'"] [illustration: "'they were found some days later when the room was put in order'"] "i know that, my dear. i didn't even on that occasion eat it all--i only ate what i told you. i found eight sandwiches and a pint of salted almonds in my coat-tail pocket the next morning, which i managed surreptitiously to hide away while my hostesses were getting me something else, and in one place, while nobody was watching me, i hid a half-dozen pickled oysters under a sofa, where i suppose they were found some days later when the room was put in order." as the idiot spoke the clock struck twelve, and the guests all rose up. "here's to the new year!" said mr. pedagog. "not yet," interposed the idiot. "that's only a signal for the welsh rarebits to be brought in. i've sworn them off for the new year, but i haven't for the old. the clock is a half-hour fast." "no, my dear," said mrs. idiot. "it was, but i put it back. it's exactly right now." "then," said the idiot, "i join you in the toast, mr. pedagog. here's to the new year: may it bring joy to everybody. meanwhile may it bring also the welsh rarebits." "i thought you'd sworn off," suggested mr. pedagog. "so i had," replied the idiot, "but circumstances over which i have no control force me to postpone my reformation for another twelve months. if they had been served at half-past eleven i should have stuck to my resolve; as they have been delayed until twelve-one i cannot do less than eat them. i do not believe in wilful waste; and besides, it is quite as much the duty of the host to consume the good things he places before his guests as it is for the guests to partake. i can wait a year, i think, without wholly ruining what little digestion my former devotion to new-year's calling has left me. gentlemen, i propose the ladies: may their future be as golden as this rarebit; and for the men, may they always be worthy to be the toast upon which that golden future may rest with the certainty born of confidence." and the guests fell to and ate each a golden buck to the new year--all save mollie and tommy. these two important members of the household went up to their little beds, but just before going to sleep tommy called through the door to his little sister: "mollie!" "yeth!" "want to play a game with me to-morrow?" "yeth!" "well, you get a cake and a pie and some gingersnaps and a lot of apples and some candy and we'll play new-year's calls." "splendid!" lisped mollie. "you'll call on me?" "yes," said tommy; "and all you'll have to do will be to force food on me." and they soon passed into the land of dreams. xii some domestic inventions [illustration: "'there's not much money in stocks'"] "i think i'll give up the business of broking and go into inventing," said the idiot one sunday morning, as he and mrs. idiot and their friends sat down at breakfast. "there's not much money in stocks, but the successful inventor of a patent clothes-pin makes a fortune." "i'd think twice about that before acting," observed mr. brief. "there may not be much money in stocks, but you can work eight hours a day, and get good pay in a broker's office, while the inventor has to wait upon inspiration." "true enough," said the idiot; "but waiting on inspiration isn't a bad business in itself. you can play golf or read a rattling good novel, or go to a yacht-race while you wait." "but where does the money come in?" asked mr. pedagog, his usual caution coming to the fore. "inspiration brings it with her," said the idiot, "and by the barrel, too. what's the use of toiling eight hours a day for fifty weeks in a year for three thousand dollars when by waiting on inspiration in a pleasant way you make a million all of a sudden?" "well," said mr. pedagog, indulgently, "if you have the inspiration lassoed, as you might say, your argument is all right; but if you are merely going to sit down and wait for it to ring you up on the telephone, and ask you when and where you wish your barrels of gold delivered, i think it will be your creditors, and not fortune, who will be found knocking at your door. how are you going about this business, provided you do retire from wall street?" "choose my field and work it," replied the idiot. "for the present i should choose the home. that is the field i am most interested in just now. i should study its necessities, and endeavor to meet whatever these might demand with an adequate supply. any man who stays around home all day will find lots of room for the employment of his talents along inventive lines." "you've tried it, have you?" asked mr. brief. "certainly i have," said the idiot, "though i haven't invented anything yet. why, only last week i stayed home on monday--wash-day--and a thousand things that might be invented suggested themselves to me." "as, for instance?" asked mrs. idiot, who was anxious to know of any possible thing that could mitigate the horrors of wash-day. [illustration: "'a nice little basket-hat on her head to hold the pins in'"] "well, it wouldn't help _you_ much, my dear," said the idiot, "but the wash-lady would hail with unmixed delight a substitute for her mouth to hold clothes-pins in while she is hanging out the clothes. i watched ellen in the yard for ten minutes that day, and it was pathetic. there she was, standing on her tiptoes, hanging innumerable garments on the line, her mouth full of clothes-pins, and jimpsonberry's hired man leaning over the fence trying to shout sweet nothings in her ear. if she had had a nice little basket-hat on her head to hold the pins in she could have answered back without stopping her work every other minute to take them out of her mouth in order to retort to his honeyed sentiments." mrs. idiot laughed. "ellen finds time enough to talk and do the washing, too," she said. "i sometimes think she does more talking than washing." "no doubt of it; she's only human, like the rest of us," said the idiot. "but she might save time to do something else for us if she could do the washing and the talking at the same time. she may give up the washing, but she'll never give up the talking. therefore, why not make the talking easier?" "what you need most, i think," put in mr. brief, "is an instrument to keep hired men from leaning over the fence and distracting the attention of the laundress from her work. that would be a great boon." "not unless idleness is a great boon," retorted the idiot. "half the hired men i know would be utterly out of employment if they couldn't lean over a fence and talk to somebody. leaning over a fence and talking to somebody forms seventy-five per cent. of the hired man's daily labor. he seems to think that is what he is paid for. still, any one who objects could very easily remedy the conversational detail in so far as it goes on over the fence." "by the use of barbed wire, i presume," suggested mr. pedagog. "by something far more subtle and delicately suggestive," rejoined the idiot. "hired men do not mind barbed-wire fences. they rather like them when they annoy other people. when they annoy themselves they know how to treat them. my own man mike, for instance, minds them not at all. indeed, he has taken my pruning-shears and clipped all the barbs off the small stretch of it we had at the rear end of our lot to keep him from climbing over for a short cut home." "with what result?" asked mr. brief. [illustration: "'an electric notice to quit'"] "with the result that i had to buy a new pair of pruning-shears," said the idiot. "my anti-over-the-fence-gabber," he continued, "would involve certain complex details, but it would work. i should have an electric battery connected with the upper cable of the fence, and an operator stationed inside of the house, close to a key which would send some six hundred or seven hundred volts through the cable whenever needed. then if i felt that jimpsonberry's man was interfering with my laundress, as soon as he leaned over the fence i'd have the operator send him an electric notice to quit." "a message?" said mr. pedagog. "no, a plain shock. two hundred volts as a starter, three hundred as a reminder, and the full seven hundred if necessary to make the hint plainer." "that would be cruel," observed mrs. pedagog. "not wholly," said the idiot. "it would be an advantage to the man himself in one way. hired men have too little electricity in their systems, mrs. pedagog. if jimpsonberry's man, for instance, would take all the electricity i'd give him and apply it to his work, jimpsonberry's unpulled dandelions would not be such a constant menace to my lawn. i compel mike to weed out my lawn every spring and autumn, but jimpsonberry doesn't attend to his at all. he doesn't sleep on it, and so doesn't bother about it. consequently, when his dandelions go to seed the seed is blown over into my grass, and every year i get an uninvited crop, which at a dollar a thousand would make me a millionaire." "why don't you apply your inventive genius to the discovery of a seedless dandelion?" asked the lawyer. "it seems to me that would be the best solution of the dandelion problem." "because jimpsonberry wouldn't have 'em if i discovered 'em," said the idiot. "i judge from the millions he raises every year that he is satisfied with dandelions as they are. he's got enough for himself, and never makes any charge for those he gives to his neighbors." "i think a furnace-feeder would be a good thing, too," the idiot continued, in a moment. "my furnace is a chronic sufferer from indigestion because on some days it is gorged with coal and on others with ashes. seems to me if i could get a month's time in which to concentrate my attention upon a furnace-feeder, i could devise some kind of a contraption that would invoke the enthusiastic love of the suburban resident in arctic latitudes the world over." "i have often thought of that possibility myself," observed mr. pedagog, his eyes fondly resting upon a steaming plate of griddle-cakes that had just been brought in. "but coal is a rebellious quantity. a furnace-feeder would need to be delicately adjusted, and coal cannot be handled with delicacy. it requires a chute rather than a tube. it must be manipulated with the shovel, not the sugar-tongs." "correct," said the idiot. "therefore, _you_ would experiment on a chute or a shovel, abandoning all idea of refining the coal. i, on the other hand, would experiment with the coal itself, mr. pedagog. why not liquefy it, and let it drop automatically into the furnace through a self-acting spigot?" "liquefy coal?" asked mr. pedagog. "certainly," replied the idiot. "we liquefy pretty nearly everything else. if liquid air, why not liquid coal? everything we have in nature in these days apparently can be liquefied, and while i am not familiar with the process, i see no reason why a ton of coal should not be reduced to such a shape that it can be bottled. once bottled and provided with an automatic dropper, it could easily be adjusted so as to flow in proper quantities into the furnace at proper intervals." "it would be very expensive. do you know what a pint of liquid air costs?" demanded the doctor. "no," said the idiot. "i neither breathe nor drink it. the plain old stuff is good enough for me, and cheap if you don't have to go to the mountains or the sea-shore to get your supply." "granting coal could be liquefied," the doctor assented, "i venture to say that a ton of it would cost as much as five hundred dollars." "i've no doubt it would," said the idiot; "but i could afford a ton of coal at five hundred dollars if my scheme worked. a successful invention would make bread seem cheap at ten dollars a loaf. there's another thing i should put my mind on, and that is a method of cooking a cauliflower so that everybody in the house, as well as the neighbors, should not know that you are doing so," he continued. "i am particularly fond of cauliflower, but it is undeniable that in the process of cooking it becomes obtrusive, almost to the point of ostentation. i've spoken about it many times. mike, the gardener, to whom i've spoken on the subject, thinks the cauliflower itself, if sprinkled with _eau de cologne_ while growing, would cease to be obnoxious in the cooking; but that is too expensive a process. it would take a dozen cases of _eau de cologne_ to bring a single cauliflower to maturity. my son, tommy, has stated that he thinks it might be boiled in florida-water instead of in the simple variety that comes from the pipes. a good suggestion for a small boy, but also expensive. hired men and small boys do not think of the exchequer of the principal in their plans. they don't have to. their allowance and wages are usually all velvet--an elegant vulgarism for surplus--and for my own part i have constantly to veto their little schemes for the betterment of my condition in order to have any condition at all left. but as far as the arrangement of an odorless cauliflower-cooker is concerned, it is as simple as a b c, barring one or two complications." "i wish you'd hurry up and invent it," cried mrs. idiot, with enthusiasm. "what are the main features of this simple contrivance?" "i'd have a boiler, in the first place, in which to boil the animal," said the idiot. "when the water was ready i'd clap the creature into it, and before it had time to remonstrate i'd fasten a hermetically sealed cover over the top." "but when you took it off the results would still be overpowering," said mr. pedagog. [illustration: "'finding out what is being cooked for dinner'"] "no, my dear sir," said the idiot, "for the simple reason that i should affix a cold-air box and a flue to the hermetically sealed boiler. through the cold-air box fresh air would constantly flow into the boiler. through the flue all the aromatic drawbacks of the cauliflower would be carried off through the chimney into the upper air. anybody who wished to know whether we were going to have cauliflower for dinner or not would have to climb up to the roof and sniff at the chimney-top to find out." "it _is_ simple, isn't it, mrs. idiot?" mrs. pedagog said. "very," replied mrs. idiot. "indeed, it seems so extremely simple that i should like to know where the complications lie." "where all the complications in cooking lie, my dear," said the idiot, "in the cook. the chief complication would lie in getting a cook who could, or if she could, would, use the thing intelligently." "i don't see," said mr. brief, dryly--"i don't see but that what you ought to devote your time to, my dear idiot, is the invention of an intelligent cook." "humph!" laughed the idiot. "i may be an idiot, mr. brief, but i'm not an ass. there are some things that man may reasonably hope to accomplish--such as setting fire to the hudson river, or growing butternuts on the summit of mont blanc--but as for trying to invent an intelligent cook who would stay in the country for more than two weeks for less than ten thousand dollars a year, that, sir, is beyond all the conceptions of the human mind." "ain't bridget intelligent, pa?" asked tommy. here was a complication, for tommy liked to retail to bridget the gossip of the day, and especially what "pa said." "h'm--ah--oh yes, indeed, she is, tommy," the idiot replied, with some embarrassment. "very; she's been with us three months." "how much do you pay her, pa?" asked the boy. "well," said the idiot, "not more than fifteen hundred dollars a month. just take another griddle-cake, my son, and remember that there are some things little boys should not talk about." "like tumpany's bald heads?" lisped mollie, complacently, her eye fixed upon mr. pedagog's shining dome. "precisely," observed mr. pedagog, appreciating the situation. and while everybody else laughed the idiot looked upon his children with a sternly affectionate face. "my dear," said he to mrs. idiot, "i think it is time the babies got ready for sunday-school." xiii a suburban complication "well, old chap," said the poet some weeks later, when he happened to be spending the night off in the suburbs with his old friend, "how goes the noble art of inventing? has your horseless cauliflower bloomed as yet?" "horseless cauliflower is good, but tautological," said the idiot. "the cauliflower is an automobile in itself, without the intervention of man. who told you i was inventing instead of broking these days?" "mr. pedagog said something about it the last time i met him," said the poet. "he's a mighty good friend of yours. he says you are the most perfect idiot he ever met." "he's a bully good fellow," said the idiot, affectionately. "you know i used to think pedagog wasn't of any earthly use except to teach people things, but as i look back upon my experience with him he has never taught me anything that was worth forgetting. so he told you i was going into invention, did he?" "yes; and he said he thought you were going about it in the right way," rejoined the poet. "you weren't spending ten thousand dollars to get a four-dollar invention on the market, he said, but were inventing things that you knew at the outset weren't worth risking your money on." the idiot smiled broadly. "he said that, did he? well, he doesn't know what he is talking about," he retorted. "i am spending money on my inventions. i have already invested fifty cents in my patent clothes-pin-holding laundry-bonnet, and i have strung the wires along my fence to be used in my electric hired-man-discourager; and when i have managed to save up a few dollars more i'm going to get a battery to attach to it, when woe betide that man of jimpsonberry's if he tries to talk to maria while she is at work! furthermore, i have extended the operations of that same useful invention so that it will meet a long-felt want in all suburban communities as a discourager of promiscuous wooing. you never lived in the country, did you?" "not permanently," said the poet. [illustration: "'courting his best girl on some other fellow's stone wall'"] "then you are not aware of a singular habit the young country swain has of courting his best girl on some other fellow's stone wall after the sun goes down," said the idiot. "some balmy evening next spring, if you'll come up here i'll show you one of the features of suburban life that will give you an idea for a poem. that stone wall that runs along the front of my place has been the scene of more engagements than i can tell you of. many a time when i have come home late at night i have counted as many as ten couples sitting on the cold coping of that wall telling each other how beautiful the world is, and holding each other on with loving arms." "rather an affecting scene, that," said the poet. "it was at first," rejoined the idiot, "and i rather liked to see it. indeed, i once suggested to mrs. idiot that we should have the coping upholstered, so that they might sit more comfortably. i even wanted to put a back along the inner side of it for them to lean against, but after a while it palled. we couldn't sit out on our own front porch on a summer evening and talk without sentimental interruptions that were demoralizing to a sustained conversation. we'd try to talk, for instance, about browning, or tennyson, or le gallienne, or some other poet of their class, when we'd be interrupted by such sentiments as, 'ess i is,' and 'i's oo ducky,' and 'ain't de moon boofer?' then when we had guests we never dared to take them out-of-doors, but remained cooped up inside the house, because mrs. idiot feared to intrude upon the sacred right of those ten couples to do their courting comparatively unobserved." "it must have been a nuisance," said the poet. "it grew to be so; but i hadn't the heart to stop it, even if i could have done so, so i put up a hedge to hide them from view and soften the sound of their voices; but it didn't work very long. they didn't seem to appreciate my motive, and it so happened that the hedge which i put up with the most innocent of intentions was a japanese quince that blossoms out in thorns half an inch long, to an extent which suggests the fretful porcupine. these, for some reason or other, excited the animosity of my twenty young friends on the wall, and at the end of the season there were not two consecutive feet of the hedge that had not been hacked and cut to pieces by my indignant but uninvited guests." "what impudence!" cried the poet. "only the ardor of youth," observed the idiot, calmly. "put yourself in the same place. suppose that you, just as you were about to declare your undying love for the girl of your choice, and while gently stealing your arm about her waist, were to have the back of your hand ripped off by a brutal hedge?" "i see," laughed the poet. "i dare say i should be indignant." "they were properly so," said the idiot, "properly so; and neither mrs. idiot nor i really blamed them." [illustration: "'holding up a great osage orange'"] "we let the matter rest, and made no complaint," he continued. "time went on, and the courters became a trifle more assertive. one of them came into the house one evening and demanded to know what i meant by assaulting him and his lady friend, holding up a great osage orange which he alleged to have been the murderous weapon i had used; and i really had to apologize, for i was guilty. it happened that while walking about my small preserves i had picked up this orange, which had fallen onto my lawn from a tree on jimpsonberry's place, and had unthinkingly tried to see how far i could throw it. it went just over the hedge, and had unceremoniously knocked strephon's hat into the middle of next week and frightened phyllis into hysterics. i was placed on the defensive, but for the life of me i couldn't help laughing, with the result that strephon stalked angrily away, alleging that i should hear from him further in the matter." "and did you?" asked the poet. "no," said the idiot, "i never did; but the incident rather soured me towards the people who seemed to regard my stone wall as their property. i even came to feel like purchasing a gatling-gun and loading it with osage oranges for the purpose of repelling them, but even under this provocation i still continued to ignore the matter." "you are too easy-going," suggested the poet. "i was," said the idiot, "until they began to use the sidewalk that runs parallel with the wall as a tablet upon which to inscribe in letters of flame their undying affection. one sunday morning, as mrs. idiot and i started for church, we were horrified to find our flagstones scribbled all over with poetry, done in chalk, after the order of "roses is pink, and violets is blue, sugar is sweet, and so be you. [illustration: "'the picture of a heart with an arrow drawn through it'"] "further along was the picture of a heart with an arrow drawn through it, and the two names 'larry' and 'mame' written on either side. and one unusually affectionate youth had actually cut the initials of his young lady and himself in the top of the coping, with a cold-chisel, i suspect. it's there yet. it was then my spirit rose up into fierce denunciation. that night, when the clans had gathered and were going through the initial stages i marched out in front of them, cleared my throat ostentatiously, and made a speech. it was the most nervous speech i ever made; worse than after-dinner speaking by a good deal. i called their attention to how i had suffered: referred pathetically to the destruction of the hedge; inveighed sarcastically against the osage-orange man; told them in highly original fashion that worms, if taken at the ebb that leads on to fortune, would surely turn and rend their persecutors, and that i'd had enough. i forgave them the hedge; i forgave them the annoyance they had cost me, but i asserted that i'd see them all condemned to eternal celibacy before i would permit my sidewalk to be turned into an anthology of love, and my coping into an intaglio of eternal blessedness. i requested them if they wished to write poetry to write it upon their own hearths, and if they had any inscriptions to cut to chip in and buy an obelisk of their own and hieroglyph to their hearts' content. i even offered to buy them each a slate and pencil, which they might bring with them when they came, upon which to send their sentiments down to posterity, and i finished with what i consider to be a pleasing perversion of longfellow's poem on the woodman, with a few lines beginning: "scribbler, spare that sidewalk. "then i departed, threatening to have them all arrested." "good!" said the poet. "i didn't think you'd ever do it. you have nerve enough, but you are too good-natured." "i wasn't good-natured then," said the idiot, regretfully; "and when i got through i stalked back into the house, scolded mollie, sent tommy to bed, and behaved like a bear for the rest of the evening." "and the people on the wall? they slunk away in despair, i suppose," said the poet. [illustration: "'it took my hired man two weeks to scrub it out'"] "not they," said the idiot; "not by a long shot. they combined against me, and next morning when i started for town i found my sidewalk in worse shape than ever. one flag had written upon it the pleasing mandate 'go drown yourself.' another bore the mystic word 'chump' in great capital letters, and at the end of my walk was a pastel portrait of myself, of rough and awkward composition, labelled with my name in full. it took my hired man two weeks to scrub it out. and on the following hallowe'en they strung a huge banner on my telephone wires, inscribed 'the idiot asylum,' and every blessed gate i have to my name had been removed from the premises." "what an outrage!" cried the poet. "not a bit of it. merely a suburban ebullition," said the idiot. "they don't mean anything by it. they are mere children, after all, and from their point of view i have interfered with their rights." "and you propose to stand all this?" asked the poet. "if i were you i'd get a pile of broken bottles, as they do in england, and place them along the top of that wall so that they couldn't possibly use it." "brutal custom, that," said the idiot. "may do for englishmen; won't do here at all. in the first place, it spoils the appearance of the wall; in the second place, it is not efficacious; in the third place, it would place me in a false position. everybody'd soon be asking where i got all those bottles. an englishman drinks enough beer in the course of a week to keep his walls covered with broken bottles for a century. i don't, and i'm not going to buy bottles. i've got a better scheme." "ah!" cried the poet. "now we are coming to the invention." "merely an extension of my 'hired-man-discourager,'" said the idiot. "simple, and i trust efficacious. i am going to put a live wire along the coping of my wall. broken bottles are cheap, my dear poet, but they don't work. if i put broken bottles on my wall the amalgamated brotherhood of wooers would meet on my lawn and pass resolutions against me, and ultimately they would demand the use of my parlor, unless i misunderstand their nature. "the lovers' rights must be respected always, and i'm truly thankful that they have stopped short at my frontage. when they operate along my frontier-line they are harmless, interesting, even amusing. if they carry their principles through and penetrate beyond the edge, why, then mrs. idiot and i will have to give it up. "my scheme is to make them feel that they are welcome to the wall, but to make the wall--well, to give an element of surprise to the wall. just as jimpsonberry's man is soon to be surprised electrically, which is legitimately, so do i propose to surprise these inconsiderate persons who cut down my hedges, who scribble up my sidewalk with their poems, and who hang hallowe'en banners on my telephone wires. i wish them all well, but next spring when they attempt to revive the customs of the past they will find that even i am resentful." "but how?" "i shall have a wire running along the coping, as i have already said, that between the hours of eight and twelve p.m. will be so full of shocking things that my uninvited guests will cease to bother me. can you imagine the effect of a live wire upon ten loving couples engaged in looking at the moon while sitting on it?" "yet you claim to insist upon their rights as lovers," said the poet, deprecatingly. "certainly i do," said the idiot. "man has a right to make love wherever he can. if he can't make love on my wall, let him make love somewhere else." "but where?" cried the poet. "your swains up here have no home, apparently." "or jimpsonberry's wall," said the idiot. "by the way, do you know anything about moths?" xiv some consideration of the moth "do you know anything about the habits of moths?" repeated the idiot. "moths?" echoed the poet, eying the idiot closely, the transition from live wires to moths proving rather too sudden for his comprehension. "no, i don't know anything about moths except that i have heard that they are an unmitigated nuisance." "they are worse than a nuisance," said the idiot. "they are a devouring element, and they are worse than fire. if your house catches fire you can summon an engine and have it put out, and what damage it does you can collect for if you are careful enough to keep your possessions insured; but with the moth it is different. there isn't any moth department in town that you can ring up, nor is there a moth-extinguisher that you can keep close at hand to fight them with. furthermore, there is no moth-insurance company here or elsewhere to protect the man who suffers damage at their teeth, that i know of. "he is a mean, sneaking, underhanded element, the moth is. fire has a decent sense of the proprieties. moths have none at all. when fire attacks you it smokes, and crackles, and hisses, and roars, and lets you know in clarion tones that it has come. the moth steals upon you in the dead of night, and chews up your best trousers, gorges himself upon your wife's furs, tickles his palate with your swellest flannel golf-shirt, munches away upon your handsomest rug, punches holes in your best sofa-cushions with his tusks, and then silently folds his tent and steals away without so much as a thank-you for his meal. for unmitigated meanness commend me to the moth!" "you seem to speak with feeling," said the poet, with a smile. "have you suffered?" [illustration: "'an unpaid grocer's bill becomes an absolute pleasure'"] "suffered?" cried the idiot. "suffered is not the word. they have tortured me. alongside of the moth and his nefarious work even a book-agent pales into insignificance, and an unpaid grocer's bill becomes an absolute pleasure. you can meet a book-agent on his own ground, for you know his limitations. i have done so myself. only yesterday one of them called upon me to sell me a cyclopedia of cookery, and before he got away i had actually sold him a copy of your poems." "ah," said the poet, shaking his head. "you sold my gift, did you?" "not a bit of it," laughed the idiot. "when your book came out i bought a copy, and two days later you sent me another with an inscription, which i treasure affectionately. i sold him the one i bought." "you are a beautiful idiot," said the poet, slapping his knee enthusiastically. "i don't lay claim so much to beauty as to sublimity," said the idiot, lighting a cigar. "and even that is not to my credit. beauty and sublimity are gifts. no amount of cultivation can produce genius when it does not exist. when i see a beautiful woman it is not she that i admire. i admire the gracious hand that made her." "give me that idea, old man!" cried the poet. "it is yours from this on," said the idiot, with a sigh. "i am not equal to it. i may be able to think thoughts, but thoughts are of no more use to me than a piano is to a man who can't read music. but we are becoming discursive. we were talking about moths, not thoughts. you said that i must have suffered, and i said that i had been tortured, and i have. my evening clothes have been ruined by them; my best shirts have been eaten by them; my silk hat, in which i have taken much pride, has four bald spots on its side because of their insatiable appetite, and as far as i can find out, i have no redress. you can't sue a moth for damages, you know, with any degree of satisfaction." "why should you expect to sue a moth for damages any more than to have a mosquito indicted for assault?" suggested the poet. "oh, as for that," said the idiot, "you can treat the mosquito without much difficulty. he merits capital punishment, and if you are yourself alert you can squash him at the moment of his crime. but the moth is different. you are absolutely helpless in the face of him. he works in secret." "i am told that there are such things as camphor-balls," observed the poet. "there are," said the idiot. "and i truly think the moth enjoys them as much as a young girl enjoys a military ball. whenever we give a camphor-ball the moths attend, and as far as i can find out dance all through it. they seem to enjoy functions of that nature. furthermore, i have yet to meet the man who likes to go about in a suit of clothes that smells like a drug-store. i don't. i hate the odor of camphor, and if i have my choice of going to a dinner in a perforated dress-suit or in one that is redolent of the camphor-ball, i prefer the one with holes in it. what i can't understand is why a race as proud as the one to which you and i belong should have to knuckle under to an inferior lot of insects such as the moth represents." [illustration: "'the lion, the elephant, the tiger, all have their work to do'"] "i suppose there is something about it that we cannot understand," said the poet, dreamily. "all created things have their uses. the lion, the elephant, the tiger, the boa-constrictor, all have their work to do in life. even the mosquito has his mission, whatever it may be. you must admit this. why not, therefore, admit that the moth serves a purpose in the great scheme of life?" "my dear poet," said the idiot, "far be it from me to deny the truth of what you say. there is hardly a living creature that i have ever encountered in all my life that has not had some truly utilitarian quality in its make-up. the lion is a splendid creature, and with the bear and the fox and the rhinoceros and the tapir he serves a purpose. they at least teach boys geography, and teach it interestingly. the boy who knows where the tapir hath its lair knows more geography than i do. my son tommy has learned more of geography from a visit to the circus where those animals are shown than he ever learned from books. i can quite see likewise the utilitarian value of the mosquito. he keeps the sea-shore from being overcrowded, and he prevents some people from sleeping too much. he is an accomplished vocalist, and from my own point of view is superior to a wagner opera, since wagner opera puts me to sleep, while the magnificent discords of the mosquito keep me awake. but the moth is beyond me. what his contribution to the public welfare may be i cannot reason out, although i have tried." "and you find nothing in his favor?" asked the poet. "much," replied the idiot, "but he has no system. his mission is to eat old clothes, but he is such a very disgusting glutton that he does not discriminate between old and new, and i have no use for him. if in his search for a meal he would choose the garments of three years ago, which i ought not to wear because they are so old-fashioned as to make me conspicuous when i do wear them, it would be all right. but the moth is no such discriminating person. he is not a lover of old vintages. when he calls in a number of his brother moths to dine at his expense he does not treat them to an overcoat of '89, or to a dress-suit of '93, or to a silk hat laid down in '95. he wants the latest thing, and as far as i can find out he gets it. i have just been compelled to lay in a new stock of under and over clothes because the ones i had have been served upon his table." "the moth must live," observed the poet. [illustration: "'they eat up my new clothes'"] [illustration: "'wasted my energy upon the unresponsive air'"] "i'm perfectly willing he should if he'll only discriminate," retorted the idiot. "we have enough old clothes in this house, my dear poet, to give a banquet of seventeen courses to six hundred moths every night for the next six months. if they would content themselves with that i should be satisfied. but they won't. they eat up my new clothes; they destroy my new hats; they munch away upon my most treasured golf-vests. that is why i asked you if you knew anything about moths. i am anxious to reform them. as you have said, i have gone into inventing, and my inventions are wholly designed to meet long-felt wants in all households. the man who invents a scheme to circumvent or properly to satisfy the appetite of the moth will find his name indissolubly linked with fame. i have thought, and thought, and thought about it. the moth must either be domesticated or extinguished. i have tried to extinguish him, but without avail. when he has flown forth i have endeavored to punch him in the head, and i have wasted my energy upon the unresponsive air. did you ever undertake to punch a moth in the head?" "never," said the poet. "i am not a fighter." "my dear boy," rejoined the idiot, "i don't know a hero in real life or in fiction who could meet a moth on his own ground. i read about mr. willie b. travers, of new york, who can drive four horses about the arena at the horse show without turning a hair. i read about emerson mcjones, of boston, putting up his face against the administration on a question of national import. i have read of the prowess of alexander, of cã¦sar, of d'artagnan, of bonaparte, and of teddy roosevelt, but there isn't a man among 'em who can fight the moth. you can bombard him with a gatling-gun loaded to the muzzle with camphor-balls, and he still waves his banner defiantly in your face. you may lunge at him with a rapier, and he jumps lightly aside, and to express his contempt bites a hole in your parlor hangings. you can turn the hose on him, and he soars buoyantly away out of reach. you can't kill him, because you can't catch him. you can't drive him away, and until we go back to the dress of the knights of old and wear nickel-plated steel clothing, and live in rooms of solid masonry, we can't starve him out. there is, therefore, only one thing to do, and that is to domesticate him. if you in the course of your investigations into nature have ever discovered any trait in the moth that science can lay hold upon, something through which we can appeal to his better nature, if he has such a thing, you will be conferring a great boon upon the whole domestic world. what i want to find out is if he possesses some particularly well-defined taste; if there is any one kind of texture or fabric that he likes better than another. if there is such a thing i'll have a brand-new suit made of that same material especially for him, furnish a nice comfortable, warm spot in the attic as a dining-room, and let him feed there forevermore, when and how he pleases. the manners and customs of moths are an open book to most of us. his tastes are as mysterious as the ocean's depths." the poet shook his head dubiously. "i am afraid, my dear idiot, that you have at last tackled a problem that will prove too much for you. how to get at the point you desire is, i fear, impossible of discovery," he said. "it would seem so," replied the idiot. "but i shall not despair. if the ordinary cook of commerce can be made humanly intelligent i do not see any reason why we should abandon so comparatively simple a proposition as the domesticization of the moth." tommy and mollie had been listening with great interest, and as the idiot finished mollie observed that she thought the best way to do was to ask the moth what he liked most, but tommy had a less conciliatory plan. "best thing's to get rid of 'em altogether, pa," he said. "mollie and i'll squash 'em for you for fi' cents apiece." which struck the poet as the most practical idea that had been advanced during the discussion. xv some consideration of the burglar "are you ever bothered much by burglars off here in the country?" asked mr. pedagog one spring afternoon, as he and the idiot and the youngsters strolled about the idiot's small farm. "no," said the idiot. "they've only visited me twice." "only twice, eh?" observed the schoolmaster. "well, i should think that was often enough, considering that you haven't lived here more than a year and a half." "it was," said the idiot. "i didn't say i wanted them to come again, did i?" "of course not," returned mr. pedagog. "but you said 'only twice,' as if two visits of that nature were less than might have been expected." "well, aren't they?" asked the idiot. "just make a little calculation. i've lived on this place precisely five hundred and ninety-four days, and, of course, an equal number of nights. it seems to me that in breaking into my house only twice when they might have come every night shows a degree of restraint upon our suburban burglary company that is worthy of the highest commendation. you, of course, refer to professional burglars, don't you?" mr. pedagog laughed. "are there any amateur burglars?" "are there!" ejaculated the idiot. "well, rather. there is the gasman, and man who inspects the water-meter, and the iceman, and the plumber. if you refer to that class, why, i have them with me always." "which of the two classes do you prefer?" asked mr. pedagog, with a chuckle. "well, i'm not quite sure as to that," returned the idiot. "i've often wondered myself whether i preferred the straight-out honest pirate, who does his work surreptitiously by night, and who doesn't pretend to be anything but a pirate, or the sleek, insinuating chap, who comes into our house by day, and runs up a bill against you which in his heart of hearts he knows is not a proper one. there are burglars and burglars in this world, mr. pedagog, and the one who lands in the penitentiary is not always a bigger rascal than the fellow who holds the respect of the community and sets himself up as a prominent citizen. highwaymen may be divided into classes, some of them respectable, others not. there was dick turpin, who ran honest risks to obtain a living; there are men in wall street who work greater ruin, and are held in higher esteem. there is the footpad who takes your watch, and pawns it to buy bread for his starving family, and there is the very charming young person who sits behind a table at a church fair, and charges you seven dollars for a fifty-cent sofa-cushion. so it goes. socially i prefer the esteemed citizen who makes me pay twenty-eight dollars for ten dollars' worth of gas; but when it comes down to a strict business basis i must say i have lost less money through the operations of the professional thief than through those of the amateur highwayman. take a recent case in my own experience, for instance. only last week i sent anonymously a small clock which cost me twenty dollars to a guild fair here in town, and mrs. idiot bought it for a birthday present for me for forty dollars. in other words, i have a twenty-dollar clock on my hands that has cost me sixty dollars." "but you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have contributed to the good work of the guild," suggested mr. pedagog. "that is true enough," said the idiot; "but the guild is only forty dollars to the good. they'd have been better off if i had given them fifty dollars in cash, and i'd have saved ten." "but you have the clock," insisted mr. pedagog. "i certainly have," replied the idiot; "and if time is money i shall soon be rich, for that clock makes time to beat the band. if it keeps on as it has started and we stand by it, we shall soon be about a month ahead of the sun. it gains a week every forty-eight hours. if that clock were truthful, i should be a centenarian at forty." "but you're not sorry you gave it?" said mr. pedagog, deprecatingly. "not at all," said the idiot. "my only regret is that mrs. i. bought it. but," he added, hastily, "she needn't know that." "i won't say a word," said mr. pedagog. "i won't, neither, pa," said tommy, with a degree of complacency which showed that the temptation to tell was great. "well, i won't say mor'n two or three words about it, anyhow," put in mollie, not anxious to commit herself to perpetual silence on the subject. "it is the most beautiful clock i ever saw," said the idiot, quickly, realizing the possibilities of mollie's two or three words. "that's what i fink," said mollie, "and i'm goin' to tell mamma that you said so." "all right," said the idiot. "suppose you and tommy run right up and tell her now." "i'd rather hear you talk, pa," said tommy. "he does take after you, doesn't he?" said mr. pedagog. "yes," said the idiot, "he does. he likes to hear me talk as much as i do, bless him!" "it is a commendable sign in a son," observed mr. pedagog. "but tell about the two professionals. did they get anything?" "they did," said the idiot. "and at the same time i lost nothing. the first chap came on the scene, along about two o'clock in the morning. he was a very industrious mechanic, and i regret to say he was not adequately paid for his services. he tackled the safe." at this point the idiot threw back his head and laughed heartily. "i have seen the safe," said mr. pedagog, "and to tell you the truth, my dear idiot, i have wondered at your choosing so obvious a receptacle for your valuables. it does not, to my mind, deny itself as a safe should. it advertises the fact that your silver, your wife's jewels perhaps, are within. i have spoken once or twice to our friend mr. brief about it." "no doubt," replied the idiot. "however, i can't see why a safe has any disadvantages." "it lies in this," said mr. pedagog, impressively. "you confess at once to the burglar the exact location of the things he's after. without a safe your silver, or mrs. idiot's jewels, such as they are, might be found anywhere in the house. but when you take the trouble to buy a safe, any burglar in creation who has ordinary common-sense must know that your valuables are concentrated in that one spot." "that, i rejoice to say," said the idiot, "is the burglar's view." "you should not rejoice," said mr. pedagog, with some of his old-time severity. "you make his work so comparatively easy that he is content to follow a base profession, as you have termed it. truly, i wonder at you. you place on your first floor a bald safe--" "i haven't seen any advertised as having a full head of hair," observed the idiot, complacently. "you misunderstand me," said mr. pedagog. "when i say bald i mean evident, plain, obvious. you practically say: here are the things which i value. what is to be found within this safe, mr. burglar, _are the very things you are after_. therefore, say you to the burglar: attack this safe. break it open, rifle it of its contents; in other words, here is the swag, as i believe it is called." "you are wholly right," said the idiot. "i bought that safe for that precise reason, and i bought a big one and a strong one. but you don't know the story of that safe, do you, mr. pedagog?" "i do not," said the schoolmaster. "then let me tell you," said the idiot. "that safe has been broken open, and by a professional burglar. the burglar had his tools, and he had his expert knowledge of their use. he arrived at my house, as i recall the situation, somewhere about--ah--two o'clock at night. he bored at the lock until three. he fooled about the combination. he did everything that a respectable burglar might be expected to do, and--" "he failed, of course, since you say you have lost nothing," said mr. pedagog. "not at all," said the idiot. "after two hours and fifty-five minutes' work on that safe he got it open. and--" "and?" queried mr. pedagog. "he found it empty," said the idiot; "absolutely empty. there was not a spoon, a fork, a tea-pot, or a diamond necklace, or even a scrap of paper in it." "then why do you have it," said mr. pedagog. "merely to keep the burglar busy while he is in my house, and to make him expert in honest work. an ordinary mechanic, intelligent enough to get that safe open by night or by day, would be entitled to at least two dollars for his services. the individual involved got it open; and when he opened it--" "found nothing!" cried mr. pedagog. "exactly," said the idiot, pulling away on his cigar. "i suppose i should have left a check inside payable to bearer for a dollar and a half to compensate him for his trouble, but i am so neglectful that i really didn't." "and you bought a safe--" "merely to provide employment for the unemployed burglar," said the idiot. "that is all a safe is good for, mr. pedagog. experience has shown that the house-safe isn't worth the paint it is covered with in the matter of protection. but as a decoy it works to a charm. a safe, in other words, is a splendid thing to keep things out of, as well as to keep the burglar busy while he is your guest. if our particular visitor had not spent all his time breaking the safe open he might have been able to locate our spoons." "it is a pity," said mr. pedagog, dryly, "that you did not add to the impression the futility of his work made upon his mind a short note of admonition indicating to him that he might be in better business." "my dear mr. pedagog," said the idiot, "that would have been rude. invited or otherwise, the man was a guest in my house, and a note of that kind would have savored of sarcasm, or, if not, would have placed me in the position of having taken advantage of my guest's weakness to be facetious at his expense." "you take an original view of it," said mr. pedagog. "not a bit of it," returned the idiot. "i got the idea from a boston girl. once when she and her sister-in-law found themselves alone at night in a huge country-house they were suddenly overcome with fear of burglars, and rather than run any personal risk from the midnight marauder they left a big card on top of the safe inscribed with these words: 'dear sir,--the combination of this safe is 11-16-91. there is nothing in it. if you must have our silver, call at the shawmut safe deposit company, where it is now stored.' the two girls were cousins of mine." the schoolmaster smiled again. "there must be a streak of your particular kind of genius running all through your family," said he. "true--there is," said the idiot. "i'm not the only idiot in my tribe." "and the second burglar. how about him?" asked mr. pedagog. "oh, he was easy," said the idiot. "i compromised with him. you see, i met him on his way out. i was coming home late, and just as i arrived he was leaving. i invited him back, lit the gas in the dining-room, and asked him to join me in a bit of cold tongue and a bottle of beer. he tried to shuffle out of it, but when i said i preferred to reason with him rather than have him arrested he sat down, and we talked the situation over. i discovered that for about three hundred dollars' worth of my stuff that he had in a bag slung over his shoulder he might get as much as fifty dollars, and at great risk. i showed him how foolish that was, and offered to give him forty dollars if he'd leave the stuff, so saving me two hundred and sixty dollars, and avoiding all trouble for himself. he didn't like it at first, but under the genial influence of the beer and the cold tongue and my conversation he finally yielded, and walked out of my house with a check drawn to bearer for forty dollars in his pocket." "i am astonished at you!" cried mr. pedagog. "you compounded a felony." "not exactly," said the idiot. "i should have done so if i hadn't stopped payment on the check the next day." "oh," said mr. pedagog, "i see!" "all i lost was the revenue-stamp on the check," said the idiot. "and did you ever hear from the man again?" "yes," observed the idiot. "i met him on the train a day or two later--sat next to him in the smoking-car, in fact." "and did he know you?" "yes. we had a very pleasant chat going to town. he said he was moving away from here. he couldn't stand it, he said. he was going to work in some new field where a man could get living pay for his work. said he'd been robbed by some of our best people; what's the use of working for nothing? he asked. the poor man was kept down, and all that sort of talk." "and you parted friends?" "yes," said the idiot. "i felt rather sorry for him, and when he said good-bye i gave him a cigar and a five-dollar bill, and that was the end of him. i have since received a letter from him in which he said that my kindness was appreciated, and that i could leave my valuables out on the lawn all night hereafter with perfect impunity. 'there isn't a thief in our whole suburban gang would be mean enough to touch it after your kindness to me,' he wrote." "extraordinary!" said mr. pedagog. "very," said the idiot. "nevertheless, i have not taken his hint about leaving my silver out-of-doors, and have worked as hard as ever on my patent burglar-alarm." "oh, indeed! have you a new idea in that line?" asked the schoolmaster. "yes," said the idiot. "it is wholly novel. it is designed to alarm the burglar, and not scare the people in the house. did you ever hear of anything like that before?" "never!" ejaculated mr. pedagog, with enthusiasm. "how is it to work?" "that," said the idiot, "is what i am trying to find out. when i do i'll let you know, doctor." xvi conclusion mr. and mrs. idiot request the pleasure of your company at dinner on thursday evening, may 31, 1900 at half-after seven o'clock r.s.v.p. last call handsomely engraved, a card bearing the above inscription was sent about the middle of may to all the idiot's old friends of mrs. smithers-pedagog's select home for gentlemen, and it is needless to say that they all accepted. "i wonder what the dickens he means by 'last call,'" said mr. brief to the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed. "sounds like the warning of the dining-car porter on a pullman train." "i'm sure i can't imagine," said the other; "and what's more, i'm content to wait and find out. of course you are going?" "i am, indeed," said mr. brief. "i'd travel farther than that for the pleasure of an hour with the dear old boy, and particularly now that he has so good a cook. dined there lately?" "yes," said the genial old gentleman. "had any of those mulled sardines he gives you sunday nights?" "more than was good for me. ain't they fine?" said the genial old gentleman, smacking his lips ecstatically. "immense!" said mr. brief. "a cook that can mull sardines like that is worth her weight in gold. where do you suppose he got her?" "why, he married her!" cried the genial old gentleman, promptly. "mrs. idiot cooks those herself, on the chafing-dish. didn't you know that?" "no," said mr. brief. "i happened in late sunday night, and we had 'em. they were so awfully good i didn't do a thing but eat, and forgot to ask who cooked 'em." "it's the way of the world," sighed the genial old gentleman. "we old bachelors have to get along on what comes to us, but the energetic chap who goes out into the world and marries the right sort of a woman--jove, what a lucky chap he is!" "there's some truth in that," agreed mr. brief; "but, on the whole, just think what a terrible thing it would be to marry a bad cook, and to have to eat everything she prepared with an outward show of delight just to keep peace in the family." "that's your cautious lawyer's view of it," said the genial old gentleman. "why the deuce don't you get married yourself, then," said mr. brief. "if you feel that way--" "i don't want to," said the genial old gentleman. "fact is, brief, old man, all i should ever marry for would be the comfort of a home, and i can always get that by going up to the idiot's." the other invited guests were no less perplexed by the final words of the idiot's invitation, and with the pleasure of accepting was mingled an agreeable curiosity to know what was meant by "last call." the evening came, and all were present. it was a goodly company, and by special favor the children were allowed to sit up and partake; and, what was more, mary, the housemaid of the old days, assisted in the serving of the dinner. "seems like old times," said mr. whitechoker, beaming at mrs. pedagog and smiling pleasantly at mary. "i shall almost expect our host to be sarcastic." "sarcasm, mr. whitechoker," said the idiot, unfolding his napkin, "is all right in its place, but as i have grown older i haven't found that having given rein to it i was happier afterwards. sometimes, no doubt, mrs. pedagog has thought me rude--" "never!" said the ancient landlady. "well, there's something worse than having others think you rude," said the idiot. "that's realizing yourself that you have been so, and i hope mrs. pedagog will accept here and now an apology--a blanket apology--which shall cover a multitude of past sins." "my dear idiot," said mrs. pedagog, "do you know how i have always thought of you?" "as a son," said mr. pedagog. "and i have felt towards you as a father." "i wonder you didn't give me a thrashing once in a while, then," said the idiot. "we have often wished to," observed mr. pedagog. "john!" cried mrs. pedagog. "well, _i_ have," said mr. pedagog. "mrs. pedagog has all the amiable weakness of a woman towards her naughty boy. spank him next time, not this." everybody laughed, and the idiot rose from his place and walked to mrs. pedagog's side and kissed her. "you're a nice old mommie," he said, "and the naughty boy loves you. he'll be hanged if he'll kiss his daddy, though!" he added, with a glance at mr. pedagog. "i will," said mollie; and she did so. the old schoolmaster returned the little girl's salute with emphasis. "bless you, little one!" he said, huskily. "i love you even as i loved your papa." "i'm a-goin' to kiss everybody," said tommy; and he started in with mary and put his little scheme through to the bitter end. "what are we going to have for dessert?" he added, complacently, as he resumed his seat. "idiot," said mr. brief, when the third course had been served, "what do you mean by 'last call?'" "we are going to give up housekeeping," said the idiot. "no trouble, i hope," said mr. whitechoker. "lots!" ejaculated the idiot. "but not very troublesome troubles. the fact is we intend to travel." "to travel, eh?" said the genial old gentleman. "where?" "abroad," replied the idiot. "we have never been abroad, you know. i've been abroad, and mrs. idiot has been abroad, but _we_ have never been abroad. we are going together this time, and we are going to take the children, and for a year we propose to see europe under the most favorable conditions. i think that abroad will seem a little different if we go together." "undoubtedly," said mr. whitechoker. "but london is a cold, godless place." "it is if you go alone," said the idiot. "and paris is vile," suggested mr. brief. "to the man who has only himself to think of," said the idiot. "and italy is dirty," said the bibliomaniac. "there's water in venice," observed the idiot. "not very clean water, to be sure, but wet enough to wash the edges of the sidewalks." "and travel is uncomfortable," observed the poet. "admitted," said the idiot. "travel is about the hardest work and the worst-paid work i know of, but we cannot help ourselves. now that we are rich we must accept the penalties imposed by modern society upon the wealthy. you never knew a rich man to lead a comfortable life, did you, mr. pedagog?" "there are few of them who seem to know how," admitted the schoolmaster. "but--you do." "no doubt," said the idiot. "but you see i do not wish to be ostentatiously different from my kind, so having made a fortune i am going to live as people of fortune do and be as uncomfortable as i know how." "i don't understand about this fortune," said mr. brief. "have you run up against a rich uncle somewhere, or is this sudden wealth the result of your inventions, concerning which we have heard so much lately?" "neither," replied the idiot. "the fact is, i made an investment some years ago in a certain stock, for which i paid twenty-three. i sold it three weeks ago for one hundred and sixty-three, clearing one hundred and forty dollars each on a thousand shares." the poet gasped. "one hundred and forty thousand dollars profit!" cried mr. whitechoker. "yes," said the idiot, calmly, "that's about the size of it. terrible, isn't it? here i was a happy man; content to stay at home and toil eight hours a day for a small stipend; living in tolerable comfort, and nothing to worry over. all of a sudden this thing happens, and like all other men of wealth i must become a wanderer. i shudder to think of what might have happened if i'd made a million; i shouldn't have had a home at all then." the guests looked at their host with amazement. to most of them he had reached the supreme moment of his idiocy. "ahem!" said the poet. "i fail to see why." "look at the ways of the millionaire and you'll see," observed the idiot, suavely. "given his million he gives up his house and builds himself a small, first-class hotel in some big city, which for the greater part of the year is occupied by servants. he next erects a country palace at lenox or at newport. this he calls a cottage, though it usually looks more like a public library or a hospital or a club-house. then he builds himself a camp, with stained-glass windows, in the adirondacks, and has to float a small railroad in order to get himself and his wife's trunks into camp. shortly after these follows a bungalow modelled after a french chã¢teau, somewhere in the south, and then a yacht warranted to cross the ocean in ten days, and to produce sea-sickness twelve hours sooner than the regular ocean-steamer, becomes one of the necessities of life. result, he never lives anywhere. to occupy all his residences, camps, and bungalows he has to keep eternally on the move, and when he thinks he needs a trip to europe he has his yacht got ready and sends it over, going himself on a fast steamer. he meets his yacht at southampton, and orders the captain to proceed directly to some mediterranean port, going himself, meanwhile, to london. after a month of london he goes to paris, and thence to the mediterranean port, where, after steaming aboard of the yacht for three or four days, he sends the boat back to new york and returns himself by the regular liner. oh, it's a terrible thing to be a millionaire and have nowhere to lay one's head, with every poorer man envying you, many hating you, and hands raised against you everywhere." there was a pause, and the assembled company properly expressed their appreciation of the millionaire's hard lot by silence. "the scheme has its advantages," observed mrs. idiot. "some," said the idiot. "but think, my dear, of the town house with thirty-nine servants; the newport house with thirty-four; the camp with sixty, including gamekeepers and guides; the bungalow with thirty more, and the yacht with a captain, a crew, stewards, stewardesses, and a cook you can't get away from without jumping overboard. just think how that would multiply your troubles. you would come to me from time to time and ask me how i could expect you to discharge seven butlers and four cooks in one morning, and no doubt you'd request me sometimes to stop in at the intelligence office on my way home and employ a dozen housemaids for you." "but you would have a manager for all this," suggested mrs. pedagog. "that's the point," observed the idiot. "we'd have to have a manager, and for my part i shouldn't relish being managed. what chance would mrs. idiot have against a manager ahead of an army of servants of such magnitude? we have more than we can keep in subjection as we stand now, with this one small house. if it wasn't for mary, who keeps an eye on things, i don't know what we should do." "well, i am glad you're rich, pa," said tommy; "you can increase my allowance." "and i can have a pony," lisped mollie. "alas! poor children!" cried the idiot. "that is the saddest part of wealth. instead of bringing the little ones up ourselves, to be wholly fashionable it will be necessary to sublet the contract to a committee of tutors and governesses. the obligations of social life hereafter will require that we meet our children by appointment only, and that when they dine they shall eat in solitary grandeur until they become so polished in manners that their parents may once more formally welcome them at table. all the good old democratic ways of the domestic republic are now to be set aside. tommy, instead of yelling for a buckwheat-cake at the top of his lungs, upon our return will request a butler in choicest french to hand him a _pã¢tã© de foie gras_; and dear little mollie will have to give up attracting the waitress' attention by shying an olive-pit at her and imperiously summon her by means of an electric buzzer set to buzzing with her toe." "mercy! what a picture of woe!" cried mr. pedagog. "not altogether true, is it?" suggested the doctor. "have you ever visited newport?" asked the idiot. "no," said the doctor, "never." "well, don't," said the idiot, "unless you wish to look upon that picture--a picture of life whence childhood is abolished; where _blasã©_ little swells take the place of lively small boys, and diminutive grand duchesses, clad in regal garb, have supplanted the little daughters who bring smiles and sunshine into the life of the common people. ah, my friends," the idiot continued, with a shake of his head, "there are sad sights to be seen in this world, but i know of none sadder than those rich little scions of the american aristocracy in whose veins the good red blood of a not very remote ancestry has turned blue through too much high living and too little real living." "i should think you'd take that hundred and forty thousand dollars and throw it into the sea," said mr. brief. "that would be wicked waste," observed the idiot. "i propose to use it to win back the good old home-life, and the best way to perpetuate that is to leave it for a time and travel. when you have travelled and seen how uncomfortable others are, and discovered how uncomfortable you are while travelling, nothing can exceed the bliss of getting back to the first simple principles of the real home." "as a sensible man, why don't you stay here, then?" queried the poet. "because," said the idiot, "if i stayed here with that hundred and forty thousand dollars on my mind i should nurse it, and in a short while i'd become a millionaire, and such a misfortune as that i shall never invite. we shall go abroad and spend--" "not all of it, i hope?" said mr. whitechoker. "no," replied the idiot. "but enough of it to mitigate the horrors of our condition while absent." and so it was that castle idiot was closed, and that for a time at least "the idiot at home" became a thing of the past. wherever he and his small family may be, may i not bespeak for him the kindly, even affectionate, esteem of those who have followed him with me through these pages? he has his faults; they are many and manifest, for he has never shown the slightest disposition to conceal them, but, as mrs. pedagog remarked to me the other night, "he has a large heart, and it is in the right place. if he only wouldn't talk so much!" the end by mark twain * * * * * the man that corrupted hadleyburg, and other stories and essays. illustrated by lucius hitchcock and others. the american claimant, and other stories and sketches. the adventures of huckleberry finn. with photogravure portrait of the author. a connecticut yankee in king arthur's court. the prince and the pauper. life on the mississippi. tom sawyer abroad; tom sawyer, detective; and other stories, etc., etc. _new library edition from new electrotype plates. illustrated. crown 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.75 each._ personal recollections of joan of arc. by the sieur louis de conte (her page and secretary). illustrated from original drawings by f. v. du mond, and from reproductions of old paintings and statues. crown 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $2.50. how to tell a story, and other essays. post 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.50. * * * * * by robert w. chambers * * * * * the conspirators. illustrated. post 8vo, cloth, $1.50. there is an unmistakable brilliancy about "the conspirators"; the rollicking spirits of the hero, the man who tells the story, are infectious, and his ardor in love is delightfully romantic.--_chicago tribune._ lorraine. illustrated. cloth, $1.25. of this novel _the interior_ says: "a more absorbing story could scarcely be imagined; there is no better tale among recent publications than 'lorraine.'" * * * * * harper & brothers, publishers new york and london _any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, canada, or mexico, on receipt of the price._ rainy week by eleanor hallowell abbott author of "old-dad," "peace on earth, good-will, to dogs," etc. new york e. p. dutton & company 681 fifth avenue copyright, 1921, by e. p. button & company all rights reserved printed in the united states of america rainy week chapter i in the changes and chances of our new england climate it is not so much what a guest can endure outdoors as what he can originate indoors that endears him most to a weather-worried host. take rollins, for instance, a small man, dour, insignificant--a prude in the moonlight, a duffer at sailing, a fool at tennis--yet once given a rain-patter and a smoky fireplace, of an audacity so impertinent, so altogether absurd, that even yawns must of necessity turn to laughter--or curses. the historic thunderstorm question, for instance, which he sprang at the old bishop's house-party after five sweltering days of sunshine and ecclesiastical argument: "who was the last person you kissed before you were married?" a question innocent as milk if only swallowed! but unswallowed? gurgled? spat like venom from bishop to bishop? and from bishop's wife to bishop's wife? oh la! yet that rollins himself was the only unmarried person present on that momentous occasion shows not at all, i still contend, the slightest "natural mendacity" of the man, but merely the perfectly normal curiosity of a confirmed anchoret to learn what truths he may from those who have been fortunate--or unfortunate enough to live. certainly neither my husband nor myself would ever dream of running a house-party without rollins! yet equally certain it is not at all on rollins's account but distinctly on our own that we invariably set the date for our annual house-party in the second week of may. for twenty years, in the particular corner of the new england sea-coast which my husband and i happen to inhabit, it has never, with one single exception only, failed to rain from morning till night and night till morning again through the second week of may! with all weather-uncertainties thus settled perfectly definitely, even for the worst, it is a comparatively easy matter for any host and hostess to _stage_ such events as remain. it is with purely confessional intent that i emphasize that word "stage." every human being acknowledges, if honest, some one supreme passion of existence. my husband's and mine is for what highbrows call "the experimental drama." we call it "amateur theatricals." yet even this innocent passion has not proved a serene one! after inestimable seasons of devotion to that most ruthless of all goddesses, the goddess of amateur theatricals, involving, as it does, wrangles with guests who refuse to accept unless they areassured that there will be a play, wrangles with guests who refuse to accept unless assured that there will not be a play, wrangles with guests already arrived, unpacked, tubbed, seated at dinner, who discover suddenly that their lines are too long, wrangles with guests already arrived, unpacked, tubbed, seated at dinner, who discover equally suddenly that their lines are too short. wrangles with guests who "can't possibly play in blue." wrangles with guests who "can't possibly play in pink." wrangles with guests who insist upon kissing in every act. wrangles with guests who refuse to kiss in any act, it was my husband's ingenious idea to organize instead an annual play that should never dream it was a play, acted by actors who never even remotely suspected that they were acting, evolving a plot that no one but the almighty, himself, could possibly foreordain. we call this play "_rainy week_." yet, do not, i implore you, imagine for a moment that by any such simple little trick as shifting all blame to the weather, all praise to the almighty, _care_ has been eliminated from the enterprise. it is only indeed at the instigation of this trick that the real hazard begins. for a play after all is only a play, be it humorous, amorous, murderous, adulterous,--a soap-bubble world combusting spontaneously of its own effervescence. but life is life and starkly real if not essentially earnest. and the merest flicker of the merest eyelid in one of life's real emotions has short-circuited long ere this with the eternities themselves! it's just this chance of "short-circuiting with the eternities" that shifts the pucker from a host's brow to his spine! no lazy, purring, reunion of old friends this _rainy week_ of ours, you understand? no dully congenial convocation of in-bred relatives? no conference on literature,--music,--painting? no symposium of embroidery stitches? nor of billiard shots? but the deliberate and relentlessly-planned assemblage of such distinctly diverse types of men and women as prodded by unusual conditions of weather, domicile, and propinquity, will best act and re-act upon each other in terms inevitably dramatic, though most naively unrehearsed! "vengeance is mine!" said the lord. "very considerable psychologic, as well as dramatic satisfaction is now at last ours!" confess your humble servants. in this very sincere if somewhat whimsical dramatic adventure of _rainy week_, the exigencies of our household demand that the number of actors shall be limited to eight. barring the single exception of husband and wife no two people are invited who have ever seen each other before. destiny plays very much more interesting tricks we have noticed with perfect strangers than she does with perfect friends! barring nothing no one is ever warned that the week will be rainy. it is astonishing how a guest's personality strips itself right down to the bare sincerities when he is forced unexpectedly to doff his extra-selected, super-fitting, ultra-becoming visiting clothes for a frankly nondescript costume chosen only for its becomingness to a--situation! in this connection, however, it is only fair to ourselves to attest that following the usual managerial custom of furnishing from its own pocket such costumes as may not for bizarre or historical reasons be readily converted by a cast to street and church wear, we invariably provide the _rainy week_ costumes for our cast. this costume consists of one yellow oil-skin suit or "slicker," one yellow oil-skin hat, one pair of rubber boots. one dark blue jersey. and very warm woolen stockings. reverting also to dramatic sincerity no professional manager certainly ever chose his cast more conscientiously than does my purely whimsical husband! after several years of experiment and readjustment the ultimate cast of _rainy week_ is fixed as follows: a bride and groom one very celibate person someone with a past someone with a future a singing voice a may girl and a bore. (rollins, of course, figuring as the bore.) always there must be that bride and groom (for the celibate person to wonder about). and the very celibate person (for the bride and groom to wonder about). male or female, one brave soul who had rebuilt ruin. male or female, one intrepid brain that dares to boast of having made tryst with the future. soprano, alto, bass or tenor, one singing voice that can rip the basting threads out of serenity. one young girl so may-blossomy fresh and new that everybody instinctively changes the subject when she comes into the room . . . . and rollins! to be indeed absolutely explicit experience has proved, with an almost chemical accuracy, that, quite regardless of "age, sex, or previous condition of servitude," this particular combination of romantic passion psychic austerity tragedy ambition poignancy innocence and irritation cannot be housed together for even one rainy week without producing drama! but whether that drama be farce or fury--? whether he who came to _star_ remains to _supe_? who yet shall prove the hero? and who the villain! who--? oh, la! it's god's business now! "all the more reason," affirms my husband, "why all such details as light and color effects, eatments, drinkments and guest-room reading matter should be attended to with extra conscientiousness." already through a somewhat sensational motor collision in the gay october berkshires we had acquired the tentative bride and groom, paul brenswick and victoria meredith, as ardent and unreasonable a pair of young lovers as ever rose unscathed from a shivered racing car to face, instead of annihilation, a mere casual separation of months until such may-time as paul himself, returning from heaven knows what errand in china, should mate with her and meet with us. and to new york city, of course, one would turn instinctively for the someone with a future. at a single round of studio parties in the brief thanksgiving holiday we found claude kennilworth. not a moment's dissension occurred between us concerning his absolute fitness for the part. he was beautiful to look at, and not too young, twenty-five perhaps, the approximate age of our tentative bride and groom. and he made things with his hands in dough, clay, plaster, anything he could reach very insolently, all the time you were talking to him, modeling the thing he was thinking about, instead! "oh, just wait till you see him in bronze?" thrilled all the young satellites around him. "till you see me in bronze!" thrilled young kennilworth himself. never in all my life have i beheld anyone as beautiful as claude kennilworth--with a bit of brag in him! that head sharply uplifted, the pony-like forelock swished like smoke across his flaming eyes, the sudden wild pulse of his throat. heavens! what a boy! "you artist-fellows are forever reproducing solids with liquids," remarked my husband quite casually. "all the effects i mean! all the illusion! crag or cathedral out of a dime-sized mud-puddle in your water-color box! flesh you could kiss from a splash of turpentine! but can you reproduce liquids with solids? could you put the ocean into bronze, i mean?" "the ocean?" screamed the satellites. "no mere skinny bas-relief," mused my husband, "of the front of a wave hitched to the front of a wharf or the front of a beach but waves corporeally complete and all alone--shoreless--skyless--like the model of a village an ocean rolling all alone as it were in the bulk of its three dimensions?" "in--bronze?" questions young kennilworth. "_bronze_?" his voice was very faintly raspish. "oh, it wasn't a blue ocean especially that i was thinking about," confided my husband, genially, through the mist of his cigarette. "any chance pick-up acquaintance has seen the ocean when it's blue. but my wife and i, you understand, we live with the ocean! call it by its first name,--'oh ocean!'--and all that sort of thing!" he smiled out abruptly above the sudden sharp spurt of a freshly-struck match. "the--the ocean i was thinking of," he resumed with an almost exaggerated monotone, "was a brown ocean--brown as boiled sea-weeds--mad as mud under a leaden sky--seething--souring--perfectly lusterless--every brown billow-top pinched-up as though by some malevolent hand into a vivid verdigris bruise----" "but however in the world would one know where to begin?" giggled the satellites. "or how to break it off so it wouldn't end like the edge of a tin roof! even if you started all right with a nice molten wave? what about the--last wave? the problem of the horizon sense? yes! what about the horizon sense?" shouted everybody at once. from the shadowy sofa-pillowed corner just behind the supper table, young kennilworth's face glowed suddenly into view. but a minute before i could have sworn that a girl's cheek lay against his. yet now as he jumped to his feet the feminine glove that dropped from his fidgety fingers was twisted with extraordinary maliciousness, i noted, into a doll-sized caricature of a "vamp." "i could put the ocean into bronze, mr. delville," he said, "if anybody would give me a chance!" perhaps it was just this very ease and excitement of having booked anyone as perfect as young kennilworth for the part of someone with a future that made me act as impulsively as i did regarding ann woltor. we were sitting in our room in a washington hotel before a very smoky fireplace one rather cross night in late january when i confided the information to my husband. "oh, by the way, jack," i said quite abruptly, "i've invited ann woltor for rainy week." "invited whom?" questioned my husband above the rim of his newspaper. "ann woltor," i repeated. "ann--what?" persisted my husband. "ann woltor," i re-emphasized. "who's she?" quickened my husband's interest very faintly. "oh, she's a woman," i explained--"or a girl--that i've been meeting 'most every day this last month at my hair-dresser's. she runs the accounts there or something and tries to keep everybody pacified. and reads the darndest books, all highbrow stuff. you'd hardly expect it! oh, not modern highbrow, i mean, essays as bawdy as novels, but the old, serene highbrow,--emerson and pater and wordsworth,--books that smell of soap and lavender, as well as brains. reads 'em as though she liked 'em, i mean! comes from new zealand i've been told. really, she's rather remarkable!" "must be!" said my husband. "to come all the way from new zealand to land in your hair-dresser's library!" "it isn't my hair-dresser's library!" i corrected with faint asperity. "it's her own library! she brings the books herself to the office. "and just what part," drawled my husband, "is this new zealand paragon, miss stoltor, to play in our rainy week?" "woltor," i corrected quite definitely. "ann woltor." "wardrobe mistress?" teased my husband. "or----?" "she is going to play the part of the someone with a past," i said. "what?" cried my husband. his face was frankly shocked. "_what_?" he repeated blankly. "the most delicate part of the cast? the most difficult? the most hazardous? it seemed best to you, without consultation, without argument, to act so suddenly in the matter, and so--so all alone?" "i had to act very suddenly," i admitted. "if i hadn't spoken just exactly the minute i did she would have been off to alaska within another forty-eight hours." "u-m-m," mused my husband, and resumed his reading. but the half-inch of eye brow that puckered above the edge of his newspaper loomed definitely as the sample of a face that was still distinctly shocked. when he spoke again i was quite ready for his question. "how do you know that this ann woltor has got a past?" he demanded. "how do we know young kennilworth's got a future?" i counter-checked. "because he makes so much noise about it i suppose," admitted my husband. "by which very same method," i grinned, "i deduct the fact that ann woltor has got a past,--inasmuch as she doesn't make the very slightest sound whatsoever concerning it." "you concede no personal reticence in the world?" quizzed my husband. "yes, quite a good deal," i admitted. "but most of it i honestly believe is due to sore throat. a normal throat keeps itself pretty much lubricated i've noticed by talking about itself." "herself," corrected my husband. "himself," i compromised. "but this ann woltor has told you that she came from new zealand," scored my husband. "oh, no, she hasn't!" i contradicted. "it was the hair-dresser who suggested new zealand. all ann woltor has ever told me was that she was going to alaska! anybody's willing to tell you where he's going! but the person who never tells you where he's been--! the person who never by word, deed or act correlates to-day with yesterday! the here with the there--! i've been home with her twice to her room! i've watched her unpack the alaska trunk! not a thing in it older than this winter! not a shoe nor a hat nor a glove that confides anything! no scent of fir-balsam left over from a summer vacation! no photograph of sister or brother! yet it's rather an interesting little room, too,--awfully small and shabby after the somewhat plushy splendor of the hairdressing job--but three or four really erudite english reviews on the table, a sprig of blue larkspur thrust rather negligently into a water glass, and a man's----" "blue larkspur in january?" demanded my husband. "how--how old is this--this woltor person?" "oh--twenty-five, perhaps," i shrugged. with a gesture of impatience my husband threw down his paper and began to poke the fire. "oh, pshaw!" he said, "is our whole dramatic endeavor going to be wrecked by the monotony of everybody being 'twenty-five'?" "well--call it 'thirty-five' if you'd rather," i conceded. "or a hundred and five! arm woltor wouldn't care! that's the remarkable thing about her face," i hastened with some fervor to explain. "there's no dating on it! this calamity that has happened to her,--whatever it is, has wrung her face perfectly dry of all contributive biography except the mere structural fact of at least reasonably conservative birth and breeding." a little bit abruptly my husband dropped the fire-tongs. "you like this ann woltor, don't you?" he said. "i like her tremendously," i acknowledged. "tremendously _as_ a person and tremendously _for_ the part!" i insisted. "yet there's something about it that worries you?" quizzed my husband not unamiably. "there is," i said, "just one thing. she's got a broken tooth." with a gesture of real irritation my husband sank down in his chair again and snatched up the paper. it was ten minutes before he spoke again. "is it a front tooth?" he questioned with out lifting his eyes from the page. "it is," i said. when my husband jumped up from his chair this time he showed no sign at all of ever intending to return to it. as he reached for his hat and coat and started for the door, he tried very hard to grin. but the effort was poor. this was no mere marital disagreement, but a real professional shock. "i simply can't stand it," he grinned. "one's prepared, of course, for a tragedy queen to sport a broken heart but when it comes to a broken tooth--!" "wait till you see her!" i said. there was nothing else to say. "wait till you see her!" even with the door closed behind him he came back once more to tell me how he felt. "oh!" he shivered. "o--h!" truly if we hadn't gone out together the very next day and found george keets i don't know what would have happened. depression still hung very heavily over my husband's heart. "here it is almost february," he brooded, "and even with what we've got, we're still short the celibate and the singing voice and the may girl." it was just then that we turned the street corner and met george keets. "why--why the celibate--of all persons!" we both gasped as in a single breath, and rushed upon him. now it may seem a little strange instead of this that we have never thought to feature poor rollins as the celibate. to "double" him as it were as celibate and bore. conserving thereby one by no means inexpensive outfit of water-proof clothes, twenty-one meals, a week's wash, and heaven knows how many rounds of scotch at a time of imminent drought. but rollins--though as far as anybody knows, a bachelor and eminently chaste--is by no means my idea of a celibate. oh, not rollins! not anybody with a mind like rollins! for rollins, poor dear, would marry every day in the week if anybody would have him. it's the "other people" who have kept rollins virgin. but george keets on the other hand is a good deal of a "fascinator" in spite of his austerity, perhaps indeed because of his austerity, tall, lean, good-looking, extravagantly severe, thirty-eight years old, and a classmate of my husband at college. whether life would ever succeed or not in breaking down his unaccountable intention never-to-mate, that intention,--physical, mental, moral, psychic, call it whatever you choose,--was stamped indelibly and for all time on the curiously incongruous granite-like finish of his originally delicate features. life had at least done interesting historical things to george keets's face. "oh, george!" cried my husband, "i thought you were in egypt digging mummies." "i was," admitted george without any further palaver of greeting. "when did you get back?" cried my husband, "and what are you doing now!" "and where are you going to be in may?" i interposed with perfectly uncontrollable interest. "why, i'm just off the boat, you know," brightened george. "a drink would be good, of course. but first i'd just like to run into the library for a minute to see if they've put in any new thrillers while i've been gone. there's a corking new book on archselurus that ought to be due about now." "on w-what?" i stammered. "oh, fossil cats, you know, and all that sort of thing," explained george chivalrously. "but, of course--you, mrs. delville," he hastened now to appease me, "would heaps rather hear about paris fashions, i know. so if you-people really should want me in may i'll try my best, i promise you, to remember every latest wrinkle of lace, or feather. only, of course," he explained with typical conscientiousness, "in the museums and the libraries one doesn't see just--of course--the----" "on the contrary, mr. keats," i interrupted hectically, "there is no subject in the world that interests me more--at the moment--than mummies. and by the second week in may that interest will have assumed proportions that----" "s-sh!" admonished my husband. "but really, george," he himself hastened to cut in, "if you could come to us the second week in may----" "may?" considered george. "second week? why, certainly i will." and bolted for the library, while my husband and i in a perfectly irresistible impulse drew aside on the curbing to watch him disappear. equally unexplainably three totally non-concerned women turned also to watch him. "it's his shoulders," i ventured. "the amazing virility of his shoulders contrasted with the stinginess of his smile." "stinginess nothing!" snapped my husband. "devil take him!" "he may--yet," i mused as we swung into step again. so now we had nothing to worry about--or rather no uncertainty to worry about except the may girl and the singing voice. "the singing voice," my husband argued, "might be picked up by good fortune at most any cabaret show or choral practise. not any singing voice would do, of course. it must be distinctly poignant. but even poignancy may be found sometimes where you least expect it,--some reasonably mature, faintly disappointed sort of voice, usually, lilting with unquestionable loveliness, just this side of real professional success. "but where in the world should we find a really ingenuous ingã©nue?" "they don't exist any more!" i asserted. "gone out of style like the teddy bear--! old ingã©nues you see, of course, sometimes, sweet and precious and limp--as old teddy bears. but a brand new ingã©nue--? don't you remember the awful search we had last year and even then----?" "maybe you're right," worried my husband. and then the horrid attack of neuralgia descended on poor mr. husband so suddenly, so acutely, that we didn't worry at all about anything else for days! and even when that worry was over, instead of starting off gaily together for the carolinas as we had intended, to search through steam-heated corridors, and green velvet golfways, and jessamine scented lanes, for the may girl, my poor husband had to dally at home instead, in a very cold, slushy and disagreeable city, to be x-rayed, tooth-pulled, ear-stabbed, and every thing but bertilloned, while i, for certain business reason, went on ahead to meet the spring. but even at parting it was the dramatic anxiety that worried my husband most. "now, don't you dare do a thing this time," he warned me, "until i come! look around all you want to! get acquainted! size things up! but if ever two people needed to work together in a matter it's in this question of choosing a may girl!" whereupon in an impulse quite as amazing to himself as to me--he went ahead and chose the may girl all by himself! before i had been in the carolinas three days the telegram came. "have found may girl. success beyond wildest dreams. doubles with singing voice. absolute miracle. explanations." himself and the explanations arrived a week later. himself, poor dear, was rather depleted. but the explanations were full enough to have pleased anybody. he had been waiting, it seems, on the day of the discovery, an interminably long time in the doctor's office. all around him, in the dinginess and general irritability of such an occasion, loomed the bulky shapes of other patients who like himself had also been waiting interminable eons of time. everybody was very cross. and it was snowing outside,--one of those dirty gray late-winter snows that don't seem really necessary. and when _she_ came! just a girl's laugh at first from the street door! an impish prance of feet down the dark, unaccustomed hallway! a little trip on the threshold! and then personified--laughing--blushing, stumbling fairly headlong at last into the room--the most radiantly lovely young girl that you have ever had the grace to imagine, dangling exultantly from each frost-pinked hand a very large, wriggly, and exceedingly astonished rabbit. "oh, uncle charles!" she began, "s-ee what i've found! and in an ash-barrel, too! in--a--" she blinked the snow from her lashes, took a sudden startled glance round the room, another at the clock, and collapsed with confusion into the first chair that she could reach. a very tall "little girl" she was, and very young, not a day more than eighteen surely. and even in the encompassing bulk of her big coon-skin coat with its broad arms hugging the brown rabbits to her breast she gave an impression of extraordinary slimness and delicacy, an impression accentuated perhaps by a slender silk-stockinged ankle, the frilly cuff of a white sleeve, and the aura of pale gold hair that radiated in every direction from the brim of her coon-skin hat. for fully fifteen minutes my husband said she sat huddled-up in all the sweet furry confusion of a young animal, till driven apparently by that very confusion to essay some distinctly normal-appearing, every-day gesture, she reached out impulsively to the reading table and picked up a book which some young man had just relinquished rather suddenly at a summons to the doctor's inner office. relaxing ever so slightly into the depths of her chair with the bunnies' noses twinkling contentedly to the rhythm of her own breathing, she made a wonderful picture, line, color, spirit, everything of _youth_. reading, with that strange, extra, inexplainable touch of the sudden little pucker in the eyebrows, sheer intellectual perplexity was in that pucker! but when the young man returned from the inner office he did not leave at once as every cross, irritable person in the room hoped that he would, but fidgeted around instead with hat and coat, stamped up and down crowding other people's feet, and elbowing other people's elbows. with a gaspy glance at his watch he turned suddenly on the girl with the rabbits. "excuse me," he floundered, "but i have to catch a train--_please_ may i have my book?" "your book?" deprecated the girl. confusion anew overwhelmed her! "your--book? why, i beg your pardon! why--why--" pink as a rose she slammed the covers and glanced for the first time at the title. the title of the book was "what every young husband should know." . . . with a sigh like the sigh of a breeze in the ferns the tension of the room relaxed! a very fat, cross-looking woman in black satin ripped audibly at a side seam. . . . a frail old gentleman who really had very few laughs left, wasted one of them in the smothering depths of his big black-bordered handkerchief. . . . the lame newsboy on the stool by the door emitted a single snort of joy. then the doctor himself loomed suddenly from the inner office, and started right through everybody to the girl with the rabbits. "why, may," he laughed, "i told you not to get here till four o'clock!" "oh, not may?" i protested to my husband. "it simply couldn't be! not _really_?" "yes, really," affirmed my husband. "isn't it the limit? but wait till you hear the rest! she's dr. brawne's ward, it seems, and has been visiting him for the winter. . . . comes from some little place way off somewheres. . . . and she's got one of those sweet, clear, absolutely harrowing 'boy soprano' types of voices that sound like incense and altar lights even in rag-time. but weirder than any thing--" triumphed my husband. "oh, not than 'anything'?" i gasped. "but weirder than anything," persisted my husband, "is the curious way she's marked." "m-marked?" i stammered. "yes. after i saw her with her hat off," said my husband, "i saw the 'mark'. i've seen it in boys before, but never in a girl--an absolutely isolated streak of gray hair! in all that riot of blondness and sparkle and youth, just as riotous, just as lovely, a streak of gray hair! it's bewitching! bewildering! like may itself! now sunshine! now cloud! you'll write to her immediately, won't you?" he begged. "and to dr. brawne, too? i told dr. brawne quite frankly that it was going to be rather an experimental party, but that, of course, we'd take the best possible care of her. and he said he'd never seen an occasion yet when she wasn't perfectly capable of taking care of herself. and that he'd be delighted to have her come--" laughed my husband quite suddenly, "if we were sure that we didn't mind animals." "animals?" i questioned. "yes, dogs, cats, birds!" explained my husband. "it isn't apt to be a large animal such as a horse or a cow, dr. brawne was kind enough to assure me. but he never knew her yet, he said, to arrive anywhere without a guinea pig, squirrel, broken-winged bat, lame dove, or half-choked mouse that she had acquired on the way! she's very tender-hearted. and younger than----" blankly for a moment my husband and i sat staring into each other's eyes. then, quite impulsively, i reached over and kissed him. "oh, jack," i admitted, "it's too perfect! truly it makes me feel nervous!--suppose she should roll her hoop off the cliff or----" "or--blow out the gas!" chuckled my husband. so you see now our cast was all assembled. radiant, "runctious," impatient paul brenswick and victoria meredith for the bride and groom. george keets for the very celibate person. ann woltor for the someone with a past. claude kennilworth for the someone with a future. may davies for the may girl and the singing voice. and rollins for the bore. about rollins i must now confess that i have not been perfectly frank. we hire rollins! how else could we control him! even with a mushroom mind like his,--fruiting only in bad weather, one can't force him on one's guests morning, noon, _and_ night! very fortunately here, for such strategy as is necessary, my husband concedes one further weakness than what i have previously designated as his passion for amateur theatricals and his tolerance of me. that weakness is sea shells--mollusca, you know, and that sort of thing. . . . from all over the world, smelling saltily of coral and palms, iceberg or arctic,--and only too often alas of their dead selves, these smooth-spikey-pink-blue-yellow-or-mottled shells arrive with maddening frequency. and rollins is a born cataloguer! what easier thing in the world to say than, "oh, by the way, rollins, old man, here's an invoice that might interest you from a florida key that i've just located. . . . how about the second week in may? could you come then, do you think? i'm all tied up to be sure with a houseful of guests that week, but they won't bother you any. and, at least, you'll have your evenings for fun. clothes? haven't got 'em? oh, pshaw! let me see. it rained last year, didn't it? . . . well, i guess we can raise the same umbrella that we raised for you then! s'long!" everything settled then! everything ready but the springtime and the scenery! . . . and god himself at work on that!--hist! what is it? the flash of a blue-bird? a bell tinkles! a pulley-rope creaks! and the curtain rises! may always comes so amazingly soon after february! so infinitely much sooner than anyone dares hope that it would! peering into snow-smeared shop windows some rather particularly bleak morning you notice with a half-contemptuous sort of amusement a precocious display of ginghams and straw hats. and before you can turn round to tell anybody about it, tulips have happened!--and it's may! more than seeming extravagantly early this year, may dawned also with extravagant lavishness. through every prismatic color of the world, sunshine sang to the senses! "what shall we do," fretted my husband, "if this perfection lasts?" the question indeed was a leading one! the scenery for rainy week did not arrive until the afternoon of the eighth. from his frowning survey of bright lawns, gleaming surf, radiant sky, i saw my husband turn suddenly with a little gasping sigh that might have meant anything. "what is it?" i cried. "look!" he said, "it's come." silently, shoulder to shoulder, we stood and watched the gigantic storm-bales roll into the sky--packed in fleece, corded with ropes of mist, gorgeous, portentous,--to-morrow's rain! it is not many hosts and hostesses under like circumstances who turn to each other as we did with a single whoop of joy! an hour later, hatless and coatless in the lovely warm may twilight, we stood by the larch tree waiting for our guests. we like to have them sup in town at their own discretion or indiscretion, that first night, and all arrive together reasonably sleek and sleepy, and totally unacquainted, on the eight o'clock train. but the larch tree has always been our established point for meeting the _rainy week_ people. conceding cordially the truth of the american aphorism that while charity may perfectly legitimately begin at home, hospitality should begin at the railroad station! we personally have proved beyond all doubt that for our immediate interests at stake dramatic effect begins at the entrance to our driveway. yet it is always with mingled feelings of trepidation and anticipation that we first sense the blurry rumble of motor wheels on the highway. if the station bus were only blue or green! but palest oak! and shuttered like a roll-top desk! spilling out strange personalities at you like other people's ideas brimming from pigeon-holes! for some unfathomable reason of constraint this night, no one was talking when the bus arrived. shy, stiff-spined, non-communicative, still questioning, perhaps. who was who and what was what, these seven guests who by the return ride a week hence might even be mated, such things have happened, or once more not speaking to each other, this also has happened, loomed now like so many dummies in the gloom. "why, hello!" we cried, jumping to the rear step of the bus as it slowed slightly at the curb, and thrusting our faces as genially as possible into the dark, unresponsive doorway. "hello!" rallied someone--i think it was rollins. whoever it was he seemed to be having a terrible time trying to jerk his suitcase across other people's feet. "oh, is this where you live?" questioned george keets's careful voice from the shadows. the faintest possible tinge of relief seemed to be in the question. "here?" brightened somebody else. a window-fastener clicked, a shutter crashed, an aperture opened, and everybody all at once, scenting the sea, crowded to stare out where the gray dusk merging into gray rocks merged in turn with the gray rocks into a low rambling gray fieldstone house silhouetted with indescribable weirdness at the moment against that delicate, pale gold, french-drawing-room sort of sky cluttered so incongruously with the clump of dark clouds. "the road--doesn't go any farther?" puzzled someone. "there's no other stopping place you mean--just a little bit farther along? this is the end,--the last house,--the----?" high from a cliff-top somewhere a sea bird lifted a single eerie cry. "oh, how--how dramatic!" gasped somebody. reaching out to nudge my husband's hand i collided instead with a dog's cold nose. following apparently the same impulse my husband's hand met the dog's startling nose at almost the same instant. except for a second's loss of balance on the bus-step neither of us resented the incident. but it was my husband who recovered his conversation as well as his balance first. "oh, you miss davies!" he called blithely into the bus. "what's your pom's name? nose-gay? skip-a-bout? cross-patch? what?--lucky for you we knew your propensity for arriving with pets! the kennel's all ready and the cat sent away!" in the nearest shadow of all it was almost as though one heard an _ego_ bristle. "i beg your pardon, but the pomeranian is mine," affirmed claude kennilworth's un-mistakable voice with what seemed like quite unnecessary hauteur. "what the deuce is the matter with everybody?" whispered my husband. with a jerk and a bump the bus grazed a big boulder and landed us wheezily at our own front door. as expeditiously as possible my husband snatched up the lantern that gleamed from the doorstep and brandishing it on high, challenged the shadowy occupants of the bus to disembark and proclaim themselves. ann woltor stepped down first. as vague as the shadows she merged from her black-garbed figure faded un-outlined into the shadow of the porch. for an instant only the uplifted lantern flashed across her strange stark face--and then went crashing down into a shiver of glass on the gravelly path at my husband's feet. "ann--stoltor!" i heard him gasp. my husband is not usually a fumbler either with hand or tongue. in the brightening flare of the flash-light that some one thrust into his hands his face showed frankly rattled. "ann _woltor_!" i prompted him hastily. for the infinitesimal fraction of a second our eyes met. i hope my smile was as quick. "what is the matter with everybody?" i said. with extravagant exuberance my husband jumped to help the rest of our guests alight. "hi, there, everybody!" he greeted each new face in turn as it emerged somewhat hump-shouldered and vague through the door of the bus into the flare of his lantern light. poor rollins, of course, tumbled out. fastidiously, george keets illustrated how a perfect exit from a bus should be made,--suitcase, hat-box, english ulster, everything a model of its kind. even the constraint of his face, absolutely perfect. with the pomeranian clutched rather drastically under one arm, claude kennilworth followed keets. all the time, of course, you knew that it was the pomeranian who was growling, but from the frowning irritability of young kennilworth's eyes one might almost have concluded that the boy was a ventriloquist and the pom a puppet instead of a puppy. "her name is 'pet'," he announced somewhat succinctly to my husband. "and she sleeps in no--kennel!" a trifle paler than i had expected, but inexpressively young, lovely, palpitant, and altogether adorable, the may girl sprang into my vision--and my arms. her heart was beating like a wild bird's. with the incredibility of their miracle still stamped almost embarrassingly on their faces, our bride-and-groom-of-a-week completed the list. it wasn't just the material physical fact that love was consummated, that gave them that look. but the spiritual amazement that love was consummatable! no other "look" in life ever compasses it, ever duplicates it! it made my husband quite perceptibly quicken the tempo of his jocosity. "one--two--three--four--five--six--seven," he enumerated. "all good guests come straight from heaven! one--two--three--four--five--six-seven--" he repeated as though to be perfectly sure, "_seven_? why--why, what the----?" he interrupted himself suddenly. with frank bewilderment i saw him jump back to the rear step of the bus and flash his light into the farthest corner where the huddled form of an _eighth_ person loomed weirdly from the shadows. it was a man--a young man. and at first glimpse he was quite dead. but on second glimpse, merely drunk. hopelessly,--helplessly,--sodden drunk, with his hat gone, his collar torn away, his haggard face sagging like some broken thing against his breast. with a tension suddenly relaxed, a faint sigh seemed to slip from the group outside. in the crowding faces that surrounded us instantly, it must have been something in young kennilworth's expression, or in the pomeranian's, that made my husband speak just exactly as he did. with his arms held under the disheveled, uncouth figure, he turned quite abruptly and scanned the faces of his guests, "and whose little pet--may this be?" he asked trenchantly. from the shadow of the porte-cochere somebody laughed. it was rather a vacuous little laugh. sheer nerves! rollins, i think. framed in the half-shuttered window of the bus the may girl's face pinked suddenly like a flare of apple blossoms. "he--came with--me," said the may girl. no matter how informally one chooses to run his household there is almost always some one rule i've noticed on which the smoothness of that informality depends. in our household that rule seems to be that no explanations shall ever be asked either in the darkness or by artificial light. . . . it being the supposition i infer that most things explain themselves by daylight. . . . perfectly cordially i concede that they usually do. . . . but some nights are a great deal longer to wait through than others. it wasn't, on this particular night, that anyone refused to explain. but that nobody even had time to think of explaining. the young stranger was in a bad way. not delirium tremens nor anything like that, but a fearful alcoholic disorganization of some sort. the men were running up and down stairs half the night. their voices rang through the halls in short, sharp orders to each other. no one else spoke above a whisper. with silly comforts like talcum powder, and hot water bottles, and sweet chocolate, and new novels, i put the women to bed. their comments if not explanatory were at least reasonably characteristic. from a swirl of pink chiffon and my best blankets, with her ear cocked quite frankly toward a step on the stairs, her eyes like stars, her mouth all a-kiss, the bride reported her own emotions in the matter. "no,--no one, of course had ever believed for a moment," the bride assured me, "that the drunken man was one of the guests. . . . and yet, when he didn't get off at any of the stops, and this house was so definitely announced as the 'end of the road'--why it did, of course, make one feel just a little bit nervous," flushed the bride, perfectly irrelevantly, as the creak on the stairs drew nearer. ann woltor registered only a very typical indifference. "a great many different kinds of things," she affirmed, "were bound to happen in any time as long as a day. . . . one simply had to get used to them, that was all." she was unpacking her sombre black traveling bag as she spoke, and the first thing she took out from it was a man's gay, green-plaided golf cap. it looked strange with the rest of her things. all the rest of her things were black. i thought i would never succeed in putting the may girl to bed. with a sweet sort of stubbornness she resisted every effort. the first time i went back she was kneeling at her bedside to say her "forgotten prayers." the second time i went back she had just jumped up to "write a letter to her grandfather." "something about the sea," she affirmed, "had made her think of her grandfather." "it was a long time," she acknowledged, since she "had thought of her grandfather." "he was very old," she argued, "and she didn't want to delay any longer about writing." slim and frank as a boy in her half-adjusted blanket-wrapper dishabille she smiled up at me through the amazing mop of gold hair with the gray streak floating like a cloud across the sunshine of her face. she was very nervous. she must have been nervous. it darkened her eyes to two blue sapphires. it quickened her breath like the breath of a young fawn running. "and would i please tell her--how to spell 'oceanic'?" she implored me. as though answering intuitively the unspoken question on my lips, she shrugged blame from her as some exotic songbird might have shrugged its first snow. "no--she didn't know who the young man was! truly--as far as she knew--she had never--never seen the young man before!--o-c-e-a-n-i-c--was it?----" the rain was not actually delivered until one o'clock in the morning. just before dawn i heard the storm-bales rip. in sheets of silver and points of steel, with rage and roar, and a surf like a picture in a sunday supplement, the weather broke loose! thank heaven the morning was so dark that no one appeared in the breakfast-room an instant before the appointed hour of nine. george keets, of course, appeared exactly at nine, very trim, very _distinguã©_, in a marvelously tailored gray flannel suit, and absolutely possessed to make his own coffee. claude kennilworth's morning manner was very frankly peevish. "his room had a tin roof and he hardly thought he should be able to stand it. . . . rain? did you call this rain? it was a _flood_! . . . were there any movie palaces near? . . . and were they open mornings? . . . and he'd like an underdone chop, please, for the pomeranian. . . . and it wasn't his dog anyway, darn the little fool, but belonged to the girl who had the studio next to his and she was possessed with the idea that a week at the shore would put the pup on its feet again. . . . women were so blamed temperamental. . . . if there was one thing in the world that he hated it was temperamental people." and all the time he was talking he wasn't making anything with his hands, because he wasn't thinking anything instead, "and how in creation," he scolded, "did we ever happen to build a house out on the granite edge of nowhere? . . . how did we stand it? how----? . . . hi there! . . . wait a moment! . . . _god_--what _form_! that wave with the tortured top! . . . hush! . . . don't speak! . . . _please_ leave him alone! breakfast? not yet! when a fellow could watch a--a thing like that! . . . for heaven's sake, pass him that frothy-edged napkin! . . . did anybody mind if he _tore_ it? . . . while he watched that other froth tear!" dear, honest, ardent, red-blooded paul brenswick came down so frankly interested in the special device by which our house gutters took care of such amazing torrents of water that everybody felt perfectly confident all at once that no bride of his would ever suffer from leaky roofs or any other mechanical defect. paul brenswick liked the rain just as much as he liked the gutters! and he liked the sea! and he liked the house! and he liked the sky! and he liked everything! even when a clumsy waitress joggled coffee into his grapefruit he seemed to like that just as much as he liked everything else. paul brenswick was a real bridegroom. i am not, i believe, a particularly envious person, and have never as far as i know begrudged another woman her youth or her beauty or her talent or her wealth. but if it ever came to a chance of swapping facial expressions, just once in my life, some very rainy morning, i wish i could look like a bridegroom! but the expression on the bride's face was distinctly worried. joy worried! any woman who had ever been a bride could have read the expression like an open book. victoria brenswick had not counted on rain. moonlight, of course, was what she had counted on! moonlight, day and night in all probability! and long, sweet, soft stretches of beach! and cavernous rocks! and incessantly mirthful escapades of escape from the crowd! but to be shut up all day long in a houseful of strange people! . . . with a bridegroom who after all was still more or less of a strange bridegroom? the panic in her face was almost ghastly! the panic of the perfectly-happy! the panic of the person hanging over-ecstatically on the absolute perfection of a singer's prolonged high note, driven all at once to wonder if this is the moment when the note must break! . . . to be all alone and bored on a rainy day is no more than anyone would expect. . . . but to be with one's lover and have the day prove dull? . . . if god in the terrible uncertainty of him should force even one dull day into the miracle of their life together----? ann woltor, dragging down to breakfast just a few moments late, had not noticed especially, it seemed, that the day was rainy. she met my husband's eyes as she met the eyes of her fellow-guests, calmly, indifferently, and with perfect sophistication. if his presence or personality was in any way a shock to her she certainly gave no sign of it. the may girl didn't appear till very late, so late indeed that everybody started to tease her for being such a sleepy head. her face was very flushed. her hair in a riot of gold--and gray. her appetite like the appetite of a young cannibal. across the rim of her cocoa cup she hurled a lovely defiance at her traducers. "sleepy head!" she exulted. "not much! hadn't she been up since six? and out on the beach? and all over the rocks? . . . way, way out to the farthest point? . . . there was such a heavenly suit of yellow oil-skins in her closet! . . . she hoped it wasn't cheeky of her but she just couldn't resist 'em! . . . and the fishes? . . . the poor, poor little bruised fishes dashed up, by that terrible surf on the rocks! . . . . she thought she never, never would get them all put back! . . . they kept coming and coming so! every new wave! flopping!--flopping----" rollins's breakfast had been sent to his room. you yourself wouldn't have wanted to spring rollins on any one quite so early in the day. and with my best breakfast tray, my second best china, and sherry in the grape fruit, there was no reason certainly why rollins in any way should feel discriminated against. surely, as far as rollins knew, every guest was breakfasting in bed. even without rollins there was quite enough uncertainty in the air. everybody was talking--talking about the morning, i mean--not about yesterday morning; most certainly not about yesterday night! babble, chatter, drawl, laughter, the voices rose and fell. breakfast indeed was just about over when a faint stir on the threshold made everybody look up. it was the drunken stranger of the night before. heaven knows he was sober enough now. but very shaky! yet collarless as he was and still unshaven--our men had evidently not expected quite so early a resuscitation--he loomed up now in the doorway with a certain tragic poise and dignity that was by no means unattractive. "why, hello!" said everybody. "hello!" said the stranger. with a palpable flex of muscle he leaned back against the wainscoting of the door and narrowed his haggard eyes to the cheerful scene before him. "i don't know where i am," he said, "or how i got here. . . . or who you are." "i can't seem to remember anything." the faintly sheepish smile that quickened suddenly in his eyes, if not distinctly humorous, was at least plucky. "i think i must have had a drink," he said. "i wouldn't wonder!" grinned paul brenswick. "you are perfectly right," conceded george keets. "have another!" suggested my husband. "a straight and narrow this time! you look wobbly. there's nothing like coffee." and still the stranger stood undecided in the doorway. "i'm not very fit," he acknowledged. "not with ladies. . . . but i _had_ to know where i was." blinking with perplexity he stared and stared at the faces before him. "i'm three thousand miles from home," he worried. "i don't know a soul this side of the sierras. . . . i--i don't know how it happened----" "oh, shucks!" shrugged young kennilworth. "easiest thing in the world to happen to a stranger in a new town! 'welcome to our city welcome to our city' from night till morning and morning till night again! any crowd once it gets started----" "crowd!" brightened the stranger. "i--i was in some sort of a--a crowd?" he rummaged hopefully through his poor bruised brain. from her concentrated interest in a fried chicken-bone, the may girl glanced up with her first evidence of divided attention. "yes! you were!" she confided genially. "it was at the railroad junction. and when the officer arrived, he said, 'i hate like the dickens to run this gentleman in, but if there's nobody to look after him--?' so i said you belonged to me! i saw the crape on your sleeve!" said the may girl. "crape--on--my--sleeve?" stammered the stranger. with a dreadful gesture of incredulity he lifted his black-banded arm into vision. it was like watching a live heart torn apart to see his memory waken. "my--god!" he gasped. "my _god_!" still wavering but with a really heroic effort to square his stricken shoulders, he swung back toward the company. his face was livid, his voice, barely articulate. over face and voice lay still that dreadful blight of astonishment. but when he spoke his statement was starkly simple. "i--i buried my wife and unborn child--yesterday," he said. "in a strange land--among strangers i--i----" more quickly than i could possibly have imagined it, george keets was on his feet beckoning the stranger to the place which he himself had just vacated. and with his hands on the stranger's shoulders he bent down suddenly over him with a curiously twisted little smile. "welcome to our--pity!" said george keets. between paul brenswick and his bride there flashed a sharp glance of terror. it was as though the bride's heart had gasped out. "what if i have to die some day?--and _this_ day was wasted in rain?" i saw young kennilworth flush and turn away from that glance. i saw the may girl open her eyes with a new baffled sort of perplexity. it was then that rollins came puttering in, grinning like a chessy cat, with his half-demolished breakfast sliding round rather threateningly on his ill-balanced tray. the strange exultancy of rain was in his eye. "i thought i heard voices," he beamed. "merry voices!" with mounting excitement he began to beat tunes with his knife and fork upon the delicate porcelain dome of his toast dish. "am i a--king," he began to intone, "that i should call my own, this--?" struck suddenly by the somewhat strained expression of ann woltor's face, he dropped his knife and fork and fixed his eye upon her for the first time with an unmistakable intentness. "how did you break your tooth?" beamed rollins. chapter ii for a single horrid moment everybody's heart seemed to lurch off into space to land only too audibly in a gaspy thud of dismay. then ann woltor with unprecedented presence of mind jumped up from the table and ran to the mirror over the fireplace. only the twittering throat-muscle reflected in that mirror belied for an instant the sincerity of either her haste or her astonishment. "broken tooth!" she protested incredulously. "why! have i got a--broken tooth?" people acknowledge their mental panics so divergently. my husband acknowledged his by ramming his elbow into his coffee cup. claude kennilworth lit one cigarette after another. the may girl started to butter a picture post card that someone had just passed her. quite starkly before my very eyes i saw the sober stranger, erstwhile drunken, reach out and slip a silver salt-shaker into his pocket. meeting his glance my own nerves exploded in a single hoot of mirth. into the unhappy havoc of the stranger's face a rather sick but very determinate little smile shot suddenly. "well, i certainly am rattled?" he acknowledged. his embarrassment was absolutely perfect. not a whit too much, not a whit too little, at a moment when the slightest under-emphasis or over-emphasis of his awkwardness would have stamped him ineradicably as either boor--or bounder. more indeed by his chair's volition than by his own he seemed to jerk aside then and there from any further responsibility for the incident. turbid as the storm at the window his eyes racked back to the eyes of his companions. "surely," he besought us, "there must be some place--some hotel--somewhere in this town where i can crawl into for a day or two till i can yank myself together again? . . . taking me in this way from the streets--or worse the way you-people have--" along the stricken pallor of his forehead a glisten of sweat showed faintly. from my eyes to my husband's eyes, and back to mine again he turned with a sharply impulsive gesture of appeal. "how do you-people know but what i _am_ a burglar?" he demanded. "even so," i suggested blithely, "can't you see that we'd infinitely rather have you visiting here as our friend than boarding at the hotel as our foe!" the mirthless smile on the stranger's face twitched ever so faintly at one corner. "you really believe then--" he quickened, "that there is 'honor among thieves'?" "all proverbs," intercepted my husband a bit abruptly, "are best proved by their antithesis. we do at least know that there is at times--a considerable streak of dishonor among saints!" "eh?--what's that--i didn't quite catch it," beamed the bridegroom. but my husband's entire attention seemed focused rather suddenly on the stranger. "so you'd much better stay right on here where you are!" he adjured him with some accent of authority. "where all explanations are already given and taken! . . . ourselves quite opportunely short one guest and long one guest-room, and--no! i won't listen for a moment to its being called an 'imposition'!" protested my husband. "not for a moment! only, of course, i must admit," he confided genially, above the flare of a fresh cigarette, "that it would be a slight convenience to know your name." "my name?" flushed the stranger. "why, of course! it's allan john." "you mean 'john allan'," corrected the may girl very softly. "no," insisted the stranger. "it's allan john." quite logically he began to rummage through his pockets for the proof. "it's written on my bill-folder," he frowned. "it's in my check-book. . . . it's written on no-end of envelopes." with his face the color of half-dead sedge grass he sank back suddenly into his chair and turned his empty hands limply outward as though his wrist-bones had been wrung. "gone!" he gasped. "stripped!--everything!" "there you have it!" i babbled hysterically. "now, how do you know but what _we_ are burglars? . . . this whole house a den of thieves? . . . the impeccable mr. george keets there at your right,--no more, no less, than exactly what he looks,--an almost perfect replica of a stage 'raffles'?" "eh? what's that?" bridled george keets. "dragging you here to this house the way we did," i floundered desperately. "quite helpless as you were. so--so----" "'spifflicated,'" prompted the may girl. the word on her lips was like the flutter of a rose petal. with a little gasp of astonishment young kennilworth rose from his place, and dragging his chair in one hand, his plate of fruit in the other, moved round to the may girl's elbow to finish his breakfast. like a palm trying to patronize a pine tree, his crisp exotic young ego swept down across her young serenity. "really, i don't quite make you out," he said. "i think i shall have to study you!" "study--me!" reflected the may girl. "make a lesson about me, you mean! on a holiday?" the vaguely dawning dimple in her smooth cheek faded suddenly out again. the stranger--allan john--it seemed, was rising from the table. "if you'll excuse me, i think i'll go to my room," he explained. "i'm still pretty shaky. i'm----" but half way to the stairs, as though drawn by some irresistible impulse, he turned, and fumbling his way back across the dining-room opened the big glass doors direct into the storm. tripping ever so slightly on the threshold he lurched forward in a single wavering step. in an instant the may girl was at his side, her steadying hand held out to his! recovering his balance almost instantly he did not however release her hand, but still holding tight to it, indescribably puzzled, indescribably helpless, stood shoulder to shoulder with her, staring out into the tempestuous scene. lashed by the wind the may girl's mop of hair blew gold, blew gray, across his rain-drenched eyes. blurred in a gusty flutter of white skirts his whole tragic, sagging figure loomed suddenly like some weird, symbolic shadow against the girl's bright beauty. frankly the picture startled me! "s-s-h!" warned my husband. "it won't hurt her any! he doesn't even know whether she's young or old." "or a boy--or a girl," interposed george keets, a bit drily. "or an imp or a saint," grinned young kennilworth. "or----" "or anything at all," persisted my husband, "except that she says '_kindness_' and nothing else, you notice, except just '_kindness_.' no suggestions, you observe? no advice? and at an acid moment in his life of such unprecedented shock and general nervous disorganization when his only conceivable chance of 'come-back' perhaps, hangs on the alkaline wag of a strange dog's tail or the tune of a street piano proving balm not blister. by to-morrow--i think--you won't see him holding hands with the may girl nor with any other woman. personally," confided my husband a bit abruptly, "i rather like the fellow! even in the worst of his plight last night there was a certain fundamental sort of poise and dignity about him as of one who would say, 'bad as this is, you chaps must see that i'd stand ready with my life to do the same for you'!" "to--do--the same--for you?" gasped the bride. very quietly, like an offended young princess, she rose from the table and stood for that single protesting moment with her hand on her bridegroom's shoulder. her eager, academic young face was frankly aghast,--her voice distinctly strained. "i'm sorry," she said, "but i quite fail to see how the word 'dignity' could possibly be applied to any man who had so debased himself as to go and get drunk because his wife and child were dead!" "you talk," said my husband, "as though you thought 'getting drunk' was some sort of jocular sport. it isn't! that is, not inevitably, you know!" "no--i didn't--know," murmured the bride coldly. "deplorable as the result proved to be," interposed george keets's smooth, carefully modulated voice, "it's hardly probable i suppose that the poor devil started out with the one deliberate purpose of--of debasing him self, as mrs. brenswick calls it." "n-o?" questioned the bride. "it isn't exactly, you mean, as though he'd leapt from the church shouting, 'yo--ho--, and a bottle of rum,'" observed young kennilworth with one faintly-twisted eyebrow. "s-s-h!" admonished everybody. "maybe he simply hadn't eaten for days," suggested my husband. "or slept for nights and nights," frowned george keets. "and just absolutely was obliged to have a bracer," said my husband, "to put the bones back into his knees again so that he could climb up the steps of his train and fumble some sort of way to his seat without seeming too conspicuous. whatever religion may do, you know, to starch a man's soul or stiffen his upper lip, he's got to have bones in his knees if he's going to climb up into railroad trains. . . . and our poor young friend here, it would seem, merely mis----" "mis--calculated," mused kennilworth, "how many knees he had." "paul wouldn't do it!" flared the bride. "do what?" demanded young kennilworth. "hush!" protested everybody. "make a beast of himself--if i died--if i died!" persisted the bride. "pray excuse me for contradicting either your noun or your preposition," apologized my husband. "but even at its worst i'm quite willing to wager that the only thing in the world poor allan john started out to 'make' was an oblivion--for--himself." "an oblivion?" scoffed the bride. "yes--even for one night!" persisted my husband. "even for one short little night! . . . before the horror of 365 nights to the year and god knows how many years to the life--rang on again! some men really like their wives you know,--some men--so no matter how thin-skinned and weak this desire for oblivion seems to you--" quickened my husband, "it is at least a----" "paul wouldn't!" frowned the bride. in the sudden accentuation of strain everybody turned as quickly as possible to poor paul to decide as cheerfully as seemed compatible with good taste just what that gorgeously wholesome looking specimen of young manhood would or would not do probably under suggested circumstances. nobody certainly wanted to consider the matter seriously, yet nobody with the bride's scared eyes still scorching through his senses would have felt quite justified i think in mere shrugging the issue aside. "no, i don't think paul--would!" rallied my husband with commendable quickness. "not with those eyes! not with that particular shade of crisp, controlled hair! . . . complexions like his aren't made in one generation of righteous nerves and digestions! . . . oh no--! even in the last ditch the worst thing paul would do would be to stalk round putting brand new gutters on a brand new house!" "bridge-building is my job--not gutters," grinned paul unhappily. "stalk round building brand new bridges," corrected my husband. "intoxicated with bridges!" triumphed young kennilworth. "doped with specifications!" "but perhaps allan john--doesn't know how to build bridges," murmured my husband. "and perhaps in allan john's family an occasional maiden aunt _or_ uncle has strayed just a----" "with the faintest possible gesture of impatience, but still smiling, the bridegroom rose from the table and lifted his bride's hand very gently from his shoulder. "who started this conversation, anyway?" he quizzed. "i did!" laughed everybody. "well, i end it!" said the bridegroom. "oh, thunder!" protested young kennilworth. in the hollow of his hand something that once had been the spongy shapeless center of a breakfast roll crushed back into sponge again. but in the instant of its crushing, crude as the modeling was, half jest, half child's play, i sensed the unmistakable parody of a woman's finger-prints bruising into the soft crest of a man's shoulder. even in the absurdity of its substance the sincerity of the thing was appalling. catching my eye alone, young kennilworth gave an amused but distinctly worldly-wise little laugh. "women do care so much, don't they?" he shrugged. a trifling commotion in the front hall stayed the retort on my lips. the commotion was ann woltor. coated and hatted and already half-gloved she loomed blackly from the shadows, trying very hard to attract my attention. in my twinge of anxiety about the may girl i had quite forgotten ann woltor. and in the somewhat heated discussion of allan john's responsibilities and irresponsibilities, the may girl also, it would seem, had passed entirely from my mind. "i'm very sorry," explained ann woltor, "but with this unfortunate accident to my tooth i shall have to hurry, of course, right back to town." even if you had never heard ann woltor speak you could have presaged perfectly from her face just what her voice would be like, gravely contralto, curiously sonorous, absolutely without either accent or emphasis, yet carrying in some strange, inex-plainable way a rather goose-fleshy sense of stubbornness and finality. "one can't exactly in a christian land," droned ann woltor, "go round looking like the sole survivor of a massacre." across the somewhat sapient mutual consciousness that ever since we had first laid eyes on each other five months ago--and goodness knows how long before that--she had been going round perfectly serenely 'looking like the sole survivor of a massacre,' ann woltor and i stared just a bit deeply into each other's eyes. the expression in ann's eyes was an expression of peculiar poignancy. "no, of course not!" i conceded with some abruptness. "but surely if you can find the right dentist and he's clever at all, you ought to be able to get back here on the six-thirty train to-night!" "the six-thirty train? perhaps," murmured ann woltor. once again her eyes hung upon mine. and i knew and ann woltor knew and ann woltor knew that i knew,--that she hadn't the slightest intention in the world of returning to us on any train whatsoever. but for some reason known only to herself and perhaps one other, was only too glad to escape from our party--anatomically impossible as that escape sounds--through the loop-hole of a broken tooth. already both black gloves were fastened, and her black traveling-bag swayed lightly in one slim, determinate hand. "your maid has ordered the station bus for me," she confided; "and tells me that by changing cars at the junction and again at lees--truly i'm sorry to make any trouble," she interrupted herself. "if there had been any possible way of just slipping out without anybody noticing----!" "without anybody noticing?" i cried. "why, ann, you dear silly!" at this, my first use of her christian name, she flashed back at me a single veiled glance of astonishment, and started for the door. but before i could reach her side my husband stepped forward and blocked her exit by the seemingly casual accident of plunging both arms rather wildly into the sleeves of his great city-going raincoat. "why the thing is absurd!" he protested. "you can't possibly make train connections! and there isn't even a covered shed at the junction! if this matter is so important i'll run you up to town myself in the little closed car!" across ann woltor's imperturbable face an expression that would have meant an in-growing scream on any other person's countenance flared up in a single twitching lip-muscle and was gone again. behind the smiling banter in my husband's eyes she also perhaps had noted a determination quite as stubborn as her own. "why--if you insist," she acquiesced, "but it has always distressed me more than i can say to inconvenience anybody." "inconvenience--nothing!" beamed my husband. ordinarily speaking my husband would not be described i think as having a beaming expression. with a chug like the chug of a motor-boat the little closed car came splashing laboriously round the driveway. its glassy face was streaked with tears. depressant as black life-preservers its two extra tires gleamed and dripped in their jetty enamel-cloth casings. a jangle as of dungeon chains clanked heavily from each fresh revolution of its progress. everybody came rushing helpfully to assist in the embarkation. my husband's one remark to me flung back in a whisper from the steering wheel, though frankly confidential, concerned allan john alone. "don't let allan john want for anything to-day," he admonished me. "keep his body and mind absolutely glutted with bland things like cocoa and reading aloud . . . and don't wait supper for us!" with her gay jonquil-colored oil-skin coat swathing her sombre figure, ann woltor slipped into the seat beside him and slammed the door behind her. her face was certainly a study. "sixty miles to town if it's an inch! how--cosy," mused young kennilworth. "good-bye!" shouted everybody. "good-bye!" waved ann woltor and my husband. as for rollins, he was almost beside himself with pride and triumph. shuffling joyously from one foot to the other he crowded to the very edge of the vestibule and with his small fussy face turned up ecstatically to the rain, fairly exploded into speech the instant the car was out of earshot. "she'll look better!" gloated rollins. "who?--the car?" deprecated young kennilworth. then, because everybody laughed out at nothing, it gave me a very good chance suddenly to laugh out at "nothing" myself. and most certainly i had been needing that chance very badly for at least the last fifteen minutes. because really when you once stopped to consider the whole thrilling scheme of this "rainy week" play, and how you and your husband for years and years had constituted yourself a very eager, earnest-minded audience-of-two to watch how the lord almighty,--the one unhampered dramatist of the world, would work out the scenes and colors--the exits and entrances--the plots and counter plots of the material at hand--it was just a bit astonishing to have your husband jump up from his place in the audience and leap to the stage to be one of the players instead! it wasn't at all that the dereliction worried your head or troubled your heart. but it left your elbow so lonely! who was there left for your elbow to nudge? when the morning curtain rose on a flight of sea gulls slashing like white knives through a sheet of silver rain, or the night scene set itself in a plushy black fog that fairly crinkled your senses; when the leading lady's eyes narrowed for the first time to the leading man's startled stare, and the song you had introduced so casually at the last moment in the last act proved to be the reforming point in the villain's nefarious career, and the one character you had picked for "comic relief" turned out to be the tragedienne, who in the world was left for your elbow to nudge? swinging back to the breakfast-room i heard the clock strike ten--only ten? it was going to be a nice little play all right! starting off already with several quite unexpected situations! and it wouldn't be the first time by any means that in an emergency i had been obliged to "double" as prompter and stage hand or water carrier and critic. but how to double as elbow-nudger i couldn't quite figure. "let's go for a tramp on the beach!" suggested the bridegroom. always on the first rainy morning immediately after breakfast some restive business man suggests "a tramp on the beach!" frankly we have reached a point where we quite depend on it for a cue. everybody hailed the proposition with delight except allan john and rollins. a zephyr would have blown allan john from his footing. and rollins had to stay in his room to catalogue shells. . . . rollins was paid to stay in his room and catalogue shells! of the five adventurers who essayed to sally forth, only one failed to clamor for oil skins. you couldn't really blame the bride for her lack of clamoring. . . . the bride's trousseau was wonderful as all trousseaux are bound perforce to be that are made up of equal parts of taste,--money,--fashion,--and passion. no one who had "saved up" such a costume as the bride had for the first rainy day together, could reasonably be expected to doff it for yellow oil-skins. of some priceless foreign composition, half cloth, half mist, indescribably shimmering, almost indecently feminine, with the frenchiest sort of a little hat gaily concocted of marshgrass and white rubber pond-lilies, it gave her lovely, somewhat classic type, all the sudden audacious effect somehow of a water-proofed valentine. young kennilworth sensed the inherent contrast at once. "beside you," he protested, "we look like yellow telegrams! . . . your husband there is some broker's stock quotation--sent 'collect!' . . . mr. keets is a rather heavily-worded summons to address the alumnae of something-or-other college! . . . i am a lunch invitation to 'miss dancy-prancy of the sillies!' . . . and you, of course, miss davies," he quickened delightedly, "are a night letter, because you are so long--and inconsequent--all about rabbits--and puppies--and kiddie things like checked gingham pinafores!" laughing, teasing, arguing, jeering each other's oil-skins, praising the bride's splendor, they swept, a young hurricane of themselves, out into the bigger hurricane of sea and sky, and still five abreast, still jostling, still teasing, still arguing, passed from sight around the storm-swept curve of the beach, while i stayed behind to read aloud to allan john. not that allan john listened at all. but merely because every time i stopped reading he struggled up from the lovely soggy depths of his big leather chair and began to worry. we read two garden catalogues and a chapter on insect pests. we read a bit of walter pater, and five exceedingly scurrilous poems from a volume of free verse. it seemed to be the latin names in the garden catalogues that soothed him most. and when we weren't reading, we drank malted milk. allan john, it seemed, didn't care for cocoa. but even if i hadn't had allan john on my mind i shouldn't have gone walking on the beach. we have always indeed made it a point not to walk on the beach with our guests on the first rainy, restive morning of their arrival. in a geographical environment where every slushy step of sand, every crisp rug of pebbles, every wind-tortured cedar root, every salt-gnawed crag is as familiar to us as the palms of our own hands, it is almost beyond human nature not to try and steer one's visitors to the preferable places, while the whole point of this introductory expedition demands that the visitors shall steer themselves. in the inevitable mood of uneasiness and dismay that overwhelms most house party guests when first thrust into each other's unfamiliar faces, the initial gravitations that ensue are rather more than usually significant. to be perfectly explicit, for instance, people who start off five abreast on that first rainy walk never come home five abreast! in the immediate case at hand, nobody came home at all until long after allan john and i had finished our luncheon, and in the manner of that coming, george keets had gravitated to leadership with the bride and bridegroom. very palpably with the bridegroom's assistance he seemed to be coaxing and urging the bride's frankly jaded footsteps, while young kennilworth and the may girl brought up the rear staggering and lurching excitedly under the weight of a large and somewhat mysteriously colored wooden box. the bridegroom and george keets and young kennilworth and the may girl were as neat as yellow paint. but the poor bride was ruined. tattered and torn, her diaphanous glory had turned to real mist before the onslaught of wind and rain. her hat was swamped, her face streaked with inharmonious colors. she was drenched to the skin. her bridegroom was distracted with anxiety and astonishment. everybody was very much excited! lured by some will-o-the-wisp that lurks in waves and beaches they had lost their way it seems between one dune and another, staggered up sand-hills, fallen down sand-hills, sheltered themselves at last during the worst gust of all "in a sort of a cave in a sort of a cliff" and sustained life very comfortably "thank you" on some cakes of sweet chocolate which george keets had discovered most opportunely in his big oil-skin pockets! but most exciting of all they had found a wreck! "yes, a real wreck! a perfectly lovely--beautiful--and quite sufficiently gruesome real wreck!" the may girl reported. not exactly a whole wreck it had proved to be . . . not shattered spars and masts and crumpled cabins with plush cushions floating messily about. but at least it was a real trunk from a real wreck! mrs. brenswick had spied it first. just back of a long brown untidy line of flotsam and jetsam, the sea-weeds, the dead fish, the old bales and boxes, that every storm brings to the beach, mrs. brenswick had spied the trunk lurching up half-imbedded in the sand. it must have come in on the biggest wave of all some time during the night. it was "awfully wet" and yet "not so awfully wet." everybody agreed that is, that it wasn't water-logged, that it hadn't, in short, been rolling around in the sea for weeks or months but bespoke a disaster as poignantly recent as last night, on the edge of this very storm indeed that they themselves were now frivoling in. for fully half an hour, it appeared before even so much as touching the trunk, they had raced up and down the beach hunting half hopefully, half fearfully for some added trace of wreckage, the hunched body even of a survivor. but even with this shuddering apprehension once allayed, the original discovery had not proved an altogether facile adventure. it had taken indeed at the last all their combined energies and ingenuities to open the trunk. the bride had broken two finger nails. george keets had lost his temper. paul brenswick in a final flare of desperation had kicked in the whole end with an abandon that seemed to have been somewhat of an astonishment to everybody. even from the first young kennilworth had contested "that the thing smelt dead." but this unhappy odor had been proved very fortunately to be nothing more nor less than the rain-sloughed coloring matter of the bride's pond-lily hat. "and here is what we found in the trunk!" thrilled the bride. in the palm of her extended hand lay a garnet necklace,--fifty stones perhaps, flushing crimson-dark in a silver setting of such unique beauty and such unmistakable florentine workmanship as stamped the whole trinket indisputably "precious," if not the stones themselves. "and there were women's dresses in it," explained paul brenswick. "rather queer-looking dresses and----" "oh, it was the--the--funniest trunk!" cried the may girl. "all--" her eyes were big with horror. "anybody could have sherlocked at a glance," sniffed young kennilworth, "that it had been packed by a crazy person!" "no, i don't agree to that at all!" protested the bride, whose own trunk-packing urgencies and emergencies were only too recent in her mind. "anybody's liable to pack a trunk like that when he's moving! the last trunk of all! every left-over thing that you thought was already packed or that you had planned to tuck into your suitcase and found suddenly that you couldn't." "why, there was an old-fashioned copper chafing dish!" sniffed young kennilworth. "and the top-drawer of a sewing-table fairly rattling with spools!" "and books!" frowned george keets. "the weirdest little old edition of 'pilgrim's progress'!" "and toys!" quivered the may girl. "a perfectly gorgeous brand new box of 'toy village'! as huge as--oh it was awful!" "as huge as--that!" kicked young kennilworth wryfully against the box at his feet. "i wanted to bring the chafing dish," he scolded, "but nothing would satisfy this young idiot here except that we lug the toy village.----" "one couldn't bring--everything all at once," deprecated the may girl. "perhaps to-morrow--if it isn't too far--and we ever could find it again----" "but why such haste about the 'toy village'?" i questioned. "why not the dresses? the----" hopelessly, but with her eyes like blue skies, her cheeks like apple-blossoms, the may girl tried to justify her mental processes. "probably i can't explain exactly," she admitted, "but books and dishes and dresses being just things wouldn't mind being drowned but toys, i think, would be frightened." with a frank expression of shock she stopped suddenly and stared all around her. "it doesn't quite make sense when you say it out loud, does it?" she reflected. "but when you just feel it--inside----" "i brought the little 'pilgrim's progress' back with me," confessed george keets with the faintest possible smile. "not exactly perhaps because i thought it would be 'frightened.' but two nights shipwreck on a new england coast in this sort of weather didn't seem absolutely necessary." "and i brought the dinkiest little pearl-handled pistol," brightened paul brenswick. "it's a peach! tucked into the pocket of an old blue cape it was! wonder i ever found it!" from a furious rummaging through her pockets the may girl suddenly withdrew her hand. "of course, we'll have to watch the shipwreck news," said the may girl. "or even advertise, perhaps. so maybe there won't be any real treasure-trove after all. but just to show that i thought of you, mrs. delville," she dimpled, "here are four very damp spools of red sewing-silk for your own work-table drawer! maybe they came all the way from china! and here's a--i don't know what it is, for allan john--i think it's a whistle! and here's a little not-too-soggy real morocco-bound blank book for mr. rollins when he comes down-stairs again! and----" "and for mr. delville?" i teased. "and for ann woltor?" with her hand slapped across her mouth in a gesture of childish dismay, the may girl stared round at her companions. "oh dear--oh dear--oh _dear_!" she stammered. "none of us ever thought once of poor mr. delville and miss woltor!" "it's hot eatments and drinkments that you'd better be thinking of now!" i warned them all with real concern. "and blanket-wrappers! and downy quilts! be off to your rooms and i'll send your lunches up after you! and don't let one of you dare show his drenched face down-stairs again until suppertime!" then allan john and i resumed our reading aloud. we read longfellow this time, and a page or two of marcus aurelius, and half a detective story. and substituted orange juice very mercifully for what had grown to be a somewhat monotonous carousal in malted milk. allan john seemed very much gratified with the little silver whistle from the shipwreck, and showed quite plainly by various pursings of his strained lips that he was fairly yearning to blow it, but either hadn't the breath, or else wasn't sure that such a procedure would be considered polite. really by six o'clock i had grown quite fond of allan john. it was his haunted eyes, i think and the lovely lean line of his cheek. but whether he was animal--vegetable--mineral--spirituelle--or intellectuelle, i, myself, was not yet prepared to say. the supper hour passed fortunately without fresh complications. everybody came down! everybody's eyes were like stars! and every body's complexion lashed into sheer gorgeous-ness by the morning's mad buffet of wind and wave! best of all, no one sneezed. our little bride was a dream again in a very straight, very severe gray velvet frock that sheathed her young suppleness like the suppleness of a younger crusader. her regenerated beauty was an object-lesson to all young husbands' pocket-books for all time to come that beauty like love is infinitely more susceptible to bad weather than is either homeliness or hate, and as such must be cherished by a man's brain as well as by his brawn. paul brenswick, goodness knows, would never need to choose his bride's clothes for her. but lusty young beauty-lover that he was by every right of clean heart and clean living, it was up to him to see that his beloved was never financially hampered in her own choosing! a non-extravagant bride, wrecked as his bride had been by the morning's tempest, might not so readily have recovered her magic. the may girl, as usual, was like a spray of orchard bloom in some white, frothy, middy blouse sort of effect. with the may girl's peculiarly fragrant and insouciant type of youthfulness one never noted somehow just what she wore, nor rated one day's mood of loveliness against another. the essential miracle, as of may-time itself, lay merely in the fact that she was here. everybody talked, of course, about the shipwreck. the bride did not wear her necklace. "it was too ghostly," she felt. but she carried it in her hand and brooded over it with the tender, unshakable conviction that once at least it must have belonged to "another bride." rollins, i thought, was rather unduly enthusiastic about his share of the booty. yet no one who knew rollins could ever possibly have questioned the absolute sincerity of him. note-books, it appeared, were a special hobby of his! morocco-bound note-books particularly. and when it came to faintly soggy morocco-bound note-books, words were inadequate it seemed to express his appreciation. nothing would do but the may girl must inscribe it for him. "aberner rollins," she wrote very carefully in her round, childish hand, with a giggly flourish at the tail-tip of each word. "for aberner rollins from his friend may davies. awful shipwreck time, may 10th, 1919." rollins used an inestimable number of note-books it appeared in the collection of his statistics. "the collection of statistics was the consuming passion of his life," he confided to everybody. "the consuming passion!" he reiterated emphatically. "already," he affirmed, "he had revised and reaudited the whole fresh-egg-account of his own family for the last three generations! in a single slender tome," he bragged, "he held listed the favorite flowers of all living novelists both of america and england! another tome bulged with the evidence that would-be suicides invariably waited for pleasant weather in which to accomplish their self-destruction! in regard to the little black morocco volume," he kindled ecstatically, "he had already dedicated it to a very interesting new thought which had just occurred to him that evening, apropos of a little remark--a most significant little remark that had been dropped during the breakfast chat. . . . if anyone was really interested--" he suggested hopefully. nobody was the slightest bit interested! nobody paid the remotest attention to him! everybody was still too much excited about the shipwreck, and planning how best to salvage such loot as remained. "and maybe by to-morrow there'll be even more things washed up!" sparkled the may girl. "a real india shawl perhaps! a set of chess-men carved from a whale's tooth! only, of course--if it should rain as hard--" she drooped as suddenly as she had sparkled. "it can't!" said young kennilworth. even with the fresh crash of wind and rain at the casement he made the assertion arrogantly. "it isn't in the mind of god," he said, "to make two days as rainy as this one." the little black pomeranian believed him anyway, and came sniffing out of the shadows to see if the arrogantly gesticulative young hand held also the gift of lump sugar as well as of prophecy. it was immediately after supper that the may girl decided to investigate the possibilities and probabilities of her "toy village." somewhat patronizingly at first but with a surprisingly rapid kindling of enthusiasm, young kennilworth conceded his assistance. the storm outside grew wilder and wilder. the scene inside grew snugger and snugger. the room was warm, the lamps well shaded, the tables piled with books, the chairs themselves deep as waves. "loaf and let loaf" was the motto of the evening. by pulling the huge wolf-skin rug away from the hearth, the may girl and young kennilworth achieved for their village a plane of smoothness and light that gleamed as fair and sweet as a real village common at high noon. curled up in a fluff of white the may girl sat cross-legged in the middle of it superintending operations through a maze of sunny hair. stretched out at full-length on the floor beside her, looking for all the world like some beautiful exotic-faced little lad, young kennilworth lay on his elbows, adjusting, between incongruous puffs of cigarette smoke, the faintly shattered outline of a miniature church and spire, or soothing a blister of salt sea tears from the paint-crackled visage of a tiny villa. softly the firelight flickered and flamed across their absorbed young faces. mysteriously the wisps of cigarette smoke merged realities with unrealities. it was an entrancing picture. and one by one everybody in the room except rollins and myself became drawn more or less into it. "if you're going to do it at all," argued paul brenswick, "you might as well do it right! when you start in to lay out a village you know there are certain general scientific principles that must be observed. now that list to the floor there! what about drainage? can't you see that you've started the whole thing entirely wrong?" "but i wanted it to face toward the fire," drooped the may girl, "like a village looking on the wonders of vesuvius." "vesuvius nothing!" insisted paul brenswick. "it's got to have good drainage!" enchanted by his seriousness, the bride rushed off up-stairs with her scissors to rip the foliage off her second-best hat to make a hedge for the church-yard. even allan john came sliding just a little bit out of his chair when he noted that there was a large, rather humpy papier-mache mountain in the outfit that seemed likely to be discarded. "i would like to have that mountain put--there!" he pointed. "against that table shadow . . . and the mountain's name is blue blurr!" "oh, very well," acquiesced everybody. "the mountain's name is blue blurr!" it was george keets who suggested taking the little bronze psyche from the mantelpiece to make a monument for the public square. "of course there'll be some in your village," he deprecated, "who'll object to its being a nude. but as a classic it----" "it's a bear! it's a bear! it's a bear!" chanted kennilworth in exultant falsetto. "speaking of classics!" "hush!" said george keets. . . . george keets really wanted very much to play, i think, but he didn't know exactly how to, so he tried to talk highbrow instead. "this village of yours," he frowned, "i--i hope it's going to have good government?" "well, it isn't!" snapped young kennilworth. "it's going to be a terror! but at least it shall be pretty!" under young kennilworth's crafty hand the little village certainly had bloomed from a child's pretty toy into the very real beauty of an artist's ideal. the skill of laying out little streets one way instead of another, the decision to place the tiny red schoolhouse here instead of there, the choice of a linden rather than a pinetree to shade an infinitesimal green-thatched cottage, had all combined in some curious twinge of charm to make your senses yearn--not that all that cunning perfection should swell suddenly to normal real estate dimensions--but that you, reduced by some lovely miracle to toy-size, might slip across that toy-sized greensward into one of those toy-sized houses, and live with toy-sized passions and toy-sized ambitions and toy-sized joys and toy-sized sorrows, one single hour of a toy-sized life. everybody, i guess, experienced the same strange little flutter. "that house shall be mine!" affirmed george keets quite abruptly. "that gray stone one with the big bay-window and the pink rambler rose. the bay-window room i'm sure would make me a fine study. and----" from an excessively delicate readjustment of a loose shutter on a rambling brown bungalow young kennilworth looked up with a certain flicker of exasperation. "live anywhere you choose!" he snapped. "miss davies and i are going to live--here!" "w--what?" stammered the may girl. "what?" "here!" grinned young kennilworth. "oh--no," said the may girl. without showing the slightest offense she seemed suddenly to be quite positive about it. "oh, no!--if i live anywhere it's going to be in the gray stone house with mr. keets. it's so infinitely more convenient to the schools." "to the what?" chuckled kennilworth. before the very evident astonishment and discomfiture in george keets's face, his own was convulsed with joy. "to the schools," dimpled the may girl. "you do me a--a very great honor," bowed george keets. his face was scarlet. "thank you," said the may girl. in the second's somewhat panicky pause that ensued rollins flopped forward with his note-book. rollins evidently had been waiting a long and impatient time for such a pause. "now speaking of drinking to drown one's sorrows--" beamed rollins. "but we weren't!" observed george keets coldly. "but you were this morning!" triumphed rollins. from the flapping white pages of the little black note-book he displayed with pride the entries that he had already made, a separate name heading each page--mrs. delville--mr. delville--mr. keets--miss davies--the list began. "now take the hypothesis," glowed rollins, "that everybody has got just two bottles stowed away for all time, the very last bottles i mean that he will ever own, rum--rye--benedictine--any thing you choose--and eliminating the first bottle as the less significant of the two--what are you saving the last one for!" demanded rollins. from a furtive glance at allan john's graying face and the may girl's somewhat startled stare, young kennilworth looked up with a rather peculiarly glinting smile. "oh, that's easy," said he, "i'm saving mine to break the head of some bally fool!" "and my last bottle," interposed george keets quickly. "my last bottle--?" in his fine ascetic face the flush deepened suddenly again, but with the flush the faintest possible little smile showed also at the lip-line. "oh, i suppose if i'm really going to have a wedding--in that little gray toy house, it's up to me to save mine for a 'loving cup' . . . claret . . . something very mild and rosy . . . yes, mine shall be claret." with her pretty nose crinkled in what seemed like a particularly abstruse reflection, the may girl glanced up. "bene--benedictine?" she questioned. "is that the stuff that smells the way stars would taste if you ate them raw?" "i really can't say," mused kennilworth. "i don't think i ever ate a perfectly raw star. at the night-lunch carts i think they almost invariably fry them on both sides." "night-lunch carts?" scoffed keets, with what seemed to me like rather unnecessary acerbity. "n-o, somehow i don't seem to picture you in a night-lunch cart when it comes time to share your last bottle of champagne with--with--'miss dancy-prancy of the sillies,' wasn't it?" "my last bottle isn't champagne!" flared young kennilworth. "it's scotch! . . . and there'll be no miss anybody in it, thank you!" his face was really angry, and one twitch of his foot had knocked half his village into chaos. "oh, all right, i'll tell you what i'm going to do with my last bottle!" he frowned. "the next-to-the-last-one, as you say, is none of your business! but the last one is going to my old man! . . . i come from kansas," he acknowledged a bit shamefacedly. "from a shack no bigger than this room . . . and my old man lives there yet . . . and he's always been used to having a taste of something when he wanted it and i guess he misses it some. . . . and he'll be eighty years old the 15th of next december. i'm going home for it. . . . i haven't been home for seven years. . . . but my old man is going to get his scotch! . . . if they yank me off at every railroad station and shoot me at sunrise each new day,--my old man is going to get his scotch! "bully for you," said george keets. "all the same," argued the may girl, "i think benedictine smells better." with a little gaspy breath somebody discovered what had happened to the village. "who did that?" demanded paul brenswick. "you did!" snapped young kennilworth. "i didn't, either," protested brenswick. "why of all cheeky things!" cried the bride. "now see here," i admonished them, "you're all very tired and very irritable. and i suggest that you all pack off to bed." helping the may girl up from her cramped position, george keets bent low for a single exaggerated moment over her proffered hand. "i certainly think you are making a mistake, miss davies," bantered young kennilworth. "for a long run, of course, mr. keets might be better, but for a short run i am almost sure that you would have been jollier in the brown bungalow with me." "time will tell," dimpled the may girl. "then i really may consider us--formally engaged?" smiled george keets, still bending low over her hand. he was really rather amused, i think--and quite as much embarrassed as he was amused. "no, not exactly formally," dimpled the may girl. "but until breakfast time to-morrow morning." "until breakfast time to-morrow morning," hooted young kennilworth. "that's the deuce of a funny time-limit to put on an engagement . . . it's like asking a person to go skating when there isn't any ice!. . ." "is it?" puzzled the may girl. "what the deuce do you expect keets to get out of it?" quizzed young kennilworth. in an instant the may girl was all smiles again. "he'll get mentioned in my prayers," she said. "'please bless mr. keets, my fiancã©-till-to-morrow-morning.'" "that's certainly--something," conceded george keets. "it isn't enough,"--protested kennilworth. the may girl stared round appealingly at her interlocutors. "but the time is so awfully short," she said, "and i did want to get engaged to as many boys as possible in the week i was here." "what--what!" i babbled. "yes, for very special reasons," said the may girl, "i _would_ like to get engaged to as many----" with a strut like the strut of a young ban tam rooster, rollins pushed his way suddenly into the limelight. "if it will be the slightest accommodation to you," he affirmed, "you may consider your self engaged to me to-morrow!" disconcerted as she was, the may girl swallowed the bitter, unexpected dose with infinitely less grimace than one would have expected. she even smiled a little. "very well, mr. rollins," she said, "i will be engaged to you--to-morrow." young kennilworth's dismay exploded in a single exclamation. "well--you--certainly are an extraordinary young person!" "yes, i know," deprecated the may girl. "it's because i'm so tall, i suppose----" before the unallayed breathlessness of my expression she wilted like a worried flower. "yes, of course, i know, mrs. delville," she acknowledged, "that mock marriages aren't considered very good taste . . . but a mock engagement?" she wheedled. "if it's conducted, oh, very--very--very properly?" her eyes were wide with pleading. "oh, of course," i suggested, "if it's conducted very--_very_--_very_ properly!" across the may girl's lovely pink and white cheeks the dark lashes fringed down. "there--will--be--no--kissing, affirmed the may girl. "oh, shucks!" protested young kennilworth. "now you've spoiled everything." out of the corner of one eye i saw rollins nudge paul brenswick. it was not a facetious nudge, but one quite markedly earnest. the whole expression indeed on rollins's face was an expression of acute determination. with laughter and song and a flicker of candlelight everybody filed up-stairs to bed. rollins carried his candle with the particularly unctuous pride of one who leads a torchlight procession. and as he turned on the upper landing and looked back, i noted that-behind the almost ribald excitement on his face there lurked a look of poignant wistfulness. "i've never been engaged before," he confided grinningly to paul brenswick. "i'd like to make the most of it . . ." passing into my own room i flung back the casement windows for a revivifying slash of wind and rain, before i should collapse utterly into the white scrumptiousness of my bed. frankly, i was very tired. it must have been almost midnight when i woke to see my husband's dark figure silhouetted in the bright square of the door. through the depths of my weariness a consuming curiosity struggled. "did ann woltor come back?" i asked. "she did!" said my husband succinctly. "and how did you get on with allan john?" "oh, i'm crazy about allan john," i yawned amiably. and then with one of those perfectly inexplainable nerve-explosions that astonishes no one as much as it astonishes oneself i struggled up on my elbow. "but he's still got my best silver saltshaker in his pocket!" i cried. it was then that the scream of a siren whistle tore like some fear-maddened voice through the whole house. shriller than knives it ripped and screeched into the senses! doors banged! feet thudded! "there's allan john now!" i gasped. "it's the whistle the may girl gave him!" chapter iii everybody looked pretty tired when they came down to breakfast the next morning. but at least everybody came down. even rollins! never have i seen rollins so really addicted to coming down to breakfast! poor allan john, of course, was all overwhelmed again with humiliation and despair, and quite heroically insistent on removing his presence as expeditiously as possible from our house party. it _was_ his whistle that had screeched so in the night. and as far as he knew he hadn't the slightest reason or excuse for so screeching it beyond the fact that, rousing half-awake and half-asleep from a most horrible nightmare, he had reached instinctively for the little whistle under his pillow, and not realizing what he was doing, cried for help, not just to man alone it would seem, but to high heaven itself! "but however in the world did you happen to have the whistle under your pillow?" puzzled the bride. "what else have i got?" answered allan john. he was perfectly right! robbed for all time of his wife and child, stripped for the ill-favored moment of all personal moneys and proofs of identity, sojourning even in other men's linen, what did allan john hold as a nucleus for the new day except a little silver toy from another person's shipwreck? (once i knew a smashed man who didn't possess even a toy to begin a new day on so he didn't begin it!) "well, of course, it was pretty rackety while it lasted," conceded young kennilworth. "but at least it gave us a chance to admire each other's lingeries." "negligã©es," corrected george keets. "i said 'scare-clothes'!" snapped young kennilworth. "everybody who travels by land or sea or puts in much time at house parties ought to have at least one round of scare-clothes, one really chic 'escaping suit.'" "the silver whistle is mine," intercepted the may girl with some dignity. "mine and allan john's. i found it and gave it to allan john. and he can blow it any time he wants to, day or night. but as long as you people all made so much fuss about it--and looked so funny," dimpled the may girl transiently, "we will consider that after this--any time the whistle blows--the call is just for me." the may girl's gravely ingenuous glance swept down in sudden challenge across the somewhat amused faces of her companions, "allan john--is mine!" she confided with some incisiveness. "i found him--too!" "do you acknowledge that ownership, allan john!" demanded young kennilworth. even allan john's sombre eyes twinkled the faintest possible glint of amusement. "i acknowledge that ownership," acquiesced allan john. "now see here!--i protest," rallied george keets. "most emphatically i protest against my fiancã©e assuming any masculine responsibilities except me during the brief term of our engagement!" "but your engagement is already over!" jeered young kennilworth. "nice kind of lochinvar you are--drifting down-stairs just exactly on the stroke of the breakfast bell!--'until breakfast time' were the terms, i believe. now rollins here has been up since dawn! banging in and out of the house! racing up and down the front walk in the rain! now that's what i call real passion!" at the very first mention of his name rollins had come sliding way forward to the edge of his chair. he hadn't apparently expected to be engaged till after breakfast. but if there was any conceivable chance, of course---"all ready--any time!" beamed rollins. "_through_--breakfast time was what i understood," said george keets coldly. "through breakfast time was--was what i meant," stammered the may girl. from the only too palpable excitement on rollins's face to george keets's chill immobility she turned with the faintest possible gesture of appeal. her eyes looked suddenly just a little bit frightened. "a--after all," she confided, "i--i didn't know as i feel quite well enough to-day to be engaged so much. maybe i caught a little cold yesterday. sometimes i don't sleep very well. once----" "oh, come now," insisted young kennilworth. "don t, for heaven's sake, be a quitter!" "a--'quitter'?" bridled the may girl. her cheeks went suddenly very pink. and then suddenly very white. like an angry little storm-cloud that absurd fluff of gray hair shadowed down for an instant across her sharply averted face. a glint of tears threatened. then out of the gray and the gold and the blue and the pink and the tears, the jolliest sort of a little-girl-giggle issued suddenly. "oh, all right!" said the may girl and slipped with perfect docility apparently into the chair that george keets had drawn out for her. george keets i really think was infinitely more frightened than she was, but in his case, at least, a seventeen years' lead in experience had taught him long since the advisability of disguising such emotions. even at the dining-table of a sinking ship george keets i'm almost certain would never have ceased passing salts and peppers, proffering olives and radishes, or making perfectly sure that your coffee was just exactly the way you liked it. in the present emergency, to cover not only his own confusion but the may girl's, he proceeded to talk archaeology. by talking archaeology in an undertone with a faintly amorous inflection to the longest and least intelligible words, george keets really believed i think that he was giving a rather clever imitation of an engaged man. what the may girl thought no one could possibly have guessed. the may girl's face was a study, but it was at least turning up to his! whether she understood a single thing he said, or was only resting, whether she was truly amused or merely deferring as long as possible her unhappy fate with rollins, she sat as one entranced. slipping into the chair directly opposite them, young kennilworth watched the proceedings with malevolent joy. between his very frank contempt for the dulness of george keets's methods, and his perfectly palpable desire to keep poor rollins tantalized as long as possible, he scarcely knew which side to play on. everybody indeed except ann woltor seemed to take a more or less mischievous delight in prolonging poor rollins's suspense. allan john never lifted his eyes from his coffee cup, but at least he showed no signs of disapproval or haste. even george keets, to the eyes of a close observer, seemed to be dallying rather unduly with his knife and fork as well as with his embarrassment. as the breakfast hour dragged along, poor rollins's impatience grew apace. fidgeting round and round in his chair, scowling ferociously at anyone who dared to ask for a second service of anything, dashing out into the hall every now and then on perfectly inexplainable errands, he looked for all the world like some wry-faced clown performing by accident in a business suit. "really, rollins," admonished my husband. "i think it would have been a bit more delicate of you if you'd kept out of sight somehow till keets' affair was over--this hovering round so through the harrowing last moments--all ready to pounce--hanged if i don't think it's crude!" "crude?--it's plain buzzard-y!" scoffed kennilworth. it was the bride's warm, romantic heart that called the time-limit finally on george keets's philandering. "really, i don't think it's quite fair," whispered the bride. taken all in all i think the bridegroom was inclined to agree with her. but stronger than anybody's sense of justice, it was a composite sense of humor that sped rollins to his heart's desire. even ann woltor, i think, was curious to see just how rollins would figure as an engaged man. the may girl's parting with george keets was at least mercifully brief. "does he kiss my hand?" questioned the may girl. "no--i think not," flushed george keets. having no intention in the world of kissing any woman in earnest, it was not in his code, apparently, to kiss a young girl in fun. very formally, with that frugal, tight-lipped smile of his which contrasted so curiously with the rather accentuated virility of his shoulders, he rose and bowed low over the may girl's proffered fingers. "really it's been a great honor. i've enjoyed it immensely!" he conceded. "thank you," murmured the may girl. in a single impulse everybody turned to look at rollins, only to find that rollins had disappeared. "hi, there, rollins! _rollins_!" shouted young kennilworth. "you're losing time!" as though waiting dramatically for just this cue, the hall portieres parted slightly, and there stood rollins grinning like a cheshire cat, with a great bunch of purple orchids clasped in one hand! now we are sixty miles from a florist and the only neighbor of our acquaintance who boasts a greenhouse is a most estimable but exceedingly close-fisted flower-fancier, who might under certain conditions, i must admit, give bread at the back door, but who never under any circumstances whatsoever has been known to give orchids at the front door. nor did i quite see rollins even in a rain-storm actually breaking laws or glass to achieve his floral purpose. yet there stood rollins in our front hall, at half-past nine in the morning, with a very extravagant bunch of purple orchids in his hand. "well--bully for you!" gasped young kennilworth. "now that's what i call not being a mutt!" beaming with pride rollins stepped forward and presented his offering, the grin on his face never wavering. "just a--just a trifling token of my esteem, miss davies!" he affirmed. "to say nothing of--of----" the may girl, i think, had never had orchids presented to her before. it is something indeed of an experience all in itself to see a young girl receive her first orchids. the faint astonishment and regret to find that after all they're not nearly as darling and cosy as violets or roses or even carnations--the sudden contradictory flare of sex-pride and importance--flashed like so much large print across the may girl's fluctuant face. "why--why they're--wonderful!" she stammered. producing from heaven knows what antique pin-cushion a hat-pin that would have easily impaled the may girl like a butterfly against the wall, rollins completed the presentation. but the end it seemed was not yet. fumbling through his pockets he produced a small wad of paper, and from that small wad of paper a large old-fashioned seal ring with several strands of silk thread dangling from it. "of course at such short notice," beamed rollins, "one couldn't expect to do much. but if you don't mind things being a bit old-timey,--this ring of my great uncle aberner's--if we tie it on--perhaps?" whereupon, lashing the ring then and there to the may girl's astonished finger, rollins proceeded to tuck the may girl's whole astonished hand into the crook of his arm, and start off with her--still grinning--to promenade the long sheltered glassed-in porch, across whose rain-blurred windows the storm raged by more like a sound than a sight. the may girl's face was crimson! "well it was all your own idea, you know, this getting engaged!" taunted kennilworth. it was not a very good moment to taunt the may girl. my husband saw it i think even before i did. "really, rollins," he suggested, "you mustn't overdo this arm-in-arm business. not all day long! it isn't done! not this ball-and-chain idea any more! not this shackling of the betrothed!" "no, really, rollins, old man," urged young kennilworth, "you've got quite the wrong idea. you say yourself you've never been engaged before, so you'd better let some of us wiser guys coach you up a bit in some of the essentials." "coach me up a bit?" growled rollins. "why, you didn't suppose for a minute, did you," persisted young kennilworth tormentingly, "that there was any special fun about being engaged? you didn't think for a moment, i mean, that you were really going to have any sort of good time to-day? not both of you, i mean?" "eh?" jerked rollins, stopping suddenly short in his tracks, but with the may girl's reluctant hand still wedged fast into the crook of his arm, he stood defying his tormentor. "eh? _what_?" "why i never in the world," mused kennilworth, "ever heard of two engaged people having a good time the same day. one or the other of them always has to give up the one thrilling thing that he yearned most to do and devote his whole time to pretending that he's perfectly enraptured doing some stupid fuddy-duddy stunt that the other one wanted to do. it's simply the question always--of who gives up! now, miss davies for instance--" mockingly he fixed his eyes on the may girl's unhappy face. "now, miss davies," he insisted, "more than anything else in the world to-day what would you like to do?" "sew," said the may girl. "and you, mr. rollins," persisted kennilworth. "if it wasn't for miss davies here--what would you be doing to-day?" "i?" quickened rollins. "i?" across his impatient, irritated face, an expression of frankly scientific ecstasy flared up like an explosion. "why those shells, you know!" glowed rollins. "that last consignment! why i should have been cataloging shells!" "there you have it!" cried kennilworth. "either you've got to sew all day long with miss davies--or else she'll have to catalog shells with you!" "sew?" hooted rollins. "oh, i'd just love to catalog shells!" cried the may girl. in that single instant the somewhat indeterminate quiver of her lips had bloomed into a real smile. by a dexterous movement, released from rollins's arm, she turned and fled for the door. "up-stairs, you mean, don't you?" she cried. the smile had reached her eyes now. in another minute it seemed as though even her hair would be all laughter. "at the big table in the upper hall? where you were working yesterday? one, on one side of the table--and one--the other? and one, the _other_!" she giggled triumphantly. with unflagging agility rollins started after her. "what i had really planned," he grinned, "was a walk on the beach." "arm--in--arm!" mused young kennilworth. "eh! you think you're smart, don't you!" grinned rollins. "yes, quite so," acknowledged kennilworth. "but if you really want to see smartness on its native heath just pipe your eye to-morrow when i dawn on the horizon as an engaged man!" "you?" called the may girl. staring back through the mahogany banisters her face looked fairly striped with astonishment. "you certainly announced your desire," said kennilworth, "to go right through the whole list. didn't you?" "oh, but i didn't mean--everybody," parried the may girl. her mouth and her eyes and her hair were all laughing together now. "oh, goodness me--not _everybody_!" she gesticulated, with a fine air of disdain. "not the married men," explained the bride. "no, i'm sure she discriminated against the married men," chuckled the bridegroom. "well--she sha'n't discriminate against _me_!" snapped young kennilworth. absurd as it was he looked angry. young kennilworth, one might infer, was not accustomed to having women discriminate against him. "you made the plan and you'll jolly-well keep to it!" affirmed young kennilworth. "oh, all right," laughed the may girl. "if you really insist! but for a boy who's as truly unselfish as you are about nursery-governessing other people's pom dogs, and saving your last taste of anything for your old old daddy--you've certainly got the worst manners! "manners!" drawled george keets. "this is no test. wait--till you see his engagement manners!" "oh, she'll 'wait' all right!" sniffed young kennilworth, and turned on his heel. paul brenswick, searching hard through the shipping news in the morning paper, looked up with a faint shadow of concern. "what's the grouch?" he questioned. standing with her hands on her bridegroom's shoulders the bride glanced back from the stormy window to kennilworth's face with a somewhat provocative smile. "well--it _was_ in the mind of god, wasn't it?" she said. "what was!" demanded young kennilworth. "the rain," shrugged the bride. "oh--damn the rain!" cried young kennilworth. "i wish people wouldn't speak to me! it drives me crazy i tell you to have everybody babbling so! can't you see i want to work? can't anybody see--anything?" equally furious all of a sudden at everybody, he swung around and darted up the stairs. "don't anybody call me to lunch," he ordered. "for heaven's sake don't let anyone be idiot enough to call me to lunch." even ann woltor's jaw dropped a bit at the amazing rudeness and peevishness of it. it was then that the beaming grin on rollins's face flickered out for a single instant of incredulity and reproach. "why--miss woltor!" he choked, "you didn't have your tooth fixed--after all!" with a great crackle of paper every man's face seemed buried suddenly in the shipping news. "no!" i heard my husband's voice affirm with extravagant precision, "not the slightest mention anywhere of any maritime disaster." "not the slightest!" agreed george keets. "not the slightest!" echoed paul brenswick with what seemed to me like quite unnecessary monotony. it was the bride who showed the only real tact. slipping her hand casually into ann woltor's hand she started for the library. "let's go see if we can't find something awfully exciting to read to-day," she suggested. once across the library threshold her voice lowered slightly. "really, miss woltor," she confided, "there are times when i think that mr. rollins is sort of crazy." "so many people are," acquiesced ann woltor without emotion. caroming off to my miniature conservatory on the pretext of watering my hyacinths i met my husband bent evidently on the same errand. my husband's sudden interest in potted plants was bewitching. even the hyacinths were amused i think. yet even to prolong the novelty of the situation there was certainly no time to be lost about rollins. "truly jack," i besought him, "this rollins man has got to be suppressed." "oh, not to-day--surely?" pleaded my husband. "not on the one engagement day of his life? poor rollins--when he's having such a thrill?" "well--not to-day perhaps," i conceded with some reluctance. "but to-morrow surely! we never have been used you know to starting off the day with rollins! and two breakfasts in succession? well, really, it's almost more than the human heart can stand. far be it from me," i argued, "to condone poor allan john's lapse from sobriety or advocate any plan whatsoever for the ensnaring of the very young or the unwary; but all other means failing," i argued, "i should consider it a very great mercy to the survivors if rollins should wake to-morrow with a slight headache. no real cerebral symptoms you understand--nothing really acute. just----!" "oh, stop your fooling!" said my husband. "what i came in here to talk to you about was miss woltor." "'woltor' or 'stoltor'?" i questioned. "who said 'stoltor'?" jerked my husband. "oh, sometimes you say 'woltor' and sometimes you say 'stoltor'!" i confided. "and it's so confusing. which is it--really?" "hanged if i know!" said my husband. "then let's call her ann," i suggested. with an impulse that was quite unwonted in him my husband stepped suddenly forward to my biggest, rosiest, most perfect pot of pink hyacinths, and snapping a succulent stem in two thrust the great gorgeous bloom incongruously into his button-hole. never in fifteen years had i seen my husband with a flower in his button-hole. neither, in all that time, had i ever seen him flush across the cheek-bones just exactly the shade of a rose-pink hyacinth. i could have hugged him! he looked so confused. "oh, i say--" he ventured quite abruptly, "miss woltor and i, you know,--we never went near the dentist yesterday!" "so i inferred," i said, "from rollins's observation. what _were_ you doing?" truly i didn't mean to ask, but the long-suppressed wonder most certainly slipped. "why we were just arguing!" groaned my husband. "round and round and round!" "round--what?" i questioned--now that the slipping had started. "round and round the country?" "country, no indeed!" grinned my husband unhappily. "we never left the place!" "never--left the place?" i stammered. "why, where in creation were you?" "why, first," said my husband, "we were down at the end of the driveway right there by the acacia trees, you know. she was crying so i didn't exactly like to strike the state highway for fear somebody would notice her. and then afterward--when i saw that she really couldn't stop----" "crying?" i puzzled. "ann woltor--crying?" "and then afterward," persisted my husband, "we went over to the bungalow on the rock and commenced the argument all over again! fortunately there was some tea there and crackers and sardines and enough firewood. but it was the devil and all getting over! we ran the car into the boat-house and took the punt! i thought the surf would smash us, but----" "but what was the 'argument'?" i questioned. "why about her coming back!" said my husband. "she was so absolutely determined not to come back! i never in my life saw such stubbornness! and if she once got away i knew perfectly well that she never would come back! that she'd drop out of sight just as--and such crying!" he interrupted himself with apparent irrelevance. "everything smashed up altogether at once!--hadn't cried before, she said, for eight years!" "well, it's time she cried, the poor dear!" i affirmed sincerely. "but----" "but i couldn't bring her back to the house!" insisted my husband. "not crying so, not arguing so!" "no, of course not," i agreed. "i kept thinking she'd stop!" shivered my husband. "jack," i asked quite abruptly, "who is ann woltor?" "search me!" said my husband, "i never saw her before." "you--never saw her--before!" i stammered. "why--why you called her by name!--you----" "i knew her face," said my husband. "i've seen her picture. in london it was. in hal ferry's studio. fifteen years ago if it's a day. a huge charcoal sketch all swoops and smouches.--just a girl holding up a small hand-mirror to her astonished face.--'_the woman with the broken tooth_' it was called." "fifteen years ago?" i gasped. "'_the--the woman with the broken tooth_!' what a--what a name for a picture! "yes, wasn't it?" said my husband. "and you'd have thought somehow that the picture would be funny, wouldn't you? but it wasn't! it was the grimmest thing i ever saw in my life! sketched just from memory too it must have been. no man would have had the cheek to ask a woman to pose for him like that,--to reduplicate just for fun i mean that particular expression of bewilderment which he had by such grim chance surprised on her unwitting face. such shock! such _astonishment_! it wasn't just the astonishment you understand of marred beauty worrying about a dentist. but a look the stark, staring, chain-lightning sort of look of a woman who, back of the broken tooth, linked up in some way with the accident of the broken tooth, saw something, suddenly, that god himself couldn't repair! it was horrid, i tell you! it haunted you! even if you started to hoot you ended by arguing! arguing and--wondering! ferry finally got so that he wouldn't show it to anybody. people quizzed him so." "yes, but ferry?" i questioned. "no," said my husband. "it was only by the merest chance that i heard the name ann stoltor associated in any way with the picture. hal ferry never told anything. not a word. but he never exhibited the picture, i noticed. it was a point of honor with him, i suppose. if one lives long enough, of course, one's pretty apt to catch every friend off guard at least once in his facial expression. but one doesn't exhibit one's deductions i suppose. one mustn't at least make professional presentation of them." "yes, but ann woltor--stoltor," i puzzled. "when she tried to bolt so? was it because she knew that you knew hal ferry? when you called her stoltor and dropped the lantern so funnily when you first saw her, was it then that she linked you up with this something--whatever it is that has hurt her so?--and determined even then to bolt at the very first chance she could get? but why in the world should she want to bolt?" i puzzled. "certainly she's had to take us on faith quite as much as we've taken her. and i?--i _love_ her!" in the flare of the open doorway george keets loomed quite abruptly. "oh, is this where you bad people are?" he reproached us. "we've been searching the house for you." "oh, of course, if you really need us," conceded my husband. "but even you, i should think, would know a flirtation when you saw it and have tact enough not to butt in." "a flirtation?" scoffed keets. "you? at ten o'clock in the morning? all trimmed up like an easter bonnet! and acting half scared to death? it looks a bit fishy to me, not to say mysterious!" "all husbands move in a mysterious way their flirtations to perform," observed my husband. from one pair of half-laughing eyes to the other george keets glanced up with the faintest possible suggestion of a sigh. "really, you know," said george keets, "there are times when even _i_ can imagine that marriage might be just a little bit jolly." "oh never jolly," grinned my husband, "but there are times i frankly admit--when it seems a heap more serious than it does at other times." "less serious, you mean," corrected keets. "more serious," grinned my husband. "oh, for goodness sake, let's stop talking about us," i protested, "and talk about the weather!" "it was the weather that i came to talk about," exclaimed george keets. "do you think it will clear to-day?" he questioned. for a single mocking instant my husband's glance sought mine. "no, not to-day, george," he said. "u---m!" mused george keets. "then in that case," he brightened suddenly, "if mrs. delville is really willing to put up a water-proof lunch we think it would be rather good sport to go back to the cave and explore a bit more of the beach perhaps and bring home heaven knows what fresh plunder from the shipwrecked trunk." "oh, how jolly!" i agreed. "but will mrs. brenswick go?" "mrs. brenswick isn't exactly keen about it," admitted keets. "but she says she'll go. and brenswick himself and miss woltor and allan john--" it was amusing how everybody called allan john "allan john" without title or subterfuge or self-consciousness of any kind. with their arms across each other's shoulders the bride and bridegroom came frolicking by on their way to the foot of the stairs. "oh, miss davies!--miss davies!" they called up teasingly. "are you willing that allan john should go to the cave to-day?" smiling responsively but not one atom teased, the may girl jumped up from her tableful of shells and came out to the edge of the balustrade to consider the matter. "allan john! allan john!" she called. "do you really want to go?" "why, yes," admitted allan john, "if everybody's going." behind the may girl's looming height and loveliness the little squat figure of rollins shadowed suddenly. "miss davies and i are not going," said rollins. "not--going?" questioned the may girl. "not going," chuckled rollins, "unless she walks with me!" he didn't say "arm-in-arm." he didn't need to. that inference was entirely expressed by the absurdly triumphant little glint in his eye. i don't think the may girl intended to laugh. but she did laugh. and all the laugh in the world seemed suddenly "on" rollins. "no--really, people," rallied the may girl, "i'd heaps rather stay here with mr. rollins and work on these perfectly darling shells. one--on one side of the table--and one on the other." "we are going to have lunch up here--in fact," counterchecked that rascally rollins with a blandness that was actually malicious. "there is a magnificent specimen here i notice of 'triton's trumpet'. the pacific islanders i understand use it very successfully for a tea-kettle. and for tea-cups. with the aid of one or two hare's ears which i'm almost sure i've seen in the specimen cabinet----" "'hare's ears'?" gasped the may girl. "it's the name of a shell, my dear,--just the name of a shell," explained rollins with some unctuousness. "very comfortable here we shall be, i am sure!" beamed rollins. "very cosy, very scientific, very ro-romantic, if i may take the liberty of saying so. very----" "oh, shucks!" interrupted george keets quite surprisingly. "if miss davies isn't going there's no good in anybody going!" "thank--you," murmured ann woltor. at the astonishingly new and relaxed timbre of her voice everybody turned suddenly and stared at her. it wasn't at all that she spoke meltingly, but the fact of her speaking meltedly, that gave every one of us that queer little gasp of surprise. still icy cold, but fluid at last, her voice flowed forth as it were for the very first time with some faint suggestion of the real emotion in her mind. "thank you--mr. keets," mocked ann woltor, "for your enthusiasm concerning the rest of us." "oh, i say!" deprecated george keets. "you know what i meant!" his face was crimson. "it--it was only that miss davies was so awfully keen about it all yesterday! everybody, you know, doesn't find it so exhilarating." "no-o?" murmured ann woltor. in the plushy black somberness of her eyes a highlight glinted suddenly. suppressed tears make just that particular kind of glint. so also does suppressed laughter. "i was out in a storm--once," drawled ann woltor, "i found it very--exhilarating." with a flash of rather quizzical perplexity i saw my husband's glance rake hers. wincing just a little she turned back to me with a certain gesture of appeal. "cry one day and laugh another, is it?" she ventured experimentally. "going to the dentist isn't very jolly--you're quite right," interposed the bride. "no, it certainly isn't," sympathized every body. it was perfectly evident that no one in the party except my husband and myself knew just what had happened to the dentistry expedition. and ann woltor wasn't quite sure even yet, i could see, whether i knew or not. the return home the night before had been so late the commotion over allan john's whistle so immediate--the breakfast hour itself such a chaos of nonsense and foolery. certainly there was no object in prolonging her uncertainty. i liked her infinitely too much to worry her. very fortunately also she had a ready eye, the one big compensating gift that fate bestows on all people who have ever been caught off their guard even once by a real trouble. she never muffed any glance i noticed that you wanted her to catch. "oh, i hate to think, ann dear," i smiled, "about there being any tears yesterday. but if tears yesterday really should mean a laugh to-day----" "oh, to-day!" quickened ann woltor. "who can tell about to-day!" "then you really would like to go?" said george keets. across ann woltor's shoulders a little shrug quivered. "why, of course, i'm going!" said ann woltor. "good! famous!" rallied george keets. "now that makes how many of us?" he reckoned. "kennilworth?" "no, let's not bother about kennilworth," said my husband. "you?" queried george keets. "yes, i'm going," acquiesced my husband. "and you, mrs. delville, of course?" "no, i think not," i said. "just the brenswicks then," counted george keets. "and allan john and----" once again, from the railing of the upper landing, the may girl's wistfully mirthful face peered down through that amazing cloud of gold-gray hair. "allan john--allan john!" she called very softly. "i'd like to have you dress warmly--you know! and not get just too absolutely tired out! and be sure and take the whistle," she laughed very resolutely, "and if anybody isn't good to you--you just blow it hard--and i'll come." as befitted the psychic necessities of a very cranky person-with-a-future, young kennilworth was not disturbed for lunch. and rollins, it seemed, was grotesquely genuine in his desire to picnic up-stairs with the may girl and the shells. even the may girl herself rallied with a fluttering sort of excitement to the idea. the shell table fortunately was quite large enough to accommodate both work and play. rollins certainly was beside himself with triumph, and on rollins's particular type of countenance there is no conceivable synonym for the word "triumph" except "ghoulish glee." really it was amazing the way the may girl rallied her gentleness and her patience and her playfulness to the absurd game. she opposed no contrary personality whatsoever even to rollins's most vapid desires. unable as he was either to simulate or stimulate "the light that never was on land or sea," it was rollins's very evident intention apparently to "blue" his lady's eyes and "pink" his lady's cheeks by the narration at least of such sights as "never were on land or sea"! flavored by moonlight, rattling with tropical palms, green as arctic ice, wild as a loon's hoot, science and lies slipped alike from rollins's lips with a facility that even i would scarcely have suspected him of! lands he had never visited--adventures he had never dreamed of cannibals not yet born--babble--babble--_babble_--_babble_! as for the may girl herself, as far as i could observe, not a single sound emanated from her the entire day, except the occasional clank of her hugely over-sized "betrothal ring" against the pom dog's collar, or the little gasping phrase, "oh, no, mr. rollins! not _really_?" that thrilled now and then from her astonished lips, as, elbows on table, chin cupped in hand, she sat staring blue-eyed and bland at her--tormentor. it must have been five o'clock, almost, before the beach party returned. gleaming like a great bunch of storm-drenched jonquils, the six adventurers loomed up cheerfully in the rain-light. once again george keets and the bridegroom were dragging the bride by her hand. ann woltor and my husband followed just behind. allan john walked alone. even young kennilworth came out on the porch to hail them. "hi, there!" called my husband. "hi, there, yourself!" retaliated kennilworth. "oh, we've had a perfectly wonderful day! gasped the bride. "found the cave all right!" triumphed keets. "allan john found a--found an old-fashioned hoop-skirt!" giggled the bride. "the devil he did!" hooted rollins. "but we never found the trunk at all!" scolded the bridegroom. "either we were way off in our calculations or else the sand----" in a sudden gusty flutter of white the may girl came round the corner into the full buffet of the wind. it hadn't occurred to me before just exactly how tired she looked. "why, hello, everybody--" she began, faltered an instant--crumpled up at the waist-line--and slipped down in a white heap of unconsciousness to the floor. it was george keets who reached her first, and gathering her into his long, strong arms, bore her into the house. it was the first time in his life i think that george keets had ever held a woman in his arms. his eyes hardly knew what to make of it. and his tightened lips, quite palpably, didn't like it at all. but after all it was those extraordinarily human shoulders of his that were really doing the carrying? very fortunately though for all concerned the whole scare was over in a minute. ensconced like a queen in the deep pillows of the big library sofa the may girl rallied almost at once to joke about the catastrophe. but she didn't want any supper, i noticed, and dallied behind in her cushions, when the supper-hour came. "you look like a crumpled rose," said the bride. "like a poor crumpled--white rose," supplemented ann woltor. "like a very long-stemmed--poor crumpled--white rose," deprecated the may girl herself. kennilworth brought her a knife and fork, but no smiles. george keets brought her several different varieties of his peculiarly tight-lipped smile, and all the requisite table-silver besides. paul brenswick sent her the cherry from his cocktail and promised her the frosting from his cake. the bride sent her love. ann woltor remembered the table napkin. allan john watched the proceedings without comment. it was rollins who insisted on serving the may girl's supper. "it was his right," he said. more than this he also insisted on gathering up all his own supper on one quite inadequate plate, and trotting back to the library to eat it with the may girl. this also was his right, he said. truly he looked very funny there all huddled up on a low stool by the may girl's side. but at least he showed sense enough now not to babble very much. and once, at least, without reproof i saw him reach up to the may girl's fork and plate and urge some particularly nourishing morsel of food into her languidly astonished mouth. it was just as everybody drifted back from the dining-room into the library that the may girl wriggled her long, silken, childish legs out of the steamer-rug that encompassed her, struggled to her feet, wandered somewhat aimlessly to the piano, fingered the keys for a single indefinite moment and burst ecstatically into song! none of us, except my husband, had heard her sing before. none of us indeed, except my husband and myself, knew even that she could sing. the proof that she could smote suddenly across the ridge of one's spine like the prickle of a mild electric shock. my husband was perfectly right. it was a typical "boy soprano" voice, a chorister's voice--clear as flame--passionless as syrup. as devoid of ritual as the multiplication table it would have made the multiplication table fairly reek with incense and easter lilies! absolutely lacking in everything that the tone sharks call "color"--yet it set your mind a-haunt with all the sad crimson and purple splendors of memorial windows! shadows were back of it! and sorrows! and mysteries! bridals! and deaths! the prattle alike of the very young and the very old! carol! and threnody! and a fearful transiency as of youth itself passing! she sang- "there is a green hill far away without a city wall, where our dear lord was crucified, who died to save us--all." and she sang "from the desert i come to thee, on a stallion shod with fire! and the winds are not more fleet than the wings of my de-sire!" like an innocent pouring kerosene on the flame-of-the-world the young voice soared and swelled to that lovely, limpid word "desire." (in the darkness i saw paul brenswick's hand clutch suddenly out to his mate's. in the darkness i saw george keets switch around suddenly and begin to whisper very fast to allan john.) and then she sang a little nonsense rhyme about "rabbits" which she explained rather shyly she had just made up. "she was very fond of rabbits," she explained. "and of dogs, too--if all the truth were to be told. also cats." "also--shells!" sniffed young kennilworth. "yes, also shells," conceded the may girl without resentment. "ha!" sniffed young kennilworth. "o--h, a--jealous lover, this," deprecated george keets. "really, miss davies," he condoned, "i'm afraid to-morrow is going to be somewhat of a strain on you." "to-morrow?" dimpled the may girl. "ha!--to-morrow!" shrugged young kennilworth. "it was the rabbits," dimpled the may girl, "that i was going to tell you about now. it's a very moral song written specially to deplore the--the thievish habits of the rabbits. but i can't seem to get around to the 'deploring' until the second verse. all the first verse is just scientific description." adorably the young voice lilted into the nonsense-- "oh, the habit of a rabbit is a fact that would amaze from the pinkness of his blinkness and the blandness of his gaze, in a nose that's so a-twinkle like a merri--perri--winkle-- and---" goodness me!--that _voice_!--the babyishness of it!--and the poignancy! should one laugh? or should one cry? clap one's hands? or bolt from the room? i decided to bolt from the room. both my husband and myself thought it would be only right to telephone dr. brawne about the fainting spell. there was a telephone fortunately in my own room. and there is one thing at least very compensatory about telephoning to doctors. if you once succeed in finding them, there is never an undue lag in the conversation itself. "but tell me only just one thing," i besought my husband, "so i won't be talking merely to a voice! this dr. brawne of yours?--is he old or young? fat or thin? jolly? or----?" "he's about fifty," said my husband. "fifty-five perhaps. stoutish rather, i think you'd call him. and jolly. oh, i----" "ting-a-ling--ling--_ling_!" urged the telephone-bell. across a hundred miles of dripping, rain-bejeweled wires, dr. brawne's voice flamed up at last with an almost metallic crispness. "yes?" "this is dr. brawne?" "yes." "this is mrs. delville--jack delville's wife." "yes?" "we just thought we'd call up and report the safe arrival of your ward and tell you how much we are enjoying her!" "yes? i trust she didn't turn up with any more lame, halt, or blind pets than you were able to handle." "oh no--_no_--not--at all!" i hastened to affirm. (certainly it seemed no time to explain about poor allan john.) "but what i really called up to say," i hastened to confide, "is that she fainted this afternoon, and----" "yes?" crisped the clear incisive voice again. "fainted," i repeated. "yes?" "_fainted_!" i fairly shouted. "oh, i hardly think that's anything," murmured dr. brawne. his voice sounded suddenly very far away and muffled as though he were talking through a rather soggy soda biscuit. "she faints very easily. i don't find anything the matter. it's just a temporary instability, i think. she's grown so very fast." "yes, she's tall," i admitted. "everything else all right?" queried the voice. the wires were working better now. "i don't need to ask if she's having a good time," essayed the voice very courteously. "she's always so essentially original in her ways of having a good time--even with strangers--even when she's really feeling rather shy." "oh, she's having a good time, all right," i hastened to assure him. "three perfectly eligible young men all competing for her favor!" "only three?" laughed the voice. "you surprise me!" "and speaking of originality," i rallied instantly to that laugh, "she has invented the most diverting game! she is playing at being-engaged-to-a-different-man--every day of her visit. oh _very_ circumspectly, you understand," i hastened to affirm. "nothing serious at all!" "no, i certainly hope not," mumbled the voice again through some maddeningly soggy connection. "because, you see, i'm rather expecting to marry her myself on the fifteenth of september next." chapter iv sleep is a funny thing! really comical i mean! a magician's trick! "now you have it--and now you don't!" certainly i had very little of it the night of dr. brawne's telephone conversation. i was too surprised. yet staring up through those long wakeful hours into the jetty black heights of my bedroom ceiling it didn't seem to be so much the conversation itself as the perfectly irrelevant events succeeding that conversation that kept hurtling back so into my visual consciousness--the blueness of the may girl's eyes! the brightness of her hair!--rollins's necktie! the perfectly wanton hideousness of rollins's necktie!--the bang--_bang_--_bang_ of a storm-tortured shutter way off in the ell somewhere. step by step, item by item, each detail of events reprinted itself on my mind. fumbling back from the shadowy telephone-stand into the brightly lighted upper hall with the single desire to find my husband and confide to him as expeditiously as possible this news which had so amazed me, i had stumbled instead upon the may girl herself, climbing somewhat listlessly up the stairs toward bed, rollins was close behind her carrying her book and a filmy sky-blue scarf. george keets followed with a pitcher of water. "oh, it isn't good night, dear, is it?" i questioned. "yes," said the may girl. "i'm--pretty tired." she certainly looked it. rollins quite evidently was in despair. he was not to accomplish his 'kiss' after all, it would seem. all the long day, i judged, he had been whipping up his cheeky courage to meet some magic opportunity of the evening. and now, it appeared, there wasn't going to be any evening! even the last precious moment indeed was to be ruined by george keets's perfidious intrusion! it was the bride's voice though that rang down the actual curtain on rollins's "perfect day." "oh, miss davies!--miss davies!" called the bride. "you mustn't forget to return your ring, you know!" "why, no, so i mustn't," rallied the may girl. twice i heard rollins swallow very hard. any antique was sacred to him, but a family antique. oh, ye gods! "k--k--keep the ring!" stammered rollins. it was the nearest point to real heroism surely that funny little rollins would ever attain. "oh, no, indeed," protested the may girl. very definitely she snapped the silken threads, removed the clumsy bauble from her finger, and handed it back to rollins. "but--but it's a beautiful ring!" she hastened chivalrously to assure him. "i'll--i'll keep the orchids!" she assented with real dimples. on rollins's sweating face the symptoms of acute collapse showed suddenly. with a glare that would have annihilated a less robust soul than george keets's he turned and laid bare his horrid secret to an unfeeling public. "i'd rather you kept the _ring_," sweated rollins. "the--the orchids have got to go back!--i only hired the orchids!--that is i--i bribed the gardener. they've got to be back by nine o'clock to-night. for some sort of a--a party." "to-night?" i gasped. "in all this storm f why, what if the may girl had refused to--to----?" in rollins's small, blinking eyes, romance and thrift battled together in terrible combat. "i gotta go back," mumbled rollins. "he's got my watch!" "oh, for goodness sake you mustn't risk losing your watch!" laughed the may girl. george keets didn't laugh. he hooted! i had never heard him hoot before, and ribald as the sound seemed emanating from his distinctly austere lips, the mechanical construction of that hoot was in some way strangely becoming to him. the may girl quite frankly though was afraid he had hurt rollins's feelings. returning swiftly from her bedroom with the lovely exotics bunched cautiously in one hand she turned an extravagantly tender smile on rollins's unhappy face. "just--just one of them," she apologized, "is crushed a little. i know you told me to be awfully careful of them. i'm very sorry. but truly," she smiled, "it's been perfectly wonderful--just to have them for a day! thank you!--thank you a whole lot, i mean! and for the day itself--it's--it's been very--pleasant," she lied gallantly. snatching the orchids almost roughly from her hand rollins gave another glare at george keets and started for his own room. with his fingers on the door-handle he turned and glared back with particular ferocity at the may girl herself. "pleasant?" he scoffed. "_pleasant_?" and crossing the threshold he slammed the door hard behind him. never have i seen anything more boorish! "why--why, how tired he must be," exclaimed the may girl. "tired?" hooted george keets. he was still hooting when he joined the bride and bridegroom in the library. it must have been fifteen minutes later that, returning from an investigation of the banging blind, i ran into rollins stealing surreptitiously to the may girl's door. quite unconsciously, doubtless, but with most rapacious effect, his sparse hair was rumpled in innumerable directions, and the stealthy boy-pirate hunch to his shoulders added the last touch of melodrama to the scene. rollins, as a gay lothario, was certainly a new idea. i could have screamed with joy. but while i debated the ethics of screaming for joy only, the may girl herself, as though in reply to his crafty knock, opened her door and stared frankly down at him with a funny, flushed sort of astonishment. she was in her great boyish blanket-wrapper, with her gauzy gold hair wafting like a bright breeze across her neck and shoulders, and the radiance of her i think would have startled any man. but it knocked the breath out of rollins. "p-p-pleasant!" gasped rollins, quite abruptly. "it was a--a _miracle_!" "--miracle?" puzzled the may girl. "wall-papers!" babbled rollins. "suppose it had been true?" he besought her. "to-day, i mean? our betrothal?" with total unexpectedness he began to flutter a handfull of wall-paper samples under the may girl's astonished nose. "i've got a little flat you know in town," babbled rollins. "just one room and bath. it's pretty dingy. but for a long time now i've been planning to have it all repapered. and if you'd choose the wallpaper for it--it would be pleasant to think of during--during the years!" babbled rollins. "_what_?" puzzled the may girl. then quite suddenly she reached out and took the papers from rollins's hand and bent her lovely head over them in perfectly solemn contemplation. "why--why the pretty gray one with the white gulls and the flash of blue!" she decided almost at once, looked up for an instant, smiled straight into rollins's fatuous eyes, and was gone again behind the impregnable fastness of her closed door, leaving rollins gasping like a fool, his shoulders drooping, his limp hands clutching the sheet of white gulls with all the absurd manner of an amateur prima donna just on the verge of bursting into song! and all of a sudden starting to laugh i found myself crying instead. it was the expression in rollins's eyes, i think. the one "off-guard" expression perhaps of rollins's life! a scorching flame of self-revelation, as it were, that consumed even as it illuminated, leaving only gray ashes and perplexity. not just the look it was of a little-man-almost-old-who-had-never-had-a-chance-to-play. but the look of a little-man-almost-old who sensed suddenly for the first time that he never _would_ have a chance to play! that fate denying him the glint of wealth, the flash of romance, the scar even of tragedy, had stamped him merely with the indelible sign of a person-who-wasn't-meant-to-be-liked! truly i was very glad to steal back into my dark room for a moment before trotting downstairs again to join all those others who were essentially intended for liking and loving, so eminently fitted, whether they refused or accepted it, for the full moral gamut of human experience. on my way down it was only human, of course, to stop in the may girl's room. rollins or no rollins it was the may girl's problem that seemed to me the only really maddening one of the moment. what in creation was life planning to proffer the may girl?--dr. brawne?--dr. brawne?--it wasn't just a question of dr. brawne! but a question of the may girl herself? she was still in her blanket-wrapper when i entered the room, but had hopped into bed, and sat bolt-up-right rocking vaguely, with her knees gathered to her chin in the circle of her slender arms. "what seems to be the matter?" i questioned. "that's what i don't know," she dimpled almost instantly. "but i seem to be worrying about something. "worrying?" i puzzled. "well,--maybe it's about the pom dog," suggested the may girl helpfully. "his mouth is so very--very tiny. do you think he had enough supper?" "oh, i'm sure he had enough supper," i hastened to reassure her. very reflectively she narrowed her eyes to review the further field of her possible worries. "that cat--that your husband said he sent away just before i came for fear i'd bring some--some contradictory animals--are you quite sure that he's got a good home?" she worried. "oh, the best in the world," i said. "a maternity hospital!" "kittens?" brightened the may girl for a single instant only. "oh, you really mean kittens? then surely there's nothing to worry about in that direction!" "nothing but--kittens," i conceded. "then it must be allan john," said the may girl. "his feet! of course, i can't exactly help feeling pretty responsible for allan john. are you sure--are you quite sure, i mean, that he hasn't been sitting round with wet feet all the evening? he isn't exactly the croupy type, of course, but--" with a sudden irrelevant gesture she unclasped her knees, and shot her feet straight out in front of her. "whatever in the world," she cried out, "am i going to do with allan john when it comes time to go home! now gold-fish," she reflected, "in a real emergency,--can always be tucked away in the bath-tub. and once when i brought home a japanese baby," she giggled in spite of herself, "they made me keep it in my own room. but----" "but i've got a worry of my own," i interrupted. "it's about your fainting. it scared me dreadfully. i've just been telephoning to dr. brawne about it." across the may girl's supple body a curious tightness settled suddenly. "you--told--dr. brawne that--i fainted?" she said. "you--you oughtn't to have done that!" it was only too evident that she was displeased. "but we were worried," i repeated. "we had to tell him. we didn't like to take the responsibility." with her childish hands spread flatly as a brace on either side of her she seemed to retreat for a moment into the gold veil of her hair. then very resolutely her face came peering out again. "and just what did dr. brawne--tell _you_?" asked the may girl. "why something very romantic," i admitted. "the somewhat astonishing news, in fact, that you were engaged--to him." "oh, but you know, i'm _not_!" protested the may girl with unmistakable emphasis. "no--no!" "and that he was hoping to be married next september. on the 15th to be perfectly exact," i confided. "well, very likely i _shall_ marry him," admitted the may girl somewhat bafflingly. "but i'm not engaged to him now! oh, i'm much too young to be engaged to him now! why, even my grandmother thinks i'm much too young to be engaged to him now!--why, he's most fifty years old!" she affirmed with widely dilating eyes. "--and i--i've scarcely been off my grandmother's place, you know, until this last winter! but if i'm grown-up enough by september, they say--you see i'll be eighteen and a half by september," she explained painstakingly, "so that's why i wanted to get engaged as much as i could this week!" she interrupted herself with quite merciless irrelevance. "if i've got to be married in september--without ever having been engaged or courted at all--i just thought i'd better go to work and pick up what experience i could--on my own hook!" "dr.--dr. brawne will, of course, make you a very distinguished husband," i stammered, "but are you sure you love him?" "i love everybody!" dimpled the may girl. "yes, dogs, of course," i conceded, "and rabbits--and horses and----" "and kittens," supplemented the may girl. "your mother is--not living?" i asked rather abruptly. "my father is dead," said the may girl. "but my mother is in egypt." her lovely face was suddenly all excitement. "my mother ran away!" "oh! an elopement, you mean?" i laughed. "ran away with your father. youngsters used to do romantic things like that." "ran away _from_ my father," said the may girl. "and from me. it was when i was four years old. none of us have ever seen her since. it was with one of dr. brawne's friends that she ran away. that's one reason, i think, why dr. brawne has always felt so sort of responsible for me." "oh, dear--oh, dear, this is very sad," i winced. "n-o," said the may girl perfectly simply. "maybe it was bad but i'm almost sure it's never been sad. dr. brawne hears from her sometimes. mother's always been very happy, i think. but everybody somehow seems to be in an awful hurry to get me settled." "why?" i asked quite starkly, and could have bitten my tongue out for my impertinence. "why--because i'm so tall, i suppose," said the may girl. "and not so very specially bright. oh, not nearly as bright as i am tall!" she hastened to assure me with her pretty nose all crinkled up for the sheer emphasis of her regret. "life's rather hard, you know, on tall women," she confided sagely. "always trying to take a tuck in them somewhere! mother was tall," she observed; "and father, they say, was always and forever trying to make her look smaller--especially in public! pulling her opinions out from under her! belittling all her great, lovely fancies and ideas! not that he really meant to be hateful, i suppose. but he just couldn't help it. it was just the natural male-instinct i guess of wanting to be the everythinger--himself!" "what do you know of the natural male 'instinct'?" i laughed out in spite of myself. "oh--lots," smiled the may girl. "i have an uncle. and my grandmother always keeps two hired men. and for almost six months now i've been at the art school. and there are twenty-seven boys at the art school. why there's jerry and paul and richard and--and----" "yes, but your father and mother?" i pondered. "just how----?" "oh, it was when they were walking downtown one day past a great big mirror," explained the may girl brightly. "and mother saw that she was getting round-shouldered trying to keep down to father's level--it was then that she ran away! it was then that she began to run away i mean! to run away in her mind! i heard grandmother and dr. brawne talking about it only last summer. but i?" she affirmed with some pride, "oh, i've known about being tall ever since i first had starch enough in my knees to stand up! while i stayed in my crib i don't suppose i noticed it specially. but just as soon as i was big enough to go to school. why, even at the very first," she glowed, "when every other child in the room had failed without the slightest reproach some perfectly idiotic visitor would always pipe up and say, 'now ask that tall child there! the one with the yellow hair!' and everyone would be as vexed as possible because i failed, too! it isn't my head, you know that's tall," protested the may girl with some feeling, "it's just my neck and legs! "you certainly are entrancingly graceful," i smiled. how anybody as inexpressibly lovely as the may girl could be so oblivious of the fact was astonishing! but neither smile nor compliment seemed to allay to the slightest degree the turmoil that was surging in the youngster's mind. "why, even at the art school," she protested, "it's just as bad! especially with the boys! being so tall--and with yellow hair besides--you just can't possibly be as important as you are conspicuous! and yet every individual boy seems obliged to find out for himself just exactly how important you are! but no matter what he finds," she shrugged with a gesture of ultimate despair, "it always ends by everybody getting mad!" "mad?" i questioned. "yes--very mad," said the may girl. "either he's mad because he finds you're not nearly as nice as you are conspicuous, or else, liking you most to death, he simply can't stand it that anyone as nice as he thinks you are is able to outplay him at tennis or--that's why i like animals best--and hurt things!" she interrupted herself with characteristic impetuosity. "animals and hurt things don't care how rangy your arms are as long as they're loving! why if you were as tall as a tree," she argued, "little deserted birds in nests would simply be glad that you could reach them that much sooner! but men? why, even your nice mr. keets," she cried; "even your nice mr. keets, with his fussy old archaeology, couldn't even play at being engaged without talking down--down--down at me! tall as he is, too! and funny little old mr. rollins," she flushed. "little--_little_--old mr. rollins--mr. rollins really liked me, i think, but he--he'd torture me if he thought it would make him feel any burlier! "and claude kennilworth," i questioned. the shiver across the may girl's shoulders looked suddenly more like a thrill than a distaste. "oh, claude kennilworth," she acknowledged quite ingenuously. "he's begun already to try to 'put me in my place'! altogether too independent is what he thinks i am. but what he really means is 'altogether too tall'!" once again the little shiver flashed across her shoulders. "he's so--so awfully temperamental!" she quickened. "goodness knows what fireworks he'll introduce tomorrow! i can hardly wait!" "is--is dr. brawne--tall?" i asked a bit abruptly. "n--o," admitted the may girl. "he's quite short! but--his years are so tall!" she cried out triumphantly. "he's so tall in his attainments! i've thought it all out--oh very--very carefully," she attested. "and if i've got to be married in order to have someone to look out for me i'm almost perfectly positive that dr. brawne will be quite too amused at having so young a wife to bully me very much about anything that goes with the youngness!" "oh--h," i said. "yes,--exactly," mused the may girl. with a heart and an apprehension just about as gray and as heavy as lead i rose and started for the door. "but, may girl?" i besought her in a single almost hysterical desire to rouse her from her innocence and her ignorance. "among all this great array of men and boys that you know--the uncle--yes, even the hired men," i laughed, "and all those blue-smocked boys at the art school--whom do you really like the best?" so far her eyes journeyed off into the distance and back again i thought that she had not heard me. then quite abruptly she answered me. and her voice was all boy-chorister again. "the best?--why, allan john!" she said. taken all in all there were several things said and done that evening that would have kept any normal hostess awake, i think. the third morning dawned even rainier than the second! infinitely rainier than the first! it gave everybody's coming-down-stairs expression a curiously comical twist as though dame nature herself had been caught off-guard somehow in a moment of dishabille that though inexpressibly funny, couldn't exactly be referred to--not among mere casual acquaintances--not so early in the morning, anyway! yet even though everybody rushed at once to the fireplace instead of to the breakfast-table nobody held us responsible for the weather. everyone in fact seemed to make rather an extra effort to assure us that he or she--as the case might be, most distinctly did not hold us responsible. paul brenswick indeed grew almost eloquent telling us about an accident to the weather which he himself had witnessed in a climate as supposedly well-regulated as the climate of south eastern somewhere was supposed to be! ann woltor raked her cheerier memories for the story of a four days' rain-storm which she had experienced once in a very trying visit to her great aunt somebody-or-other on some peculiarly stormbound section of the welsh coast. george keet's chivalrous anxiety to set us at our ease was truly heroic. he even improvised a parody about it: "rain," observed george keets, "makes strange umbrella-mates!" a leak had developed during the night it seemed in the ceiling directly over his bed--and george, the finicky, the fastidious, the silk-pajamered--had been obliged to crawl out and seek shelter with rollins and his flannel night-cap in the next room. and rollins, it appeared, had not proved a particularly genial host. "by the way, where is mr. rollins this morning?" questioned the bride from her frowning survey of the storm-swept beach. "mr. rollins," confided my husband, "has a slight headache this morning." "why, that's too bad," sympathized ann woltor. "no, it isn't a bad one at all," contradicted my husband. "just the very mildest one possible--under the circumstances. it was really very late when he got in again last night. and very wet." from under his casually lowered eyes a single glance of greeting shot out at me. "now, there you are again!" cried george keets. "flirting! you married people! something that anyone else would turn out as mere information,--'the ice man has just left two chunks of ice!' or 'mr. rollins has a headache'!--you go and load up with some mysterious and unfathomable significance! glances pass! your wife flushes!" "mysterious?" shrugged my husband. "unfathomable? why it's clear as crystal. the madam says, 'let there be a headache'--and there _is_ a headache!" as allan john joined the group at the fireplace everybody began talking weather again. from the chuckle of the birch-logs to the splash on the window-pane the little groups shifted and changed. everybody seemed to be waiting for something. on the neglected breakfast table even the gay upstanding hemispheres of grapefruit rolled over on their beds of ice to take another nap. in a great flutter of white and laughter the may girl herself came prancing over the threshold. it wasn't just the fact of being in white that made her look so astonishingly festal; she was almost always in white. not yet the fact of laughter. taken all in all i think she was the most radiantly laughing youngster that i have ever known. but most astonishingly festal she certainly looked, nevertheless. maybe it was the specially new and chic little twist which she had given her hair. maybe it was the absurdly coquettish dab of black court-plaster which she had affixed to one dimply cheek. "oh, if i'm going to be engaged to-day to a real artist," she laughed, "i've certainly got to take some extra pains with my personal appearance. why, i've hardly slept all night," she confided ingenuously, "i was so excited!" "yes, won't it be interesting," whispered the bride to george keets, "to see what mr. kennilworth will really do? he's so awfully temperamental! and so--so inexcusably beautiful. whatever he does is pretty sure to be interesting. now up-stairs--all day yesterday--wouldn't it----?" "yes, wouldn't it be interesting," glowed ann woltor quite unexpectedly, "if he'd made her something really wonderful? something that would last, i mean, after the game was over? even just a toy, something that would outlast time itself. something that even when she was old she could point to and say, 'claude kennilworth made that for me when--we were young'." "why, ann woltor!" i stammered. "do you feel that way about him? does--does he make you feel that way, too!" "i think--he would make--anyone feel that way--too," intercepted allan john quite amazingly. in three days surely it was the only voluntary statement he had made, and everybody turned suddenly to stare at him. but it was only too evident from the persistent haggardness of his expression that he had no slightest intention in the world of pursuing his unexpected volubility. "and it isn't just his good looks either!" resumed the bride as soon as she had recovered from her own astonishment at the interpolation. "oh, something, very different," mused ann woltor. "the queer little sense he gives you of--of wires humming! whether you like him or not that queer little sense of 'wires humming' that all really creative people give you! as though--as though--they were being rather specially re-charged all the time from the main battery!" "the 'main battery,'" puzzled the bridegroom, "being----?" "why god,--of course!" said the bride with a vague sort of surprise. "when women talk mechanics and religion in the same breath," laughed the bridegroom, "it certainly----" "i was talking neither mechanics nor religion," affirmed the bride, with the faintest possible tinge of asperity. "oh, of course, anyone can see," admitted the bridegroom, "that kennilworth is a clever chap." "clever as the deuce!" acquiesced george keets. with an impatient tap of her foot the may girl turned suddenly back from the window. "yes! but where _is_ he?" she laughed. "that's what i say!" cried my husband. "we've waited quite long enough for him!" "dallying up-stairs probably to put a dab of black court-plaster on _his_ cheek!" observed george keets drily. with one accord everybody but the may girl rushed impulsively to the breakfast table. "seems as though--somebody ought to wait," dimpled the may girl. "oh, nonsense!" asserted everybody. a little bit reluctantly she came at last to her place. her face was faintly troubled. "on--on an engagement morning," she persisted, "it certainly seems as though--somebody ought to wait." in the hallway just outside a light step sounded suddenly. it was really astonishing with what an air of real excitement and expectancy everybody glanced up. but the step in the hall proved only the step of a maid. "the young gentleman upstairs sent a message," said the maid. "most particular he was that i give it exact. 'it being so rainy again,' he says, 'and there not being anything specially interesting on the--the docket as far as he knows, he'll stay in bed--thank you.'" for an instant it seemed as though everybody at the table except allan john jerked back from his plate with a knife, fork or spoon, brandished half-way in mid air. there was no jerk left in allan john, i imagine. it was allan john's color that changed. a dull flush of red where once just gray shadows had lain. "so he'll stay in bed, thank you," repeated the maid sing-songishly. "what?" gasped my husband. "w-w-what?" stammered the may girl. "well--of all the--nerve!" muttered paul brenswick. "why--why how extraordinary," murmured ann woltor. "_there's_ your 'artistic temperament' for you, all right!" laughed the bride a bit hectically. "peeved is it because he thought miss davies----?" "don't you think you're just a bit behind the times in your interpretation of the phrase 'artistic temperament'?" interrupted george keets abruptly. "except in special neurasthenic cases it is no longer the fashion i believe to lay bad manners to the artistic temperament itself but rather to the humble environment from which most artistic temperaments are supposed to have sprung." "eh? what's that?" laughed the bride. very deliberately george keets lit a fresh cigarette. "no one person, you know, can have everything," he observed with the thinnest of all his thin-lipped smiles. "three generations of plowing, isn't it, to raise one artist? oh, mr. kennilworth's social eccentricities, i assure you, are due infinitely more to the soil than to the soul." "oh, can your statistics!" implored my husband a bit sharply, "and pass miss davies the sugar!" "and some coffee!" proffered paul brenswick. "and this heavenly cereal!" urged the bride. "oh, now i remember," winced the may girl suddenly. "he said 'she'll wait all right'--but, of course, it does seem just a little--wee bit--f-funny! even if you don't care a--a rap," she struggled heroically through a glint of tears. "even if you don't care a rap--sometimes it's just a little bit hard to say a word like f-funny!" "damned hard," agreed my husband and paul brenswick and george keets all in a single breath. the subsequent conversation fortunately was not limited altogether to expletives. never, i'm sure, have i entertained a more vivacious not to say hilarious company at breakfast. nobody seemed contented just to keep dimples in the may girl's face. everybody insisted upon giggles. the men indeed treated them selves to what is usually described as "wild guffaws." personally i think it was a mistake. it brought rollins down-stairs just as everybody was leaving the table in what had up to that moment been considered perfectly reestablished and invulnerable glee. everybody, of course, except poor allan john. no one naturally would expect any kind of glee from allan john. in the soft pussy-footed flop of his felt slippers none of us heard rollins coming. but i--i saw him! and such a rollins! stripped of the single significant facial expression of his life which i had surprised so unexpectedly in his eyes the night before, rollins would certainly never be anything but just rollins! heavily swathed in his old plaid ulster with a wet towel bound around his brow he loomed cautiously on the scene bearing an empty coffee cup, and from the faintly shadowing delicacy of the parted portieres affirmed with one breath how astonished he was to find us still at breakfast, while with the next he confided equally fatuously, "i thought i heard merry voices!" it was on claude kennilworth's absence, of course, that his maddening little mind fixed itself instantly with unalterable concentration. "what ho! the--engagement?" he demanded abruptly. "there isn't any engagement," said my husband with a somewhat vicious stab at the fire. from his snug, speculative scrutiny of the storm outside, george keets swung round with what quite evidently was intended to be a warning frown. "mr. kennilworth has--defaulted," he murmured. "defaulted!" grinned rollins. then with perfectly unprecedented perspicacity his roving glance snatched up suddenly the unmistakable tremor of the may girl's chin. "oh, what nonsense!" he said. "there are plenty of other eligible men in the party!" "oh, but you see--there are not!" laughed paul brenswick. "mr. delville and i are married--and our wives won't let us." "oh, nonsense!" grinned rollins. once again his roving glance swept the company. everybody saw what was coming, turned hot, turned cold, shut his eyes, opened them again, but was powerless to avert. "why, what's the matter with trying allan john?" grinned rollins. the thing was inexcusable! brutal! blundering! absolutely doltish beyond even rollins's established methods of doltishness. but at last when everybody turned inadvertently to scan poor allan john's face--there was no allan john to be scanned. somewhere through a door or a window--somehow between one blink of the eye and another--allan john had slipped from the room. "why--why, mr. rollins!" gasped everybody all at once. "whatever in the world were you thinking of?" "maybe--maybe--he didn't hear it--after all!" rallied the bride with the first real ray of hope. "maybe he just saw it coming," suggested the bridegroom. "and dodged in the nick of time," said george keets. "to save not only himself but ourselves," frowned my husband, "from an almost irretrievable awkwardness. "why just the minute before it happened," deprecated ann woltor, "i was thinking suddenly how much better he looked, how his color had improved,--why his cheeks looked almost red." "yes, the top of his cheeks," said the may girl, "were really quite red." her own cheeks at the moment were distinctly pale. "where do you suppose he's gone to?" she questioned. "don't you think that--p'raps--somebody ought to go and find him?" "oh, for heaven's sake leave him alone!" cried paul brenswick. "leave him alone," acquiesced all the other men. in the moment's nervous reaction and letdown that ensued it was really a relief to hear george keets cry out, with such poignant amazement from his stand at the window: "why what in the world is that red-roof out on the rocks?" he cried. in the same impulse both my husband and myself ran quickly to his side. "oh, that's all right!" laughed my husband. "i thought maybe it had blown off or something. why, that's just the 'bungalow on the rocks,'" he explained. "my husband's study and work-room," i exemplified. "'forbidden-ground' is its real name! nobody is ever allowed to go there without an invitation from--himself!" "why--but it wasn't there yesterday!" asserted george keets. "oh, yes, it was!" laughed my husband. "it was not!" said george keets. the sheer unexpected primitiveness of the contradiction delighted us so that neither of us took the slightest offense. "oh, i beg your pardon, of course," george keets recovered himself almost in an instant--"that right here before our eyes--that same vivid scarlet roof was looming there yesterday against the gray rocks and sea--and none of us saw it?" "saw what?" called paul brenswick. "where?" and came striding to the window. "gad!" said paul brenswick. "victoria! come here, quick!" he called. with frank curiosity the bride joined the group. "why of all things!" she laughed. "why it never in the world was there yesterday!" a trifle self-consciously ann woltor joined the group. "bungalow?" she questioned. "a bungalow out on the rocks." her face did certainly look just a little bit queer. anyone who wanted to, was perfectly free of course, to interpret the look as one of incredulity. "no, of course not! miss woltor agrees with me perfectly," triumphed george keets. "it was not there yesterday!" "oh, but it must have been!" dimpled the may girl. "if mr. and mrs. delville say so! it's their bungalow!" "it--was--not there--yesterday," puzzled george keets. more than having his honor at stake he spoke suddenly as though he thought it was his reason that was being threatened. with her cheeks quite rosy again the may girl began to clap her hands. her eyes were sparkling with excitement. "oh, i don't care whether it was there yesterday or not!" she triumphed. "it's there to-day! let's go and explore it! and if it's magic, so much the better! oh, loo--loo--look!" she cried as a great roar and surge of billows broke on the rocks all around the little red roof and churned the whole sky-line into a chaos of foam. "oh, come--_come_!" she besought everybody. "oh, but, my dear!" i explained, "how would you get there? no row-boat could live in that sea! and by way of the rocky ledge there's no possible path except at the lowest tide! and besides," i reminded her, "it's named 'forbidden ground', you know! no body is supposed to go there without----" with all the impulsiveness of an irresponsible baby the may girl dashed across the room and threw her arms round my neck. "why, you old dear," she laughed, "don't you know that that's just the reason why i want to explore it! i want to know why it's 'forbidden ground'! oh, surely--surely," she coaxed, "even if it is a work-room, there couldn't be any real sin in just prying a little?" "no, of course, no real sin," i laughed back at her earnestness. "just an indiscretion!" quite abruptly the may girl relaxed her hug, and narrowed her lovely eyes dreamily to some personal introspection. "i've--never yet--committed a real indiscretion," she confided with apparent regret. "well, pray don't begin," laughed george keets in spite of himself, "by trying to explore something that isn't there." "and don't you and keets," flared paul brenswick quite unexpectedly, "by denying the existence of something that is there!" "well, if it is there to-day," argued george keets, "it certainly wasn't there yesterday!" "well, if it wasn't there yesterday, it is at least there to-day!" argued paul brenswick. "rollins! hi there--rollins!" they both called as though in a single breath. from his humble seat on the top stair to which he had wisely retreated at his first inkling of having so grossly outraged public opinion, rollins's reply came wafting some what hopefully back. "h--h--iii," rallied rollins. "that red roof on the rocks--" shouted paul brenswick. "was it there--yesterday?" demanded george keets. "wait!" cackled rollins. "wait till i go look!" a felt footstep thudded. a window opened. the felt footstep thudded again. "no," called rollins. "now that i come to think of it--i don't remember having noticed a red roof there yesterday." "now!" laughed george keets. "but, oh, i say!" gasped rollins, in what seemed to be very sudden and altogether indisputable confusion. "why--why it must have been there! because that's the shack where we've catalogued the shells every year--for the last seven years!" "now!" laughed paul brenswick. without another word everybody made a bolt for the hat-rack and the big oak settle, snatched up his or her oil-skin clothes--anybody's oil-skin clothes--and dashed off through the rain to the edge of the cliff to investigate the phenomenon at closer range. truly the thing was almost too easy to be really righteous! just a huge rock-colored tarpaulin stripped at will from a red-tiled roof and behold, mystery looms on an otherwise drab-colored day! and a mystery at a houseparty? well--whoever may stand proven as the mother of invention--_curiosity_, you know just as well as i do, is the father of a great many very sprightly little adventures! within ten minutes from the proscenium box of our big bay-window, my husband and i could easily discern the absurd little plot and counterplots that were already being hatched. it was the bride and george keets who seemed to be thinking, pointing, gesticulating, in the only perfect harmony. even at this distance, and swathed as they were in hastily adjusted oil-skins, a curiously academic sort of dignity stamped their every movement. nothing but sheer intellectual determination to prove that their minds were normal would ever tempt either one of them to violate a host's "no trespass" sign! nothing academic about paul brenswick's figure! with one yellow elbow crooked to shield the rain from his eyes he stood estimating so many probable feet of this, so many probable feet of that. he was an engineer! perspectives were his playthings! and if there was any new trick about perspectives that he didn't know--he was going to solve it now no matter what it cost either him or anybody else! more like a young colt than anything else, like a young colt running for its pasture-bars, the may girl dashed vainly up and down the edge of the cliff. nothing academic, nothing of an engineer--about any young colt! if the may girl reached "the bungalow on the rocks" it would be just because she wanted to! ann woltor's reaction was the only one that really puzzled me. drawn back a little from the others, sheltered transiently from the wind by a great jagged spur of gray rock but with her sombre face turned almost eagerly to the rain, she stood there watching with a perfectly inexplainable interest the long white blossomy curve of foam and spray which marked the darkly submerged ledge of rock that connected the red-tiled bungalow with the beach just below her. ann woltor certainly was no prankish child. neither was it to be supposed that any particular problem of perspective had flecked her mind into the slightest uneasiness. ann woltor knew that the bungalow was there! had spent at least nine hours in it on the previous day! lunched in it! supped in it! proved its inherent prosiness! yet even i was puzzled as she crept out from the shelter of her big boulder to the very edge of the cliff, and leaned away out still staring, always at that wave-tormented ledge. from the hyacinth-scented shadows just behind me i heard a sudden little laugh. "i'll wager you a new mink muff," said my husband quite abruptly, "that ann woltor gets there first!" chapter v in this annual _rainy week_ drama of ours, one of the very best parts i "double" in, is with the chambermaid, making beds! once having warned my guests of this occasional domestic necessity, i ought, i suppose, to feel absolutely relieved of any embarrassing sense of intrusion incidental to the task. but there is always, somehow, such an unwarrantable sense of spiritual rather than material intimacy connected with the sight of a just deserted guest-room. particularly so, i think, in a sea-shore guest-room. a beach makes such big babies of us all! country-house hostesses have never mentioned it as far as i can remember. mountains evidently do not recover for us that particular kind of lost rapture. nor even green pine woods revive the innocent lusts of the little. but in a sea-shore guest-room, every fresh morning of the world, as long as time lasts, you will find on bureau-top desk or table, mixed up with chiffons and rouges, crowding the tennis rackets or base balls, blurring the open sophisticate page of the latest french novel, that dear, absurd, ever-increasing little hoard of childish treasures! the round, shining pebbles, the fluted clam shell, the wopse of dried sea-weed, a feather perhaps from a gull's wing! things common as time itself, repetitive as sand! yet irresistibly covetable! how do you explain it? who in the world, for instance, would expect to find a cunningly contrived toy-boat on rollins's bureau with two star-fish listed as the only passengers! or paul brenswick's candle thrust into a copperas-tinted knot of water-logged cedar? in the snug confines of a small cigar box on a lovely dank bed of maroon and gray sea-weed victoria brenswick had nested her treasure-trove. certainly the quaint garnet necklace could hardly have found a more romantic and ship-wrecky sort of a setting. even allan john had started a little procession of sand-dollars across his mantelpiece. but there was no silver whistle figuring as the band, i noticed. what would victoria brenswick have said, i wondered, what would allan john have thought if they had even so much as dreamed that these precious "ship-wreck treasures" of theirs had been purchased brand new in boston town within a week and "planted" most carefully by my husband with all those other pseudo mysteries in the old trunk in the sand? but goodness me, one's got to "start" something on the first day of even the most ordinary house-party! with so much to watch outside the window, figures still moving eagerly up and down the edge of the cliff, and so much to think about inside, all the little personal whims and fancies betrayed by the various hoards, the bed-making industry i'm afraid was somewhat slighted on this particular morning. was my husband still standing at that down-stairs window, i wondered, speculating about that bungalow on the rocks even as i stood at the window just above him speculating on the same subject? why did he think that ann woltor would be the one to get there first? what had ann woltor left there the day before that made her specially anxious to get there first? truly this _rainy week_ experiment develops some rather unique puzzles. maybe if i tried, i thought, i could add a little puzzle of my own invention! just for sheer restiveness i turned and made another round of the guest-rooms. now that i remembered it there was a bit more sand oozing from the bride's necklace box to the mahogany bureau-top than was really necessary. the rest of the morning passed without special interest. but the luncheon hour developed a most extraordinary interest in the principles of physical geography which beginning with all sorts of valuable observations concerning the weight of the atmosphere or the conformation of mountains or the law of tides, ended invariably with the one direct question: "at just what hour this evening, for instance, will the tide be low again?" my husband was almost beside himself with concealed delight. "oh, but you don't think for a moment, do you--" i implored him in a single whisper of privacy snatched behind the refilling of the coffee urn. "you don't think for a moment that anybody would be rash enough to try and make the trip in the big dory?" "well--hardly," laughed my husband. "if you'd seen where i've hidden the oars!" the oars apparently were not the only things hidden at the moment from mortal ken. claude kennilworth and ego still persisted quite brutally in withholding their charms from us. rollins had retreated to the sacristy of his own room to complete his convalescence. and even allan john seemed to have wandered for the time being beyond the call of either voice or luncheon bell. allan john's deflection worried the may girl a little i think, but not unduly. it didn't worry the men at all. "when a chap wants to be alone he wants to be alone!" explained paul brenswick with unassailable conciseness. "it's a darned good sign," agreed my husband, "that he's ready to be alone! it's the first time, isn't it?" "yes, that's all right, of course," conceded the may girl amiably, "if you're quite sure that he was dressed right for it." "maybe a hike on the beach at just this moment, whether he's dressed right for it or not," asserted george keets, "is just the one thing the poor devil needs to sweep the last cobweb out of his brain." "i agree with you perfectly," said victoria brenswick. it was really astonishing in a single morning how many things george keets and the bride had discovered that they agreed on perfectly. it teased the bridegroom a little i think. but anyone could have seen that it actually puzzled the bride. and women, when they are puzzled, i've noticed, are pretty apt to insist upon tracing the puzzle to its source. so that when george keets suggested a further exploration of the dunes as the most plausible diversion for the afternoon, it wouldn't have surprised me at all if victoria brenswick had not only acquiesced in the suggestion for herself and her bridegroom but exacted its immediate fulfillment. she did not, however. quite peremptorily, in fact, she announced instead her own and her bridegroom's unalterable intent to remain at home in the big warm library by the apple-wood fire. it was the may girl who insisted on forging forth alone with george keets into the storm. "why, i shall perish," dimpled the may girl, "if i don't get some more exercise to-day!--weather like this--why--why it's so glorious!" she thrilled. "so maddeningly glorious!--i--i wish i was a seagull so i could breast right off into the foam and blast of it! i wish--i wish----!" but what page is long enough to record the wishes of eighteen? my husband evidently had no wish in the world except to pursue the cataloging of shells in rollins's crafty company. ann woltor confessed quite frankly that her whole human interest in the afternoon centred solely on the matter of sleep. hyacinths, of course, are my own unfailing diversion. tracking me just a little bit self-consciously to my hyacinth lair, the bride seemed rather inclined to dally a moment, i noticed, before returning to her bridegroom and the library fire. her eyes were very interesting. what bride's are not? particularly that bride whose intellect parallels even her emotions. "maybe," she essayed quite abruptly, "maybe it was a trifle funny of me not to tramp this afternoon. but the bridge-building work begins again next week, you know. it's pretty strenuous, everybody says. men come home very tired from it. not specially sociable. so i just made up my mind," she said, in a voice that though playfully lowered was yet rather curiously intense. "so i just made up my mind that i would stay at home this afternoon and get acquainted with my husband." half-proud, half-shamed, her puzzled eyes lifted to mine. "because it's dawned on me very suddenly," she laughed, "that i don't know my husband's opinion on one solitary subject in the world except--just me!" with a rather amusing little flush she stooped down and smothered her face in a pot of blue hyacinths. "oh--hyacinths!" she murmured. "and may rain! the smell of them! will i ever forget the fragrance of this week--while time lasts?" but the eyes that lifted to mine again were still puzzled. "now--that mr. keets," she faltered. "why in just an hour or two this morning, why in just the little time that luncheon takes, i know his religion and his mother's first name. i know his philosophies, and just why he adores buskin and disagrees with bernard shaw. i know where he usually stays when he's in amsterdam and just what hotel we both like best in paris. why i know even where he buys his boots, and why. and i buy mine at the same place and for just exactly the same reason. but my husband." quite in spite of herself a little laugh slipped from her lips. "why--i don't even know how my husband votes!" she gasped. in some magic, excitative flash of memory her breath began to quicken. "it--it was at college, you know, that we met--paul and i," she explained. "at a dance the night before my graduation." once again her face flamed like a rose. "why, we were engaged, you know, within a week! and then paul went to china!--oh, of course, we wrote," she said, "and almost every day, too. but----" "but lovers, of course, don't write a great deal about buying boots," i acquiesced, "nor even so specially much about buskin nor even their mothers." in the square of the library doorway a man's figure loomed a bit suddenly. "vic! aren't you ever coming?" fretted her impatient bridegroom. like a homing bird she turned and sped to her mate! yet an hour later, when i passed the library door, i saw paul brenswick lying fast asleep in the depth of his big leather chair. fire wasted--books neglected--chance itself forgotten or ignored! but the bride was nowhere to be seen. i was quite right though when i thought that i should find her in her room. just as i expected, too, she was standing by the window staring somewhat blankly out at the dunes. but the eyes that she lifted to me this time were not merely puzzled--they were suffering. if paul brenswick could have seen his beloved at this moment and even so much as hoped that there was a god, he would have gone down on his knees then and there and prayed that for love's sake the very real shock which he had just given her would end in laughter rather than tears. yet her speech, when it came at last, was perfectly casual. "he--he wouldn't talk," she said. "couldn't, you mean!" i contradicted her quite sharply. "husbands can't, you know! marriage seems to do something queer to their vocal chords." "your husband talks," smiled the bride very faintly. "oh--beautifully," i admitted. "but not to me! it doesn't seem to be quite compatible with established romance somehow, this talking business, between husbands and wives." "romance?" rallied the bride. "would you call mr. delville ex--exactly romantic!" "oh--very!" i boasted. "but not conversationally." "but i wanted to talk," said the bride, very slowly. "why, of course, you did, you dear darling!" i cried out impulsively. "most brides do! you wanted to discuss and decide in about thirty minutes every imaginable issue that is yet to develop in all the long glad years you hope to have together! the friends you are going to build. why you haven't even glimpsed a child's picture in a magazine, this the first week of your marriage, without staying awake half the night to wonder what your children's children's names will be." "how do you know?" asked the bride, a bit incisively. "because once i was a bride myself," i said. "but this paul of yours," i insisted. "this paul of yours, you see, hasn't finished wondering yet about just you----!" "for heaven's sake," called my own husband through the half open doorway, "what's all this pow-wow about?" "about husbands," i answered, quite frankly. "an argument in fact as to whether taken all in all a husband is ever very specially amusing to talk to." "amusing to talk to?" hooted my husband. "never! the most that any poor husband can hope for is to prove amusing to talk about!" "who said paul?" called that young person himself from the further shadows of the hallway. "no one has," i laughed, "for as much as two minutes." a trifle flushed from his nap, and most becomingly dishevelled as to hair, the bridegroom stepped into the light. i heard his bride give a little sharp catch of her breath. "i--i think i must have been asleep," said the bridegroom. twice the bride swallowed very hard before she spoke. "i--i think you must have, you rascal!" she said. it was a real victory! really my husband and i would have been banged in the door if we hadn't jumped out as fast as we did! george keets and the may girl came in from their walk just before supper. judging from their personal appearances it had at least been a long walk if not a serene one. george keets indeed seemed quite unnecessarily intent in the vestibule on taking the may girl to task for what he evidently considered her somewhat careless method of storing away her afternoon's accumulation of pebble and shell. every accent of his voice, every carefully enunciated syllable reminded me only too absurdly of what the may girl had confided to me about "boys always trying to make her feel small." he was urging her now, i inferred, to stop and sort out her specimens according to some careful cotton-batting plan which he suggested. "whatever is worth doing at all, you know, miss davies," he said, "is worth doing well." the may girl's voice sounded very tired, not irritable, but very tired. "oh, if there's anything in the world that i hate," i heard her cry out, "it's that proverb! what people really mean by it," she protested, "is, 'whatever's worth doing at all is worth doing _swell_.' and it isn't either! i tell you i like simple things best! all i ever want to do with my shells tonight is just to chuck 'em behind the door!" truly if claude kennilworth hadn't turned up for supper all in white flannels and looking like a young god, i don't know just what i should have done. everybody seemed either so tired or so distrait. the tide would be low at ten o'clock. it was eight when we sat down to supper. ann woltor i'm sure never took her eyes from the clock. but to be perfectly frank everybody else at the table except the may girl seemed to be diverting such attention as he or she retained to the personal appearance of claude kennilworth. truly it wasn't right that anyone who had been so hateful all day long should be able to look so perfectly glorious in the evening. "where did you get the suit?" said rollins. "is it your own?" "and the permanent wave?" questioned the bride. "i think you and the ocean must patronize the same hair dresser." "dark men always do look so fine in white flannels," whispered ann woltor to my husband. "personally," beamed paul brenswick, "you look to me like a person who had imported his own turkish bath." "turkish?" scoffed george keets. "nobody works up a shine like that by being washed only in one language! russian, too, it must be! flemish----" "flemish are rabbits," observed the may girl gravely. but even with this observation she did not lift her eyes from her plate. whether she was consciously and determmingly ignoring claude kennilworth's only too palpable efforts to impress her with the fact that now at last he was ready to forgive her and subjugate her, or whether she really hadn't noticed him, i couldn't quite make out. and then quite suddenly at the end of her first course she put down her knife and fork and folded her hands in her lap. "where is allan john?" she demanded. "why, yes, that's so! where is allan john!" questioned everybody all at once. "some walk he's taking," reflected paul brenswick. "not too long i hope," worried my husband very faintly. "hang it all, i do like that lad," acknowledged george keets. "who wouldn't?" said young kennilworth. "yes, but why?" demanded keets. "it's his eyes," said the bride. "eyes nothing!" scoffed young kennilworth. "it's the way he came out of his fuss without fussing! to make a fool of yourself but never a fuss--that's my idea of a fellow being a good sport!" "it was his tragedy that i was thinking of," said george keets very quietly. "yes, where in the world," questioned my husband with quite unwonted emotion, "would you have found another chap in the same harrowing circumstances, even among your own friends, i mean, a chum, a pal, who could have dropped in here the way he has, without putting a damper on everything? not intentionally, of course, but just in the inevitable human nature of things. but i don't get the slightest sense somehow of allan john being a damper!" "'damper?'" said the bride. "why he's like a sick man basking in the sun. hasn't a word to say himself, not a single prance in his own feet. but i'd as soon think of shutting out the sun from a sick man as shutting out a laugh from allan john. why, allan john needs us!" attested the bride, "and allan john knows that he needs us!" with a sideways glance at the vacant chair george keets's thin lips parted into a really sweet smile. "where in creation is the boy!" he insisted. "frankly i think we rather need him." "all of which being the case," conceded my husband, "it behooves me even once more, i should say, to tell allan john that the next time he speaks about moving on i shall hide his clothes. certainly i haven't trusted him yet with even a quarter. he's so extraordinarily fussy about thinking that he ought to clear out." it was just at that moment that the telephone rang. i decided to answer it myself, for some reason, from the instrument upstairs in my own room, rather than from the library. a minute's delay, and i held the transmitter to my lips. "yes," i called. "is this mrs. jack delville?" queried the voice. "yes. who's speaking?" "it's allan john," said the voice. "why, allan john!" i laughed. "of course it would be you! we were just speaking about you, and that's always the funny way that things happen. but wherever in the world are you? we'd begun to worry a bit!" "i'm in town," said allan john. "in town," i cried. "town! how did you get there?" in allan john's voice suddenly it was as though tone itself was fashion. "that's what i want to tell you," said allan john. "i've done a horrid thing, a regular kid college-boy sort of thing. i've taken something from your house, that silver salt cellar you know that i forgot to give back, and left it with a man in the village as security for the price of a railroad ticket to town, and a telegram to my brother and this phone message. i didn't have a cent you know. but the instant i hear from my brother----" "why, you silly!" i cried. "why didn't you speak to my husband?" "oh, your husband," said allan john, just a bit drily, "would have given me the whole house. but he wouldn't let me leave it! and it was quite time i was leaving," the voice quickened sharply. "i had to leave some time you know. and all of a sudden i--i had to leave at once! rollins, you know! his break about the little girl. after young kennilworth's cubbishness i simply couldn't put another slight on that lovely little girl. but--" his voice was all gray and again spent, like ashes. "but i just couldn't play," he said. "not that!" "why of course you couldn't play," i cried. "nobody expected you to! rollins is a--a horror!" "oh, rollins is all right enough," said allan john. "it's life that is the horror." "yes, but allan john--!" i parried. "you people have been angels to me," he interrupted me sharply. "i shall never forget it. nor the lovely little girl. i'm going back to montana to see how my ranch looks. i can't talk now. not to anybody. for god's sake don't call anybody. but if i get straightened out again, ever, you'll hear from me. and if i don't----" "but, allan john," i protested. "everybody will be desolated, your going off like this! why, you're not even equipped in the simplest way! not a single bit of baggage! not a personal possession!" across the buzzing wires it seemed suddenly as though i could actually hear allan john making one last really desperate effort to smile. "i've got my little silver whistle," said allan john. as though in confirmation of the fact he lifted the silver bauble to his lips and blew a single flutey note across the sixty miles. "goodbye!" he said. before i had fairly dropped the receiver back into its place, the may girl was at my elbow. her lovely childish eyes were strangely alert, her radiant head cocked ever so slightly to one side as though she held a shell to her listening ear. but there was no shell in her hand. "what was that?" cried the may girl. "i thought i heard allan john's whistle!" chapter vi were you ever in a theatre, right in the middle of a play, on the very verge of an act that you were really quite curious about, and just as the curtain started to go up it was suddenly yanked down again instead, and a woman behind the scenes screamed--oh, horridly, and a man came rushing out in front of the curtain waving his arms and trying to tell everybody something, but everybody all of a sudden was so busy screaming for himself that even god, i think, couldn't have made you hear just what the trouble was? it isn't a pleasant thing to have happen. but that is almost exactly what happened to our _rainy week_ play on this the fourth night of events just as i was waiting for the curtain to rise on the most carefully staged scene which we had prepared, the scene designated as "_the bungalow on the rocks_." and the woman who screamed was the may girl. and the man who came rushing back to try and explain was rollins. and the may girl it proved was screaming because she was drowning! and if it hadn't been for the silly little pom dog that claude kennilworth had been silly enough to bring way from new york "for a week's outing at the sea shore" just to please the extraordinarily silly girl who occupied the studio next to his, the may girl would have drowned! it makes one feel almost afraid to move, somehow, or even not to move, for that matter, afraid to be silly indeed, or even not to be silly, lest it foil or foul in some bungling way the plot of life which the biggest dramatist of all had really intended. it was ann woltor who gave the only adequate explanation. everybody had at least pretended that night the unalterable intention of going to bed early. claude kennilworth of course having absented himself from the breakfast table didn't know anything about the bungalow discussion. but pique alone at the may girl's persistent yet totally unexcited rebuff of his patronage had retired him earlier than anyone to the seclusion of his own room. and rollins's unhappy propensity of always and forever butting into other people's plans had been most efficiently thwarted, as far as we could see, by dragging him upstairs and slamming his nose into a brand new and very profusely illustrated tome on the subject of "the violet snail." by half past ten, ann woltor confessed she had found the whole lower part of the house apparently deserted. for the same reason, best known even yet only to herself, she was still very anxious it appeared to get to the bungalow before any of her house-companions should have forestalled her. the trip, i judged, had not proved unduly hard. by the aid of a pocket flashlight she had made the descent of the cliff without accident, and after a single confusion where a blind trail ended in the water discovered the jagged path that twisted along the ledge to the very door of the bungalow. once in the bungalow she had dallied only long enough to search out by the aid of the flashlight the particular object or objects which she had come for. startled by a little sound, the sound of a man humming a little french tune that she hadn't heard for fifteen years, she had grabbed up her treasure, whatever it was, and bolted precipitously for the house, not knowing she had sprung the trap of our concealed phonograph when she opened the door. even once back in the safe precincts of the house, however, she was further startled and completely upset by running into the may girl. the may girl was on the stairs, it seemed, just coming down. and she didn't look "quite right," ann woltor admitted. that is, she looked almost as though she was walking in her sleep, or a bit dazed, a bit bewildered, and certainly, dressed as she was, just a filmy night-gown with her warm blanket wrapper merely lashed across her shoulders by its sleeves, her pretty feet bare, her gauzy hair floating like an aura all around her, it certainly wasn't to be supposed that she was just starting off on a prankish endeavor to solve the bungalow mystery. even her eyes looked unreal to ann woltor. even her voice, when she spoke, sounded more than a little bit queer. "i--i thought i heard allan john whistle" she said. "i--i promised, you know, that if he ever needed me i'd come." ann woltor nearly collapsed. "nonsense!" she explained. "allan john is in town! don't you remember? he telephoned while we were at supper. mrs. delville delivered his messages and good-byes to us." "why, yes, of course!" roused the may girl, almost instantly. "how silly!--i guess i must have been asleep! and just dreamed it!" "why, of course, you were asleep and just dreamed it." ann woltor assured her. "you're asleep now! get back to bed before you catch your death of cold! or before anybody sees you!" ann woltor, on the verge of hysterics herself, quite naturally was not at all anxious that those dazed, bewildered eyes should clear suddenly and with inevitable questioning upon her own distinctly drenched and most wind-blown and generally dishevelled appearance. a single little shove of the shoulders had proved enough to herd the may girl back to her bed-room while she herself had escaped undetected to her own quarters. but the may girl had _not_ been satisfied, it appeared, with ann woltor's assurances concerning allan john. an hour or more later, roused once again to a still somewhat dazed but now unalterable conviction that allan john had whistled, and fully equipped this time to combat whatever opposition or weather she might meet, she crept from the house out into the storm with the little pom dog sniffing at her heels. just what happened afterwards nobody knows. just how it happened or exactly when it happened, nobody can even guess. maybe it was the brilliantly lighted bungalow my husband had fixed for the setting of the "bunga low scene" just after ann woltor's surreptitious visit that incited her. maybe to a mind already stricken with feverishness the rising tide did suck through the bungalow rocks with a sound that faintly suggested a rather specially agonized sort of whistle. who can say? the fact remains that to all intents and purposes she seemed to have ignored the ledge that even yet, in spite of its drenching spray, would have been perfectly safe for another half hour at least, and plunged forth down the blind trail, off the rocks into the water below. resolutely she refused to cry for help. perhaps the shock of the cold water chilled the cry in her throat. she grasped the slippery seaweed clinging to the rocks--moaning a little--crying a little--the pitiful struggle setting the pom dog nearly crazy. how long she clung there she couldn't tell. she was mauled and bruised by the threshing waves. still some complex inhibition prevented her crying out for help. ages passed, her bruised arms and numb fingers refused to hold the grip on the elusive seaweed forever and she eventually let go her hold. a receding wave took her and tossed her poor exhausted body still struggling against another ledge of rock well out of reach from shore. then, for the first time, the may girl seemed to realize fully her peril--and she shrieked for help. ann woltor, rousing sluggishly from her sleep, heard the black pom dog barking furiously on the beach. reluctant at first to leave her snug bed it must have been several minutes at least before sheer curiosity and irritation drove her to get up and peer from the window. out of that murky blackness of course not a single outline of the little dog met her sight. just that incessant yap-yap-yap-yap of a tiny creature almost frenzied with excitement. but what really smote ann woltor's startled vision, and for the first time, was the flare of lights, which made the bungalow seem as if ablaze. and as she stared aghast into that flare of light which seemed to point so accusingly at her across the intervening waters, she either sensed or saw the may girl's unmistakable head and shoulders banging into the single craggy rock that still jutted up from the depths saw an arm reach out heard that one blood-curdling scream! rollins must have thought she was mad! dragging him from his bed, with her arms around his neck, her lips crushed to his ear,--even then she could hardly articulate or make a sound louder than a whisper. rollins fortunately did not lose his voice. rollins bellowed. rushing out into the hall just as he was, pajamas, nightcap and all, rollins lifted his voice like a baying hound. in a moment all hands were on deck. my husband rushed for the dory--george keets with him, paul brenswick, kennilworth, rollins! the women huddled on the beach. "hold on! hold on!" we shouted into space. "just a minute more!--just one minute more!" we might just as well have shouted into a saw-dust pile.--the wind took the words and rammed them down our throats again till we sickened and choked! young kennilworth came running. he was still in his white flannels. he looked like a ghost. "there's been some hitch about the oars!" he cried. "is she still there?" in the flare of our lantern light i turned suddenly and stared at him. he looked so queer. in a moment so awful, it seemed almost incredible that any human face could have summoned so much ego into it. from those gay, pleasure-roaming feet, it must have come hurtling suddenly--that expression! from those facile self-assured finger tips that were already coaxing the secrets of line and form from the creator!--from that lusty, hot-blooded young heart that was even now accumulating its "pasts!"--from the arrogant, brilliant young brain that knew only too well that it had a "future!"--and even as i watched, young kennilworth stripped the white flannels from his body. and the pleasure. and the triumph. and all the little pasts. and all the one big future. and he who had come so presumptuously to us to make an infinitesimal bronze replica of the sea--went forth very humbly from us to make a man-sized model of sacrifice. for an instant only as he steadied for the plunge a flash of the old mockery crossed his face. "of course i'm stronger than the ocean," he called back. "but if it shouldn't prove so--don't forget my old man's birthday!" ann woltor fainted as his slim body struck the waves. hours passed--ages, aeons--before the dory reached them! yet my husband says that it way only minutes. by the merciful providence of darkness we were at least spared some of the visual stages of that struggle. minutes or aeons--there were not even seconds to spare, it proved by the time help actually arrived. claude kennilworth had a broken arm, but was at least conscious. the may girl looked as though she would never be conscious again. against the ghastly pallor of her skin the brutal bruises loomed like love's last offering of violets. the flexible finger-tips had clawed themselves to pulp and blood. the village doctor came on the wings of the wind! we telephoned dr. brawne, but he was away on a business trip somewhere and could not be located! the rest of the night went by like a brand-new battle for life, but in the full glare of lamp-light this time! by breakfast-time, if one can compute hours so on a morning when nobody eats, claude kennilworth was almost himself again. but the may girl's vitality failed utterly to rally. white as the linen that encompassed her she lay in that dreadful stupor among her pillows. only once she roused herself to any attempt at speech and even then her words were almost inaudible. "allan john," she struggled to say. "was trying--to find him." "has she had any shock before this!" puzzled the doctor. "any recent calamity? any special threat of impending illness?" "she fainted day before yesterday," was all the information anybody could proffer. "she is subject to fainting spells, it seems. last night miss woltor thought she looked a little bit dazed as though with a touch of fever." "we've got to rouse her some way," said the doctor. "oh, if we could only find allan john," cried the bride. "allan john--and his whistle," she supplemented with almost shamefaced playfulness. my husband and george keets tore off to town in the little car! they raked the streets, the hotels, the telegraph offices, the railroad station, god knows what before they found him. but they did find him. that's all that really matters! it was ten o'clock at night before they all reached home again. allan john asked only one question as he crossed the threshold. his forehead was puckered with perplexity. "is--everybody--in the world going to die?" he said. they took him directly to the may girl's room and put him down in a chair just opposite her bed, with the whistle in his hands. "spring and youth and the pipes of pan!" but such a sorry pan! all the youth that was left in him seemed to have been wrung out anew by this latest horror. in the grayness of him, the hopelessness, the pain, he might have been fifty, sixty, himself, instead of the scant twenty-eight or thirty years that he doubtless was. a little bit shakily he lifted the whistle to his lips. "not that i put a great deal of credence in it," admitted the doctor. "but if you say it was a sound--a signal that she had been waiting for----" softly allan john fluted the silver note. a little shiver--a struggle, passed across the figure on the bed. "again!" prompted the doctor. once more allan john lifted the whistle to his lips. the may girl opened her eyes and struggled vainly to raise herself on her elbow. when she saw allan john a vague sort of astonishment flushed across her face and an odd apologetic little laugh slipped weakly from her lips. "i--i came just as soon as i could, allan john," she said, and sinking back into her pillows began quite unexpectedly to cry. it was the doctor himself who sat by her side and wiped her tears away. ann woltor shared the watches with me through the rest of the night. allan john never left the room. towards dawn i sent even ann woltor to her sleep and allan john and i met the new day alone. by the time it was really light the may girl, weak as she was, seemed to have recovered a certain amount of talkativeness. recognizing thoroughly the presence and activity of both my hands and my feet, she seemed to ignore entirely the existence of either my eyes or my ears. her puzzled wonderments were directed at allan john alone. "allan john--allan john," i heard her call softly. "yes," said allan john. "it's a lie," said the may girl, "what people say about drowning, that as you go down you remember every little teeny weeny thing that has ever happened to you in your life! all your past, i mean! all the dreadful--wicked things that you've ever done! oh, it's an awful lie!" "is it?" said allan john. "yes, it certainly is;" attested the may girl. "why, i never even remembered the day i bit my grandmother." "n--o," shivered allan john. "no, indeed!" insisted the may girl. "the only things that i thought of were the things i had planned to do!--the--the--plans that were drowning with me! one of them," she flushed suddenly, "one of the plans i mean i didn't seem to care at all when i saw it go down and the plan about going to europe some time. oh, i don't think that suffered so terribly. but the farm. the farm i was planning to have. the cows. the horses. the dogs. the chickens. the rabbits. why, allan john, i counted seventeen rabbits!" very softly to herself she began to cry again. "s--s--h. s--s--h," cautioned allan john. "things that have never happened you know can't die." "of that," reflected the may girl through her tears, "i am--not so perfectly sure. is--is it going to clear up?" she asked quite irrelevantly. "oh, yes, _surely_!" rallied allan john. he would have told her it was christmas i think if he had really thought that that was what she wanted him to say. very expeditiously instead he began to shine up the silver whistle with the corner of his handkerchief. with an almost amusing solemnity the may girl lay and watched the proceeding. under the heavy fringe of her lashes her eyes looked very shy. then so gently, so childishly, that even allan john didn't wince till it was all over, she asked him the question that no other person in the world probably could have asked him at that moment, and lived. "allan john," she asked, "do you suppose that you will ever marry again?" "oh, my god, no!" gasped allan john. "men--do," mused the may girl. "men do," conceded allan john. with the sweat starting on his brow he jumped up and strode to the window. from the window he turned back slowly with a curious look of perplexity on his face. "why--do you ask--that?" he said. "oh, i don't know!" said the may girl. "i was just wondering," she sighed. "wondering what?" said allan john. "wondering," mused the may girl, "if you would ever want to marry me." for a moment allan john did not seem to understand--for a moment he gazed aghast at the may girl's impassive face. "why--child," he stammered. "why honey-dear," i intercepted wildly. it was the strangest wooing i ever saw or dreamed of. the wooing by a person who didn't even know she was wooing--of a person who didn't even know he was being wooed. "well--all right--perhaps it doesn't matter," said the may girl. "i was only thinking how sad it would be--if allan john ever did need me for his wife and i was already married to somebody else." when the doctor came at noon he reported with eminent satisfaction a decided improvement in both his patients. claude kennilworth, contrary to one's natural expectations, was proving himself an ideal patient despite his painful injury which he steadfastly refused to acknowledge. even the may girl's more subtle and mystifying complications seemed to have cleared up most astonishingly, he felt, since his previous visit. "oh, she's coming out all right," he assured us. "fresh air, plenty of range, freedom from all emotional concern or distress," were the key-notes of his advice. "she's only a baby, grown woman-sized in an all too brief eighteen years," he averred. words, phrases, judgments, rioted only too confusedly through my mind that was already so inordinately perplexed with the whole chaotic situation. as i said "good-bye," and turned back from the front door, i was surprised to see both my husband and ann woltor standing close beside me. the constrained expressions on their faces startled me. "you heard what the doctor said," i exclaimed. "you heard his exact words--'great big overgrown baby,' he said. 'ought to be turned out to play in a sand-pile for at least two years more.' just a baby," i protested, "and she'll be tending her own babies before the two years are over! they are planning to marry her in september you know to a man old enough to be her grandfather--almost. to doctor brawne," i stormed! "to whom?" gasped ann woltor. her face was suddenly livid. "to whom?" a horrid chill went through me. "what's doctor brawne to you?" i asked. "it's time you told her," interposed my husband, quietly. "what is doctor brawne to you!" i demanded. "doctor brawne? nothing!" cried ann woltor. "but the girl--the girl is my girl--my own little girl--my own big little girl." "what!" i gasped. "what!" as though my knees had turned to straw i sank into the nearest chair. with the curious exultancy of a long strain finally relaxed, i saw ann woltor's immobile face flame suddenly with amusement. "did you think i was talking just weather with your husband all that first harrowing day and evening? in the car? in the bungalow? oh, no--not weather!" she exclaimed. "not even just the 'may girl,' as you call her, but--everything! your husband discovered it that first morning in the car," she annotated hurriedly. "i dropped my watch. it had a picture in it. a picture of may taken last year. dr. brawne sent it to me." "yes, but dr. brawne?" i puzzled. "oh, i knew that may was to be married," she frowned. "and to a man a good deal older than herself. dr. brawne wrote me that. but what he quite neglected to mention,--" once again the frown deepened, "was that the old man was himself. i like dr. brawne. he is a very brilliant man. but i certainly do not approve of him as my daughter's husband. there are reasons. one need not go into them now," she acknowledged. "at least they do not specially concern his age. my daughter would hardly be happy with a boy i think. boys do not usually like simplicity. it takes a mature man to appreciate simplicity." "yes, but the discovery?" i fretted. "your own discovery?--just when?" "in the train of course, coming down that first night!" cried ann woltor. "i thought i should go mad. i thought at every station i would jump off. and then rollins's bungling remark the next day about my tooth gave me the chance, as i supposed, to get away. except for that awkward accident to my watch i should have gotten away. your husband implored me for my own sake, for everyone's sake, to stop and consider. there was so much to consider. i had all my proofs with me, my letters, my papers, my marriage certificate. we went to the bungalow. we thrashed it all out. i was still mad to get away. i had no other wish in the world except to get away! your husband persuaded me that my duty was here--to watch my girl--to get acquainted with my girl--before i even so much as attempted meeting my other problems. i was very rattled. i left my broken watch in the bungalow! the picture was still in it! that's why i went back! i wasn't sure eyen then that i would disclose my identity even to my daughter! for that reason alone i made your husband promise that he would not betray my secret even to you. if i decided to tell all right. but i wished no such decision forced upon me!" "oh, ann, ann dear," i cried, "don't tell me any more, you've suffered enough. just rollins's bungling alone--the impudence of him----!" "rollins?--rollins?" intercepted that pestiferous gentleman's voice suddenly. "do i hear my name bandied by festive voices?" in another moment the pest himself stood beside us. my husband is by no means a swearing man, but i distinctly heard from his unwonted lips at that moment a muttered blasphemy that would make a stevedore blush for shame. despite all her terrible stress and strain ann woltor smiled--actually smiled. my husband gasped. the cause of that gasp was only too evident. once again we saw rollins's ominous gaze fixed with unalterable intent on ann woltor's face. what was meant to be an ingratiating smile quickened suddenly in his eyes. "truly, miss woltor," he said, "_tell me_, why don't you get it fixed!" for an instant i thought ann woltor would scream. for an instant i thought ann woltor would faint, then quicker than chain lighting, right there before our eyes we saw her make her great decision. it was as though her brain was glass and we could see its every working. "all right," said ann woltor, very quietly. "all right--you--damn fool--i _will_ tell you! i will tell everybody!" for the first time in his life i saw rollins stagger! but rollins could not remain prostrate even under such a rebuff as this. "why--er--thank you--thank you very much," he rallied with his first returning breath. "shall i--shall i call the others?" "by all means, call them quickly," said ann woltor. "oh, ann!" i protested. "i mean it," she said. her face was strangely quiet. "the time has come--i've made up my mind at last." from the door of the porch we heard rollins's piping voice. "mr. brenswick! mr. keets! kennilworth! allan john!--come on! miss woltor's going to tell us a story!" with vaguely responsive interest, the people came trooping in. "a story?" brightened the bride. "oh, lovely--what is it about?" "the story of my broken tooth," said ann woltor, very trenchantly, "told by request--mr. rollins's request," she added. with a single comprehensive glance at my tortured face--at my husband's--at ann woltor's, claude kennilworth turned sharply on his heel and started to leave the room. "what, don't you want to hear the story?" piped rollins. "no, not by a damn sight," snapped kennilworth. "but i want you to hear it," said ann woltor, still in that deadly quiet but absolutely firm voice. george keets's lips were drawn suddenly to a mere thin white line. "one has no desire to intrude, miss woltor," he protested. "it is no intrusion," said aim woltor. for a single hesitating moment her sombre eyes swept the waiting group. then, without further break or pause, she plunged into her narrative. "i am the may girl's mother," she said. "i ran away from the may girl's father. i ran away with another man. i don't pretend to explain it. i don't pretend to condone it. this is not a discussion of ethics but a mere statement of history. all that i insist upon your understanding--is that i ran away from a legalized life of incessant fault-finding and criticism to an unlegalized life of absolute approval and love. "i cannot even admit, after the first big wrench, of course, that i greatly regretted the little child i left behind. mothers are always supposed to regret such things i know, but i was not perhaps a normal mother. i suffered, of course, but it was a suffering that i could stand. i could not stand, it seems, the suffering of living with my child's father. "my husband followed us after a few months, not so much for outraged love, i think, as for vindictiveness. we met in a cafe, the three of us. my husband and my lover were both cool-blooded men. my lover was a quaker who had never yet lifted his hand against any man. the two men started arguing. i came of a hotblooded family. i had never seen men arguing only about a woman before. more than that i was vain. i was foolish. the biggest portrait painter of the hour had chosen me for what he considered would be his masterpiece. i taunted my lover and my husband with the fact that neither of them loved me. john stoltor struck my husband. it was the first blow. my husband made a furious attack on him. i tried to intervene. he struck me instead, with such damage as you note. enraged beyond all sanity at the sight, john stoltor killed him. "even then, so overwrought as i was, so bewildered with my mouth all cut and bleeding, i snatched up a mirror to gauge the extent of my ruin. john stoltor spoke to me--the only harsh words of his life. "your damage can be repaired in an hour," he said--"but his--mine--_never_!" "it was at that moment they took him away--almost fifteen years--it has been. he did not have to pay the extreme penalty. there were extenuating circumstances the judge thought. his time expires next month. i am waiting for him. i have been waiting for fifteen years. at least he will see that i have subjugated my vanity. i swore that i would never mend my damage until i could help him mend his." with a little gesture of fatigue she turned to rollins. "this is the story of the broken tooth," she finished, quite abruptly. "wasn't allan john even listening?" i thought. with everyone else's eyes fairly glued to ann woltor's arresting face, even now, at the supreme climax of her narrative, his eyes seemed focussed far away. instinctively i followed his gaze. at the top of the stairs, her arms holding tight to the banisters for support, sat the may girl! in the almost breathless moment that ensued, rollins swallowed twice only too audibly. "all the same"--insisted rollins hesitatingly, "all the same--i really do think that----" with a little cry that might have meant almost anything, the bride jumped up suddenly and threw her arms around ann woltor's neck. even at twilight time everybody was still discussing the problem of the may girl. certainly there was plenty of problem to discuss. the question of an innocent young girl on the very verge of her young womanhood. the question of a practically unknown mother. the question of a shattered unrelated man coming fresh to them from fifteen years in prison. the question even of dr. brawne. everybody had his or her own impractical or unsatisfactory solution to suggest. everybody, that is, except allan john. allan john as usual had nothing to say. upstairs, in the privacy of her own room, ann woltor and the may girl, without undue emotion, were very evidently threshing out the problem for themselves. yet when they came down and joined us just before supper-time, it was only too evident from their tired faces that they had reached no happier conclusion than ours. george keets and my husband brought the may girl down. claude kennilworth, quite in his old form, save for his splinted arm, superintended the expedition. "it's her being so beastly long," scolded kennilworth, "that makes the job so hard!" in the depths of the big leather chair the may girl didn't look very long to me, but she did look astonishingly frail. with a gesture of despair. ann woltor turned to her companions, as if she had read our thoughts. "there isn't any solution," she said. why all of us turned just then to allan john i don't know, but it became perfectly evident to everyone at that moment that allan john was about to speak. "it seems quite clear to me," said allan john simply. "it seems quite natural to me somehow," he added, "that you should all come home with me to my ranch in montana. the little girl needs it--the big outdoors--the animals--the life she craves. you need it," he said, turning to ann woltor, "the peace of it, the balm of it. but most of all john stoltor will need it when it is time for him to come. far from prying eyes, safe from intrusive questionings, that certainly will be the perfect chance for you all to plan out your new lives together. how much it would mean to me not to have to go back alone i need not say." startled at his insight, compelled by his sincerity, ann woltor saw order dawn suddenly out of the chaos of her emotions. from her frankly quivering lips a single protest wavered. "but allan john," she cried, "you've only known us four days." across allan john's haggard face flickered the faintest possible suggestion of a smile. "i was a stranger--and you took me in." with the weirdest possible sense of supernatural benediction, the dark room flooded suddenly with light. from the window, just beyond me, i heard my husband's astonished exclamation: "look, mary," he cried, "come quickly." at an instant i was at his side. across the murky western sky the tumultuous storm-clouds had broken suddenly into silver and gold. in a blaze of glory the setting sun fairly streamed into our faces. struggling up from the depths of her chair to view it--even the may girl's pallid cheeks caught up their share of the radiance. "oh, allan john," she laughed, "just see what you have done--you've shined up all the world." with a curiously significant expression on his face my husband leaned toward me quickly. "ring down the curtain, quick," he whispered. "the play's done--_rainy week_ is over." transcriber's note: text in italics is enclosed between underscores (_italics_). text in bold face is enclosed between equal signs (=bold=). talkers: with illustrations. by john bate, author of "cyclopædia of illustrations of moral and religious truths," etc., etc. "sacred interpreter of human thought, how few respect or use thee as they ought."--cowper. london: elliot stock, 62, paternoster row, e.c.; and sold at 66, paternoster row. 1878. hazell, watson, and viney, printers, london and aylesbury. preface. the power to talk, like every other natural power of man, is designed for profit and pleasure; but in the absence of wisdom in its government, it fails to fulfil either. the revelations of human life in the past show that the improper employment of this power has brought upon individuals, families, churches, and empires some of their most grievous evils. the revelations of human life in the present show that this power is still unwisely used, and the cause of similar lamentations and woes. every man in his own circle, to go no farther, may learn the sad effects following the abuse of the faculty of speech. that member of the body, when "set on fire of hell" (and how often is this!) what conflagrations it brings about wherever its sparks and flames are spread! as a lucifer match in the hands of a madman, when struck, may be the occasion of blowing up castles or burning down cities, so the tongue may "set on fire the course of nature." not only are talkers the cause of evils on such a large scale, but of evils which, while not so distinguished, are still evils--annoyances that mar the happiness and disturb the peace of individuals and societies--thorns in the flesh--contagion in the atmosphere, which, if they do not create disease, cause fear and alarm. any one, therefore, who contributes to the lessening of these evils, does a beneficent work, and deserves the patronage and co-operation of all lovers of his species. the prominence given to the use and abuse of the power of speech, in the scriptures, at once shows the importance of the subject. the connection between talkers and christianity teaches that this book belongs as much to christianity in its interests as to ethics in its interests. if in any of the illustrations there may seem to be an excess of colouring, the reader is at liberty to modify them in his own mind as much as he may desire; only let him not forget that "fact is stranger than fiction," and that what may not have come within the range of his experience, others may be familiar with. it may be that the style in which some of the characters appear will not please the taste of every one. it would be a wonder of wonders if it did. taste in respect to style in writing differs, perhaps, as much as taste in respect to style in dress. by the bye, one likes dr. johnson's idea of dress, which is, that a man or a woman, in her sphere, should wear nothing which is calculated to attract more attention and observation than the person who wears it. this is the author's idea of style in writing; whether he has embodied it in the following pages others must judge. his aim has been to show the _character_ more than the _dress_ in which it appears. if in two or three instances a similarity of character should be observed, let it be remembered that it is in talkers in society as in pictures in an album, in general features they are alike, but in particular expression each one is distinctly himself and not another. should it be thought that the number of talkers might have been reduced, the answer is, that difficulty has been experienced in keeping them within the number given. one after another has risen in such rapidity, that a selection has only been made. some have not been admitted which claimed sympathy and patronage among the rest. the author has not purposely introduced any talker whose faults were unavoidable through defect of nature or providential circumstances. the faults described are such as have been acquired; such as might have been escaped; such as each is responsible for. let not the reader imagine that because the writer has dealt so freely with the faults of talking in others, he thinks himself perfect in this art. far from it. did he know the writer as well as the writer knows himself, he would perhaps have little difficulty in recognizing him as one of the number whom he describes. it may be observed by some that three or four illustrations have been used which have already appeared in print, the authorship of which could not be ascertained. it is hoped that this book will find its way chiefly into the hands of young talkers. the old are so _fixed_ and _established_ in their way of talk, that, however their faults may be shown, they will not be likely to reform. it is seldom that a tongue which has been accustomed to talk for many years in a certain way can be changed to talk in an opposite one. there may be modifications of the evil, but few real cures. but in the case of young folk it is different. they, being somewhat pliable in that member of the body, may, by seeing the fault portrayed in others, so dislike it as not to fall into it, and covet earnestly the more "excellent way" of speech. "but might you not have effected your purpose better by presenting examples of talkers without fault? would not old and young more readily have been corrected and improved?" this might have been done, but for two simple obstacles in the way. first, the impossibility of finding the talkers without fault; and then, the almost certain fact that no one would have imitated them, had they been found. the defects of talkers are noticed with greater quickness of perception than their excellencies, and more is often learned from the former than from the latter. cato says that "wise men learn more from fools than fools from wise men." montaigne tells us that "pausanias, an ancient player on the lyre, used to make his scholars go to hear one that lived near him, and played ill, that they might learn to hate discords." he says again of himself, "a clownish way of speaking does more to refine mine than the most elegant. every day the foolish countenance of another is advertising and advising me. profiting little by good examples, i make use of them that are ill, which are everywhere to be found. i endeavour to render myself as agreeable as i see others fickle; as affable as i see others rough; and as good as i see others evil." should such use be made of the faults of talkers as montaigne would doubtless have made, much good may be expected to arise from their study. when it is remembered that scripture affirms the man who offends not in word is a "perfect man," the author feels that he has aimed at a laudable object in writing this book. should there only _one_ perfect man arise in society through his effort, he flatters himself that a work will have been done which thousands of books have failed to accomplish. but, on the other hand, should _every_ reader lay aside his book not a "perfect man," he will only fulfil the words of the same scripture, which say, "the tongue can no man tame." "then if the tongue _cannot_ be tamed, why attempt the task?" the answer to this is: a little evil is better than a big one; and a tongue partially tamed is better than a tongue altogether wild. therefore, while the author has no expectation of taming any man's tongue _altogether_, he has the hope of taming a great many a _little_, and, in the aggregate, of doing something towards elevating the talking civilization of the nineteenth century. "will you have a little tongue?" asked a lady of a gentleman one day at the dinner-table. "i will, ma'am, if it is cured," was the answer. alas! tongue will be at immense discount in the world if it is not received until it is "cured." one must be content to take it as near "cured" as it can be obtained. not only must there be mutual efforts to cure one another's, but each must try to cure his _own_. and now, reader, the author asks you to peruse his book, and to make the best use you can of it; and he suggests, _when you have done this, be careful that you do not so talk about it as to illustrate some one or more of the characters within it_. j. b. _november_, 1877. contents. page i. the monopolist 1 ii. the false humourist 18 iii. the flatterer 22 iv. the brawler 35 v. the mischief-maker 38 vi. the pleonast 55 vii. the self-disparager 62 viii. the common swearer 71 ix. the affected 85 x. the stultiloquist 94 xi. the slanderer 101 xii. the valetudinarian 111 xiii. the whisperer 119 xiv. the hyperbolist 124 xv. the inquisitive 133 xvi. the pedant 142 xvii. the detractor 154 xviii. the grumbler 164 xix. the egotist 174 xx. the tale-bearer 189 xxi. the assenter 203 xxii. the liar 208 xxiii. the censorious 227 xxiv. the dogmatist 236 xxv. the altiloquent 244 xxvi. the double-tongued 253 xxvii. the dubious 262 xxviii. the suspicious 266 xxix. the poetic 273 xxx. "yes" and "no" 279 xxxi. a group of talkers 286 1. the misanthrope, p. 286.--2. the story-teller, p. 287.--3. the careless, p. 290.--4. the equivocator, p. 292.--5. the absent-minded, p. 294.--6. the bustling, p. 296.--7. the contradictory, p. 298.--8. the technicalist, p. 300.--9. the liliputian, p. 301.--10. the envious, p. 302.--11. the secret-teller, p. 302.--12. the snubber, p. 303.--13. the argumentative, p. 306.--14. the religious, p. 310.--15. the prejudiced, p. 312.--16. the boaster, p. 314.--17. the quarrelsome, p. 316.--18. the profound, p. 317.--19. the wonderer, p. 320.--20. the termagant, p. 325. xxxii. a model talker 328 i. _the monopolist._ "gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing: more than any man in venice; his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search."--shakespeare. the monopolist enters into conversation with plenitude of speech enough to make one think he has obtained a royal patent to do so. he talks without much regard to what he says, or how he says it. give him your attention in the least degree, and he will show no lack of will or power to surfeit you. it is not because he has anything to say worth your hearing that he keeps up his talk, but only from his strange love of talking. his conversation consists mainly in the exercise of his tongue, as the faculties of his mind are generally dormant in proportion as that works. he talks so much that you need do nothing but listen. he seldom asks questions, and if he does, he cannot tarry for answers. while one is speaking he either breaks in upon his discourse, heedless of what he is saying; or he employs himself in gathering words to commence talking again. and scarcely has the speaker finished his utterance ere he begins and goes on at a rate that taxes both the ears and patience of his listener. at the festive board he is not content to do one thing at a time. he fills his mouth with food for his stomach, and with windy words for the company; which two acts done at the same time prevent necessary mastication, and produce a temporary collision of the contrary elements in his guttural organs. monopolist is a talker with whom i am somewhat acquainted. i have on different occasions met with him, and am, therefore, prepared to speak of him as i have found him. some fifteen or sixteen years ago, as my memory serves, in the middle of a severe winter, i met this gentleman as i was going to see a friend about some business of pressing importance. i told him my business required haste, and he must excuse me stopping just then. but taking me by the hand, he held on until he was fairly on the track of talking. what he talked about i cannot remember, though i am pretty sure there was very little connection or sense in what he said. he spoke in such a rapid manner that all i could say was "yes," "no," "ah," "eh," "indeed," "is it possible?" and some of these, too, only half uttered because of the rapid flow of his words in my ears. i did try once to make a remark in response to a question he hurriedly asked; but i had scarcely spoken three syllables (being slow of speech as i am) when he began at an express rate to tell a story of a friend of his, in which i felt no more interest than the man in the moon. i remember how i shivered with cold; shuffled to keep myself warm, and made frequent attempts to leave him, while with one hand he held the button of my coat, and with the other wiped the perspiration from his brow. i finally took advantage of a suspense while replacing his handkerchief; so abruptly wishing him "good-bye," i went on my way, leaving him to resume his discourse to himself. how long he stood talking after i left him he never told me. one morning, not long ago, when in a studious mood upon a subject i was anxious to complete, my wife informed me a certain gentleman had called to see me. on entering the room, i saw, to my inner sorrow, the very identical person who, above all others, i cared the least to see at that time. had he possessed a grain of ordinary discernment, which the monopolist does not, he would have seen from my manner i was little inclined to give him even a courteous reception, not to say a long interview. in fact i gave him several broad hints i was very busy, and could ill spare much time in his company. but what did he care for hints? he had commenced his talking journey, and must go through with it; so away he went in his usual style, talking about everything in general and nothing in particular, until he had out-talked the morning hours, and allayed my mental afflatus by the vocal effusions of his inane, twaddling loquacity. he then took a lingering departure, bid me "good-bye, hoping that he had not intruded upon my duties of the morning." alas! about a year or so after the incident referred to above, i invited a few select friends to spend an evening at my house. among the number were the rev. mr. peabody and mrs. peabody, professor jones, of merton college, and mrs. jones, mr. and mrs. hungerford, mr. and mrs. thuckton, with others. i was very pleased with the character of my company, and anticipated considerable pleasure during the evening. mr. peabody, professor jones, and mr. hungerford were gentlemen of more than ordinary attainments, and capable of communicating much varied and interesting intelligence in conversation. the early part of the evening passed in a manner apparently agreeable to all present. but, alas, the happiness was destined to be short-lived! for who should be ushered into the room by the servant but an unexpected caller? i knew him well at first sight. he stepped into the room with his usual display of self-assurance and self-gratulation. after the ceremony of introduction to those who did not know him, he took his seat in the most conspicuous part of the company. i thought to myself, "the pleasure of the evening is now at an end, excepting what he will have in hearing himself talk." i could see in the very expression of his face that he was full-primed, and ready for a long discharge. there was a short pause after he had taken his seat (as there generally is in all company after the introduction of a stranger); but not being accustomed to this sort of thing, he began with a rapid utterance of some common-place observations, which elicited no response, excepting a gentle bend of the head from mr. thuckton, to whom he seemed more particularly to direct his attention. this was enough to assure him what he had said met with approval. he now commenced in good earnest, and went on so fast and so long, one wondered how the effort was sustained by the ordinary vocal powers and breathing functions of a mere mortal. every now and then the thought seemed to cross his mind, "now i have something to say of great importance." at which time he threw his head back, winked with his left eye, cast a significant glance at mr. hungerford, and said, "mark, sir, what i am going to say:" then, bending forward, placed his hands on his knees, and lo the "mountain in labour brought forth a mouse." he had a most singular way of snapping with his thumb and finger, according to the nature of his talk; and when he reached a climax in an argument, or made a statement with emphasis, he brought down his hands with such violence on his knees as to make one fear the consequences. the gentlemen smiled at the snapping and thumping. the ladies were annoyed at his want of decorum and good breeding, and my son, a boy six years old, asked in his innocence, "who in the room is letting off pop-guns?" at this juncture he gave himself a respite, thinking, perhaps, common decency called for it, so that some one else might have a chance of speaking as well as himself. but the fact was he had talked all the talk out of the company, and no one cared to enter on the arena of conversation to be instantly pushed off by his egregious monopoly. he was, however, determined there should be talk, even if he did it all himself. he asked mr. thuckton a question, but before he had time to give an answer, monopolist was half-way through his own views on the subject. he then appealed to mr. hungerford as to the correctness of a certain sentiment he had expressed a moment before, and while mr. hungerford was cautiously replying, he set off in a circuitous route to show he was unquestionably right in what he had affirmed. he proposed a question to professor jones upon a scientific difficulty. the professor began calmly to answer, and all the time he was speaking, i observed monopolist fidgety to go on, and ere he had finished he broke out of his restraint and found relief in hearing himself say his own thoughts on the subject. his conduct was becoming unbearable. i had never seen him in such an objectionable light. i almost wished he had gone to bombay rather than have called at my house that evening. i expected an intellectual "feast of fat things" from my friends, and just as i was in the act of tasting, in came this talker and substituted his fiddle-faddle of saws and stories, which he had repeated, perhaps, a hundred times. we were jaded with his superfluity of loquaciousness, and were not sorry when the time of departure arrived. he was last of the company to retire, and he did so with much self-complacency, doubtless thinking to himself, as he walked home, "how great are my powers of conversation! i have talked more than the rev. peabody; more than professor jones; more than mr. hungerford, or any of the company. they scarcely talked at all. i am surprised they had so little to say. i wonder what they thought of my powers." such probably were the reflections with which he entertained himself after he left my house that evening. the next day i met mr. hungerford, and almost the first thing he said was,-"what is the name of that individual who called upon you last night?" "he is called monopolist." "a very appropriate name indeed; for he is the greatest case of monopoly in conversation i ever met with or heard of. he is insufferable, unpardonable. he did nothing but talk, talk, talk, to the almost absolute exclusion of every one else,- 'he was tedious as a tir'd horse, a railing wife; worse than a smoky chimney.'" "i know him of old, mr. hungerford. i regretted very much his call at that time; but i did hope for once he would restrain himself and keep within the bounds of propriety. but i do think he went beyond anything i have seen of him on any former occasion." "if you are a friend of monopolist," said mr. hungerford, "let me suggest that you give him some suitable advice upon the subject." "it is what he needs," i remarked, "and when i meet with him again i will bear it in mind." some time after this i met professor jones. he had not forgotten monopolist. in course of conversation he said,-"mr. golder, is that gentleman who called at your house the last time i had the pleasure of visiting you yet living?" "yes, sir, he is still living, for anything i know to the contrary." "well, sir, i have thought and spoken of him many times since that evening. he certainly exceeded on that occasion anything i ever heard in talkativeness. i should not like again to endure the torment i suffered after his entrance into the company that night. i do not consider myself very slow of speech; but you know how difficult it was for me to interject even a sentence after he came. and my friend, mr. peabody, with all his intelligence and natural communicativeness, was placed in the same dilemma. neither of us was quick enough to compete with him. everybody, in fact, was crowded out by his incessant talking; and, after all, what did it amount to? 'talking, he knew not why, and car'd not what.'" "i think equally as strong as you do, professor, respecting him, and i am determined the first opportunity i have to lay before him a few counsels, which if he take will be of service to him in the correction of his great fault." my reader must not think the conduct of monopolist, as above described, peculiar to the times and occasions mentioned. i have only spoken of him as he appeared to me. i do not speak for any one else. yet if so disposed i could relate facts heard from others equal to, if not surpassing, those given above. as i have promised to give monopolist a little advice, i will now enter upon my task. i hope he will mortify that talking member of his body for a few moments while i am discharging this necessary duty. after i have done he may speak on to his heart's content, that is, in my absence. * * * * * mr. monopolist,--it is an old maxim that a man has two ears and but one mouth, to teach him that he should hear twice as much as he should talk. this is a very wise maxim, and worthy your serious meditation. you have doubtless heard it before, but not attended to it. would it not be much to your credit in company, and much to the comfort of those with whom you converse, if you allowed this maxim to have its due weight upon your mind? common sense, if such you have, must certainly intimate when you exceed the bounds of propriety in the volume of your talk. how would you like another to impose his talk upon you to the extent you impose your talk upon him? when you talk i have noticed you are so pleased with yourself as to think very little of what you say, or of how people hear. if you talked about fifty or seventy-five per cent. less than you do, you would be welcomed into the circles of society with fifty or seventy-five per cent. greater pleasure than you are. do not imagine, because people _seem_ to listen, therefore they _like_ to hear you talk. it is nothing of the kind. they must at least have a _show_ of good behaviour. were they to forget their manners in being listless, as you do in talking so much, there would be an end to all decorum. (do not be impatient. do be quiet for once.) have you not sometimes seen one or more go to sleep in company while you have been talking? did not that show they were unable to resist the soothing influence of your long-continued and thoughtless words? and have you not sometimes talked upon subjects in such a peculiar and protracted manner that when you have done, your hearers have been so absent-minded that they have not known anything you have said? has not this taught you that you have been a drag upon their mental powers? have they not said in the words of job, "o that you would altogether hold your peace, and it should be your wisdom"? (job xiii. 5.) conversation is a means of mutual interchange of thought and feeling upon subjects which may be introduced. and if the right subject be brought forward, each one could contribute his quota to the general stock. but to do so we must talk _with_ people and not _at_ them. we must be willing to hear as well as to be heard. we must give others credit to know something as well as ourselves. we must remember it is not he who talks most that talks best. one man may give a long, wordy, dry essay on a topic of conversation, and another may speak a sentence of a score words which shall contain far more sense than his long discourse. "words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse, but talking is not always to converse. not more distinct from harmony divine, the constant creaking of a country sign." * * * * * "if in talking from morning till night, a sign of our wisdom it be, the swallows are wiser by right, for they prattle much faster than we." "the talking lion of the evening circle," observes an english writer, "generally plays off his part as obviously to his own satisfaction as to the nausea of the company who forbear to hear him. were he a distinguished and illustrious talker like johnson and coleridge, he might be excused, though in their case they laid too much embargo upon the interchange of thought; but when the mind is an ordinary one, the offence is insufferable, if not unpardonable. those that talk much cannot often talk well. there is generally the least of originality and interest about what they say. it is the dry, old, oft-repeated things which are nearly as well stereotyped upon the minds of the hearers as they are upon their own. and even those who have the gift of talking sensibly as well as loquaciously should remember that few people care to be eclipsed, and that a superiority of sense is as ill to be borne as superiority of fortune." "he that cannot refrain from much speaking," says sir w. raleigh, "is like a city without walls, and less pains in the world a man cannot take, than to hold his tongue; therefore if thou observest this rule in all assemblies thou shalt seldom err; restrain thy choler, hearken much and speak little, for the tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and greatest evil that is done in the world." "as it is the characteristic," says lord chesterfield, "of great wits to say much in few words, so it is of small wits to talk much and say nothing. never hold any one by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them." "the evil of this" (much speaking), says bishop taylor, "is very considerable in the accounts of prudence, and the effects and plaisance of conversation: and the ancients described its evil well by a proverbial expression; for when a sudden silence arose, they said that mercury was entered, meaning that, he being their 'loquax numen,' their 'prating god,' yet that quitted him not, but all men stood upon their guard, and called for aid and rescue, when they were seized upon by so tedious an impertinence. and indeed, there are some persons so full of nothings, that, like the strait sea of pontus, they perpetually empty themselves by their mouth, making every company or single person they fasten on to be their propontis, such a one as was anaximenes, who was an ocean of words, but a drop of understanding." you would do well to study the lesson, _when to talk, and when to be silent_. silence is preferred by the wise and the good to superfluity of talking. you may read strange stories of some of the ancients, choosing silence to talking. st. romualdus maintained a seven years' silence on the syrian mountains. it is said of a religious person in a monastery in brabant, that he did not speak a word in sixteen years. ammona lived with three thousand brethren in such silence as though he was an anchoret. theona was silent for thirty years together. johannes, surnamed silentarius, was silent for forty-seven years. i do not mention these as examples for your imitation, and would not have you become _such_ a recluse. these are cases of an extreme kind,--cases of moroseness and sullenness which neither reason nor scripture justify. "this was," as taylor observes, "to make amends for committing many sins by omitting many duties; and, instead of digging out the offending eye, to pluck out both, that they might neither see the scandal nor the duty; for fear of seeing what they should not, to shut their eyes against all light." the wiser course for you to adopt is the practice of silence for a time, as a discipline for the correction of the fault into which you have fallen. pray as did the psalmist, "put a guard, o lord, unto my mouth, and a door unto my lips." "he did not ask for a wall," as st. gregory remarks, "but for a door, a door that might open and shut." it is said of cicero, he never spake a word which himself would fain have recalled; he spake nothing that repented him. silence will be a cover to your folly, and a disclosure of your wisdom. "keep thy lips with all diligence." "a man that speaketh too much, and museth but little and lightly, wasteth his mind in words, and is counted a fool among men: but thou when thou hast thought, weave charily the web of meditation, and clothe the ideal spirit in the suitable garments of speech." note well the _discretion of silence_. what man ever involved himself in difficulties through silence? who thinks another a fool because he does not talk? keep quiet, and you may be looked upon as a wise man; open your mouth and all may see at once that you are a simpleton. ben jonson, speaking of one who was taken for a man of judgment while he was silent, says, "this man might have been a counsellor of state, till he spoke; but having spoken, not the beadle of the ward." lord lytton tells of a groom who married a rich lady, and was in fear as to how he might be treated by the guests of his new household, on the score of his origin and knowledge: to whom a clergyman gave this advice, "wear a black coat, and hold your tongue." the groom acted on the advice, and was considered a gentlemanly and wise man. the same author speaks of a man of "weighty name," with whom he once met, but of whom he could make nothing in conversation. a few days after, a gentleman spoke to him about this "superior man," when he received for a reply, "well, i don't think much of him. i spent the other day with him, and found him insufferably dull." "indeed," said the gentleman, with surprise; "why, then i see how it is: lord ---has been positively talking to you." this reminds one of the story told of coleridge. he was once sitting at a dinner-table admiring a fellow guest opposite as a wise man, keeping himself in solemn and stately reserve, and resisting all inducements to join in the conversation of the occasion, until there was placed on the table a steaming dish of apple-dumplings, when the first sight of them broke the seal of the wise man's intelligence, exclaiming with enthusiasm, "them be the jockeys for me." gay, in his fables, addressing himself to one of these talkers, says,- "had not thy forward, noisy tongue proclaim'd thee always in the wrong, thou might'st have mingled with the rest, and ne'er thy foolish sense confess'd; but fools, to talking ever prone, are sure to make their follies known." mr. monopolist, can you refrain a little longer while i say a few more words? i have in my possession several recipes for the cure of much talking, that i have gathered in the course of my reading, four of which i will kindly lay before you for consideration. 1. _give yourself to private writing_; and thus pour out by the hand the floods which may drown the head. if the humour for much talking was partly drawn forth in this way, that which remained would be sufficient to drop out from the tongue. 2. in company with your superiors in wisdom, gravity, and circumstances, restrain your unreasonable indulgence of the talking faculty. it is thought this might promote modest and becoming silence on all other occasions. "one of the gods is within," said telemachus; upon occasion of which his father reproved his talking. "be thou silent and say little; let thy soul be in thy hand, and under command; for this is the rite of the gods above." 3. read and ponder the words of solomon, "he that hath knowledge spareth his words; and a man of understanding is of excellent spirit. even a fool when he holdeth his peace is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding" (prov. xvii. 27, 28). also the words of the son of sirach, "be swift to hear, and if thou hast understanding, answer thy neighbour; if not, lay thy hand upon thy mouth. a wise man will hold his tongue till he see opportunity; but a babbler and a fool will regard no time. he that useth many words shall be abhorred; and he that taketh to himself authority therein shall be hated" (ecclesiasticus v. 11-13). "in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin" (prov. x. 19). 4. attend more to business and action. it is thought that a diligent use of the muscles in physical labour may detract from the disposition, time, and power of excessive speech. paul gives a similar suggestion, "and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands as we commanded you" (1 thes. iv. 11). * * * * * with these few words of advice i now leave you, my friend monopolist, hoping they may have their due effect upon your talking faculty, and that when i meet you again in company i shall find you a "new edition, much amended and abridged:" "the half better than the whole." ii. _the false humourist._ "there are more faults in the humour than in the mind."--la rochefoucauld. among the various kinds of talk there is, perhaps, none in which talkers are more liable to fail than in humour. it is that in which most persons like to excel, but which comparatively few attain. it is not the man whose imagination teems with monsters, whose head is filled with extravagant conceptions, that furnishes innocent pleasure by humour. and yet there are those who claim to be humourists, whose humour consists only in wild irregular fancies and distortions of thought. they speak nonsense, and think they are speaking humour. when they have put together a round of absurd, inconsistent ideas, and produce them, they cannot do it without laughing. i have sometimes met with a portion of this class that have endeavoured to gain themselves the reputation of wits and humourists by such monstrous conceits as almost qualified them for bedlam, rather than refined and intelligent society. they did not consider that humour should always lie under the check of reason; and requires the direction of the nicest judgment, by so much the more it indulges in unrestrained freedoms. there is a kind of nature in this sort of conversation, as well as in other; and a certain regularity of thought which must discover the speaker to be a man of sense, at the same time he appears a man given up to caprice. for my part, when i hear the delirious mirth of an unskilful talker, i cannot be so barbarous as to divert myself with it, but am rather apt to pity the man than laugh at anything he speaks. "it is indeed much easier," says addison, "to describe what is not humour than what is; and very difficult to define it otherwise than as cowley has done wit, by negatives. were i to give my own notions of it, i would deliver them after plato's manner, in a kind of allegory--and by supposing humour to be a person, deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the following genealogy. truth was the founder of the family, and the father of good sense. good sense was the father of wit, who married a lady of collateral line called mirth, by whom he had issue, humour. humour, therefore, being the youngest of this illustrious family, and descendant from parents of such different dispositions, is very various and unequal in his temper: sometimes you see him putting on grave looks and a solemn habit, sometimes airy in his behaviour, and fantastic in his dress; inasmuch that at different times he appears as serious as a judge, and as jocular as a merry-andrew. but as he has a great deal of the mother in his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh." in carrying on the allegory farther, he says of the false humourists, "but since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world: to the end that well-meaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, i would desire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage and examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely allied to truth, and lineally descended from good sense; if not, they may conclude him a counterfeit. they may likewise distinguish him by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he seldom gets his company to join with him. for as true humour generally looks serious, while everybody laughs about him; false humour is always laughing, while everybody about him looks serious. i shall only add, if he has not in him a mixture of both parents, that is, if he would pass for the offspring of wit without mirth, or mirth without wit, you may conclude him to be altogether spurious and a cheat. the impostor of whom i am speaking descends originally from falsehood, who was the mother of nonsense, who gave birth to a son called frenzy, who married one of the daughters of folly, commonly known by the name of laughter, from whom came that monstrous infant of which i have been speaking. i shall set down at length the genealogical table of false humour, and, at the same time, place by its side the genealogy of true humour, that the reader may at one view behold their different pedigree and relations:- falsehood. truth. | | nonsense. good sense. | | frenzy--laughter. wit--mirth. | | false humour. humour. i might extend the allegory, by mentioning several of the children of false humour, who are more in number than the sands of the sea, and might in particular enumerate the many sons and daughters of which he is the actual parent. but as this would be a very invidious task, i shall only observe in general that false humour differs from the true, as a monkey does from a man. first of all, he is exceedingly given to little apish tricks and buffooneries. secondly, he so much delights in mimicry, that it is all one to him whether he exposes by it vice and folly, luxury and avarice; or, on the contrary, virtue and wisdom, pain and poverty. thirdly, he is wonderfully unlucky, inasmuch that he will bite the hand that feeds him, and endeavour to ridicule both friends and foes indifferently. for, having but small talents, he must be merry where he can, not where he should. fourthly, being entirely devoid of reason, he pursues no point either of morality or instruction, but is ludicrous only for the sake of being so." iii. _the flatterer._ "who flatters is of all mankind the lowest, save him who courts the flattery." hannah more. the flatterer is a false friend clothed in the garb of a true one. he speaks words from a foul heart through fair lips. his eyes affect to see only beauty and perfection, and his tongue pours out streams of sparkling praises. he is enamoured of your appearance, and your general character commands his admiration. you have no fault which he may correct, or delinquency which he may rebuke. the last time he met you in company, your manners pleased him beyond measure; and though you saw it not, yet _he_ observed how all eyes were brightened by seeing you. if you occupy a position of authority whence you can bestow a favour which he requires, you are "most gracious, powerful, and good." his titles are all in the superlative, and his addresses full of wondering interjections. his object is more to please than to speak the truth. his art is nothing but delightful trickery by means of smoothing words and complacent looks. he would make men fools by teaching them to overrate their abilities. those who walk in the vale of humility amid the modest flowers of virtue and favoured with the presence of the holy one, he would lift into the utopian heights of vanity and pride, that they might fall into the condemnation of the devil. he gathers all good opinions and approving sentiments that he might carry them to his prey, losing nothing in weight and number during their transit. he is one of fame's best friends, helping to furnish her with some of her strongest and richest rumours. but conscience has not a greater adversary; for when it comes forth to do its office in accusation or reproof, he anticipates its work, and bribes her with flattering speech. like the chamelion, he changes his appearance to suit his purpose. he sometimes affects to be nothing but what pleases the object of his admiration, whose virtues he applauds and whose imperfections he pretends it to be an advantage to imitate. when he walks with his friend, he would feign have him believe that every eye looks at him with interest, and every tongue talks of him with praise--that he to whom he deigns to give his respects is graced with peculiar honour. he tells him he knows not his own worth, lest he should be too happy or vain; and when he informs him of the good opinions of others, with a mock-modesty he interrupts himself in the relation, saying he must not say any more lest he be considered to flatter, making his concealment more insinuating than his speech. he approaches with fictitious humility to the creature of his praise, and hangs with rivetted attention upon his lips, as though he spake with the voice of an oracle. he repeats what phrase or sentence may particularly gratify him, and both hands are little enough to bless him in return. sometimes he extols the excellencies of his friend in his absence, but it is in the presence of those who he is pretty certain will convey it to his ears. in company, he sometimes _whispers_ his commendations to the one next him, in such a way that his friend may hear him in the other part of the room. the flatterer is a talker who insinuates himself into every circle; and there are few but are fond of his fair speech and gaudy praise. he conceals himself with such dexterousness that few recognise him in his true character. those with whom he has to do too frequently view him as a friend, and confide in his communications. what door is not open to the man who brings the ceremonious compliments of praise in buttery lips and sugared words--who carries in his hand a bouquet of flowers, and in his face the complacent smile, addressing you in words which feed the craving of vanity, and yet withal _seem_ words of sincere friendship and sound judgment? where is the man who has the moral courage, the self-abnegation to throw back honied encomiums which come with _apparent_ reality, although from a flatterer? "to tell a man that he cannot be flattered is to flatter him most effectually." "honey'd assent, how pleasant art thou to the taste of man, and woman also! flattery direct rarely disgusts. they little know mankind who doubt its operation: 'tis my key, and opes the wicket of the human heart." "the firmest purpose of a human heart to well-tim'd artful flattery may yield." "'tis an old maxim in the schools that flattery's the food of fools; yet now and then your men of wit will condescend to take a bit." the flatterer is a lurking foe, a dangerous friend, a subtle destroyer. "a flattering mouth worketh ruin." "he that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail." "a man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet." the melancholy results of flattery are patent before the world, both on the page of history and in the experience of mankind. how many thousand young men who once stood in the uprightness of virtue are now debased and ruined through the flattery of the "strange woman," so graphically described by solomon in prov. vii., "with her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. he goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life" (vers. 21-23). "she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death" (vers. 26, 27). and as the virtuous young man is thus led into ruin by the flattering tongue of the strange woman; so the virtuous young female is sometimes led into ruin by the flattering tongue of the lurking enemy of beauty and innocence. i cannot give a more striking and pathetic illustration of this than the one portrayed by the incomparable hand of pollok:- "take one example, one of female woe. loved by her father, and a mother's love, in rural peace she lived, so fair, so light of heart, so good and young, that reason scarce the eye could credit, but would doubt, as she did stoop to pull the lily or the rose from morning's dew, if it reality of flesh and blood, or holy vision, saw, in imagery of perfect womanhood. but short her bloom--her happiness was short. one saw her loveliness, and with desire unhallowed, burning, to her ear addressed dishonest words: 'her favour was his life, his heaven; her frown his woe, his night, his death.' with turgid phrase thus wove in flattery's loom, he on her womanish nature won, and age suspicionless, and ruined and forsook: for he a chosen villain was at heart, and capable of deeds that durst not seek repentance. soon her father saw her shame; his heart grew stone; he drove her forth to want and wintry winds, and with a horrid curse pursued her ear, forbidding her return. upon a hoary cliff that watched the sea, her babe was found--dead; on its little cheek, the tear that nature bade it weep had turned an ice-drop, sparkling in the morning beam; and to the turf its helpless hands were frozen: for she, the woeful mother, had gone mad, and laid it down, regardless of its fate and of her own. yet had she many days of sorrow in the world, but never wept. she lived on alms; and carried in her hand some withering stalks, she gathered in the spring; when they asked the cause, she smiled, and said, they were her sisters, and would come and watch her grave when she was dead. she never spoke of her deceiver, father, mother, home, or child, or heaven, or hell, or god; but still in lonely places walked, and ever gazed upon the withered stalks, and talked to them; till wasted to the shadow of her youth, with woe too wide to see beyond--she died; not unatoned for by imputed blood, nor by the spirit that mysterious works, unsanctified. aloud her father cursed that day his guilty pride which would not own a daughter whom the god of heaven and earth was not ashamed to call his own; and he who ruined her read from her holy look, that pierced him with perdition manifold, his sentence, burning with vindictive fire." the flattering talker possesses a power which turned angels into devils, and men into demons--which beguiled pristine innocence and introduced the curse--which has made half the world crazy with self-esteem and self-admiration. a power which has dethroned princes, involved kingdoms, degraded the noble, humbled the great, impoverished the rich, enslaved the free, polluted the pure, robbed the wise man of his wisdom, the strong man of his strength, the good man of his goodness. it is emphatically the power of the destroyer, working havoc, devastation, woe, and death wherever it has sway, spreading disappointment, weeping, lamentation, and broken hearts through the habitations of the children of men. "he is," as an old writer quaintly observes, "the moth of liberal men's coats, the ear-wig of the mighty, the bane of courts, a friend and slave to the trencher, and good for nothing but to be a factor for the devil." * * * * * mr. sharp was a young student of amiable spirit, and promising abilities. soon after he left college he took charge of an important church in the large village of c----, in the county of m----. he had not been long among his people before he won the good-will of all; and his popularity soon extended beyond the pale of his own church. meantime, he did not appear to think of himself more than he ought. he was unassuming in his spirit, and devoted to his work, apparently non-affected by the general favour with which he was received. there was a member of his church whom we shall call mr. thoughtless; a man of good education, respectable intelligence, and in circumstances of moderate wealth. he was in the church an officer of considerable importance and weight. he was, however, given to the use of soft words, and complimentary speeches. in fact, he was a flatterer. he used little or no wisdom in his flattery, but generally poured it forth in fulsome measure upon all whom he regarded his friends. mr. sharp was a particular favourite with him, and he frequently invited him to his house. he did not observe the failing of his host, but considered him a very kind man, sweet-tempered, one of his best friends, the only member of his church from whom he received any encouragement in his ministerial labours. mr. sharp became increasingly attached to him, and passed the greater part of his leisure hours in his company. the fact was, mr. thoughtless did not restrain his expressions of "great satisfaction" and "strong pleasure" in the "character and abilities" of mr. sharp. he was the "best minister ever among them"--"every one admired him"--"what a splendid sermon he preached last sabbath morning"--"the congregations were doubled since he came"--he was "delighted with his general demeanour"--he "really thought his abilities were adequate to a larger church in a city, than theirs in the country"--but he must not be "considered in speaking these things to flatter, for he should be ashamed to say anything to flatter a young minister whom he esteemed so highly," and besides, he "thought him beyond the power of flattery." such were the flattering words which he poured into the undiscerning mind of mr. sharp at different times. not long after this close friendship and these frequent visits, mr. sharp began to manifest a change in his spirit and conduct, which gradually developed into such proportions that some of the church could not help noticing it. "i do not think," said mr. smith--a truly godly man--to mrs. lane--who also was in repute for her piety--one day in conversation, "that our young pastor is so unassuming and devoted as when he first came among us." "is it not all fancy on your part, mr. smith?" asked mrs. lane. "i only hope it may be, but i fear it is true." "in what respects do you think he is changed?" asked mrs. lane. "i do not, somehow or other, observe the same tone of spirituality in his preaching and company as were so obvious during the first part of his sojourn with us." "well, do you know," said mrs. lane, "although i asked whether it was not all fancy on your part, yet i have had my apprehensions and fears, similar to yours. i have never mentioned them to any one before. i have been very grieved to see the change, and have prayed much for him. how do you account for it, mr. smith?" "i can only account for it by the supposition that he has been too much under the influence of mr. thoughtless, who, you know, is a man given to flattery, and who has by this flattery injured other young ministers who have been with us." "it is ten thousand pities," said mrs. lane, "that mr. sharp was not warned of the dangers of his flattery." "it is just here, you know, mrs. lane. mr. thoughtless is a man of such influence in our church, so bland in his way, so fair in his words, so wealthy in his means, that it is little use saying anything to warn against him. besides, i fear that others have been too flattering in their addresses and compliments." mrs. lane replied with evident emotion, "i am jealous of our dear minister. he is in jeopardy. o do let us pray for him, mr. smith, lest the flattering lips prove his ruin?" mrs. lane was right in her fears. in the course of a few months after this brief conversation, mr. sharp had reached a great height of self-importance. he failed in most of the amiable virtues which adorned his early career. he deteriorated in the zeal and spirituality of his preaching. he became florid, self-assured, and self-displaying. he thought his abilities too great for the church at c----. the congregation had declined, and he assigned to himself as a reason, they could not appreciate the high quality of his preaching. he sought a change; and accepted an invitation to a church in the city of b----. in this church he had little acceptance after a few weeks. surrounded as he was by so many popular ministers of other churches, he was unable to maintain his ground. he fell into temptation, and committed sin. he was arraigned before his brethren, tried in the presence of the most satisfactory witnesses, and _expelled from the christian ministry_. this deep degradation was afterwards traced in its origin to the flattering, fawning tongue and conduct of mr. thoughtless. flattery is too frequently indulged in by parents towards their children. how many sons and daughters have been ruined by it would be difficult to say. i will give one case as an illustration. mr. horton was a tradesman in a flourishing business. he looked well after it as a man of the world, and never allowed a "good chance" to escape. he had a son as his first-born. this son was a great favourite with him, for he saw in him the powers which would make a clever man of business. when he first wore jackets, harry proved himself an adept in small trades, bartering his worn out and damaged toys for the better ones of his playmates. "i tell you," said horton one day to a friend of his in the presence of harry, "that is the boy who is good at a bargain." this was the phrase he often used when he wished to pass an eulogium upon his boy as a little tradesman. also in other ways he failed not to set up his son as a paragon in business. made vain by these flatteries, he went on in increasing zeal and craftiness to be "good at a bargain." the flattering words of his father impelled him in all possible ways to make money; so that when grown to manhood he was an adept at sharpness in trade practices. at last, however, he went too far. his cunning, which had grown out of "being good at a bargain," was employed in a fraud, which was discovered and led to his apprehension. when his trial came on, his father was present, anxiously waiting the issue. when the sentence of his guilt was given, and his punishment stated, he covered his face with his hand in deep emotion of paternal grief. he could not look upon his condemned son, whom he had helped to ruin, whom he had started and encouraged in the way which brought him to this end. it was a most distressing scene when the father and son met in the dreary prison cell. each looked at the other with reproach. each blamed the other for the shame and pain brought upon them. "this is a 'bad bargain,' my boy," said the old man, tremulously. "you have ruined us all." "ruined you!" responded the son, in a tone that stung the father to the heart. "who ruined me? i was ruined when you flattered me so in my boyhood, telling me so often how clever i was and good at a bargain, instead of checking me: when you praised my trickery instead of punishing it. had you then kept back those words of parental flattery and trained me in principles of strict honesty, i should not _now_ have been here, paying in prison walls by convict labour and a felon's name the price of 'being good at a bargain.'" in how many other ways the flattering tongues of parents have issued in the ruin of children i have not space to illustrate. "take care," says walter raleigh, "thou be not made fool by flatterers, for even the wisest men are abused by these. know, therefore, that flatterers are the worst kind of traitors; for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing, but so shadow and paint all thy vices and follies as thou shall never, by their will, discern evil from good, or vice from virtue. a flatterer is said to be a beast that biteth smiling. they are hard to distinguish from friends, they are so obsequious and full of protestations; for as a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend. a flatterer is compared to an ape, who because she cannot defend the house like a dog, labour as an ox, or bear burdens as a horse, doth therefore yet play tricks and provoke laughter." "beware of flattery--'tis a flowery weed which oft offends the very idol vice whose shrine it would perfume." * * * * * "of all wild beasts, preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame--a flatterer." iv. _the brawler._ "as empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the loudest babblers."--plato. this is a talker whose characteristic consists in the possession of sound lungs and sonorous voice. he is particularly jealous of their failure, and hence, as a means of their preservation, he keeps them in good exercise. "practice makes perfect;" and believing in this maxim, he uses his vocal functions without squeamish regard to the possibility of their decline. one would imagine from the volume and strength of tongue-power put forth in his conversation that he considered his hearers stone deaf. he does not in fact talk but proclaim. i doubt not that he is sometimes guilty of this outrage from vanity, because he thinks what he has to say is of such vast importance; or he has his own person in such veneration, that he believes nothing which concerns him can be insignificant to anybody else. i do not wonder that some people have had the drum of their ears seriously affected by his brawling. nor is it surprising that old maids have been thrown into hysterics, and little children scared out of their wits by his vociferousness. nor should it be set down as a thing extraordinary that strong-nerved men have found it expedient to insist either upon a reduction of the wind in the organ, or a stoppage of the instrument altogether, or a hasty exit of their persons from his presence. as a preventive of these calamities in the future, and as a means of restoring this unfortunate talker into his proper position in the ranks of modern polite and intelligent society, i have been led to search in my books for a cure of his fault, and i have discovered the following in the _spectator_:-".... plutarch tells us that caius gracchus, the roman, was frequently hurried by his passions into so loud and tumultuous a way of speaking, and so strained his voice as not to be able to proceed. to remedy this excess, he had an ingenious servant, by name licinius, always attending him with a pitch-pipe, or instrument to regulate the voice; who, whenever he heard his master begin to be high, immediately touched a soft note, at which, 'tis said, caius would presently abate and grow calm. "upon recollecting this story, i have frequently wondered that this useful instrument should have been so long discontinued, especially since we find that this good office of licinius has preserved his memory for many hundred years, which, methinks, should have encouraged some one to revive it, if not for the public good, yet for his own credit. it may be objected that our loud talkers are so fond of their own noise that they would not take it well to be checked by their servants. but granting this to be true, surely any of their hearers have a very good title to play a soft note in their own defence. to be short, no licinius appearing, and the noise increasing, i was resolved to give this late long vacation to the good of my country; and i have at length, by the assistance of an ingenious artist (who works for the royal society), almost completed my design, and shall be ready in a short time to furnish the public with what number of these instruments they please, either to lodge at coffee-houses, or carry for their own private use. in the meantime i shall pay that respect to several gentlemen, who i know will be in danger of offending against this instrument, to give them notice of it by private letters, in which i shall only write, 'get a licinius.' "i had almost forgotten to inform you that as an improvement in this instrument, there will be a particular note, which i shall call a hush-note; and that is to be made use of against a long story, swearing, obsceneness, and the like." v. _the mischief-maker._ "behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth."--james. "we should be as careful of our words as our actions; and as far from speaking as doing ill."--tull. the presence of this talker is almost ubiquitous. his aim is to create ill-humour, misunderstandings, bickerings, envies, jealousies, suspicions, quarrels, and separations, where exist mutual good-will, concord, love, confidence. his nature and work are in _reality_ beneath the society of human beings. it is even questionable whether he is not in these respects below the rank of demons. yet he boldly enters your presence, sits by your side, looks you askant in the face, asks you questions, communicates information, and feigns himself your friend and the friend of everybody. at the same time he may be concocting a plan of mischief between you and a neighbour with whom you are living on terms of amity; and the next thing you hear after he has left your house is, that you and your neighbour are intending some evil one towards the other. this is all you know of it. the fact is, mischief-maker is at the bottom of it, and if the friendship between you is not broken, it will not be his fault. he is in peaceful society like a mischievous child in a well-furnished drawing-room, puts things in confusion, and destroys much that is valuable and worth preserving, and when asked, "who has done it?" pleads ignorance, or places it upon the shoulders of others, joining you in strong utterances of condemnation of such wanton conduct. * * * * * mr. and mrs. blandford had lived together in their village cottage forty years, in the greatest conjugal affection and concord. it was generally known that they had seldom or ever had a quarrel or misunderstanding during the whole of that period. they were hoping that their declining years would be spent in similar blessedness. but, alas! such was not to be their lot. there lived not far from them a neighbour whose disposition was anything but loving, and who took pleasure in promoting ill-will between those who lived in peace. she had long had her heart set upon provoking a quarrel between this happy pair. she had tried in many secret ways to bring it about, but all failed. at last she hit upon one which accomplished her malicious end, and evinced the more than diabolical nature of her design. on a certain day she made a neighbourly call upon mrs. blandford, and in course of conversation, said,-"you and mr. blandford have lived a long time together." "we have. forty years, i think, next december the 14th." "and all this time, i am told, you have never had a quarrel." "not one." "how glad i am to hear it; truly you have been blest. how remarkable a circumstance! and do you expect that this will continue to the end?" "i know nothing to the contrary; i really hope so." "indeed, so do i; but, mrs. blandford, you know that everything in this world is uncertain, and the finest day may close with a tempest. do not be surprised if this is the case with your wedded life." "what do you mean?" "i mean this: your husband, i am told, has of late become rather peevish and sullen betimes. so his fellow-workmen say." "well, now you mention it, i have noticed something of the kind myself," said mrs. blandford. "i have thought," said the neighbour, "that i would just mention it to you, that you might be on your guard, for no one knows what turn this temper may take." "thank you; i think it might be as well for me to be on my guard," said mrs. blandford. "can you tell me the best way of managing the case?" "have you not noticed," said the neighbour, "that your husband has a bunch of long coarse hair growing on a mole on one side of his neck?" "of course i have." "well, do you know, mrs. blandford, i am told these are the cause of his change in temper, and as long as they remain there, you may expect him to get worse and worse. now, as a friend, i would advise you to cut them off the first time you have a chance, and thus prevent any evil occurring." "that is a thing i can easily manage, i think, and at your suggestion i will do it," said mrs. blandford, in her simplicity. a few more words on matters apart from this passed between them, and the neighbour left for home. on her way she met mr. blandford, when she talked with him much in the same way as she did with his wife about their domestic happiness. "but, friend blandford, i have something very particular to say to you." "indeed! what is it?" "why, i have just heard that your wife has lately taken to peculiar ways, and has some evil design upon you; and i think it my duty as a christian neighbour to give you a gentle warning, that you may be on your guard." the old man looked much astonished at this revelation. he could not believe it; yet he could not deny it. he brooded over the matter as he walked home, and considered what he should do to ascertain whether his wife had any "evil design upon him." at last a thought occurred to his mind, which he carried out. soon after he reached home, he went and threw himself on the bed as very much tired, and feigned sleep, brooding over the statement of his neighbour, and what it could possibly mean. his wife, thinking he was asleep, and that it would be a good opportunity for cutting off this said foreboding hair, took her husband's razor, and crept slowly and softly to his side. the old lady was very nervous in holding a razor so close to her dear husband's throat, and her hand was not so steady as in former years; so between the two she went about it in an awkward way, pulling the hairs rather than cutting them. mr. blandford opened his eyes, and there stood his wife with an open razor close to his throat! after what he had heard from his neighbour, and seeing this, he could no longer doubt that his wife intended to murder him! he sprang from the bed in great horror, and no explanation or entreaty could persuade him to the contrary. from this time to the end of mrs. blandford's life there was no more confidence between them. jealousy, fear, quarrelling, took the place of harmony, trust, and love. the neighbour had gratified her wish; and now she did nothing but spread the tidings about everywhere, that "old mrs. blandford had made an attempt upon her husband's life; but he was just in time to save himself; and now they were living like a cat and dog together; and this was the end of their boasted forty years of conjugal peace and happiness." in the small town of b----, in one of the northern counties, there lived a very respectable tradesman, a grocer, of the name of proctor. he was a married man, and had a family of four children. he and his wife were members of the presbyterian church. they were considered consistent, godly people by all who knew them. one winter's night, mr. bounce, well known in the town, was walking by the house of mr. proctor, when he happened to hear a noise, and looking at the window of the sitting-room, he saw, to his utter astonishment, mr. proctor chasing mrs. proctor with a fire-shovel in his hand, in an attitude of threatening wrath. he did not stop to see the end. he did not go in to make inquiry. he did not pause for a day or so until he obtained further light on the matter. no, he went on his way, thinking to himself, "here is a fine thing. i could not have believed it, had i not seen it. what a scandal! what a disgrace! mr. proctor, a member of a christian church, running after his wife, a member of the same christian church, with a fire-shovel in his hand! what is to be done? surely, if this gets wind it will be ruinous to his character, if not to his business! and then, what effect will it have upon the church?" i do not say that at this time and in this instance mr. bounce had any bad feeling or intention towards the proctors. nevertheless we shall see how without these he brought about no small mischief. as i said, he went on his way thinking as above. he came to the house of his friend mr. ready. he had scarcely sat himself down and inquired after the health of mrs. ready, when he exclaimed in tones of wonder, "what do you think i have just seen as i passed the house of mr. proctor?" "i am sure i cannot tell," answered mr. ready. "why, i saw mr. proctor chasing his wife round the room with a fire-shovel in his hand, in an attitude of threats." "you don't mean it!" "indeed i do. i saw him as plainly as i see you sitting before me on that chair." "well, that is a nice thing, certainly," said mr. ready. "and both members of the church of the rev. s. baker!" "yes, they are," replied mr. bounce. the matter ended here for the present. mr. ready told mrs. ready as soon as she came home, and she told her neighbour the same night. the ready family were not slow in spreading the news wherever they went in the town: and of course mr. bounce left no stone unturned to clear the way of the circulation of the fact. so that by these means it was known in most families of the town by the evening of the next day. it created no little excitement. the minister and elders of the church heard it with serious concern, and considered that a church meeting should be called without delay before the thing grew worse. it would be disastrous to permit such a scandal to go unexamined and unpunished if true. elder wiseman thought that before a church meeting was called, it would be well for their pastor and elder judge to wait upon mr. and mrs. proctor and inquire into the facts of the case. to this it was agreed. the pastor and elder judge took the first opportunity and waited upon the proctors. the proctors, seated in their room with their pastor and elder judge, seemed very much pleased to see them, and, with their usual blandness of manner, spoke about their respective families while their pastor and elder judge looked so grave as to make the proctors think there was really something very depressing on their minds. at last the pastor said in a most solemn manner, "mr. and mrs. proctor, i and elder judge have called to see you this morning on a matter that is far from agreeable to us and may be to you--a matter that affects the interests of our church, the interests of christianity, and the interests of your family. it is indeed a most grave matter. it was thought that we had better call a church meeting to look into it; but before doing so we decided that you should be seen about it." "pray, mr. baker," said mr. proctor, cutting him short, "pray, what is the matter! do let us know without any ceremony." "it is a matter which i am deeply pained to name. it concerns you and your wife. the fact is simply this. it is reported throughout the town that a certain gentleman, whose name i need not state, was passing your house the night before last, when he saw you chasing your wife round the room in a most furious manner, with a fire-shovel in your hand, meaning to inflict bodily harm upon her." the words had barely escaped the lips of the pastor ere the proctors, both together, burst into a loud laugh, which even shocked the gravity for a moment of the pastor and elder judge. "but mr. and mrs. proctor," said elder judge, "i hope you will look upon this affair in a different way to that." "we cannot," said mr. proctor; "the thing to which you refer is so perfectly ludicrous. let me tell you the fact in a word. that night mrs. proctor came into the sitting-room from the shop terribly frightened with what she said was a mouse under her dress. in her fright she ran round the room thinking to shake the vermin from her clothes, and i took the fire-shovel and ran after her with a view to kill the mouse. so that is the sum of the matter." the pastor and elder judge here looked each other in the face and laughed heartily; and seemed relieved of a great burden. instead of seeking to do his wife bodily harm, mr. proctor was only in pursuit of a mouse which had overreached its legitimate boundaries and found its way into a foreign territory. although the facts as thus discovered were ludicrous, the results might have been serious. for while the pastor and the elder were thus ascertaining the facts, the readys, and smiths, and a whole clique of kindred spirits with mr. bounce, were keeping up the circulation of the scandal; and notwithstanding the pastor and his elder instantly began to correct the mischief, it was a long time before the general impression died out that proctor was chasing his wife with the intention of beating her. in fact, mr. bounce himself, and mrs. bounce, his wife, with several others, always believed it to the day of their death; and ever and anon tried to do a little business in it by whisperings; but they found no custom, unless with an occasional new-comer into the neighbourhood, or with some one who owed the proctors a little spite. * * * * * mr. webster, of necham, was much given to the habit of making mischief by his talk. at one time he did great damage to a church and its minister, of which the following may be taken as an illustration:-"you have had a new minister come among you lately, i understand," said mr. webster one day to mr. watson. "yes, we have." "what is his name?" "his name is mr. good." "did not he come from stukely to your place?" "i believe he did," replied mr. watson. "i thought it was the same man." "do you know him, mr. webster?" "i cannot say that i do, but i have heard of him. i know some of the members of his former church. in fact, i have just come from the neighbourhood in which he laboured before he came to you." it may be well to say here, that mr. watson had never heard, as yet, anything prejudicial to his minister. he, with the whole church, seemed to think highly of him, and to be satisfied with him in all respects. "how is he liked?" inquired mr. webster. "i, for one, like him very much," said mr. watson; "and i think all that have heard him do." "i hope you may always like him; but if all that is said about him be true, i think you won't like him long. in fact, i should not like him at all." "mr. webster, what have you to say against mr. good?" "_i_ have nothing to say, but others have. my information has come from other people, and people, too, on whom i can rely." mr. watson very naturally began to feel rather curious to learn the meaning of these innuendoes. he did not know but all that mr. webster had _heard_ was perfectly correct; because he thought it quite possible for mr. good to satisfy them for a few weeks and not for years. he was a stranger among them, and when he should be more fully known it may be that he would not prove to be what he now seemed. he began to reason, and then to doubt and suspect. "what have you heard of mr. good?" asked mr. watson. "i will tell you. i am told that he was at stukely only a few months, when the people resolved to dismiss him from their church." "indeed!" said mr. watson, with astonishment. "i have heard," said mr. webster, "that he is a quarrelsome kind of man, and always dunning for money; that he didn't preach well enough for them. in fact there is no end to the stories which they have to say about him." "but it may be," said watson, "that the fault was not in mr. good. there are faulty people, you know, as well as faulty ministers." "but from what i hear the fault was all in mr. good. i am pretty well acquainted with the folk at stukely." "so you may be, and yet in this instance they may be more blamable than he. i have seen nothing as yet to create suspicion in respect to him. i think he is a good man and a good preacher. and if he continue as he has begun, there is the promise of great prosperity from his labours. we must take men as we find them, mr. webster; and whatever we might hear against them, we should believe them innocent until they are proved guilty. i have no doubt that a great proportion of your intelligence is scandal, created and set afloat by some person or persons with whom, perhaps, he had been more faithful than their sins would allow." "i hope it may turn out so," said mr. webster; "but from all that i have heard i think you are mistaken in your view of him." mr. watson would not listen any longer to webster, but bid him "good morning." he could not, however, help thinking about what he had said: and although it did not affect his conduct towards his new minister, he could scarcely refrain an occasional thought that possibly there might be some truth in it. but he did not encourage it. mr. watson cherished the charity which "thinketh no evil." but while mr. watson was incredulous of the stories of webster, there were others belonging to the congregation whose minds were always open to receive ill rumours derogatory to others. mr. news-seeker and mr. reporter, with several of a similar class, soon had interviews with webster, when they heard that he had been to stukely. he spoke to them more freely than he did to mr. watson, because they had willing ears and believing hearts. as soon as they had heard all he had to say, they went about their business, and almost every one they met the first thing they said was, "mr. webster, of necham, has been to stukely, the scene of mr. good's last labours. he has heard strange things about him. if they are true, and there seems to be little doubt of them, he will not suit us, and the sooner we get rid of him the better." this statement excited curiosity at once, and the question was immediately put, "what does he say?" "he says a great many things, i tell you," said mr. reporter. "well now," said old surmise, "do you know that i have had my suspicions several times as to the genuineness of our new preacher. my suspicions are now confirmed. i do not think i can hear him preach any more with pleasure." "if you can, i can't, and i won't," said mrs. rash, in great excitement. the matter now spread like the light. it got into everybody's ears, and came forth from their mouths much magnified. a great change came over the church and congregation in regard to mr. good. some said one thing and some said another. the balance, however, went against him. what was being said reached his ears, and he was astonished at the things he heard. it deeply affected him, as we may suppose. he observed a change in the congregation and in the feeling of many of the people towards him. in conversation one day with mr. watson, he asked him what he thought was the cause of the changed feeling in the church towards him. mr. watson told him what he had heard, but as he did not as yet believe any of the stories, he would like to hear mr. good's own statement of things. mr. good gave him a minute and faithful account of everything that had taken place between him and the church at stukely. it was just as mr. watson expected. he was confirmed in his confidence in mr. good, and used all his influence to suppress the scandal which was spreading, and to restore right feeling in the church towards their minister; but mr. watson was not equal to this. the fire had burnt too far and too deep to be quenched. the suspicion and prejudice excited could not be destroyed. mr. good wept over the state of things. he felt that the tide was too strong for him to stem. he saw that his usefulness was at an end so far as this church was concerned. he resolved to give in his resignation, and to live a year or two in retirement from the ministry until the storm had swept away into the ocean of air. a short time after mr. good had resigned his ministry, mr. webster met with mr. watson again. "you have had fine times," he said, "in your church with mr. good, haven't you?" "what do you mean by 'fine times'?" asked mr. watson. "o, why, he has been playing the same games with you as he did with the church at stukely, hasn't he?" "mr. good has been playing no games with us, mr. webster, nor did he play any with the people at stukely," said mr. watson, rather warmly. "well, i have been informed so, anyhow." "so you may have been, mr. webster; but your information in this, as in that you brought from stukely, is almost altogether fabulous. it is scandal which you hear and which you repeat. there is not a word of truth as you state matters. i have heard an account of the whole affair at stukely from an authority which is as reliable as any you could possibly adduce. i have every reason for thinking that the parties who informed you are influenced by the basest malice and ill-humour. mr. good stands as fair now before my eyes and the eyes of all decent people as he did the first day he came amongst us. it is only such as you, who delight in hearing and spreading scandal, that are prejudiced against him; and such, too, as are influenced by your libellous reports. it is a shame, mr. webster, that you, a man who pretends to membership in a christian church, should be guilty of believing malicious reports respecting a christian minister, and more particularly that you should spread them abroad in the very neighbourhood where he labours. this is a conduct far beneath a man of honour, of charity, and self-respect." "are you intending this lecture for me, mr. watson?" asked webster, rather petulantly. "i am, sir: and you deserve it, in much stronger language than i can use. you have been the means of blackening mr. good's character in this place, when it was all clean and unimpeachable. you have been the means of weakening his influence in the pulpit, and out of the pulpit. you have injured him, injured his wife and family; and the good man, through you, has been obliged to give in his resignation as our pastor." "through me, do you say, mr. watson?" "yes, sir, through you." "how can that be?" "it was you who brought the scandal into the neighbourhood: who told it to newsman and reporter and everybody you met with, until your scandal grew as mushrooms in every family of the congregation. it became the talk of all. many kept from church. they suspected mr. good: more than this, they accused him in their conversation of many things inconsistent with a minister; and how could they receive benefit from his preaching, even if they went to hear him? yes, sir, you have been the cause of the 'fine times,' as you call them, in our church, and not mr. good." "i am sorry for it." "well, sir, if you are sorry for it, repent of it; forsake the evil of your doing. give up the itching you have for scandal. do not repeat things upon mere rumour; you have done more injury in this one case than you will do good if you live to be a hundred years old. remember, mr. webster, what the wise man says, "he that uttereth slander is a fool." mr. webster shrunk away from mr. watson as one condemned in his own conscience. he evidently felt the keen remarks thus made; and i hope he became a reformed man in this regard, during his future life. vi. _the pleonast._ "this barren verbiage current among men."--tennyson. the habit of this talker is to encumber his ideas with such a plethora of words as frequently prove fatal to their sense. some of this class employ fine words because they are fine, with perfect indifference to the signification: others do it from "that fastidiousness," as one says, "which makes some men walk on the highroad as if the whole business of their life was to keep their boots clean." mr. hill was a man very much accustomed to talk in this way. he had read little, but had studied the dictionary with considerable diligence. his ideas were few and far between, but his words were many and diversified, long and hard, sometimes connected in the most absurd and ludicrous manner. most of the illiterate who heard him thought he was highly educated and intelligent, while men of taste and judgment considered him greatly deficient in the first rudiments of correct speaking. mr. hill and his friend mr. pope made a call one day last spring upon squire foster. as they came to the front door of his house mr. hill said to mr. pope,-"will you do me the exuberant honour of agitating the communicator of the ingress door, that the maid may receive the information that some attendant individuals are leisurely waiting at the exterior of the mansion to propose their interrogatories after the resident proprietor." "did you want me to pull the door bell for you?" asked mr. pope. "if you have that extremely obliging state of mind, which will permit you to do that deed of exceeding condescension, i shall experience the deepest emotionals of unprecedented gratitude," replied mr. hill. "why didn't you say, if you please? and have done with it," replied mr. pope, in a manner which indicated impatience at his gibberish. the servant appeared and opened the door. "will you have the propitiousness, the kindness to stay and communicate unto me whether squire foster is in his residence?" said mr. hill. the girl looked vacant, not knowing what to make of his question. "what does the gentleman mean?" asked the servant of mr. pope. "he wants to know if squire foster is at home." "yes, sir, he is. will you walk in?" mr. hill and his friend were showed into the parlour, where they waited the coming of the squire. after a brief interval "the resident proprietor" made his appearance. "ah, ah! how do you do, mr. hill? i am very glad to see you," said the squire, at the same time shaking him by the hand. "i am in the highest state of excellent health, extremely obliged, squire. i am sanguine to hope, sir, that you live in the felicity of enjoying, and possessing, and feeling an undistracted state of the physical constitution. will you, squire, give me the pleasure and allow me the happiness of introducing and bringing to your acquaintance my friend mr. pope? squire foster,--mr. pope." "how did you leave mrs. hill and family?" asked the squire. "it gives me no ordinary pain, and no usual grief, and no common sorrow, to inform and instruct you that i left mrs. hill, my dear wife, my choice companion, subject to, and suffering from, and enduring under, a severe and trying affectation of her respiratory organs, superinduced by an exaggerant cold, received, and taken, and caught by her the other day of last week, when we were travelling, and riding, and going to the village of burnley. my little ones, my children, my offspring, squire, i am excussitated to say, are in the finest, the best, the happiest state of their juvenile physique that i have ever known, remembered, and borne in mind." "how is your son john, the little fellow with whom i was so much pleased when i was at your house last?" enquired squire foster. "he is a unique adolescent--a heavenly cherub. his excessively prodigious development of juvenile intellectual and religious numerous tendencies produce within me the largest, the greatest, the richest exquisite emotions of deep pleasurability, and profoundest sensations of unparalleled wonderment." "you are very eloquent this morning," said the squire, rather sarcastically. mr. hill, considering himself a little flattered by this encomium, said, "my eloquence, sir, is the natural, the habitual, the spontaneous, the unprompted infusions of my own individuality of mental hallucinations, sparkling out in the scintillations which you do me the honour of denominating, and calling, and epithetising as eloquence." mr. hill was something of a transcendentalist in his way. the squire was aware of his tendency in this direction, and not having a distinct idea of what his transcendentalism was, he ventured to ask him during the conversation to give him a definition of it. after a brief pause, as though mr. hill was meditating for a succinct and clear definition, he said,-"i would define transcendentalism as the spiritual cognoscence of psychological irrefragability, connected with concuitant ademption of encolumnient spirituality, and etherealized contention of subsultory concretion." "that _is_ transcendentalism, indeed!" exclaimed the squire. "it goes beyond my understanding and comprehension." "i feel myself in the same predicament," observed mr. pope, who up to this time had been silent during the desultory conversation of the squire and mr. hill. "from what stand-point (as the germans would call it) do you gain that view of transcendentalism?" asked mr. pope. "i have gained it from the esoteric stand-point of christian exegetical analysis; and agglutinating the polsynthetical ectoblasts of homogeneous asceticism, i perceive at once the absolute individuality of this definition." "that is perfectly satisfactory," said mr. pope, with a look and in a tone of keen irony. i will not detain the reader any longer with specimens of the pleonast in the person of mr. hill; but give a few others of a desultory character, with which i have met in reading and otherwise. a certain gentleman was once speaking to a few friends on the subject of happiness, and in giving his experience as to where it could not be found, he is said have spoken thus,-"i sought for happiness where it could not be found; i looked for felicity where it could not be discovered; i enquired after bliss in those places, situations, and circumstances which neither bliss, nor felicity, nor happiness ever visited. thus it remained with little change, and continued without much alteration, all through the days of my youth, the years of my juvenility, and the period of my adolescence." "is that really your experience?" said one who was listening; "and do you intend that as a caution to us against seeking happiness in the same way?" "most positively and assuredly i do. profoundly impressed with the veracity of these sentiments, deeply sensible of their correctness, and heartily persuaded, and assured, and convinced of their consonance with truth, i urge and press upon your attention what i have above and before couched and expressed in such simple, and plain, and intelligible language, and language easily to be understood withal." a pleonast, once speaking of a man who was found drowned in a canal in the neighbourhood where he lived, said,-"he is supposed to have perpetrated, committed, and done, voluntary, willing, and of himself, destruction, suicide, and drowning, while in a mood of mental aberration, superinduced, brought about, and effected, by long indulgence in and continued habits of inhaling, drinking, and swallowing, to inebriation and drunkenness, intoxicating liquids." at one time, complaining of the effect of the air upon his lungs, which were rather delicate, the pleonast said,-"the ponderosity, the pressure of the ethereal elements, the regions of the atmosphere, the circumambient world, will not give me or allow me the full, the free, the unrestrained extent of liberty to exercise myself in the respiratory, functional faculties of my earthly human existence." the above illustrations may suffice to show how the pleonast transgresses the propriety of speech in his conversation. a person in talking should endeavour to use such words as will convey his meaning, and no more. words are only the clothing of thought, and when too numerous they encumber instead of adorn. when improperly connected, as sometimes they are by the pleonast, they amuse and entertain rather than instruct and edify. given thoughts clear and simple, it will not be difficult to find words which will be simple and clear also. language and thought thus harmonised will render the one that uses them an acceptable talker to be heard, rather than a pleonast to be ridiculed. vii. _the self-disparager._ "the love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, reigns, more or less, and glows in every heart; the proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure, the modest shun it, but to make it sure." young. this is a talker not unfrequently met with. he speaks in disparaging terms of himself and his doings, not so much because he means you to understand him as he speaks, as that he either feigns humility or desires you to look more favourably upon him than you do, and say to him, "o dear no, you are quite wrong in your judgment. i see very differently; and think, mr. baker, that you injure yourself and your performances by talking as you do." if you speak in words of honest praise of some good feature of his character, or of something he has done or possesses, he says in effect, "i wish it was even as you say; but you are mistaken. i have no such trait as you refer to, and what i have done is far from deserving the eulogium you have passed upon it. i am a very poor creature, and have no such goodness as you attribute to me, and am not capable of doing any such good work as you say i have done." * * * * * miss slater was a young lady generally acknowledged to possess good taste and refined judgment. she was also considered to be honest in spirit and candid in her expression of opinion. what she said she meant, whether in praise or in censure; and no one could say she was a flatterer or a cynic. on a certain occasion, in conversation with miss button, she observed to her, "i was much pleased with that landscape painting which i saw in your parlour the last time i was at your house. your mother said that it was one you did while at manor house school." "yes, miss slater," she replied, "it was done by me; but it is a very inferior piece; not half so good as it might have been." "i think it is very good indeed: so true to nature. the trees, the clouds, the birds, the river, and in fact the whole of it commends itself to my approval. it does you great credit and contains very good promise for the future, if you continue in the exercise of painting." "you are, indeed, quite mistaken in your judgment, miss slater. it is really not up to most of my other paintings. i am ashamed of it, and have often said it is not worthy the beautiful frame which father had made for it." now, if miss slater had expressed herself in censure upon any particular part, miss button would probably have shown signs of uneasiness, if not displeasure. under this class of talkers may be mentioned those professors of religion who affect failings which they know they have not, and who acknowledge sins of which they know they are not guilty, for the sake of being reckoned among those who make a merit of "voluntary humility." they are among the "most unworthy of god's saints." they are the "vilest of the vile," "not fit to have a name or a place among christ's people;" "their righteousness is filthy rags;" they are the "chief of sinners." now, there is little doubt that these words are perfectly true; only, the question is, whether they themselves really believe them to be so. it often occurs that these "great sinners," these "vilest of the vile," while forward to say such things of themselves, are the last to admit them as true when said of them by others. this reminds one of an instance in which a member of a church was giving way to this kind of self-disparagement, when a fellow member responding to him said, "true, my brother, you are among the greatest of sinners;" when he instantly warmed up in self-defence, and replied, "i am no greater sinner than you are; look at home before you accuse other people." it also reminds one of the old story of the monk who heard the confession of a certain cardinal. "i am the chief of sinners," said the cardinal. "it is true," said the monk. "i have been guilty of every kind of sin," sighed the cardinal. "it is a solemn fact, my son," said the monk. "i have indulged in pride, in ambition, malice, and revenge," continued his eminence. the provoking confessor assented without one pitying word of doubt or protest. "why you fool," at last said the exasperated cardinal, "you don't imagine i mean all this to the letter?" "ho, ho!" said the monk, "so you have been a _liar_ too have you?" now, in all such cases as the above, it is not difficult to perceive the want of sincerity; and to talk in that way is anything but wise and consistent. while, on the one hand, it is unseemly to praise ourselves, it is, on the other, equally uncalled for to disparage ourselves. there is a proper place in which a man should stand in respect to himself as in respect to others. towards himself let there be a dignified modesty, and towards others a respectful acknowledgment of any _sincere_ commendation which may be given of his character and of his works. in all our personal confessions, either before men or god, let us endeavour to mean what we say and not act the hypocrite, that we may obtain the eulogium from others or from ourselves, what "humble and self-renouncing christians we are." under this class of talkers there is another character which we wish to illustrate, viz., the household-wife, whose "house is never clean, and whose food is never such as is fit to place before you." in a certain part of england, long celebrated for being a stronghold of methodism, there is a small village, very beautiful for situation, and well known among the lovers of rural retreats. in this said village there lived a farmer and his wife, without children, who belonged to the methodist church. squire hopkins, which we shall call him, was a man of some note in the village, for his intelligence, influence, and character. even the parson had a good word to say of him, and was not above holding a brief conversation with him, when he met him in the lane on the left side of the church. the squire was a man who never was ashamed of his name as a methodist, whether in the presence of the poor, the rich, or the clergyman. he had stood for many years a member, trustee, and steward in the methodist church. with all these honours, and the good-will of almost the entire village, the squire was an unassuming and quiet man. his religion to him was more than all church honours and worldly good opinions. his house was the home of the "travelling preachers," when, in their appointments, they came to the village to preach. and a right sort of a home it was too, clean, airy, pleasant, and possessing all things requisite to convenience and comfort. there was, however, one drawback in the happiness of this home. excellent sister hopkins was afflicted with one failing, which could not be hid from those who visited her house. the weakness to which we allude was on the one side of it, _the love of praise_; and on the other side, _the disparaging of herself and her doings_. this she did that she might obtain the other. _she_ disparaged, that _you_ might praise. we do not say she did not deserve praise, but that her way of seeking it was neither wise nor commendable. sister hopkins had so habituated herself to this way of speaking, that it was difficult for her to avoid it. as a housewife she was unexceptionable. she was careful to have everything in the most cleanly and orderly condition. she was an excellent cook, and the squire an excellent provider, so that their table was always well spread, whenever good cheer was required. and yet you could not enter the house without being reminded that her "husband had company yesterday, and she could not keep the rooms half so decent as she would like;" and when you sat down to her table, covered with the best provisions, prepared in the best style of the cookery art, she was sorry that she "had so little, and so badly cooked." she had been doing this or that, busy here or there, that she "really had not such things as she would have liked to have had, and you must excuse it this time." it did not signify how bountiful or well-prepared the meal was, there was always sure to be something wanting which would be a text for a short sermon on self-disparagement. on one occasion a minister was at breakfast when the table was well stocked with everything which could be desired--coffee of the finest flavour, tea of the richest kind, cream and butter fresh from the dairy, chickens swimming in gravy, with various kinds of preserves, and other things of a spicy and confectionery sort. no sooner had her guest begun to partake of her hospitality than mrs. hopkins commenced. she was afraid the coffee was not so good as it might have been, the cream and butter were not so fresh as she should have liked them, the chickens were hardly roasted enough, and as for the preserves, they had been boiled too much, through the carelessness of mary, the servant. she meant to have had something better for breakfast, but had been disappointed; and it was too bad that there was nothing nice for him to eat. all this was very heavy for her guest to bear. he simply remarked that "there was no need for apologies; everything was very good, and there was plenty of it." we will now introduce another person to the reader in connection with mrs. hopkins. it is superintendent robson, who had just come on the circuit. he was a good man, plain, homely, practical. like mr. wesley, he no more dare preach a _fine_ sermon than wear a fine coat. such was the action of his religion upon his conscience. he was well known for his common-sense way of teaching the truths of the bible. he _would_ speak just as he thought and as he felt, although he might offend miss precision and mr. itchingear. he gained the name of being an eccentric preacher, as most preachers do who _never_ prevaricate and always speak as they think. the failing of sister hopkins had reached the ears of superintendent robson. he had no patience with such a failing, and he was resolved to cure her. on his first visit to the village to preach, he stopped, according to custom, at squire hopkins's. thomas, the ostler, took the preacher's horse, and the preacher entered the house. he was shown into the best room, and from all appearances felt quite at home. everything was in perfect order and cleanliness, fit for the reception of a prince. the preacher had not been seated long, scarcely long enough to pass the usual interchange of first salutations and enquiries, when mrs. hopkins began in her old style to say she was "sorry that things were so untidy; her house was upside down; she was mortified to be found in such a plight; she really hoped before his arrival to have had all things in such order as she always liked to see them. she hoped he would excuse their being so." superintendent robson looked around and about the room in all directions, to find out the terrible confusion to which his hostess alluded; but he said not a word. shortly after the dinner was announced as ready; and as this was the first visit of the preacher, particular attention had been given to have a table spread with more than usual good things. the preacher, however, found from the squire's wife that there was hardly anything for dinner, and what there was she was ashamed for him to sit down to. the superintendent heard her in mute astonishment. he lifted his dark eyes, and looking her in the face with penetration and austerity, he rose gently from the table and said,-"brother hopkins, i want my horse immediately; i must leave this house." "why, brother robson, what is the matter?" "enough the matter! why, sir, your house isn't fit to stay in, and you haven't anything fit to eat or drink, and i won't stay." the preacher mounted his horse and took his departure. both the squire and his lady were confounded at such unexpected conduct. they stood in their room as though thunderstruck, not knowing what to say or what to do. but the preacher was gone, and could not be re-called. after a few moments poor sister hopkins wept like a child. "dear me," said she to the squire, "this is a terrible thing. it will be all over the village, and everybody will be laughing at me. how shall i meet the superintendent again? i did not mean anything by what i said; it is only my way. i never thought it wrong. had i known our new minister didn't like such a way of talk i would not have talked so. oh, how vexed i am!" the result of this was that mrs. hopkins saw herself as others saw her. she ceased making these empty and meaningless apologies, and became a wiser and better woman. the next time superintendent robson went to the squire's he found a "house fit for him to stay in and things fit for him to eat." viii. _the common swearer._ "take not his name, who made thy tongue, in vain, it gets thee nothing, and hath no excuse." herbert. he is a transgressor of the third commandment of the decalogue, "thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain." he transgresses without any laudable purpose, and without any necessity. he is thoughtless, foolish, and void of the fear of god. "his mouth," as an old divine says, "is black with oaths, and the very soot of hell hangs about his lips." he degrades the most excellent things into the meanest associations. sometimes he indulges to such an extent in his sin, that the main substance of his speech is swearing. it is more than an adjunct or concomitant of his conversation; it is the body and soul of it. sometimes you may hear him, with an air of self-complacency, give utterance to his profanity, as though he regarded it an ornament of rhetoric, giving spice and condiment to his thoughts. there are occasions when he considers his talk only reliable in its truthfulness as this evil accompanies it. he would not be a man in his own judgment if he did not swear. he thinks he magnifies his own importance in the estimation of other people; but, alas! he promotes his own shame and disgrace before the eyes of the wise and good. the common swearer is confined to no rank or age in society. i have heard the youth who was barely in his teens indulge in this sin, as though it had been a part of his parental or day-school education. i have heard the young gentleman, so-called, recently returned from the walks of a university, pollute his lips and character with this shameful vice. i have heard the man who laid claim to wealth, to intelligence, to respectability, and to honour, pour forth his swearing words. i have heard the man who has stood in official relation to the state, and who considered himself a "justice of the peace," break the holy commandment with impunity. i have even heard one, called by the misnomer, "lady," do disgrace to her sex by this sinful fault in conversation. in the household, with a group of little ones whose minds were just unfolding to receive first impressions, i have heard the parents swear as though they were licensed to do so by reason. in company, where common civility ought to have restrained, i have heard the utterances of the swearer's horrid voice. in the street, where public decency ought to have deterred, i have again and again heard the revolting expressions of this talker's leprous tongue. in the shop, while transacting business, i have heard him give vent to his blasphemies, when a kind reproof has only seemed for the time to enrage his demoniacal spirit to more fiery ebullitions. how humiliating is this sin to human nature! how it severs from everything that is holy and honourable! how it insults and blasphemes the glorious lord of earth and heaven! how closely it allies to "the prince of the power of the air"! "it might puzzle a philosopher," says ogden, "to trace the love of swearing to its original principle, and assign its place in the constitution of man. "is it a passion, or an appetite, or an instinct? what is its just measure, its proper object, its ultimate end? "or shall we conclude that it is entirely the work of art? a vice which men have invented for themselves without prospect of pleasure or profit, and to which there is no imaginable temptation in nature? "if it be an accomplishment, it is such an one as the meanest person may make himself master of; requiring neither rank nor fortune, neither genius nor learning. "but if it be no test of wit, we must allow, perhaps, that it wears the appearance of valour. alas! what is the appearance of anything? the little birds perch upon the image of an eagle. "true bravery is sedate and inoffensive: if it refuse to submit to insults, it offers none; begins no disputes, enters into no needless quarrels; is above the little, troublesome ambition to be distinguished every moment; it hears in silence, and replies with modesty; fearing no enemy, and making none; and is as much ashamed of insolence as cowardice." the swearer may ask, "where is the evil of an oath when it is used for the support of truth?" if your character is good, the person with whom you converse will require no oath. he will depend upon the simple and bare declaration of the matter: and if you swear, it will take a per-centage from your character in his estimation, and he will not believe the statement any the sooner for the oath connected with it. can you think that the high and holy name of god is intended to be debased by association with every trivial and impertinent truth which may be uttered? "no oath," says bishop hopkins, "is in itself simply good, and voluntarily to be used; but only as medicines are, in case of necessity. but to use it ordinarily and indifferently, without being constrained by any cogent necessity, or called to it by any lawful authority, is such a sin as wears off all reverence and dread of the great god: and we have very great cause to suspect that where his name is so much upon the tongue, there his fear is but little in the heart." again, the same author says, "though thou swearest that which is true; yet customary swearing to truths will insensibly bring thee to swear falsehoods. for, when once thou art habituated to it, an oath will be more ready to thee than a truth; and so when thou rashly boltest out somewhat that is either doubtful or false, thou wilt seal it up and confirm it with an oath, before thou hast had time to consider what thou hast said or what thou art swearing: for those who accustom themselves to this vice lose the observation of it in the frequency; and, if you reprove them for swearing, they will be ready to swear again, that they did not swear. and therefore it is well observed of st. austin, 'we ought to forbear swearing that which is truth; for, by the custom of swearing, men oftentimes fall into perjury, and are always in danger of it.'" take a few considerations, with a view to show the evil of swearing, and to deter from the practice of it. 1. _consider that name by which the swearer generally commits his sin._ "the name of god," says jeremy taylor, "is so sacred, so mighty, that it rends mountains, it opens the bowels of the deepest rocks, it casts out devils, and makes hell to tremble, and fills all the regions of heaven with joy; the name of god is our strength and confidence, the object of our worshippings, and the security of all our hopes; and when god hath given himself a name, and immured it with dread and reverence, like the garden of eden with the swords of cherubim, and none durst speak it but he whose lips were hallowed, and that at holy and solemn times, in a most holy and solemn place; i mean the high priest of the jews at the solemnities when he entered into the sanctuary,--then he taught all the world the majesty and veneration of his name; and therefore it was that god made restraints upon our conceptions and expressions of him; and, as he was infinitely curious, that, from all appearances he made to them, they should not depict or engrave any image of him; so he took care that even the tongue should be restrained, and not be too free in forming images and representments of his name; and therefore as god drew their eyes from vanity, by putting his name amongst them, and representing no shape; so even when he had put his name amongst them, he took it off from the tongue, and placed it before the eye; for jehovah was so written on the priest's mitre, that all might see and read, but none speak it but the priest. but besides all this, there is one great thing concerning the name of god, beyond all that can be spoken or imagined else; and that is, that when god the father was pleased to pour forth all his glories, and imprint them upon his holy son, in his exaltation, it was by giving him his holy name, the tetragrammaton, or jehovah made articulate, to signify 'god manifested in the flesh;' and so he wore the character of god, and became the bright image of his person. "now all these great things concerning the name of god are infinite reproofs of common and vain swearing by it. god's name is left us here to pray by, to hope in, to be the instrument and conveyance of our worshippings, to be the witness of truth and the judge of secrets, the end of strife and the avenger of perjury, the discerner of right and the severe exactor of all wrongs; and shall all this be unhallowed by impudent talking of god without sense or fear, or notice, or reverence, or observation?" 2. _the uselessness of swearing._ "surely," says dr. barrow, "of all dealers in sin the swearer is palpably the silliest, and maketh the worst bargains for himself; for he sinneth gratis, and, like those in the prophet, _selleth his soul for nothing_. an epicure hath some reason to allege; an extortioner is a man of wisdom, and acteth prudently in comparison to him; for they enjoy some pleasure, or acquire some gain here, in lieu of their salvation hereafter: but this fondling offendeth heaven, and abandoneth happiness, he knoweth not why or for what. he hath not so much as the common plea of human infirmity to excuse him; he can hardly say he was tempted thereto by any bait." the following incident will illustrate the senselessness of swearing as frequently practised:-three travellers in a coach endeavoured to shorten the tedious hours by relating stories. one of them, an officer, who had seen much of the world, spoke of his past dangers, and former comrades, in so interesting a manner, that his companions would have been charmed with his recitals had he not interspersed them with continual oaths and imprecations. when he had finished his tale, an elderly gentleman, who had not yet spoken, was asked for a story. without hesitation he thus commenced his narration:-"gentlemen, it is now nearly twenty years since i was travelling on this road, on a very dark night, when--_a thousand trumpets, pipes, and strings!_--an accident occurred,--_trumpets, pipes, and strings!_--of which i cannot even now think without shuddering. i truly believe--_trumpets, pipes, and strings!_--that it happened on the very spot which we are now passing. the coach was going on at the usual speed of--_trumpets, pipes, and strings!_--when we were suddenly alarmed by the noise of horses galloping after us.--_trumpets, pipes, and strings!_--we distinctly heard voices crying, 'stop! stop!'--_trumpets, pipes, and strings!_--said i to my companions, 'we are pursued by robbers!'--_trumpets, pipes, and strings!_--'it is not possible,' cried the other travellers.--_pipes and strings!_--'oh, yes,' said i, 'it is but too true,' and on looking out of the window, i saw that those--_trumpets, pipes, and strings!_--horsemen had overtaken us. just as the carriage--_trumpets, pipes, and----_" here the officer's impatience could no longer be restrained. "i hope you will excuse my interrupting you, sir," said he, "but for the life of me i cannot see what your _trumpets, pipes, and strings_ have to do with your story." "sir," replied the old man, "you astonish me. have you not perceived that these words are quite as necessary to my tale as the _oaths_ and _imprecations_ with which you seasoned yours? allow me to offer you a few words of counsel: you are yet young, you can yet correct this sad habit, which shows lightness of character and disrespect for god's sacred name and presence." there was a moment's silence, the officer then took the old gentleman's hand, and pressing it with emotion, said,-"sir, i _thank_ you for the kind lesson you have taught me; i hope it will not be in vain." 3. _the incivility of swearing._ "some vain persons," says dr. barrow again, "take it for a genteel and graceful thing, a special accomplishment, a mark of fine breeding, a point of high gallantry; for who, forsooth, is the brave spark, the complete gentleman, the man of conversation and address, but he that hath the skill and confidence (o heavens! how mean a skill! how mad a confidence!) to lard every sentence with an oath or curse; making bold at every turn to salute his maker, or to summon him in attestation of his tattle; not to say calling and challenging the almighty to damn and destroy him? such a conceit, i say, too many have of swearing, because a custom thereof, together with divers other fond and base qualities, hath prevailed among some people bearing the name and garb of gentlemen. "but in truth there is no practice more crossing the genuine nature of genteelness, or misbecoming persons well-born and well-bred; who should excel the rude vulgar in goodness, in courtesy, in nobleness of heart, in unwillingness to offend, and readiness to oblige those with whom they converse, in steady composedness of mind and manners, in disdaining to say or do any unworthy, any unhandsome thing. "for this practice is not only a gross rudeness towards the main body of men, who justly reverence the name of god, and detest such an abuse thereof; not only, further, an insolent defiance of the common profession, the religion, the law of our country, which disalloweth and condemneth it; but it is very odious and offensive to any particular society or company, at least wherein there is any sober person, any who retaineth a sense of goodness, or is anywise concerned for god's honour; for to any such person no language can be more disgustful. nothing can more grate his ears, or fret his heart, than to hear the sovereign object of his love and esteem so mocked and slighted; to see the law of his prince so disloyally infringed, so contemptuously trampled on; to find his best friend and benefactor so outrageously abused. to give him the lie were a compliment, to spit in his face were an obligation, in comparison to this usage. "wherefore it is a wonder that any person of rank, any that hath in him a spark of ingenuity, or doth at all pretend to good manners, should find in his heart, or deign to comply with so scurvy a fashion; a fashion much more befitting the scum of the people than the flower of the gentry; yea, rather much below any man endued with a scrap of reason, or a grain of goodness. would we bethink ourselves, modest, sober, and pertinent discourse would appear far more generous and masculine than such mad hectoring the almighty, such boisterous insulting over the received laws and general notions of mankind, such ruffianly swaggering against sobriety and goodness. if gentlemen would regard the virtues of their ancestors, the founders of their quality; that gallant courage, that solid wisdom, that noble courtesy which advanced their families, and severed them from the vulgar; this degenerate wantonness and sordidness of language would return to the dunghill, or rather, which god grant, be quite banished from the world." 4. _the positive scriptural commands against swearing._ "thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain; for the lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." "ye shall not swear by any name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy god: i am the lord." the christian lawgiver thus utters his voice, "ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the lord thine oaths: but i say unto you, swear not at all: neither by heaven, for it is god's throne: nor by the earth, for it is his footstool: neither by jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black." st. james thus utters the inspiration of the spirit: "but above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay: lest ye fall into condemnation." it is the duty of all who reverence the name of god, and desire not sin upon their brother, to stand up in firm fidelity, to reprove and correct this evil as it may come before them. the following instances illustrate how this may be done. "my lads," said a shrewd captain, when reading his orders to the crew on the quarter-deck, to take command of the ship, "there is a favour which i ask of you, and which, as a british officer, i expect will be granted by a crew of british seamen; what say you lads, are you willing to grant your new captain, who promises to treat you well, one favour?" "hi, hi, sir," cried all hands, "please to let's know what it is, sir," said a rough-looking, hoarse-voiced boatswain. "why, my lads," said the captain, "it is this: that _you must allow_ me _to swear the first oath in this ship_; this is a law which i cannot dispense with; i must insist upon it, i cannot be denied. no man on board must swear an oath before _i_ do; i want to have the privilege of swearing _the first oath_ on board h.m.s. c----. what say you, my lads, will you grant me this favour?" the appeal seemed so reasonable, and the manner of the captain so kind and so prepossessing, that a general burst from the ship's company announced, "hi, hi, sir," with their accustomed _three cheers_, when they left the quarter-deck. the effect was good, _swearing was wholly abolished in the ship_. when the rev. rowland hill was returning from ireland, he found himself much annoyed by the reprobate conduct of the captain and mate, who were sadly given to the scandalous habit of swearing. first the captain swore at the mate, then the mate swore at the captain; then they both swore at the winds. mr. hill called to them for "fair play." "stop, stop," said he; "let us have fair play, gentlemen; it is my turn now." "at what is it your turn?" asked the captain. "at swearing," replied mr. hill. well, they waited and waited, until their patience was exhausted, and they wished mr. hill to make haste and take his turn. he told them, however, that he had a right to take his own time, and swear at his own convenience. the captain replied with a laugh, "perhaps you don't mean to take your turn!" "pardon me, captain," answered mr. hill, "i shall do so as soon as i can find the good of doing it." mr. hill did not hear another oath on the voyage. john wesley was once travelling in a stage-coach with a young officer who was exceedingly profane, and who swore curses upon himself in almost every sentence. mr. wesley asked him if he had read the common prayer book; for if he had, he might remember the collect beginning, "o god, who art wont to give more than we are to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve." the young man had the good sense to make the application, and swear no more during the journey. on another occasion mr. wesley was travelling, when he had as a fellow-passenger one who was intelligent and very agreeable in conversation, with the exception of occasional swearing. when they changed coaches at a certain place, mr. wesley took the gentleman aside, and after expressing the general pleasure he had had in his company, said he had one favour to ask of him. he at once replied, "i will take great pleasure in obliging you, for i am sure you will not make an unreasonable request." "then," said mr. wesley, "as we have to travel together some distance, i beg, if i should so far forget myself as to swear, you will kindly reprove me." the gentleman immediately saw the reason and force of the request, and smiling, said, "none but mr. wesley could have conceived a reproof in such a manner." ix. the affected. "all affectation is vain and ridiculous; it is the attempt of poverty to appear rich."--lavater. this is a talker with whom one sometimes meets in society. he is not generally very difficult to recognise. his physiognomy often indicates the class to which he belongs. he has sometimes a peculiar formation of mouth, which you may notice as the result of his affectation in speaking. his voice, too, is frequently indicative of his fault. it is pathetic, joyous, funereal, strong, weak, squeaking, not according to its own naturalness, but according to the affectation of his mind. and these variations are generally the opposite of what they ought to be. they neither harmonise with the subject spoken of, nor the person speaking. affectation is a fault which attaches itself to a certain class of "young ladies and gentlemen" who have spent a few months in a village academy or a city school, and wish to give to their friends and parents unmistakeable evidence of their success in the acquisition of learning. it also belongs to a limited class of young ladies who have advanced somewhere the other side of thirty, and begin to stand in fear of a _slip_. their affectation, it is hoped, will be very winning upon the affections of a peculiar sort of young gentlemen who have gone so far in life that they are almost resolved to go all the way without any companion to accompany them. it is a fault, too, which often clings to another class of society,--that which, by a sudden elevation of fortune, are raised from the walks of poverty into the ranks of the wealthy. the elevation of their circumstances has not elevated their education, their intelligence, their good manners. nevertheless, they affect an equality in these, and at the same time sadly betray the reality of their origin and training. this affectation in talk as well as in other ways mostly develops itself in society which is supposed to be higher than the parties affected. the ignorant talker is affected in the company of the intelligent; the uneducated in the company of the educated; the poor in the company of the rich; the young lady in the company of the one who is superior to her, and into whose heart she wishes to distil a drop or two of cupid's elixir. not only, however, among these is the affected talker to be found. he is sometimes met with in those who are supposed to have acquired such attainments in self-knowledge and education as to lift them above this objectionable habit. a clergyman of considerable popularity on a certain occasion was observed to give utterance to his thoughts thus, "the sufferings of the _poo-ah_ increase with the approach of _wint-ah_; and the _glaurious gos-pill_ is the only _cu-ah_ of all the ills of suffering _hoo-man-e-tee_." on another occasion, the same accomplished minister was heard to address himself with much eloquence to the ungodly portion of his congregation: "_o sin-nah_, the judgment is _ne-ah_; life is but a _va-pah_. he that hath ears to _ye-ah_, let him _ye-ah_." a person of respectable position and intelligence, addicted to this way of speaking, in giving account of a visit he had recently made to a man in dying circumstances, said, "when i _arrove_ at the house of my _deseased_ friend, he was _perspiring_ his last. i stood by his bedside, and said, as he was too far gone to speak, 'brother, if you feel happy now, _jist_ squeze my hand;' and he _squoze_ it." but wherever and in whomsoever this fault is discernible, it is a creature of ignorance and weakness. it is repulsive. it is simply detestible; in some, more than in others. there is no fault so easily discovered, and there is none so quickly denounced. the affected talker is one of the most disagreeable talkers. if there is no moral defect in him, yet there is want of good taste, want of propriety, want of respect to the taste of others, violence offered to his own natural gifts and acquired abilities. there is a degree of deception and imposture in the action, if not in the motive and the result: an effort to produce an impression contrary to the honest and natural state of the agent. but it is rarely the effort succeeds in attaining its object. mind is too discerning, too apprehensive, too inquisitive, too susceptible, to allow of imposition from such a source. there seems to be an instinct in human nature to resist the influences coming from affectation. it almost invariably fails to accomplish its end. there is no _innocent_ faulty talker so little welcomed into company as the affected. in illustration of this character still further the following is quoted from the _spectator_, no. 38:-"a late conversation which i fell into, gave me an opportunity of observing a great deal of beauty in a very handsome woman, and as much wit in an ingenious man, turned into deformity in the one, and absurdity in the other, by the mere force of affectation. the fair one had something in her person (upon which her thoughts were fixed) that she attempted to show to advantage, in every look, word, and gesture. the gentleman was as diligent to do justice to his fine parts as the lady to her beauteous form. you might see his imagination on the stretch to find out something uncommon, and what they call bright, to entertain her, while she writhed herself into as many different postures to engage him. when she laughed, her lips were to sever at a greater distance than ordinary, to show her teeth; her fan was to point to something at a distance, that in the reach she may discover the roundness of her arm; then she is utterly mistaken in what she saw, falls back, smiles at her own folly, and is so wholly discomposed that her tucker is to be adjusted, her bosom exposed, and the whole woman put into new airs and graces. while she was doing all this, the gallant had time to think of something very pleasing to say next to her, or to make some unkind observation on some other lady to feed her vanity. these unhappy effects of affectation naturally led me to look into that strange state of mind which so generally discolours the behaviour of most people we meet with." "the learned dr. burnet, in his 'theory of the earth,' takes occasion to observe that every thought is attended with a consciousness and representativeness; the mind has nothing presented to it but what is immediately followed by a reflection of conscience, which tells you whether that which was so presented is graceful or unbecoming. this act of the mind discovers itself in the gesture, by a proper behaviour in those whose consciousness goes no farther than to direct them in the just progress of their present state or action; but betrays an interruption in every second thought, when the consciousness is employed in too fondly approving a man's own conceptions; which sort of consciousness is what we call affectation. "as the love of praise is implanted in our bosoms as a strong incentive to worthy actions, it is a very difficult task to get above a desire of it for things that should be wholly indifferent. women, whose hearts are fixed upon the pleasure they have in the consciousness that they are the objects of love and admiration, are ever changing the air of their countenances, and altering the attitude of their bodies, to strike the hearts of their beholders with new sense of their beauty. the dressing part of our sex, whose minds are the same with the sillier part of the other, are exactly in the like uneasy condition to be regarded for a well-tied cravat, a hat cocked with an uncommon briskness, a very well-chosen coat, or other instances of merit, which they are impatient to see unobserved. "this apparent affectation, arising from an ill-governed consciousness, is not so much to be wondered at in such loose and trivial minds as these; but when we see it reign in characters of worth and distinction, it is what you cannot but lament, not without some indignation. it creeps into the hearts of the wise man as well as that of the coxcomb. when you see a man of sense look about for applause, and discover an itching inclination to be commended; lay traps for a little incense, even from those whose opinion he values in nothing but his own favour; who is safe against this weakness? or who knows whether he is guilty of it or not? the best way to get clear of such a light fondness for applause is to take all possible care to throw off the love of it upon occasions that are not in themselves laudable, but as it appears we hope for no praise from them. of this nature are all graces in men's persons, dress, and bodily deportment, which will naturally be winning and attractive if we think not of them, but lose their force in proportion to our endeavour to make them such. "when our consciousness turns upon the main design of life, and our thoughts are employed upon the chief purpose either in business or pleasure, we shall never betray an affectation, for we cannot be guilty of it; but when we give the passion for praise an unbridled liberty, our pleasure in little perfections robs us of what is due to us for great virtues and worthy qualities. how many excellent speeches and honest actions are lost for want of being indifferent when we ought! men are oppressed with regard to their way of speaking and acting, instead of having their thoughts bent upon what they should do or say; and by that means bury a capacity for great things. this, perhaps, cannot be called affectation; but it has some tincture of it, at least, so far as that their fear of erring in a thing of no consequence argues they would be too much pleased in performing it. "it is only from a thorough disregard to himself in such particulars that a man can act with a laudable sufficiency; his heart is fixed upon one point in view, and he commits no errors, because he thinks nothing an error but what deviates from that intention. "the wild havoc affectation makes in that part of the world which should be most polite is visible wherever we turn our eyes: it pushes men not only into impertinencies in conversation, but also in their premeditated speeches. at the bar it torments the bench, whose business it is to cut off all superfluities in what is spoken before it by the practitioner, as well as several little pieces of injustice which arise from the law itself. i have seen it make a man run from the purpose before a judge, who was, when at the bar himself, so close and logical a pleader, that with all the pomp of eloquence in his power, he never spoke a word too much. "it might be borne even here, but it often ascends the pulpit itself, and the declaimer in that sacred place is frequently so impertinently witty, speaks of the last day itself with so many quaint phrases, that there is no man who understands raillery but must resolve to sin no more. nay, you may behold him sometimes in prayer, for a proper delivery of the great truths he is to utter, humble himself with so very well turned phrase, and mention his own unworthiness in a way so very becoming, that the air of the pretty gentleman is preserved under the lowliness of the preacher. "i shall end this with a short letter i wrote the other day, to a very witty man, overrun with the fault i am speaking of. "dear sir,--i spent some time with you the other day, and must take the liberty of a friend to tell you of the insufferable affectation you are guilty of in all you say and do. when i gave you a hint of it, you asked me whether a man is to be cold to what his friends think of him. no; but praise is not to be the entertainment of every moment. he that hopes for it must be able to suspend the possession of it till proper periods of life or death itself. if you would not rather be commended than be praiseworthy, contemn little merits, and allow no man to be so free with you as to praise you to your face. your vanity by this means will want its food. at the same time your passion for esteem will be more fully gratified; men will praise you in their actions: where you now receive one compliment, you will then receive twenty civilities. till then you will never have of either, farther than, "sir, your humble servant, "t." x. _the stultiloquist._ "compress the sum into its solid worth, and if it weigh the importance of a fly, the scales are false, or algebra a lie." cowper. this is a talker who seems to think that the best use of speech is to give currency to folly. he deals in thoughts and words which create laughter rather than convey instruction. the puns and witticisms of the shop, the street, the theatre, the newspaper, he reserves with sacredness for repetition in the social party, that he may excite the risible faculties, and give merriment to the circle. he appears to have no apprehension of anything that is serious and intelligent. the sum total of his conversation, weighed in the balance, is lighter than vanity. "the mouth of fools," says solomon, "poureth out foolishness." if he is not true to the character, he is to the sign. he forgets altogether that there is a time "to weep," and talks in strains which make one think that he believes there is only a time "to laugh." to laugh and to create laughter is the main business of his tongue in all company. he has no sympathy with tennyson in the following lines:- "prythee weep, may lilian! gaiety without eclipse wearieth me, may lilian." or with barry cornwall, in his lines:- "something thou dost want, o queen! (as the gold doth ask alloy,) tears, amidst thy laughter seen, pity, mingling with the joy." "that which is meant by stultiloquy," says bishop taylor, "or foolish talking, is the '_lubricum verbi_', as st. ambrose calls it, 'the slipping with the tongue,' which prating people often suffer, whose discourses betray the vanity of their spirit, and discover 'the hidden man of the heart.' for no prudence is a sufficient guard, or can always stand '_in excubiis_,' 'still watching,' when a man is in perpetual floods of talk; for prudence attends after the manner of an angel's ministry; it is despatched on messages from god, and drives away enemies, and places guards, and calls upon the man to awake, and bids him send out spies and observers, and then goes about his own ministries above: but an angel does not sit by a man, as a nurse by the baby's cradle, watching every motion, and the lighting of a fly upon the child's lip: and so is prudence: it gives rules, and proportions out our measures, and prescribes us cautions, and by general influences orders our particulars; but he that is given to talk cannot be secured by all this; the emissions of his tongue are beyond the general figures and lines of rule; and he can no more be wise in every period of a long and running talk than a lutanist can deliberate and make every motion of his hand by the division of his notes, to be chosen and distinctly voluntary. and hence it comes that at every corner of the mouth a folly peeps out, or a mischief creeps in." the stultiloquist's talk is like the jesting of mimics and players, who in ancient times were so licentious that they would even make socrates or aristides the subject of their jests, in order to find something to provoke the laugh. it is immaterial to him who or what presents itself; he will endeavour to extract therefrom something ludicrous or comical for the amusement of the company. he may injure the feelings of some; he may offend the modesty of others, and break all the rules of decorum; but what does he care? merriment is of more importance to him than the most sacred feelings of other people. our talker may think that because his hearers listen and laugh, they appreciate his continued flow of stultiloquy. but he is mistaken; could he read the minds of the thoughtful and intelligent, he would find they become jaded long before he does: and if each could speak, he would hear the sentiment of the lines:- "i'm weary of this laughter's empty din, methinks this fellow, with his ready jests, is like to tedious bells, that ring alike, marriage or death." let not the reader infer from the preceding observations that a talker must always exclude from his conversation everything that partakes of the spirit of solid mirth and innocent cheerfulness. certainly not. "to be a man and a christian, one need neither be a mourning dove nor a chattering magpie; neither an ascetic nor a wanton; neither soar with the wings of an angel nor flutter with the flaps of a moth: for there is as substantial a difference between light-heartedness and levity as between the crackling pyrotechnics that disturb the darkness of the night and the natural sunlight which enlivens the day. indecency and ribaldry bring down a man to the level of the beast, divesting him of all his rational superiority and soul-dignity. what appears equally contemptible with the man who stoops to make grimaces, to utter expressions, to tell tales, in one word, to act the fool for the amusement of others, while he is suffering actual disparagement, in proportion to their entertainment." according to inspired wisdom, "no corrupt communication should proceed out of our mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers," that is, favour, complaisance, cheerfulness. we must avoid sullenness on the one hand, as we would jesting on the other. sullenness is repulsive and hateful. jesting is unseasonable and intolerable. but cheerfulness is the light of the soul, and the sunshine of life. it is an alleviator of human sorrow, an exhauster of oppressive cares. jesting is frequently criminal and foolish; but cheerfulness is one of the convoys of religion--the festival spirit filling the heart with harmony and happiness. "it composes music for churches and hearts; it makes and publishes glorifications to god; it produces thankfulness, and serves the end of charity: and when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy round about: and therefore, since it is so innocent, and may be so pious and full of holy advantage, whatsoever can innocently minister to this holy joy sets forward the work of religion and charity. and, indeed, charity itself, which is the vertical top of all religion, is nothing else but a union of joys, concentred in the heart, and reflected from all the angles of our life and intercourse. it is a rejoicing in god, a gladness in our neighbour's good, a rejoicing with him; and without love we cannot have any joy at all. it is this that makes children to be a pleasure, and friendship to be so noble and divine a thing; and upon this account it is certain, that all that which can innocently make a man cheerful, does also make him charitable; for grief, and age, and sickness, and weariness, these are peevish and troublesome; but mirth and cheerfulness are content, and civil, and compliant, and communicative, and love to do good, and swell up to felicity only upon the wings of charity. upon this account, here is pleasure enough for a christian at present; and if a facete discourse, and an amicable friendly mirth can refresh the spirit, and take it off from the vile temptation of peevish, despairing, uncomplying melancholy, it must needs be innocent and commendable. and we may as well be refreshed by a clean and brisk discourse as by the air of campanian wines; and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendly intercourse as with the fat of the balsam tree; and such a conversation no wise man ever did or ought to reprove. but when the jest hath teeth and nails, biting or scratching our brother,--when it is loose and wanton,--when it is unseasonable, and much, or many,--when it serves ill-purposes, or spends better time,--then it is the drunkenness of the soul, and makes the spirit fly away, seeking for a temple where the mirth and the music are solemn and religious." in a world of this kind, where reign life and death, goodness and evil, joy and sorrow, we need a wise conjunction of seriousness and cheerfulness. while, on the one hand, our harps must not always be on the willows; neither must they always be high-strung and gaily played. smiles and tears in their season harmonise better than all of one or the other out of season. with clouded sky for weeks we sigh for sunshine; as in italy, under its long bright sky, they sigh for clouds. the time of the "singing of birds" and the efflorescence of trees is very welcome; but who does not equally welcome the time of fruit-bearing also? the lark soars in the air and sings merrily, but she also falls to earth and sings not at all. jesus rejoiced; but "jesus wept." the night of weeping and the morning of joy unite in one. so let the grave and the cheerful conjoin in speech, according to times and seasons, places and circumstances. it is wise to have the two thus meet together. to be lifted up in hilarity is the precursor of being cast down in dejection. a sudden rise of the thermometer is generally followed by as sudden a fall. "i am not sorry," said sir walter scott, after the breaking up of a merry group of guests at abbotsford, "being one of those whom too much mirth always inclines to sadness." "there is no music in the life that sounds with idiot laughter solely; there's not a string attuned to mirth, but has its chord in melancholy." "to some men god hath given laughter; but tears to some men he hath given: he bade us sow in tears, hereafter to harvest holier smiles in heaven; and tears and smiles they are his gift; both good, to smite or to uplift: he tempers smiles with tears; both good, to bear in time the christian mood." xi. _the slanderer._ "whose edge is sharper than the sword: whose tongue outvenoms all the worms of nile; whose breath rides on the posting winds, and doth belie all corners of the world; kings, queens, and states, maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave this viperous slander enters." shakespeare. he has a mischievous temper and a gossiping humour. he deals unmercifully with his neighbour, and speaks of him without regard to truth or honour. the holy command given him by his maker, to love his neighbour as himself, is violated with impunity. like those busy tongues spoken of by jeremiah, that would feign find out some employment, though it was mischief, he says, "report, and we will report." he catches up any evil rumour, and hands it on to others, until, like the river nile, it spreads over the whole land, and yet the head of it remains in uncertainty. he hides himself from discovery, like those fish which immerse themselves in mud of their own stirring. he tells malicious stories of others, and ascribes odious names to them, without any just foundation for either. he defames and calumniates in company persons of whom no one present knows anything evil, or, if he does, prefers keeping it in his own mind. it seems his pleasure to cast filth into the face of purity; and bespatter innocence with foul imputations. no eminency in rank, or sacredness in office; no integrity in principle, or wisdom in administration; no circumspection in life, or benevolence in deed; no good-naturedness of temper, or benignity of disposition, escape the venom of his petulant tongue. devoid of feeling himself, he speaks of other people as though they were devoid of it likewise. he can thrust at the tenderest heart, as though it was adamant, and deal with human excellencies as so many shuttlecocks to be played with by his slanderous words. the christian religion does not escape his leprous speech. the holy scriptures and the church of christ come within the subjects of his viperous utterances. even jehovah himself, in his names, attributes, and ways, is sometimes the topic of his unhallowed and blasphemous sayings. the mental and moral attributes of the slanderer are of the most depraved and unhappy character. he is envious, selfish, jealous, vain, malignant, unbelieving, uncharitable, thoughtless, atheistical. st. james says that "his tongue is set on fire of hell." as, however, there is in every other class of character a variety of manifestations, so in that of the slanderer. the highest manifestation of this talker in regard to men consists in bearing false witness against a neighbour; charging him with things of which he is not guilty: as in the case of those who said, "naboth did blaspheme god and the king," when he had not done so. thus did the slanderer speak against david: "false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty;" "they laid things to my charge that i knew not." a second manifestation of slander is the application to persons of epithets and phrases which they do not deserve. thus korah and his company denounced moses as unjust and tyrannical. thus the jews spoke of christ as an impostor, a blasphemer, a sorcerer, a wine-bibber, a glutton, possessed of the devil, an instigator of the people to anarchy and rebellion. a third manifestation is, aspersing a man's actions with mean censures, intimating that they proceed from wrong motives and principles. another is, the perversion of a man's words or deeds so as to give them a contrary appearance and signification to what was intended. another is, the insinuation of suggestions, which, although they do not directly assert falsehood, engender wrong opinions towards those of whom they are made. another is, the utterance of oblique and covert reflections, which, while they do not expressly amount to an accusation of evil, convey the impression that something is seriously defective. another is, the imputation to a man's practice, judgment, profession, or words, consequences which have no connection with them, so as to deteriorate him in the estimation of others. another is, the repetition of any rumour or story concerning a man likely to injure his character in society. another is, being accessory to or encouraging slander in any sense or degree. the apostle james speaks of slander as "poison." "the deadliest poisons," says the rev. f. w. robertson, in a sermon on this passage, "are those for which no test is known; there are poisons so destructive that a single drop insinuated into the veins produces death in three seconds, and yet no chemical science can separate that virus from the contaminated blood and show the metallic particles of poison glittering palpably, and say, 'behold, it is here.' "in the drop of venom which distils from the sting of the smallest insect, or the spike of the nettle leaf, there is concentrated the quintessence of a poison so subtle that the microscope cannot distinguish it, and yet so virulent that it can inflame the blood, irritate the whole constitution, and convert day and night into restless misery. "thus it is with some forms of slander. it drops from tongue to tongue; goes from house to house, in such ways and degrees, that it would sometimes be difficult to take it up and detect the falsehood. you could not evaporate the truth in the slow process of the crucible, and then show the residuum of falsehood glittering and visible. you could not fasten upon any word or sentence, and say that it was calumny; for in order to constitute slander, it is not necessary that the words spoken should be false--half truths are often more calumnious than whole falsehoods. it is not even necessary that a word should be distinctly uttered; a dropped lip, an arched eyebrow, a shrugged shoulder, a significant look, an incredulous expression of countenance, nay, even an emphatic silence, may do the work; and when the light and trifling thing which has done the mischief has fluttered off, the venom is left behind to work and rankle, to fever human existence, and to poison human society at the fountain springs of life." glance at the _evil effects_ of slander. beauty is defaced, goodness is abused, innocence is corrupted, justice is dethroned, truth is denied and violated. motives are impugned, and purposes misinterpreted. sacred principles are treated with scorn, and honourable actions are slimed over with disgrace. the minister is falsely represented to his people, and the people to their minister. church persecutes church, and christian maligns christian. ill feelings are created between master and servant. friend is separated from friend. neighbour is set against neighbour. business men are thrown into mutual antagonism. whole families are excited to animosities and strifes. churches are raised into ferment and divisions. political parties are brought into rivalry and contention. the passions are kindled into fury, and blood for blood, tooth for tooth, eye for eye, are the precepts of mutual action. fame is arrested in its course and turned backwards. honour is thrown into the dust. worth is cast into the streets; usefulness is perverted into mischievousness. noble aspiration is said to be selfishness. whatever slander touches, it leaves upon it the slimy trail of the old serpent, and infuses its poisonous venom; and were it not for the angel of truth which destroys both, irretrievable ruin would be the consequence. "the tongue of the slanderer," says massillon, "is a devouring fire, which tarnishes whatever it touches; which exercises its fury on the good grain equally as on the chaff, on the profane as on the sacred; which, wherever it passes, leaves only desolation and ruin; digs even into the bowels of the earth, and fixes itself on things the most hidden; turns into vile ashes what only a moment before had appeared to us so precious and brilliant; acts with more violence and danger than ever, in the time when it was apparently smothered up and almost extinct; which blackens what it cannot consume, and sometimes sparkles and delights before it destroys." "he that uttereth slander is a fool," says the wise man. "he is a fool," remarks dr. barrow, "because he maketh wrong judgments and valuations of things, and accordingly driveth on silly bargains for himself, in result whereof he proveth a great loser." his "whole body is defiled" by it, says the apostle. as a christian he is enfeebled in his spiritual strength. as a moralist he is weakened in his influence and character. as a neighbour he loses respect and confidence. as a talker in company he is shunned by the sincere and charitable. "a fool's mouth," observes solomon, "is his destruction: his lips are the snare of his soul." "thy tongue," says the psalmist, "deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. thou lovest evil more than good, and lying rather than to speak righteousness. thou lovest all-devouring words, o thou deceitful tongue. god shall likewise destroy thee for ever; he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place, and root thee out of the land of the living" (ps. lii. 2-5). "you cannot stop the consequences of slander," says the rev. f. w. robertson; "you may publicly prove its falsehood, you may sift every atom, explain and annihilate it, and yet, years after you had thought that all had been disposed of for ever, the mention of a name wakes up associations in the mind of some one who heard it, but never heard or never attended to the refutation, or who has only a vague and confused recollection of the whole, and he asks the question doubtfully, 'but were there not some suspicious circumstances connected with him?' it is like the greek fire used in ancient warfare, which burnt unquenched beneath the water; or like the weeds, which, when you have extirpated them in one place, are sprouting forth vigorously in another spot, at the distance of many hundred yards; or, to use the metaphor of st. james himself, it is like the wheel which catches fire as it goes, and burns with a fiercer conflagration as its own speed increases; 'it sets on fire the whole course of nature' (literally the wheel of nature). you may tame the wild beast; the conflagration of the american forest will cease when all the timber and the dry underwood is consumed; but you cannot arrest the progress of that cruel word which you uttered carelessly yesterday or this morning,--which you will utter, perhaps, before you have passed from this church one hundred yards: that will go on slaying, poisoning, burning beyond your own control, now and for ever." in conclusion, a few suggestions may be given, which, if taken, may assist in the cure or prevention of this evil disease of the tongue. 1. _consider well the ninth commandment of the decalogue_, which requires you not to bear false witness against your neighbour. 2. _abstain from the company of slanderers._ "thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil." slandering is contagious. slanderers help one another. prefer being alone, or seek that company in which the slanderer is not admitted. 3. _do not interfere in the affairs of other people, when they do not concern you._ "study to be quiet, and to mind _your own_ business." this will occupy all your time and attention, and leave you no opportunity of picking up and spreading abroad slanderous tales about your neighbours. the slanderer is very often an idler, and a busy-body in other men's matters, while his own lie in confusion and tend to ruin. look at home. set thy own house in order. make up thy own accounts. pay thy own bills. rectify the disorder of thy own affairs. in doing these things you may find enough to do, without working in the field of slander. 4. _remember that you have your own weak points_ and failings, as well as he of whom you may utter slanderous things. were you to use the mirror of reflection, and look into your own life honestly, you would probably see faults which would make you think, "well, i have plenty of failings of my own, without saying anything about those of others. i have a beam in my own eye to take out, before i attempt to take the mote out of my brother's. i see that i live in a glass house myself, and must be careful at whom i throw stones. i must wash my own hands in innocency before i complain of others being unclean." 5. _consider that, as you value your character_, other people value their character. as you do not like to be slandered, neither do they. do, therefore, unto them as you would have them do unto you. 6. _think of the consequences of slander_, and if you have a spark of beneficence in your nature, you will avoid the practice of it. 7. it will be as well for you _not to imagine yourself of so great importance in the world, and others of such insignificance_. be not high-minded, but fear. it is generally from an eminence of self-importance that the slanderer speaks of those who occupy a position of real and given eminence. if he would step down from that cloudy pedestal, and occupy his own place, he would probably think less of himself and more of others. 8. _give no countenance to the slanderer._ keep your patronage for some one of nobler worth: some one more generous and charitable, more philanthropic and christian. give him no entrance into your house. prefer his room to his company. write over the doorway of your residence, "no admission for slanderers." and in case he should find an entrance, inscribe upon the walls of your rooms what st. augustine inscribed upon his,- "he that doth love on absent friends to jeer may hence depart, no room is for him here." close your ears to his slanders whenever and wherever you meet him. "lend not your ears," says an old writer, "to those who go about with tales and whispers; whose idle business it is to tell news of this man and the other: for if these kind of flies can but blow in your ears, the worms will certainly creep out at your mouth. for all discourse is kept up by exchange; and if he bring thee one story, thou wilt think it incivility not to repay him with another for it; and so they chat over the whole neighbourhood; accuse this man, and condemn another, and suspect a third, and speak evil of all." xii. _the valetudinarian._ "some men employ their health, an ugly trick, in making known how oft they have been sick; and give us, in recitals of disease, a doctor's trouble, but without his fees." cowper. this is a talker who may very properly occupy a place in our sketches. it may not be necessary to give a description of his person. and were it necessary, it would be difficult, on account of the frequent changes to which he is subject. it is not, however, with his bodily appearance that we have to do. he cannot perhaps be held responsible for this altogether. but the fault of his tongue is undoubtedly a habit of his own formation, and may therefore be described, with a view to its amendment and cure. the valetudinarian is a man subject to some affliction, imaginary or real, or it may be both. whatever may be its nature, it loses nothing by neglect on his part, for he is its devoted nurse and friend. night and day, alone and in company, he is most faithful in his attentions. he keeps a mental diary of his complaints in their changing symptoms, and of his general experience in connection with them. whenever you meet him, you find him well informed in a knowledge of the numerous variations of his "complicated, long-continued, and unknown afflictions." * * * * * mr. round was a man who will serve as an illustration of this talker. he was formerly a merchant in the city of london. during the period of his business career he was remarkably active and diligent in the accumulation of this world's goods. he was successful; and upon the gains of his prosperous merchandise he retired into the country to live on his "means." the sudden change from stirring city life into the retirement and inactivity of a rural home soon began to affect his health; and not being a man of much education and intelligence, his mind brooded over himself, until he became nervous and, as he thought, feeble and delicate. his nervousness failed not to do its duty in his imagination and fancy; so that, with the two in active working, a "combination of diseases" gradually took hold of him, and "told seriously upon his constitution." mr. round, having given up his business in the city, now had a business with his afflictions in the country. he studied them thoroughly, in their internal symptoms and external signs. he could have written a volume of experience as to how he suffered in the head, the nerves, the stomach, the liver, the lungs, the heart, etc.; how he suffered when awake and when asleep; how he suffered from taking a particular kind of food or drink; and how he did not suffer when he did not take a particular kind of food and drink; how he thought he should have died a thousand times, under certain circumstances which he would not name. these things he could have pictured in a most affecting manner to his reader. but it was not in writing that mr. round described his multitudinous ailments. it was in _talking_. this to him was great relief. a description of his case to any one who was patient enough to hear him through did him more good than all the pills and mixtures sent him by doctor green, his medical attendant. this habit of talking about his sickness became as chronic as the sickness itself. he seemed to know little of any other subject than the real and imaginary complaints of his body; at least, he talked about little else. if in conversation he happened to commence in the spirit, he soon entered into the flesh, and there he ended. if by an effort of his hearer his attention was diverted from himself, it would with all the quickness of an elastic bow rebound to his favourite theme. out of the sphere of his own "poor body," as he used to call it, he was no more at home in conversation than a fish wriggling on the sea-beach. mrs. blunt invited a few friends to spend an evening at her house. the company was composed mostly of young persons, in whom the flow of life was strong and buoyant. the beginning of the evening passed off amid much innocent enjoyment from conversation, singing, music, and reading. in the midst of this social pleasure, who should make his appearance but mr. round, accompanied by mrs. blunt? she introduced him to the company, and to be polite, as he thought, he shook hands with every one in the room. this performance took up the best part of half an hour, as he gave each one a brief epitome of his imaginary disorders. as he was speaking first to one and then another, the whole party might have heard his melancholy voice giving an account of some particular item of his affliction. one could hear the responses at intervals to his statements,--"oh"--"ah"--"a pity you are so sick"--"why, i never"--"dear me"--"is it possible?"--"why, how can you live so?"--"i wonder how you survived that,"--coming from various parts of the room. not only on entering, but during his stay, he talked about his symptoms, his fears, his hopes, his dangers, in respect to his "dreadful sickness." occasionally he would point to his eyes, observing "how sunken and bedimmed!" then to his cheeks, saying "how pale and deathly they seem!" then again, he would call attention to the thinness of his hands and arms, saying, "he was not near the man he used to be, and he feared he never should be again. although he was out that evening, he ought not to have been, and he expected to suffer severely through the night for it. if he had the health he once had, or the health of his friend next him, there was nothing he would enjoy more than that evening; but now he was past it. his doctor had been visiting him for years; but he didn't seem to get any better, and he thought he should have to give him up, or lose all the money he had. o dear! the room was too warm, he could not breathe; that door must be opened; that singing distracted him; he loved the piano once--now his nerves could not stand it. he thought it became young people to be very serious and devout in the prospect of an affliction which might be as melancholy as his was. but he could not remain any longer; he was afraid of stopping out nights, and therefore he must wish them good-bye and retire." this was about the substance of all he said during his visit. he was like an iceberg rolled into the genial temperature of the social atmosphere. what did those young people care to know about his health, excepting the usual compliments at such times? the room was not an hospital, and the company a collection of inquiring, medical students. he was no worse that evening than he had been months before. but as he had not seen most of them until now he probably thought that would be an interesting opportunity to entertain them with a full and particular account of "his complicated and long-continued afflictions." as soon as mr. round had gone from the room a general rallying was the result. "the bore is gone, the valetudinarian has made his exit," exclaimed master thompson, rather excited. "o how pleased i am that he has left!" said miss young. "so am i," responded mr. baker, "for he is one of the greatest plagues that ever came near me. he is enough to give one the horrors, in hearing so much of his sick talk." "he was not satisfied in simply telling us that he was not very well; but he must enter into a long and tedious detail of all his sicknesses," observed mr. wales. "well, poor man, he is to be pitied, after all. he suffers a great deal more in his imagination from his sickness than we have in reality by hearing him tell of it," said miss swaithe, a little sympathetically. "i don't know about that," said young spencer. "is round gone, then?" asked mr. burr, a young man who had left the room soon after he came in, having been annoyed with his valetudinarian twaddle. "he's no more," answered miss glass, in a tone somewhat ironically funereal. "why, he's not dead, is he?" inquired mr. burr, quickly. "i should not be surprised if he were; for, judging from what he said, one would expect him to die any moment." "o no; he's not the one to die yet, be sure of that; but he's gone for the night," said miss glass. "thank goodness for his departure: i do not mean to another world, but from this company. yet where would be the harm in wishing him in heaven, where none shall ever say they are sick?" said mr. ferriday. "i see no harm in wishing a good thing like that," said miss bond--"a good thing for him and other people too." "don't be so unkind and unmerciful," said mrs. grant. "i do not think i am so," replied miss bond, "for if he was in heaven, he would be cured of all his diseases; and he says he never shall be in this world. and then other people would be happily exempted from the misery of listening to his invalid tales every time they met with him." "how his wife does to live with him i cannot tell," remarked miss bond. "i suppose she is used to him," said mr. burr. "come now, let us have no more talk about mr. round, or we shall be catching some of his diseases," said miss crane. soon after the above talk had ceased, mr. burr took up a copy of cowper's poems which lay on the table. he opened on the subject of "conversation," and, in reading, came to the part which describes the valetudinarian. having read it over to himself, he could not refrain asking permission to read it aloud. "although we have dismissed the subject of mr. round," said mr. burr, "yet, if the company have no objection, i would like to read from cowper's poems a short piece which i think will interest you, as being descriptive of the valetudinarian, who has been with us this evening." general consent being given, mr. burr read as follows:- "some men employ their health, an ugly trick, in making known how oft they have been sick; and give us, in recitals of disease, a doctor's troubles, but without his fees; relate how many weeks they kept their bed, how an emetic or cathartic sped; nothing is slightly touched, much less forgot, nose, ears, and eyes, seem present on the spot. now the distemper, spite of draught or pill, victorious seemed, and now the doctor's skill; and now--alas for unforeseen mishaps!- they put on a damp nightcap and relapse; they thought they must have died, they were so bad; their peevish hearers almost wish they had." "that's capital," cried out mr. strong. "it is mr. round's character to a tick," said mrs. blunt, who was better acquainted with him than any one else in the room. "it seems to me," said miss young, "that cowper must have had round before him when he wrote those lines." "cowper is a splendid poet," observed young brown, who was rather pedantic; "he is my favourite among the poets. i have been accustomed to read him from my boyhood. i always admire his description of character. who but a cowper could have written that admirable extract just given to us by mr. burr, and which was read with such elegance?" "come," said mr. burr, "give us a tune on the piano, miss armstrong." the company again left the valetudinarian for their social enjoyments; and not long after left mrs. blunt's for their respective homes. xiii. _the whisperer._ "and when they talk of him they shake their heads, and whisper one another in the ear; and he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist, whilst he that hears makes fearful action with wrinkled brows, with nods, and rolling eyes." shakespeare. his stock of information is always of the most original kind, and no want of it into the bargain. no one is acquainted with the facts treasured in his memory but himself. nor does he want any one else to know, excepting a particular friend in whom he has the greatest confidence. and he will only inform him in a whisper, lest any other should hear; and this upon the sacred condition that he will never discover the secret to his nearest friend, not even to the wife of his bosom. and lo, when the grand secret is divulged into his inclining and attentive ear, it is either an old story which everybody knows, or a communication of gossip about some one in whom he has no interest whatever. peter hush is a whisperer often met with in the ranks of life. he is a descendant from an ancient family of that name, which has lived so long that the origin can scarcely be traced out. he stands related to a vast number of hushes located in different parts of the world. it is the business of peter, in the first place, to walk around in the neighbourhood where he resides in order to pick up what scraps of information he can find. he cares not where he finds them, nor how, nor what they are; he has a use for them. he collects stories in the private history of individuals, mixed up with a slight degree of scandal. the sickness of persons, evening parties, clandestine visits, secret courtships, elopements, marriages, difficulties of tradesmen, quarrels of husbands and wives, rumours from abroad respecting a newly located neighbour, with such-like things, constitute the commodity which he gathers. he is seldom or ever without a stock on hand; if he cannot give you of one kind, he can of another. sometimes i have met him in a bye-road, and, before he told me what he had to say, he came close to me, and being a little shorter than myself, stood on tip-toe, and whispered in my ears; then telling me aloud, "be sure now you say nothing about it; i wouldn't have it repeated for all the world." poor peter need not have been alarmed, for i knew the thing long before he did. i have been alone with him in a large room, and he would take me up one corner to whisper something in my ears. he has a way sometimes of ending his whispering revelations with a loud, "do not you think so?" then whisper again, and then aloud, "but you know that person," then whisper again. the thing would be well enough if peter whispered to keep the folly of what he says among friends; but, alas! he does it to preserve the importance of his own thoughts. it is a wonderful thing that, although he is never heard to talk about things in nature, and never seen with a book in his hand, yet he can whisper something like knowledge of what has and of what now passes in the world, which one would think he learned from some familiar spirit that did not think him worthy to receive the whole story. but the truth is, he deals only in half accounts of what he would entertain you with. a help to his discourse is, "that the town says, and people begin to talk very freely, and he had it from persons too considerable to be named, what he will tell you when things are riper." he informs you as a secret that he designs in a very short time to reveal you a secret; you must say nothing to any one. the next time you see him the secret is not yet ripened, he wants to learn a little more of it, and in a fortnight's time he hopes to tell you everything about it. you may sometimes see peter seat himself in a company of eight or ten persons whom he never saw before in his life; and after having looked about to see that no one overheard, he has communicated unto them in a low voice, and under the seal of secrecy, the death of a great man in the country, who was perhaps at that very moment travelling in europe for his pleasure. if upon entering a room you see a circle of heads bending over a table, and lying close to one another, it is almost certain that peter hush is among them. peter has been known to publish the whisper of the day by eight o'clock in the morning at one house, by twelve at a second, and before two at a third. when peter has thus effectually launched a secret, it is amusing to hear people whispering it to one another at second hand, and spreading it about as their own; for it must be known that the great incentive to whispering is the ambition which every one has of being thought in the secret and being looked upon as a man who has access to greater people than one would imagine. besides the character of peter hush, as a whisperer, there is lady blast, about whom a word or two must be said. she deals in the private transactions of the sewing circle, the quilting party, with all the arcana of the fair sex. she has such a particular malignity in her whisper that it blights like an easterly wind, and withers every reputation it breathes upon. she has a most dexterous plan at making private weddings. last winter she married about five women of honour to their footmen. her whisper can rob the innocent young lady of her virtue; and fill the healthful young man with diseases. she can make quarrels between the dearest friends, and effect a divorce between the husband and wife who never lived on any terms but the most peaceful and happy. she can stain the character of the clergymen with corruption, against which no one could ever utter the faintest moral delinquency. she can beggar the wealthy, and degrade the noble. in short, she can whisper men base or foolish, jealous or ill-natured; or, if occasion requires, can tell you the failings of their great-grandmothers, and traduce the memory of virtuous citizens who have been in their graves these hundred years. a few words more respecting the whisperer taken from the bible. the psalmist regarded those who whispered against him as those who hated him. "all that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise my hurt" (ps. xli. 7). "a whisperer separateth chief friends," is the declaration of the wise man (prov. xvi. 28). and again, he says, "where there is no whisperer (marginal reading) the strife ceaseth" (prov. xxvi. 20). "whisperers" is one of the names given by st. paul to the heathen characters which he describes in the first chapter of romans. let my reader, then, beware of the whisperer. give no ear to his secrets. guard against an imitation of his example. favour the candid and honest man who has nothing to say but what is truthful, charitable, and wise. cultivate the same disposition in your own bosom, and so avoid in yourself the disreputable character of a whisperer, and prevent the mischievous consequences in others. xiv. _the hyperbolist._ "he was owner of a piece of ground not larger than a lacedemonian letter."--longinus. "he was so gaunt, the case of a flagelet was a mansion for him."--shakespeare. the habit of this talker is to exaggerate. he abides not by simple truth in the statement of a fact or the relation of a story. what he sees with his naked eye he describes to others in enlarged outlines, filled up with colours of the deepest hues. what he hears with his naked ears he repeats to others in words which destroy its simplicity, and almost absorb its truthfulness. a straw is a beam, a mole-hill a mountain. his ducks are geese, his minnows are perch, and his babes cherubs. the fading light of the evening he merges into darkness, and the mellow rays of the morning into the dazzling sunshine of noonday. he turns the pyramid on its apex, and the mountain on its peak. if he has a slight ache in the head, he is distracted in his senses, and a brief indisposition of his friend is a sickness likely to be of long duration and serious consequence. simple truth is not sufficient for the hyberbolist to set forth his views and feelings in conversation. he wishes to convey the idea that _he_ has seen and experienced things in number, quality, and circumstances exceeding anything within the range of your knowledge and experience. he is wishful that you should "_wonder_" and utter words of exclamation at his statements. if you do not, he may perchance repeat himself with enlarged hyperbolisms; and should you then hear in a matter-of-course manner, he may give you up as one stoical or phlegmatic in your temperament. the following lines, written by dr. byrom in the last century, will serve to show the nature and growth of hyperbolism in many instances; especially in the repetition of facts:- "two honest tradesmen, meeting in the strand, one took the other briskly by the hand; 'hark ye,' said he, ''tis an odd story this, about the crows!' '_i don't know what it is_,' replied his friend.--'no! i'm surprised at that; where i come from, it is the common chat. but you shall hear: an odd affair indeed! and, that it happen'd, they are all agreed; not to detain you from a thing so strange, a gentleman that lives not far from 'change, this week, in short, as all the alley knows, taking a puke, has thrown up _three black crows_.' '_impossible!_' 'nay, but it's really true; i have it from good hands, and so may you.' '_from whose, i pray?_' so having nam'd the man, straight to enquire his curious comrade ran. '_sir, did you tell?_'--relating the affair. 'yes, sir, i did; and if it's worth your care, ask mr. such-a-one, he told it me,- but, by-the-bye, 'twas _two_ black crows, not _three_.' resolv'd to trace so wondrous an event, whip, to the third, the virtuoso went. '_sir_,'--and so forth. 'why, yes; the thing is fact, though in regard to number not exact; it was not _two_ black crows, but only one; the truth of _that_ you may depend upon. the gentleman himself told me the case.'- 'where may i find him?'--'why, in such a place.' away goes he, and having found him out, 'sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt;' then to his last informant he referr'd, and begg'd to know, if _true_ what he had heard, 'did you, sir, throw up a black crow?'--'not i.' 'bless me! how people propagate a lie! black crows have been thrown up, _three_, _two_, and _one_: and here, i find, all comes, at last, to _none_! did you say _nothing_ of a crow at _all_?' 'crow--crow--perhaps i might, now i recall the matter over.'--'and, pray, sir, what was't?' 'why i was horrid sick, and, at the last, i did throw up, and told my neighbour so, something that was--_as black_, sir, as a crow.'" an englishman and a yankee were once talking about the speed at which the trains travelled in their respective countries. the englishman spoke of the "flying dutchman" travelling sixty miles an hour. "we beat that hollow," said the yankee. "our trains on some lines travel so fast that they outgo the sound of the whistle which warns of their coming, and reach the station first." of course the "britisher" gave the palm to his american cousin, and said no more about english locomotive travelling. hyberbolism is a fault too much cultivated and practised among the "young ladies" of our schools and homes. they think it an elegant mode of speaking, and seem to rival each other as to which shall best succeed. an ordinary painting of one of their friends is "an exquisitely fine piece of workmanship, and really reynolds himself could scarcely exceed it." and that bouquet of wax flowers on the side-board "are not surpassed by the products of nature herself." that young man lately seen in company at the house of mrs. hood "is one of the handsomest young gentlemen that i ever beheld; indeed, miss spencer, i never saw any one to equal him in reality or in picture." to tell the truth, courteous reader, this said "young gentleman" was scarcely up to an ordinary exhibition of that sex and age of humanity; but this young lady, for some reason or other, could not help speaking of him as the "_highest style_ of man." our children are even found indulging in this exaggerated mode of speech, as the following may illustrate:-"oh, mother," said annie, as she threw herself into a chair, on her return from a walk, "_i cannot stir another step._" "why, annie," answered her mother, "i thought your walk was pleasant, and not tiring at all." "it was such a long one," said annie; "_i thought we should never have got home again._ i would not walk it again _for all the world_." "but did you not enjoy the walk in the fields, annie?" "oh, no; there were so many cows that _i was frightened to death_." "what a little angel our baby is," said nancy, one day to her sister, "_i feel as though i could eat it up._" "o what a _monstrous brute_ our governess is!" said marian to a school-fellow one afternoon, because she had corrected her rather sharply for some misdemeanour. "i say, fred, we have strawberries in our garden _as big as my fist_," said david one day to him. fred opened his eyes in wonder, and said, "i should like to see them." fred went to see them, and david's garden strawberries were found to be no larger than one of his ordinary-sized marbles. "come," says james to harry, "let us go and get some blackberries; there are _oceans_ of them on yonder hedge." "oceans!" said james in wonder. "yes, oceans; only you must mind in getting them that you don't fall into the ditch, or you will be _over your head_ in mud." james went with harry, and found that the blackberries were as sparse on the hedge as plums in his school pudding, and as for mud to cover him, he saw scarcely enough to come over his boots. another boy says, "i am so thirsty, i could drink the _sea dry_." another, "i learned my lessons to-day in _no time_." another, standing in the cold, says, "i am _frozen to death_." another, in the heat, says, "i am _as hot as fire_." "my father's horse is _the best in the kingdom_," says john. "my father's is _the best in the world_," says alexander in reply. "oh, how it did hail in our parts yesterday," said a boy to his schoolmate; "the hail-stones were as _big as hens' eggs_." "that's nothing," said his rival in return; "in our parts it rained _hens and chickens_." "well," said the other, despairing of going beyond that, "that was wonderful; i never heard of it raining like that before." the above kind of talk may by some be regarded as only "inoffensive ebullitions" of childhood and youth. it is not said that moral guilt may be its immediate consequence; but is it a kind of talk altogether innocent? does it sound truthful? is it a habit to be encouraged or connived at? should not all who have the education and training of young persons correct the evil when it appears, and in the place of it cultivate that speech which is made up of words of "truth and soberness"? the hyperbolist not only shows himself in talk which _magnifies_ beyond the natural, the simple, and the true; but which also _diminishes_. "he said nothing of any account--nothing worth your hearing," observed one friend to another, respecting a certain lecturer; when perhaps he uttered thoughts of weight and force worthy the attention of highest wisdom. he expressed this hyperbolism to allay some disappointment which his friend felt in not hearing him. "the affair is really of such little consequence that it is not worth your while to think about it;" at the same time it involved questions of vital importance to him. this he said to divert his mind from brooding over it to his injury. "i never saw such a small watch in all my life; it was hardly bigger than a sixpence;" and yet it was of the ordinary size of a lady's watch. "it is no distance to go, and the hill is nothing to climb; you will get there in the time you are standing hesitating;" and this a father said to induce his son to go into the country on an errand for which he showed strong disinclination. "the duties are of such a trifling nature, you may perform them with perfect ease;" so said a minister to persuade a member of his church to undertake a responsible office against which he had conscientious objections. thus the hyperbolist stands on either side of truth, and takes from or adds to, according to the temper of his mind and the object he wishes to accomplish. on whichever side he stand his talk is alike blamable. let me, in conclusion, caution my readers, and especially my young readers, against the formation and practice of this intemperate habit in talking. it is of no service to truth. it does no good to you or others, but harm. it will grow upon you, and may end in the habit of absolute _false speaking_. you do not mean now to be recognized as telling lies: you would perhaps shudder at the thought; but what you now shudder at, you may fall into, by the inadvertent formation of habitual exaggerated talk. therefore guard against these excessive and thoughtless hyperbolisms of speech. speak of things, persons, and places as you _see_ them, not as you fancy; speak to convey correct views, not to excite wonder or to rival others in "large talk," and in "strange things." _simple truth_ is always more welcome in society than swollen fiction. the frog in the fable killed itself by trying to be as big as the ox; so you are in danger of killing truth when you inflate it beyond its own natural proportions. truth needs no extraneous aids to commend it; or, as cowper says,- "no meretricious graces to beguile, no clustering ornaments to clog the pile, from ostentation as from weakness free, majestic in its own simplicity." "the apocrypha," says the rev. j. b. owen, "into which you may elaborate your observations will ultimately be sifted from the canonical, and you will appear before society as _interpolaters_, inserting your own spurious statements among the genuine records of facts already received as simple, authentic truths. have the modesty to suppose that others know a thing or two as well as yourselves. the scraps of facts which may lie scattered among the profusion of your hyperbolisms may be old acquaintances of your hearers. let them speak for themselves in their own artless, ingenuous way, and take their own chance of success to whatever branch of the lovely family of truth they may belong. "hyperbole is a fault of no trivial importance in conversation. carried, as it generally is, to such an extent, it is nothing more nor less than equivalent to lying. it frequently places the hyperbolist in a position of distrustful scrutiny and strong doubt, on the part of those with whom he converses. his authentication of a rumour reacts as its contradiction. he himself robs it of a large amount of evidence, by welcoming the proof of anybody else as better than his own. he anticipates the discount which will be made off his commodity, and so adds exorbitancy to his statements, which will leave a balance in hand after all. but people will not be deceived again and again. his credit becomes damaged. his moral bill returns dishonoured. his extravagance of diction, like extravagance in expenditure, involves him in difficulties, and thus the immediate fate of mendacity symbolizes that awful retribution which will finally exclude all liars from the society of the good and true." "old humphrey," in speaking of a painter who over-coloured his pictures, was wont to express the defect by saying, "too much red in the brush." it would be well for the hyperbolist to have some friend at his elbow, when he over-colours things, to say, "too much red in the brush." xv. _the inquisitive._ "the inquisitive will blab: from such refrain; their leaky ears no secret can retain."--horace. the inquisitive is a talker whose capacity is for taking rather than giving. to ask questions is his province, and not to give answers. he is more anxious to know than he is to make known. though in some instances he may have the ability to speak good sense, yet he cannot or will not exercise himself in so doing. he must pry into other people's stock of knowledge, and find out all that he can for his satisfaction. if he come to anything which is labelled "private," he is sure to be the more curious to ascertain what is within. he is restless and dissatisfied until he knows. he pauses--he resumes his interrogations--he circumlocutes--he apologizes, it may be, but make the discovery he will if possible. his inquisitiveness is mostly in regard to matters of comparatively minor importance in themselves, but which, at the same time, you do not care for _him_ to know. your pedigree--your relations--your antecedents--your reasons for leaving your former occupation--your prospects in life--your income--your wife's maiden name and origin--with a hundred similar things. his inquisitiveness often turns into impertinence and impudence, which one does well to resent with indignancy; or, if not, to answer him according to his folly. the two or three following instances will illustrate this talker:-a gentleman with a wooden leg, travelling in a stage-coach, was annoyed by questions relative to himself and his business proposed by his fellow-passengers. one of them inquired how he came to lose his leg. "i will tell you," he replied, "on condition that you all ask me no other question." to this there was no objection, and the promise was given. "as to the loss of my leg," said he, "_it was bit off_!" there was a pause. no more questions were to be asked; but one of the party, unable to contain himself, exclaimed, "but i should like to know _how_ it was bit off." this is an old story, but here is one of a similar kind, of a more recent date. it occurred in san francisco, where a genuine yankee, having bored a new comer with every conceivable question relative to his object in visiting the gold country, his hopes, his means, and his prospects, at length asked him if he had a family. "yes, sir; i have a wife and six children in new york; and i never saw one of them." after this reply the couple sat a few moments in silence; then the interrogator again commenced,-"was you ever blind, sir?" "no, sir." "did you marry a widow, sir?" "no, sir." another lapse of silence. "did i understand you to say, sir, that you had a wife and six children living in new york, and had never seen one of them?" "yes, sir; i so stated it." another and a longer pause of silence. then the interrogator again inquired,-"how can it be, sir, that you never saw one of them?" "why," was the response, "_one of them_ was born after i left." a gentleman in america, riding in an eastern railroad car, which was rather sparsely supplied with passengers, observed, in a seat before him, a lean, slab-sided yankee; every feature of his face seemed to ask a question, and a little circumstance soon proved that he possessed a more "inquiring mind." before him, occupying an entire seat, sat a lady dressed in deep black, and after shifting his position several times, and manoeuvring to get an opportunity to look into her face, he at length caught her eye. "in affliction?" "yes, sir," responded the lady. "parent?--father or mother?" "no, sir." "child, perhaps?--a boy or a girl?" "no, sir, not a child; i have no children." "husband, then, i expect?" "yes," was the curt answer. "hum! cholery? a tradin' man may be?" "my husband was a seafaring man, the captain of a vessel; he didn't die of cholera; he was drowned." "o, drowned, eh?" pursued the inquisitor, hesitating for a brief instant. "save his _chist_?" "yes; the vessel was saved, and my husband's effects," said the widow. "_was_ they?" asked the yankee, his eyes brightening up. "_pious_ man?" "he was a member of the methodist church." the next question was a little delayed, but it came. "don't you think that you have great cause to be thankful that he was a pious man, and saved his _chist_?" "i do," said the widow abruptly, and turned her head to look out of the window. the indefatigable "pump" changed his position, held the widow by his glittering eye once more, and propounded one more query, in a lower tone, with his head slightly inclined forward, over the back of the seat,-"was you calculating to get married again?" "sir," said the widow, indignantly, "you are impertinent!" and she left her seat and took another on the other side of the car. "'pears to be a little huffy?" said the ineffable bore. turning to our narrator behind him, "what did they make you pay for that umbrella you've got in your hand?" * * * * * a person more remarkable for inquisitiveness than good-breeding--one of those who, devoid of delicacy and reckless of rebuff, pry into everything--took the liberty to question alexander dumas rather closely concerning his genealogical tree. "you are a quadroon, mr. dumas?" he began. "i am, sir," replied m. dumas, who had seen enough not to be ashamed of a descent he could not conceal. "and your father?" "was a mulatto." "and your grandfather?" "a negro," hastily answered the dramatist, whose patience was waning. "and may i inquire what your great-grandfather was?" "an ape, sir," thundered dumas, with a fierceness that made his impertinent interrogator shrink into the smallest possible compass. "an ape, sir; my pedigree commences where yours terminates." * * * * * "where have you been, helen?" asked caroline swift of her sister, as helen, with a package in one hand and some letters in the other, entered the parlour one severe winter's day. caroline had been seated near the fire, sewing; but as her sister came in with the package, up the little girl sprang; and, allowing cotton, thimble, and work to find whatever resting-place they could, she hurried across the room; and, without so much as "by your leave, sister," she caught hold of the letters and commenced asking questions as fast as her nimble tongue could move. "which question shall i answer first?" asked helen, good-humouredly, trying, as she spoke, to slip a letter out of sight. "tell me whose letter you are trying to hide there," cried caroline, making an effort to thrust her hand into her sister's pocket. helen held the pocket close, saying gravely, "suppose i should tell you that this letter concerns no one but myself, and that i prefer not to name the writer?" "oh dear! some mighty mystery, no doubt. i didn't suppose there was any harm in asking you a question." caroline's look and tone plainly indicated displeasure. "there is harm, caroline, in trying to pry into anything that you see that another person wishes to keep to herself; for it shows a meddling disposition, and is a breach of the command to do as you would be done by." "you're breaking that command yourself," retorted caroline, "for you won't let me see what i want to see." "god's commands do not require us to forget our own rights. i am not bound to do to you what you have no right to require of me. we have all a perfect right to request of each other whatever is perfectly conducive to our welfare and happiness, provided it does not improperly infringe upon that of the person of whom the request is made. you trespass upon _my rights_ when you attempt to pry into my private affairs." "mercy, helen! don't preach any more. i guess i'm not the only meddlesome person in the world. one half the people i know need nothing more to make them take all possible pains to learn about a thing than to know the person whom it concerns wishes it kept secret. but where have you been, pray? and what have you in that bundle?" and caroline tore off the paper cover from the package which helen had laid upon the table. "caroline," said the mother of the two young girls, "why do you not wait to see whether your sister is willing for you to open her package? from your tone, my dear, one would judge that you were appointed to cross-question helen, and had a right to be angry if she declined explaining all her motives and intentions to you." "for pity's sake! mother, haven't i a right to ask my sister all the questions i please? i tell her everything i do, and i think she might show the same confidence in me." "you have a right, my daughter, to ask any proper question of any one; but it is unmannerly to ask too particularly about things that do not concern you; or to speak _at all_ respecting a thing which you see that another desires should pass unobserved. it shows a small and vulgar mind to seek to pry into the affairs of another, unless there be some great necessity for doing so. never press a matter where there is a disposition to be reserved upon the subject. be refined, my child; remember that courtesy is as much a command of the bible as is honesty. i have often heard you, my thoughtless carrie, mention impatiently the annoying habits of one who is often here. you have said in great anger that no one of the family could have a new shoe, or a neck ribbon, or could go across the street twice, without being questioned and cross-questioned by that young lady, until she became possessed of all the particulars concerning the purchase or the walk. it is not well to be violent in condemning one's neighbour, my children; but it is not wrong to take notice enough of their faults to determine to shun them in our own conduct, and also to try, if a proper season offers, to help them to amend. i never wish to hear you speak again so harshly of the person to whom i refer; but i very earnestly desire that you should begin in season to check habits which, if suffered to go on, will render you just as far from a favourite with your friends as she, poor orphan girl, is with hers. she had no one to point out to her her faults and her dangers; therefore the condemnation will be nothing to compare with yours, if you forget that the spirit of the golden rule, which is the true spirit of christianity, requires attention just as close and constant to all the little hardly noticed habits of heart and life as to those of the more marked and noticeable:- ''tis in these little things we all can do and say, love showeth best its gentle charity.'" boldness and impudence are the twin features in the inquisitive talker. were these counterbalanced by education in the ordinary civilities of life, he would be more worthy a place in the company of those whom now he annoys with his rude and impertinent interrogatories. few men care to have the secrets of their minds discovered by the probing questions of an intruder. the prudent man has many things, it may be, in his mind, in his family, in his business, which are sacred to him, and to attempt an acquaintance with them by stealth is what no one will do but he who is devoid of good manners, or, if he ever had any, has shamefully forgotten them. there are proper times and places in conversation for questions; but even then they should be put with discretion and frankness. a man should have common sense and civility enough to teach him when and what questions to ask, and how far to go in his questions, so that he may not seem to meddle with matters which do not concern him. xvi. the pedant. "pedantry, in the common acceptation of the word, means an absurd ostentation of learning, and stiffness of phraseology, proceeding from a misguided knowledge of books, and a total ignorance of men."--mackenzie. the pedant is a talker who makes an ostentatious display of his knowledge. his endeavour is to show those within his hearing that he is a man of study and wisdom. he generally aims higher than he can reach, and makes louder pretensions than his acquirements will justify. he may have gone as far as the articles in english grammar, and attempts to observe in his speech every rule of syntax, of which he is utterly ignorant; or he may have learned as far as "_hoc--hac--hoc_" in latin, and affect an acquaintance with horace, by shameful quotations. he may have reached as far as the multiplication table in arithmetic, and try to solve the problems of euclid as though he had them at his finger-ends. if he has read the "child's astronomy," he will walk with you through the starry heavens and the university of worlds, with as much confidence as though he was a ross or a herschel. he labours at the sublime and brings forth the ridiculous. he is a giant according to his own rule of measurement, but a pigmy according to that of other people. he thinks that he makes a deep impression upon the company as to his literary attainments; but the fact is, the impression is made that he knows nothing as he ought to know. he may, perchance, with the lowest of the illiterate, be heard as an oracle, and looked up to as a solon; but the moment he rises into higher circles he loses caste, and falls down into a rank below that with which he would have stood associated had he not elevated himself on the pedestal of his own folly. he is viewed with disgust in his fall; and becomes the object of ridicule for the display of his contemptible weakness. his silence would have saved him, or an attempt commensurate with his abilities; but his preposterous allusions to subjects of which he proved himself utterly ignorant effected his ruin. the _spectator_, in no. 105, gives an illustration of a pedant in _will honeycomb_. "will ingenuously confesses that for half his life his head ached every morning with reading of men over-night; and at present comforts himself under certain pains which he endures from time to time, that without them he could not have been acquainted with the gallantries of the age. this will looks upon as the learning of a gentleman, and regards all other kinds of science as the accomplishments of one whom he calls a scholar, a bookish man, or a philosopher. "he was last week producing two or three letters which he wrote in his youth to a lady. the raillery of them was natural and well enough for a mere man of the town; but, very unluckily, several of the words were wrongly spelt. will laughed this off at first as well as he could; but finding himself pushed on all sides, and especially by the templar, he told us, with a little passion, that he never liked pedantry in spelling, and that he spelt like a gentleman, and not like a scholar. upon this will had recourse to his old topic of showing the narrow-spiritedness, the pride, and arrogance of pedants; which he carried so far, that upon my retiring to my lodgings, i could not forbear throwing together such reflections as occurred to me upon the subject. "a man who has been brought up among books, and is able to talk of nothing else, is a very indifferent companion, and what we call a pedant. but methinks we should enlarge the title, and give it to every one that does not know how to think out of his profession and particular way of life. "what is a greater pedant than a mere man of the town? how many a pretty gentleman's knowledge lies all within the verge of the court? he will tell you the names of the principal favourites; repeat the shrewd sayings of a man of quality; whisper an intrigue that is not yet blown upon by common fame; or, if the sphere of his observations is a little larger than ordinary, will perhaps enter into all the incidents, turns, and resolutions, in a game of _ombre_. when he has gone thus far, he has shown you the whole circle of his accomplishments; his parts are drained, and he is disabled from any further conversation. what are these but rank pedants? and yet these are the men who value themselves most on their exemption from the pedantry of the colleges. "i might here mention the military pedant, who always talks in a camp, and is storming towns, making lodgments, and fighting battles from one end of the year to the other. everything he speaks smells of gunpowder; if you take away his artillery from him, he has not a word to say for himself. i might likewise mention the law pedant, that is perpetually putting cases, repeating the transactions of westminster hall, wrangling with you upon the most indifferent circumstances of life, and not to be convinced of the distance of a place, or of the most trivial point in conversation, but by dint of argument. the state pedant is wrapped up in news, and lost in politics. if you mention either of the kings of spain or poland, he talks very notably; but if you go out of the _gazette_, you drop him. in short, a mere courtier, a mere soldier, a mere scholar, a mere anything, is an insipid pedantic character, and equally ridiculous. "of all the species of pedants which i have mentioned, the book pedant is much the most supportable; he has at least an exercised understanding, a head which is full, though confused--so that a man who converses with him may often receive from him hints of things that are worth knowing, and what he may possibly turn to his own advantage, though they are of little use to the owner. the worst kind of pedants among learned men are such as are naturally endued with a very small share of common sense, and have read a great number of books without taste or distinction. "the truth of it is, learning, like travelling, and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more insufferable, by supplying variety of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in absurdities. "shallow pedants cry up one another much more than men of solid and useful learning. to read the titles they give an editor or a collator of a manuscript, you would take him for the glory of the commonwealth of letters, and the wonder of his age; when perhaps upon examination you find that he has only rectified a greek particle, or laid out a whole sentence in proper commas. "they are obliged to be thus lavish of their praises that they may keep one another in countenance; and it is no wonder if a great deal of knowledge, which is not capable of making a man wise, has a natural tendency to make him vain and arrogant." * * * * * arthur bell was a young man of excellent qualities; and generally respected by all who knew him. he had received his education, which was of a superior order, at one of the oxford colleges. nevertheless, he was modest and unassuming; shunning any display of his learning, excepting under circumstances which justified him from vanity and self-importance. sidney rose was a young man of the same village as arthur, but of different origin and training. in early boyhood they were often playmates together; and the acquaintance thus formed continued more or less up to manhood. sidney was of another spirit to arthur, naturally high-minded, blustering, and self-conceited. his education was only such as he had received in a country classical academy, and in this he had not succeeded to the extent his pretensions led one to suppose. arthur and sidney once met in an evening party at the house of mr. grindell. the company consisted mostly of young ladies and young gentlemen. during the conversation of the evening, in which sidney took a prominent part, he made an attempt to quote the following line from ovid, with no other intention than to exhibit his learning:- "dulcia non ferimus; succo renovamur amaro," in which he made the most glaring blunders. "dulcam non farimas, succor amarum reno," he said, with the most ostentatious air and bombastic confidence. two or three of the company could not refrain from laughing at his airs, not to say his blunders. "what are you laughing at?" inquired sidney, in his independent tone, and as though he was highly insulted. "i beg your pardon, sidney, but i think they were smiling at a mistake or two which you have made in that latin quotation," said arthur, quietly. "mistake, indeed! i have made no mistake," said sidney, in an angry tone. "i think you have," observed arthur, modestly. "show me, then, if you can. i guess that is out of your power," said sidney, more excited. "don't be excited, my friend," said arthur; "i think i can give the line correctly." arthur quoted the line as it occurs in the book. the difference appeared to sidney; but he would make no acknowledgment. nor would he give up the exhibition of his academic learning. he thought he would be a match for arthur and the young gentlemen who seemed to ridicule what _he_ knew they could not mend, so he made another attempt. "which of you," he inquired, "can tell me in what part of horace the following line occurs:- 'amor improbe non quid pectora mortalia cogis'?" a faint smile passed over the countenance of arthur, while bonner, an educated young collegian, could not restrain his risible powers, and broke out in a loud laugh, at the expense of his good manners. "what's that bonner laughing at?" asked sidney, in a manner which betrayed his indignation and chagrin. "it strikes me," said skinner, "that that line is very much corrupted in its quotation. it does not seem to be such latin as is found in the classics, even from what i know of them." "and with all my study of horace," observed judson, "i never met with the line in him, even if it was given correctly. and then i think, with skinner, that it is not correctly quoted. what do you think, arthur?" "of course it is not in horace," replied arthur; "nor is it correctly quoted. if sidney has no objection, i will give the correct words from the right author." sidney was sullenly silent. "in virgil's 'æneid,' book iv., line 412," said arthur, "the words of which sidney intends his to be a quotation may be found. they are as follows:- 'improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis.'" "you are quite right, arthur," said bonner. here the subject ended. a short time after, during the evening, sidney was observed holding conversation with miss boast, a young lady of some pretensions, but of no more than ordinary education. sidney seemed to be much at home with her in conversation. she gave a willing ear to all his pedantic talk; and he used the opportunity much to his own gratification. he was repeating to miss boast a list of his studies in the classics, mathematics, history, geology, astronomy, etc., when arthur walked into that part of the room where they were sitting. he saw that sidney was recovered from his temper shown in the former conversation, and had subsided into his own natural element, and was pouring into the credulous ear of the young lady his pedantic effusions. "are you at all acquainted with milton's 'paradise lost'?" inquired sidney of miss boast. "i have read a little of it, but it is not my favourite book," she replied. "but it is an admirable book," said sidney; "i have read it again and again. why, i know it almost line by line. it is a grand poem, of course of the tragic style, full of strong sentiment and bold figure. milton, you know, wrote that poem in german. the translation into english is a good one--incomparably good. i forget who the translator was. do you not remember those exquisitely fine lines which run thus,- 'ah, mighty love----' why, now, it is strange i should forget them. let me see (with his hand to his forehead). now i have them, 'ah, mighty love, that it were inward heat which made this precious limbeck sweet! but what, alas! ah, what does it avail!' i need not repeat any more. this will give you an idea of the style and sentiment of that wonderful poem." "it is certainly very fine," said the young lady, innocently. "did you not hear those beautiful lines, arthur, which sidney has just quoted from milton?" asked miss boast. "yes, i heard them." "are they not fine?" said sidney to arthur. he evaded an answer. "are you sure that the quotation is from milton?" inquired mr. smith, who was listening to the conversation. "certainly," said sidney. "are they, arthur?" asked smith, who had his suspicions, and apprehended another display of sidney's pedantry, and was determined if possible to put a check on his folly. "if you require me to be candid in my answer," said arthur, quietly, "i do not think that they do belong to milton at all." "whose are they, then?" asked sidney, rather petulantly. "they are cowley's, to be found in vol. i., p. 132, of his works." "i never knew that milton's poem was tragedy, and that he wrote it in german until now," observed mr. smith, ironically. "who said he did?" asked arthur. "sidney." "that is new historical fact, if fact it be," said arthur. "i always thought he wrote it in english, and that the poem was of the epic order." "i always thought so too," said smith. sidney sat confounded, but not conquered in his fault. he would not admit his error, nor would he cease his pedantic exhibitions. he gave two or three more displays before the party separated, and with similar results. enough, however, has been given here to show the excessive folly of this habit, and the just ridicule to which it is exposed. * * * * * "what a pity that sidney makes such preposterous pretensions to learning in his conversation," said smith the next day to arthur. "it certainly is," answered arthur; "but he is generally so when in the company of any he thinks educated. he aims at equality with them, and even to rise above them, with his comparatively limited acquirements. he rarely, or ever, attains his end. his folly almost invariably meets with an exposure in one way or another. i have met with him on several occasions previous to last night, and he was the same on every one." "it is to be hoped he will grow wiser as he grows older," said smith. "i hope so," said arthur. "if he do not, he will always be contemptible in the eyes of the wise and learned; and they will do their utmost to shun his society and keep him out of their reach. were his professions of learning to accord with his real abilities there would be no objection--nothing unseemly; but he aims at that which he has little competency to reach, and so makes himself ludicrous in his attempts. and then he does it withal in such self-confidence and ostentation as is perfectly revolting to good taste. as his friend, i feel very much for him, and wish he may get a knowledge of his real acquirements, and make no display of his learning beyond what he can honourably sustain, and in which he will be justified by wisdom and propriety. in this way he might obtain a position in which he would receive the respect of society according to the real merits of which he gave obvious proof." "those are exactly my views," said smith, "and i wish they were the views of sidney too." xvii. _the detractor._ "the ignoble mind loves ever to assail with secret blow the loftier, purer beings of their kind." w. g. simms. "detraction's a bold monster, and fears not to wound the fame of princes, if it find but any blemish in their lives to work on." massinger. a detractor is one whose aim is to lessen, or withdraw from, that which constitutes a good name or contributes to it. the love of a good name is natural to man. he who has lost this love is considered most desperately fallen below himself. to acquire a good name and to maintain it, what have not men done, given, and suffered in the world of literature, labour, science, politics, and religion? and who has blamed them for it? it is declared by the highest wisdom, that "a good name is better than great riches," and "better than precious ointment." "the memory of the just shall be blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot." "whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things." "it is," as one says, "that which gives us an inferior immortality, and makes us, even in this world, survive ourselves. this part of us alone continues verdant in the grave, and yields a perfume." considering, then, the worth of a good name, we cannot wonder that a man should wish to preserve and guard it with all carefulness. "the honours of a name 'tis just to guard; they are a trust but lent us, which we take, and should, in reverence to the donor's fame, with care transmit them to other hands." as the work of the detractor is the tarnishing, or, it may be, the destruction of a man's good name, the evil nature of it may be seen at one view. can he commit a greater offence against his brother? can he be guilty of a more heinous motive and aim? "no wound which warlike hand of enemy inflicts with dint of sword, so sore doth light as doth the poisonous sting which infamy infixeth in the name of noble wight; for by no art, nor any leeches' might, it ever can re-curéd be again." "who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands: but he who filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed." let us notice some of the ways in which this talker seeks to accomplish his work. 1. _he represents persons and actions under the most disadvantageous circumstances he can_, speaking of those which may appear objectionable, and passing by those which may be commendable. there is no person so excellent who is not by his circumstances forced to omit some things which would become him to do if he were able; to perform some things weakly and otherwise than he would if he had the power. there is no action so worthy, but may have some defect in matter, or manner, incapable of redress; and he that represents such persons or actions, leaving out those excusing circumstances, tends to create an unjust opinion of them, taking from them their due value and commendation. thus, to charge a man with not having done a good work, when he had not the power or opportunity, or is by unexpected means hindered from doing it according to his desire; to suggest the action was not done exactly in the best season, in the wisest mode, in the most proper place, with expressions, looks, or gestures most convenient--these are tricks of the detractor, who, when he cannot deny the metal to be good, and the stamp true, clips it, and so would prevent it from being current. 2. _he misconstrues ambiguous words or misinterprets doubtful appearances of things._ a man may speak never so well, or act never so nobly, yet a detractor will make his words bear some ill sense, and his actions tend to some bad purpose; so that we may suspect his meaning, and not yield him our full approbation. 3. _he misnames the qualities of persons or things, and gives bad appellations or epithets to good or indifferent qualities._ the names of virtue and vice do so nearly border in signification that it is easy to transfer them from one to another, and to give the best quality a bad name. thus, by calling a sober man sour, a cheerful man vain, a conscientious man morose, a devout man superstitious, a free man prodigal, a frugal man sordid, an open man simple, a reserved man crafty, one that stands upon his honour and honesty proud, a kind man ambitiously popular, a modest man sullen, timorous, or stupid, is a way in which the detractor may frequently be known. 4. _he imperfectly characterises persons_, so as purposely to veil, or faintly to disclose, their excellencies, but carefully to expose and to aggravate their defects or failings. like an envious painter, he hides, or in shady colours depicts, the graceful parts and goodly features, but brings out the blemishes in clearest light, and most prominent view. there is no man who has not some blemish in his nature or temper; some fault contracted by education or custom; something amiss proceeding from ignorance or misapprehension of things. these (although in themselves small and inconsiderable) the detractor seizes, and thence forms a judgment calculated to excite contempt of him in an unwary spectator; whereas, were charity to judge of him, he would be represented as lovely and excellent. 5. _he does not commend or allow anything as good without interposing some exception to it._ "the man, indeed," he says, "does seem to have a laudable quality; his action has a fair appearance;" but, if he can, he raises some spiteful objection. if he can find nothing plausible to say against him, he will _seem_ to know and to suppress something. he will say, "i know what i know; i know more than i'll say;" adding, perhaps, a significant nod or strong expression, a sarcastic sneer or smile, of what he cannot say in words. "damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and, without seeming, teach the rest to sneer; willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike." 6. _he suggests that good practices and noble dispositions are probably the effects of sinister motives and selfish purposes._ as, for instance, a liberal man, in his gifts is influenced by an ambitious spirit or a vain-glorious design; a religious man, in his exercises of devotion, is influenced by hypocrisy, and a desire to gain the good opinion of men, and to promote his worldly interests. "he seems to be a good man," says the detractor, "i must admit; but what are his reasons? is it not his interest to be so? does he not seek applause or preferment thereby? _doth job serve god for nought?_" so said the father of detractors more than two thousand years ago. 7. _he detracts from good actions by attempting to show their defects_, or to point out how they might have been much better. "in some respects they are excellent and praiseworthy; but they might have been better with no more labour and pains. pity that a thing, when done, is not done to the best of his ability." thus judas blamed the good woman who anointed the saviour's feet. "why," said he, "was not this ointment sold, and given to the poor?" his covetous heart prompted him to detract from that action which jesus, in his love, pronounced as a _good work_, which should be spoken of as such, wherever the gospel was preached. 8. _a detractor regards not the general good character of a man's conversation_ or discourse which is obvious, but attacks the part which is defective, though less discernible to other eyes than his own; like a man who, looking upon a body admirably beautiful, sees only a wart on the back of one hand to attract his particular attention; or like the man who overlooks the glories of the sun because of its spots. such are the chief particulars composing the character of the detractor. we may now briefly notice some of the _causes_ which influence the detractor in his talk. 1. _ill nature and bad humour._--as good nature and ingenuous disposition incline men to observe and commend what appears best in our neighbour; so malignity of temper and heart prompt to seek and to find the worst. one, like a bee, gathers honey out of any herb; the other, like a spider, sucks poison out of the sweetest flower. 2. _pride and inordinate self-importance._--the detractor would draw all praise and glory to himself; he would be the only excellent person; therefore he would jostle the worth of another out of the way, that it may not endanger his; or lessen it by being a rival, that it may not outshine his reputation, or in any degree eclipse it. 3. _envy._--a detractor likes not to see a brother stand in the good esteem of others, therefore he aims at the deterioration of his character; his _eye_ is _evil_ and _sore_, hence he would quench or becloud the light that dazzles it. 4. _ungodly revenge._--his neighbour's good practice condemns his bad life; his neighbour's worth disparages his unworthiness; this he conceives highly prejudicial to him; hence in revenge he labours to vilify the worth and good works of his neighbour. 5. _sense of weakness, want of courage, or despondency of his own ability._--he who is conscious of his own strength and industry will allow to others the commendation becoming their ability. as he would not lose the fruits of his own deserts, so he takes it for granted that others should enjoy theirs also. to deprive them were to prejudice his own claims. but he that feels himself destitute of worth, and despairs of reaching the good favour of society, is thence tempted to disparage and defame such as do. this course he takes as the best soother of his disappointed feelings and the chief solace for his conscious defects. seeing he cannot rise to the standard of others, he would bring down that of others to his. he cannot directly get any praise, therefore he would indirectly find excuse by shrouding his unworthiness under the blame of others. hence detraction is a sign of a weak, ignoble spirit; it is an impotent and grovelling serpent, that lurks in the hedge, waiting opportunity to bite the heel of any nobler creature that passes by. notice the _consequences_ of detraction. 1. _it discourages and hinders the practice of goodness._ seeing the best men disparaged, and the best actions spoken against, many are deterred from doing or being good in a conspicuous and eminent degree. especially may this be so with such as are not independent and superior to what detractors may say about them. 2. _detraction is injurious to society in general._ society is maintained in peace and progress by encouragement of mutual and personal virtues and gifts; but when disparagement is cast upon them, they are in danger of languishment and decay; so that a detractor is one of the worst members of society; he is a moth, a canker therein. 3. _detraction does injury to our neighbour._ it robs him of that reputation which is the just reward of goodness, and chief support in the practice of it; it often hinders him in undertaking a laudable deed; and keeps those from him or sets those against him who would be his friends. 4. detraction injures those into whose ears it instils its poisonous suggestions, requiring them to connive at the mischief it does to worth and virtue, and desiring them to entertain the same unjust and uncharitable thoughts as itself. 5. the detractor _is an enemy to himself_. he raises against himself animosity and disfavour. men of self-respect, conscious of their own honest motives and upright actions, will not submit to his unrighteous detraction. they will stand on their own consciousness of rectitude, and, with right on their side, will cause him to fall into the pit which he has digged for others. 6. the detractor is likely to have given him the same that he gives to others. if he has in him that which appears laudable, how can he expect commendation for it, when he refuses it to others with similar claims? how can any one admit him to have real worth who will not admit another to have any? the preceding observations are sufficient to exhibit the nature, causes, and effects of the fault of the detractor. this fault is wide-spread in its existence. it affects nearly all classes of society. does it not too widely prevail in circles of christian professors? is there not too much of this kind of talk in the companies of ministers of religion? among men of all ranks, occupations, and ages of life this spirit is too frequently and too powerfully operating. in the courts of princes, in the halls of science, in the schools of literature, the detractor may be found with his deteriorating and damaging tongue. the evening social circle, the festive board, the railway carriage, the two or three walking or sitting in the garden's shades, are not exempt from the presence of this detracting demon. my reader, be you among the honourable exceptions, with whom detraction shall find no life. and as you would not possess it in yourself, do not patronize it in others, although mixed in a sweet liquor, and offered in a golden cup. covet to be among those charitable spirits which put the best interpretation upon everything rather than the worst; which approve and praise rather than censure and condemn; which offer the fragrance of the rose rather than wound with the thorn; which present the jewel rather than point out the flaw in it; which take the fly out of the pot of ointment rather than put one in. this is the spirit of nobleness, because the spirit of charity and of god. xviii. the grumbler. "still falling out with this and this, and finding something still amiss; more peevish, cross, and splenetic, than dog distract, or monkey sick." butler. the grumbler is a talker who may frequently be known by his countenance as well as by his tongue. the temper of his mind gives form and expression to the features of his face. his contracted brow bespeaks his contracted brain. his nose inclines to an elevation of disgust at the things which lie beneath. his mouth is awry with its peculiar exercise, and those deeply indented wrinkles on either side are the sad effects of its long-continued use in its chosen service. his aspect is one of chagrin, trouble, and disappointment. there are a few more traits of the grumbling talker which may be specified for the benefit of those concerned. 1. the grumbling talker _is generally indolent_. he loiters or strolls about without any specific or profitable occupation. he can see nothing worth his attention, and if he does, he defers it until the future, meanwhile busy in grumbling with himself and with others. he gossips among his neighbours, or lounges about places of publicity, engaging those like himself, or, it may be, some of the better sort, with his grumbling conversation. listen a moment: "his son john was not up at the right time this morning; his wife spoiled his breakfast; those orders were not made up yet, and ten o'clock; his business was very poor--can't make both ends meet, hope times will get better--he doesn't know how in the world he will pay his way unless he can get in his debts; his neighbour's chimney smokes so badly that if he doesn't mend it he must complain; he wishes his friend wilkes would keep his cats away from his house, for they catch all the mice, and leave none for his cat; he would make things very different in their day-school if he was the master; he thinks mr. stock over the way doesn't conduct his business right, or he would prosper more than he does." 2. the grumbling talker _generally attributes his want of success in his calling to other causes rather than to himself_. "no one gives him encouragement. he has to do the best he can by his own means. he is always at it, and yet he does not succeed. dr. squibbs, squire bumble, parson sturge, and lawyer issard, all send their custom to his rival in castle street. everybody else is favoured, while he is held back by unfriendly and adverse influences." william goodwin was an industrious, economical, and obliging tradesman. with these qualities he succeeded in his business, and attained to a position of respectability which nearly everybody thought he deserved. robert careless was in the same line of business, and had the same opportunities of success, but he did not attain to it. he grumbled dreadfully against goodwin and his own slow prosperity. "goodwin," he said, "was patronized more than he was. the people owed him a grudge, and they wouldn't trade with him. if he had the same chance as goodwin, he should prosper as he does. goodwin is no more acquainted with his business, and has no more wisdom, economy, and affability than he; his clerk was very dull and disobliging; his own wife didn't seem to take any interest in his business; the situation of his shop wasn't good," etc. 3. the grumbling talker _is usually independent_. he cares for nothing and for nobody. although he cannot have everything he wants, yet he will not mind. he is determined to do as he likes. he will have his own way after all. he has a will, a knowledge, a purse, friends of his own. he will let the world see that he can get along with his own resources. barnabas know-nothing may talk as he please, job do-nothing may do all he can, and richard bombast may swagger because he thinks matters are done as he planned; but mr. grumbler is independent of them all, and will, by-and-by, demonstrate it beyond dispute. 4. the grumbling talker _is easily frightened_. he may seem very large, and appear very strong in his independence; he may bluster about his determination to carry out his plans despite mr. this and mr. that; but he is soon reduced to his just proportions. his fever heat falls suddenly down to zero, if not twenty degrees below. you may soon raise a lion in his way--soon make him believe that fate is against him--soon open his eyes to see breakers ahead; and then he would have done it but for the consequences which he foresaw. it is well to look before you leap. he looked and saw the gulf, and he prefers not to leap. it is better to suffer a little injury than bring a greater one. you may be sure nothing would have kept him from doing as he positively said he would, excepting those insuperable difficulties which he did not anticipate at the time, and which he defies any one to remove out of the way. the fact is, things are just the same as they ever were, only he has got into another element which has changed his temperament and resolutions. 5. the grumbling talker _is generally endowed with a most capacious appetite for personal favours_. if you can by any means administer to his necessities in this respect you will very much allay his craving, and, in a measure, stop his grumbling. it is the intensity of the appetite which often gives rise to the grumbling. grumbling is the way in which he expresses his want. every beast has a way of its own in making known its wants, and grumbling is the way some men have in expressing the deep hunger of their minds for special or ordinary favours. the grumbler is always on hand to receive the gift of a friend. the motto which he carries in the foreground of his grumblings is, "small favours thankfully received, and larger ones in proportion." 6. the grumbling talker _is generally very jealous_. he does not approve of the promotion of his friend to any honour above himself. he is afraid lest it should exalt him beyond measure. besides, he does not see that he is any more qualified or deserving than he. he is surprised at the judgment of the "powers that be" when they placed mr. so-and-so in such a responsible office. they could not certainly have known that he was not the man for the office, nor the office for the man. he must have been a favourite. he had helped them into their position, and, "one good turn deserves another, you know." he knows how these sort of things are managed, "kissing goes by favour, you know." he happened to be out of their "good books," and they were determined to punish him. had his esteemed friend, squire impartial, been in authority, he didn't doubt for a moment but he would have been promoted to the place where so-and-so now stands. well, he congratulates himself that his time _will_ come, and when it does he will make everybody wonder and regret that he wasn't advanced before. "do you know," said he one day to mr. content, "how it is that people talk so much about the superior abilities of our town councillor, mr. workman? for my part, i see nothing in him which is above mediocrity." "mr. workman is, indeed, generally reputed as being a clever man, and i certainly think he is," said mr. content. "he may be clever, but i do not think that he is any cleverer than most ordinary men." "i have every opportunity of judging, and i do most candidly think that we could not have found his equal in the entire town," said mr. content again. "that may be your opinion, and the opinion of others; but still my opinion is the same, and i am amazed at his reputation," replied mr. grumbler. 7. the grumbling talker _is often long-lived_. the philosophy of the fact, if fact it be, i will not attempt to explain. it is a pity it should be so, but it does sometimes occur that the least desirable men are continued, while the most lovable are taken away. were providence to suspend or change the law which protracts the grumbler's existence beyond the length of better men, i am sure no one would complain of it except the grumbler himself. 8. the grumbling talker _is found everywhere in some one or all of his developments_. he seems to be endowed with a spirit of ubiquity. you find him in all ages of time, in all ages of persons, in all places of resort, in all circumstances of life, in all nations of humanity, and in all varieties of mind. on the throne of the prince, in the chair of the president, in the gathering of parliament or congress, in the counting-house and in the store, in the tradesman's shop and the lawyer's office, in the school, the college, the lecture-room, and even in the precincts of the house of god, you may find the spirit of the grumbling talker. heaven, perhaps, is the only place in the universe where he cannot be found. 9. the grumbling talker _can rarely improve or make things better, even if he tries_. place him to fill the office which he says is so ineffectively filled by some one else, and its functions will be neglected or far more ineffectively performed. he "can preach a better sermon than the minister preached the other sunday morning." let him try, and others judge. he "can superintend the sunday-school with more authority and keep better order than he who now is in that position." place him there, and see what are the results. in forty-nine instances out of fifty in which the grumbler has been taken as a substitute for the one against whom he has complained, there has been failure, through his want of competency for the place. it is not, however, often that he reaches his end by his grumbling. he frustrates his own wish. sound judgment in others pronounces against him. wisdom knows that weakness is the main element of grumbling; that to instal in office a person who is a grumbler will not cure him; that one evil is better than two--his grumbling out of office than his grumbling in, with an inefficient performance of its duties. his grumbling is sometimes so chronic and habitual, that no one takes any notice of him. he attracts far more attention when he is out of this rut than when he is in it. the majority know that things are right when he grumbles; but when he is silent they suspect them to be wrong, and when he approves they are quite sure. 10. the grumbling talker _includes everything within his grumbling_. he grumbles against god and his providence, his word and his ministers. the devil does not even please him. he grumbles about politics, religion, the church, the state, books, periodicals, papers. he grumbles against trade, commerce, money; against good men and bad men; against good women and bad women; against babes and children, young ladies and old maids. he grumbles about the weather, about time, life, death, things present, and things to come. it would appear that as he is endowed with universal presence, he is endowed with universal knowledge also, which leads him to universal grumbling. 11. the grumbling talker _is afflicted with a most revolting disease_. it is dangerous in its nature, and most unpleasant in its influence. it is injurious in its operation upon all who come within its reach. persons who are not troubled with it, and are not accustomed to see it, never wish to catch a sight or a scent of it the second time. it is rather contagious. if the law regulating the case of the leper was to be enforced in the case of the grumbler, it might have a salutary effect. but as there is no probability of this, and as it is important that the disease should be arrested before it spread farther and prove more disastrous than it has, i shall, _pro bono publico_, as well as for the grumbler himself, presume to copy an american prescription that i have in my possession, and which never failed to cure any grumbler who scrupulously carried it out. "1. stop grumbling. "2. get up two hours earlier in the morning, and begin to do something outside of your _regular profession_. "3. stop grumbling. "4. mind your own business, and with all your might; let other people alone. "5. stop grumbling. "6. live within your means. sell your horse. give away or kill your dog. "7. stop grumbling. "8. smoke your cigars through an _air_-tight stove. eat with moderation, and go to bed early. "9. stop grumbling. "10. talk less of your own peculiar gifts and virtues, and more of those of your friends and neighbours. "11. stop grumbling. "12. do all you can to make others happy. be cheerful. bend your neck and back more frequently when you pass those outside of 'select circles.' fulfil your promises. pay your debts. be yourself all you see in others. be a _good_ man, a _true christian_, and then you cannot help _finally to_ "13. stop grumbling." the above is an admirable receipt for the grumbling disease. it is composed of ingredients each of which is the best quality of healing medicine. every grumbler should take the whole as prescribed, and he will soon experience a sensible change in his nature for the better; his friends also will observe him rapidly convalescent, and after a short time will rejoice over his restoration to a sound healthy condition, called by moral physicians--"contentment." "sweet are the thoughts that savour of content- the quiet mind is richer than a crown; sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent- the poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown. such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, beggars enjoy when princes oft do miss. the homely house that harbours quiet rest, the cottage that affords no pride nor care, the mean that 'grees with country music best, that sweet consort of mirth's and music's fare. obscuréd life sits down a type of bliss; a mind content both crown and kingdom is." xix. _the egotist._ "what cracker is this same, that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?" shakespeare. "for none more likes to hear himself converse." byron. this is a talker whose chief aim is the exhibition of himself in terms and phrases too fulsome and frequent for the pleasure of his hearers. _i_ was, _i_ am, _i_ shall be, _i_ have, etc., are the pronouns and verbs which he chiefly employs. he is all _i_. i is the representative letter of his name, his person, his speech, and his actions. there is nothing greater in the universe to him than that of which _i_ is the type. there is not a more essential letter in the english alphabet to him than the letter _i_. destroy this, and he would be disabled in his conversation; he would lose the only emblem which he has to set himself off before the eyes of people. he is nothing and can do nothing without _i_. this stands out in an embossed form, which may be felt by the blind man, as well as be seen by those who have eyesight. if you tell him of an interesting circumstance in which a friend of yours was placed, "_i_" is sure to be the beginning of a similar story concerning himself. speak of some success which your friend has made in trade or commerce, and "_i_" will be the commencement of something similar, in which he has been more successful. you can inform him of nothing, but "_i_" is associated with what is equal or far superior. were one required to give an etymology of the egotist, it would be in the words of the rev. j. b. owen: "one of those gluttonous parts of speech that gulp down every substantive in social grammar into its personal pronoun, condensing all the tenses and moods of other people's verbs into a first person singular of its own." * * * * * mr. slack, of the town of kenton, was egregiously given to egotism. he was a man of ordinary education, but somewhat elevated above his neighbours in worldly circumstances. he carried himself with an air of imposing importance, as though he was lord of the entire county. in his conversation he assumed much more than others who knew him conceded. it was a little matter for him to ignore the abilities of other people. his own prominent self made such demands as almost absorbed the rights of everybody else. whenever opportunity occurred, he set himself off as _most_ learned, _most_ wealthy, _most_ extensively known, numbering among his acquaintances the _most_ respectable. he rarely talked but to exhibit himself, alone, or in some aristocratic connections. mr. dredge was a neighbour of mr. slack's, but of an opposite turn of mind. they were accustomed to make occasional calls upon each other. dredge was quiet and unassuming, and often allowed slack to go on with his egotistic gibberish unchecked, which rather encouraged him in his personal weakness. one morning mr. slack called upon mr. dredge to spend an hour in a friendly way, as he often did, and, as usual, the conversation was principally about himself, and things relating to the same important personage. "have you seen the french ambassador yet, mr. dredge?" "no. have you?" "indeed i should think so. i have been in his company several times, and had private interviews with him; and do you know, mr. dredge, he showed me more respect and attention than any one else in his company at the same time. he gave me a most pressing invitation to dine with him to-morrow afternoon, at six o'clock; but really, mr. dredge, my engagements, you know, are so numerous and important that i was compelled respectfully to decline the honour." "you must have felt yourself highly flattered," said mr. dredge calmly. "not at all! not at all! it is nothing for me, you know, to dine with ambassadors. i think no more of that than of dining with you." "indeed!" said dredge in a sarcastic tone. "i thank you for the compliment." "no compliment at all, mr. dredge. it is the truth, i assure you; and were you to see the heaps of invitations which cover my parlour table, from persons equally as great as he, and more so, in fact, you would at once see the thing to be true. i feel it no particular honour to have an invitation from such a quarter, because so common. the ambassador took to me as soon as he saw me. he saw me, you know, to be one of his own stamp. i put on my best grace, and talked in my highest style, and i saw at once that he was prejudiced in my favour. it was my ability, you know, my ability, mr. dredge, which made an impression on his mind." "i see, my friend," said mr. dredge, "you have not lost all the egotism of your former years." "egotism, egotism, mr. dredge! _i_ am no egotist--and never was. it is seldom i speak of myself. no man can help speaking of himself sometimes, you know. if you are acquainted with squire clark, he's the man, if you please, for egotism. talk of egotism, sir, he surpasses me a hundred per cent. i am no egotist." "i hope no offence, mr. slack," said mr. dredge. "none at all, sir; i am not so easily offended. i am a man too good-tempered for that. i and you understand each other, you know." "have you been to the city lately?" inquired mr. dredge. "i was there only last week; and whom do you think i travelled with in the train? his grace the duke of borderland. he was delighted to see me, you know, and gave me a pressing invitation to call on him at his london residence. did you not know that i and the duke were old cronies? we went to school together; and he was never half so clever as i was in the sciences and classics. he was a dull scholar compared with me." "you must have felt yourself somewhat honoured with his presence and attention." "well, you know, mr. dredge, it is just here. i am so much accustomed to high life, that the presence of dukes, lords, etc., is little more to me than ordinary society. had my friend mr. clarke been thus honoured, he would have blazed it all about the country. _i_ would not have mentioned it now, only your question called it up." the fact is, mr. dredge had heard of it before from a number of people to whom mr. slack had already told it. at this stage of the talk between messrs. dredge and slack a rap was heard at the front door. it was mr. sweet, a friend of mr. dredge, who had called on his way to an adjacent town. mr. dredge introduced his friend to mr. slack, who gave him one of his egotistic shakes of the hand, and said, "how are you this morning?" "mr. sweet," observed mr. dredge to mr. slack, "is an intimate friend of mine, and a professor in hailsworth college." "indeed! i am very happy, extremely happy, to make his acquaintance," said mr. slack, with an air and voice which made the professor open his eyes as to who he was. and without any more ceremony, mr. slack observed, "i know all the professors in that seat of learning. drs. jones, leigh, waller, i am intimately acquainted with--special friends of mine." to be candid, he had met with them on one occasion, and had received a formal introduction to them; but since then had not seen them. "are you at all acquainted with music, professor sweet?" asked mr. slack. "i know a little of it, but am no adept." "o, sir, music is a noble science. it is the charm of my heart; it is enchantment to my inmost soul. ah, sir, i have been nearly ruined by it many times! i carried it too far, you know. not content with one instrument, i procured almost all kinds; and, sir, there is scarcely an instrument but i am perfectly at home with. and, sir, there is not a hymn or song but i can play or sing. would you believe it, sir, that i stood first in the last grand oratorio which took place in the great metropolis? i sang the grand solo of the occasion. allow me, sir, to give you a specimen of it." and here he struck off with the solo, much to the amusement of the professor. "ah, sir, that is a noble piece. does not go so well in this room, you know, as it did in exeter hall. the audience was so enraptured, sir, with my performance, that they encored me again and again." "indeed, sir!" observed the professor in a tone of keen sarcasm and strong unbelief. "of course, professor, you are familiar with the classics," said mr. slack. "somewhat," replied the professor, in a manner which indicated his disgust at the impertinence of the man. "the classics, sir, are a fine study--hard, but interesting to those who have the taste--so refining--give such a polish to the mind, sir. i once had a great taste for the classics--studied them fully; and even now, sir, i know as much about them as many who profess to teach them. would you believe me, sir, that i have the entire list of the classics in my library?" the professor smiled at the man's preposterous egotism. "the sciences," continued mr. slack, "are grand studies for the mind. geology, astronomy, astrology, phrenology, psychology, and so on, and so on--you know the whole list of them, professor. why, sir, i do not know the first science that i did not study at college; and even now, sir, after the lapse of years spent in the stir of a political life, there are few with whom i would be willing to stand second in my knowledge of them." in this style of impertinent egotism he continued to waste the precious moments and to torment the company, until the professor could bear it no longer, and suggested to his friend mr. dredge that he had some business of importance upon which he would like to see him, if he could spare a short time alone. mr. slack took the hint, and made his departure, much gratified at the impression he thought he had made of himself upon the mind of his new acquaintance, professor sweet. "what a prodigious egotist your friend is, mr. dredge," observed the professor, as soon as he had gone out of hearing. "he exceeds anything i ever heard. it is perfectly nauseous to hear him. he appears more like a fool to me than a wise man. i have not felt so repulsed and disgusted in the presence of a man for a long time. from the first moment of my entrance into your house until the last second of his departure he has talked about nothing except himself in the most bombastic way. i would rather dwell in mountain solitude than be compelled to live in his society." "i am accustomed to him," replied mr. dredge, "and do not think so much of it as you, being a stranger; but he is without doubt an exceedingly vain man and brimful of egotism. i am sorry you were obliged to hear so much of him." "i am very pleased he is gone, and hope never to meet him in company again, excepting as a reformed character. he may be a good neighbour; he may be wealthy; he may be a little wise and educated; but none of these things justify the excessive vanity and self-setting-off which are so prominent in his conversation." the views of the professor were such as others entertained who knew mr. slack. few cared for his company; and those who did, _endured_ more than _enjoyed_ it. himself occupied so much space in conversation, that other persons and things were crowded out. he thought so much of himself, that it was unnecessary for other people to think anything of him. he filled up so much room in society, that others could scarcely move their tongues. in fact, the ego within him was so enormous that those around him were liliputians in his estimation. the _u_ of other people was absorbed in his great _i_. he was known generally by the name of "_great i_;" and when one repeated anything that mr. slack of k---had said, the answer was, "_o, mr. great i said it, did he?_" and so it passed away as vapour. some called him a "fool." others said, "pity he knew no better." the universal sentiment was that he spoke a hundred per cent. too much of himself, when of all men he should be last to say anything. * * * * * mr. snodgrass is a man who, without any injustice to him, may be referred to as an egotist. i once waited upon him to consult him in his professional capacity respecting a matter in which i had a deep interest. but ere i could possibly reach the question, he occupied the greater part of the time i was in his company in making known to me the multiplicity of his labours in the past; his engagements for the time to come; what invitations he was obliged to decline; how for years he had kept up his popularity in one particular town; how he was busy studying the mathematics; how he had succeeded in a critical case, in which the most eminent men in the city had failed; how he had been written to concerning questions of the most vital importance. in fine, his great _i_ stood out so full and prominent that my little _i_ was scarcely allowed to make its appearance, and when it did it was despatched with an off-handedness which amounted to, "who are you to presume to stand in the way of me, so much your superior?" of course my little _i_ had to be silent until his great _i_ was pleased to give permission for him to speak. i have been with him in company when he has spoken in such tones of egotism as have made me feel pity for him. he had acquirements which no one else could lay claim to. he had attained professional honours which put every one of his class in the shade. he could give information which no one present had heard before from any of their ministers or teachers. he criticised every one, but no one could criticise _him_. he put every one right in politics, divinity, medicine, exegesis of scripture. what had he not read? where had he not been? was not he a philosopher? an historian? a theologian? a physician? in fact, was not he _the_ wise man from the east? and when he died, would not wisdom die with him? * * * * * mr. fidler is a young man given to egotism in his own peculiar way. he is fond of putting himself forward in company by telling tales and repeating jests as original and of his own creation, when they had an existence before he was born, and are perhaps as well or better known by some to whom he repeats them than they are to himself. it would not be so objectionable did he not exhibit himself in such airs of self-conceit, and speak in a manner which indicated that he was in his own estimation the chief personage of the company. on one occasion he was apparently gulling his hearers with a tale as new to them, with all the egotism he could command, when, as soon as he had done, one present, disgusted with his vanity, quietly observed, "that is an old thing which i remember hearing in my childhood." but, nothing daunted by this, he still went on with his egotistic talk and manner, until another gentleman well read in books recommended him when he reached home to procure a certain book of jests and read it, and he would find every one of his pleasantries which he had told on that occasion there inserted. this advice being taken, he found that all his jokes and puns which he thought were new, or wished to pass as new, had been published and gone through several editions before he or his friends were ever heard of. * * * * * when a man's conversation is principally about himself, he displays either ignorance of men and things, or is inflated with vanity and self-laudation. he must imagine himself and his doings to be of such consequence that if not known it will be an irreparable loss to the world. he shows himself in the social circle in an air which indicates that he would, were he able, either compel others to retire, or eclipse them with his own moonshine glare. such a talker must necessarily be a person at great discount in all well-informed and respectable society. they resent his disgusting trespasses upon their general rights; and they are just in so doing. what authority has he for his intrusions? he has none, either in himself or in his associations. his inventions, of which he speaks, will not sustain the test of examination. his great and numerous acquaintances of which he boasts are not all of the genuine stamp. the cards which lie on his table, thick as autumnal leaves, and to which he points for your particular observation, are not of the kind he would lead you to believe. "i was to dine with the admiral to-night," said a naval lieutenant once; "but i have so many invitations elsewhere that i can't go." "i am going, and i'll apologise," said a brother officer. "o, don't trouble yourself." "but i must," said the officer, "for the admiral's invitation, like that of the queen, is a command." "never mind; pray don't mention my name," rejoined the lieutenant. "for your own sake i certainly will," was the reply. at length the hero of a hundred cards stammered out, "don't say a word about it; i had a hint to stay away." "a hint to stay away! why so?" "the fact is, i--wasn't invited." the man who prides himself in his aristocratic acquaintances betrays little respect for himself. a wise man knows that if he have true distinction, he must be indebted to himself for it. the shadow of his own body is more valuable to him than the _substance_ of another man's. in the mirror of self-examination he beholds the imperfections of his own doings and virtues, which will not for conscience' sake allow him to parade his small apparent excellencies or acquisitions before society. lord erskine was a great egotist; and one day in conversation with curran he casually asked what grattan said of himself. "said of himself!" was curran's astonished reply. "nothing. grattan speak of himself! why, sir, grattan is a great man. sir, the torture could not wring a syllable of self-praise from grattan; a team of six horses could not drag an opinion of himself out of him. like all great men, he knows the strength of his reputation, and will never condescend to proclaim its march like the trumpeter of a puppet-show. sir, he stands on a national altar, and it is the business of us inferior men to keep up the fire and incense. you will never see grattan stooping to do either the one or the other." curran objected to byron's talking of himself as a great drawback on his poetry. "any subject," he said, "but that eternal one of self. i am weary of knowing once a month the state of any man's hopes or fears, rights or wrongs. i would as soon read a register of the weather, the barometer up to so many inches to-day and down so many inches to-morrow. i feel scepticism all over me at the sight of agonies on paper--things that come as regular and notorious as the full of the moon." "in company," says charron, "it is a very great fault to be more forward in setting one's-self off and talking to show one's parts than to learn the worth and to be truly acquainted with the abilities of other men. he that makes it his business not to know, but to be known, is like a tradesman who makes all the haste he can to sell off his old stock, but takes no thought of laying in any new." "a man," says dr. johnson, "should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage; people may be amused and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered and brought up against him upon subsequent occasions." "speech of a man's self," says bacon, "ought to be seldom and well chosen. i knew one who was wont to say in scorn, 'he must needs be a wise man, he speaks so much of himself;' and there is but one case wherein a man may commend himself with good grace, and that is in commending virtue in another especially if it be such a virtue whereunto himself pretendeth." solomon says of the egotist, "seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him" (prov. xxvi. 12). that is, he thinks he knows so much that you can teach a fool more easily than him. he be taught indeed! who is so wise as he? if he want knowledge, has he not funds yet untouched, or powers equal to any discovery? nevertheless, it is an old saying, "he that is his own pupil shall have a fool for his tutor." how suitable are the words of divine wisdom spoken to such: "look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others" (phil. ii. 4). that is, whatever you have of your own, be not vain and proud of, to boast of and trust in; but rather look upon what others have to learn from, wisely to commend, and never to covet. study the well-being of others rather than the exhibition of yourself. again, it is said, "be not wise in your own conceits." "be not high-minded, but fear." "he that humbleth himself shall be exalted, but he that exalteth himself shall be abased." xx. _the tale-bearer._ "he that rails against his absent friends, or hears them scandalized and not defends, sports with their fame, and speaks whate'er he can, and only to be thought a witty man, tells tales and brings his friends in disesteem, that man's a knave; be sure beware of him." horace. there are two things which the tale-bearer does: he first collects his tales, and then carries them abroad for distribution. although always distributing, his stock on hand remains unexhausted. one feature of his business is _bartering_. he exchanges his own ware for that of other people, of which he can dispose when occasion serves. he is an adept at his trade, and is seldom cheated in his bargains. it is immaterial to him what articles he takes in exchange, so that they can be disposed of in private market. fragments of glass, old rusty nails, rotten rags, cast-away boots and shoes, and such-like things are received by him, either for immediate disposal or for manufacture into new commodities to meet special demands. he is agreeable in his manners, and careful lest he give offence. he enters with delicate feet into his neighbour's house. his tongue is smooth as oil, and his words as sweet as honey, by which he wins the ear of his listener. on his countenance is the smile of good humour, by which he ingratiates himself into the favour of his customer. and now you may see him satan-like, when squatted at the ear of eve, pouring in the tales which he has either received from abroad or manufactured in his own establishment. whichever they are, he has labelled them with his own signature under the words, "_not transferable, but at the risk of a violation of the most sacred confidence_." having found a willing receiver of his goods in this neighbour, he asks remuneration, not in pounds, shillings, and pence, but in an equivalent--some fact or fiction, lie or rumour (he is not particular), which he can turn to account in another market. having received payment, he bids adieu to his friend, and passes on to the next house and does his business there in a similar way. the tongue of the tale-bearer is like the tail of samson's foxes, it carries fire-brands wherever it goes, and is enough to set the whole field of the world in a blaze. what bishop hall says of the busy-body may be said of the tale-bearer. "he begins table-talk of his neighbour at another man's board, to whom he tells the first news and advises him to conceal the reporter; whose angry or envious answer he returns to his first host, enlarged with a second edition; and as is often done with unwilling mastiffs to excite them to fight, he claps each on the side apart, and provokes them to an eager conflict. he labours without thanks, talks without credit, lives without love, dies without tears and pity, save that some say it was a pity he died no sooner." the stories of the tale-bearer never lose in their transmission from person to person. their tendency is to accumulate like the boys' snow-ball rolled about in a field of thawing snow, so that by the time it has gone its round none of the primary features shall be recognised. this may be illustrated by the following:-"a friend advised me, if ever i took a house in a terrace a little way out of town, to be very careful that it was the centre one, at least if i had any regard for my reputation. for i must be well aware that a story never loses by telling; and consequently, if i lived in the middle of a row of houses it was very clear that the tales which might be circulated to my prejudice would only have half the distance to travel on either side of me, and therefore could only be half as bad by the time they got down to the bottom of the terrace as the tales that might be circulated by the wretched individuals who had the misfortune to live at the two ends of it, so that i should be certain to have twice as good a character in the neighbourhood as they had. for instance, i was informed of a lamentable case that actually occurred a short time since. the servant of no. 1 told the servant of no. 2 that her master expected his old friends, the bayleys, to pay him a visit shortly; and no. 2 told no. 3 that no. 1 expected to have the bayleys in the house every day; and no. 3 told no. 4 that it was all up with no. 1, for they couldn't keep the bailiffs out; whereupon no. 4 told no. 5 that the officers were after no. 1, and that it was as much as he could do to prevent himself being taken in execution, and that it was nearly killing his poor dear wife; and so it went on increasing and increasing until it got to no. 32, who confidently assured the last, no. 33, that the bow-street officers had taken up the gentleman who lived at no. 1 for killing his poor dear wife with arsenic, and that it was confidently hoped and expected that he would be executed." * * * * * mr. eadie, of the village of handley, was a man very much addicted to the practice of collecting tales and then disposing of them wherever he could. it was his habit whenever he had a spare hour (and this was rather often, for it must be understood he was not any too industrious), to go at one time into the house of neighbour a., and at another time into the house of neighbour b. sometimes he would sit gossiping in these houses for hours together. he managed to keep on good terms with both of them, although between b. and a. there existed anything but a good feeling. and, by-the-by, eadie was the agent of producing it, through carrying tales to each respecting the other. if a. ever happened to show temper at a tale which he repeated as originating with b. about him, he would be sure to have a gentle corrective in telling a tale which he had heard on "most reliable authority" respecting b., which tale would be sure to be worse than the one he had told a. as spoken by b. thus he did from time to time with either party, so as to keep on good terms with both. he was known in the whole village and neighbourhood as a person given to the gathering of tales and the telling of them. some of the people were too wise and peaceable to give him any patronage and encouragement. others, however, were of different temperament. with curious mind and itching ears they always gave eadie a welcome into their house. he was sure to bring news about neighbour baxter and neighbour mobbs, and somebody else of whom they were anxious to know a little matter or two. miss curious was always glad to see him, because he could answer her inquiries about miss inkpen's engagement with young bumstead--about the young gentleman who was at church the last sabbath evening, and sat opposite to her in the gallery, ever and anon casting a glance at her as though he had some "serious intentions." mrs. allchin was another who always greeted eadie with a smile into her house. they were, in fact, on very intimate and friendly terms. whenever they met, mutual tale-bearing occupied their chief time and attention. now and then mrs. allchin would ask eadie to have a friendly cup of tea, which when accepted was always a high time for both. on such occasions they exchanged goods to the last articles manufactured in fancy's shop or received from scandal's warehouse. the next day mrs. allchin might be seen busy in making her calls upon her friends, doing business with the new goods received from eadie over her tea-table; and eadie might be seen moving about among his friends, disposing of the new goods he had received from mrs. allchin at the same time. but it must be understood that the quality of them in each case was generally adulterated. mr. steeraway was another who gave a hearty reception to eadie whenever he called upon him. he would give close attention to the recital of eadie's tales, much closer than he was in the habit of giving to the sermon at church or to the godly advice of the minister when he called on pastoral duties. one day eadie told a tale about b. and s., two persons living as neighbours in the village, and who were living on the best terms of friendship. the day after steeraway went to b. and told him what s. had been saying about him. he then went to s. and told him what b. had been saying about him. they were hard to believe the things which they heard; but steeraway substantiated everything with such evidence as could not be denied. they met for explanation in the presence of steeraway, who feigned to be the friend of both. instead of clearing up matters, they made things darker, and parted, each thinking that there was some truth in what one had been saying of the other. reserve sprang up between them; mutual confidence was lost; a separation of friendship took place; and it became a notorious fact in the village that b. and s. were now as much at variance as they were aforetime friendly and united. but eadie was the main cause of it by telling his scandal to steeraway, who he knew would repeat it the first opportunity, and could no more keep it secret than a child can keep from the candy-shop a penny given it by its uncle moses. mr. musgrove was a tradesman in the village. he was generally believed to be an honest man, making full measure and just weight to little children as well as to adults. he was a tradesman who had a high sense of honour, and withal a mind sensitive to any attack upon his moral principles. nothing affected him more than to have his integrity as a man of business called in question. one day eadie, the tale-bearer, called at his shop (musgrove was not at this time acquainted with eadie's character and business), and after buying a small article, he said to him in a most grave manner,-"mr. musgrove, i am a comparative stranger to you, and you are to me; but i am always concerned for the welfare of honest and good citizens. now, i would like you to succeed in trade as well as anybody else, and i hope you will; but you know it is difficult for a man in your business to get along if it is ever rumoured that he makes short weight and measure, and takes advantage of children and ignorant persons." "what do you mean, mr. eadie?" inquired mr. musgrove, as though he understood the remark to apply to himself. "i will tell you, mr. musgrove. now, i hope you will not think that i am the inventor of what i am about to tell you, or that i even _believe_ it, for i have no reason for doing so." "what is it, mr. eadie? what is it?" "i would not dream of telling you, if i did not desire that you might stand well before the public and your customers in particular." "that is what i am anxious to do; and what i am always studying to do; and i never yet had any fears about the matter." "nor have i, mr. musgrove; but it is said that you make short weight and measure." "this is the first time that ever anything of the kind came to my ears since i have been in business," said mr. musgrove, with considerable feeling. "the thing has been told me by several individuals; and i fear the report is going the round of the village, much to your injury." "i am exceedingly sorry for it. but, mr. eadie, i must know the name of the party who has thus suffered from my dishonesty. i must trace this matter out, for my honour and happiness are dependent upon it. i scorn such a thing in the very thought." "yes, and it is said to have been in connection with a little child, too, and that makes the thing so much the worse." "well, now, mr. eadie, i must know the name of the party," said mr. musgrove, very warmly. "i feel considerable reluctance to give names," replied eadie. "you need not fear of being involved in any unpleasantness," answered musgrove. "so far as that goes, you know, i have no fear. but if you must know, i will tell you. it is in connection with the family of bakers." "is it possible!" exclaimed mr. musgrove. "do you know, mr. eadie, that i and that family are on the most friendly terms. we visit each other often; and they are most regular and frequent customers of mine. i can hardly believe, mr. eadie, that there is any truth in the report." "i hope it may not be true, but it is strange so many should talk about it, if it were not. but i have no interest in telling you of this, i do it for your good." "thank you, thank you, mr. eadie." eadie had now done his business, so off he started, and left mr. musgrove reflecting. "strange," thought he to himself, "that the bakers have never said anything to me; that they should continue so friendly; that they should still send to my shop for everything they need. i cannot account for it." he continued the subject of considerable emotion and anxiety. he informed his wife of the matter; but she did not credit the first word. she was of different temper to him. he was very anxious during the night, and slept little. how could he, when his character for probity was implicated, and his business was likely to suffer? the first opportunity he had he went to see mrs. baker, to inquire into the facts of the case. she was glad to see him. upon the statement of the story, as told by eadie, she was amazed, and exceedingly grieved. after a brief pause, she said to mr. musgrove, "i think i can tell you how the matter originated. my little girl went to your shop the other day for two pounds of butter, and when she brought it home, miss nancy, who is rather given to suspicion, thought the butter didn't weigh two pounds, so she at once weighed it, and found that the weight was perfectly right. mrs. allchin called in the day after, and in conversation i happened to mention the circumstance to her. i ought to have known better; for i seldom tell her anything of the kind, because i know her gossiping humour. mrs. allchin and eadie, who you say told you about it, are very intimate friends; i have no doubt she informed him in her way of exaggeration and wonder; and then he would tell you in his own peculiar way, which is far from being a way of truthfulness. if you knew him as well as i do, you would not have heard his tale at all; and i am sure you would not have been disturbed in your mind by it, because you would not have believed him. and as to the tale being circulated through the village, that may be partly true; for when anything gets into mrs. allchin's or eadie's hands, it spreads like wildfire; but you may rest assured that no one will believe it, when it is known to come from either the one or the other. do not be alarmed, mr musgrove, neither your character nor business will suffer. you stand as high as ever you did with us, and with everybody else, for aught i know. i am exceedingly sorry that the thing should have occurred." musgrove left baker's fully satisfied as to the fabrication of the tale, and still conscious of his own integrity; but he could not help feeling about it, nor could he help observing a slight decline in business from those parties who gave credence to the tale of mrs. allchin or mr. eadie. these miserable habits of tale-bearing and meddling, of backbiting and whispering, are the source of the greater part of the quarrellings, alienations, jealousies, and divisions in families. the smallest, plainest bit of wire may become by such malicious working a sword that pierces, to the destruction of peace and happiness. the least possible authority is enough to give them warrant to set a-going an evil report, which, as it rolls, gathers from every point it touches. as in the case of jeremiah, "report, say they, and we will report it. all my familiars watched for my halting, saying, peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take revenge on him" (jer. xx. 10). as in the case also of nehemiah, "it is reported among the heathen, _and gashmu saith it_, that thou and the jews think to rebel; and now shall it be reported to the king according to these words" (neh. vi. 6, 7). gashmu saith it, anybody says it, is authority enough. what did nehemiah know about gashmu? what did any one know? but there are always plenty of gashmus for the tale-bearer's purpose. but although gashmus be as plenty as blackberries, god's law is absolute and explicit; it hedges this wickedness around with many provisions, and walls it in, so that a man who commits it is as if he had broken through flaming gates for the purpose. "thou shalt not raise nor receive a false report. put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment (exod. xxii. 1, 2). lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? he that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour" (ps. xv.). then observe the vagueness and indefiniteness of the accusation, founded on what in the nature of things was absolutely impossible to be known, except by overt action; founded on suspicion or conjecture of men's thoughts. "that thou and the jews think to rebel!" there was no pretence that they _had_ rebelled. there is no need to begin the lie in so gross and bungling a manner; it was bad enough to set _the conjecture of an intention in motion_. whoever took that report to the king would be sure to present it thus:-"it is said that there is rebellion in jerusalem." "rebellion! who is at the head of it?" "nehemiah, the governor." "and where is the proof of this thing?" "o, gashmu saith it." "and who is gashmu?" "o, nobody knows anything about him; but doubtless he is some responsible person!" "a whisper broke the air,- a soft light tone, and low, yet barbed with shame and woe; now, might it only perish there, nor further go! ah me! a quick and eager ear caught up the little meaning sound! another voice has breathed it clear, and so it wandered round from ear to lip, from lip to ear, until it reached a gentle heart, and that--_it broke!_" in reflecting upon these and similar results following the work of the tale-bearer, one cannot but recommend to his attention these words of scripture: "thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer among thy people." "a tale-bearer revealeth secrets; but he that is a faithful spirit concealeth the matter." "the words of a tale-bearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly." "he that goeth about as a tale-bearer revealeth secrets, therefore meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips." "where there is no tale-bearer, the strife ceaseth." "they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idlers, but tattlers also, and busy-bodies, speaking things which they ought not." the following recipe is said to be an effectual cure of the mouth-disease of the tale-bearer. it is given in the hope that all who are so affected will give it a fair trial:-"take of good nature, one ounce; mix this with a little 'charity-for-others' and two or three sprigs of 'keep-your-tongue-between-your-teeth;' simmer them together in a vessel called 'circumspection' for a short time, and it will be fit for application. the symptom is a violent itching in the tongue and roof of the mouth, which invariably takes place when you are in company with a species of animals called 'gossips.' when you feel a fit of the disorder coming on, take a teaspoonful of the mixture, hold it in your mouth, which you will keep closely shut till you get home, and you will find a complete cure. should you apprehend a relapse, keep a small bottleful about you, and on the slightest symptom repeat the dose." xxi. _the assenter._ "and there's one rare, strange virtue in his speeches, the secret of their mastery--they are short." halleck. this is a talker of a very accommodating kind. he is pliable as an elastic bow. he takes any shape in sentiment or opinion you please to give him, with most obliging disposition. as you think, so he thinks; as you say, so he says. if you deny, he denies; if you affirm, he affirms. he is no wrangler or disputant, no dogmatist or snubber. you may always rely upon having a hearing from him, whatever you say. and observe this, what he is to you, so he is to others, however averse they may be in sentiment to yourself. he is very much of a weathercock-make in his intellect. it seems to be fixed on a pivot, and from whichever point of the compass the wind blows in the talking world he veers round to that quarter. his pet expressions are, "yes, truly;" "just so;" "i believe that;" "nothing is truer;" "that is what i have said many a time," etc. i am not, however, disposed to think that this vacillation is owing to moral weakness so much as to want of mental calibre in independent and manly exercise. in some it is a habit formed as the result of a desire to stand on friendly terms with everybody they hold conversation. "it is a very fine morning, mr. long," said mr. oakes, as he met him one day in bond street. "very fine, indeed," said mr. long. "i think we are going to have settled weather now after such a succession of storms." "o, yes, i think so, mr. oakes." "did you mind that picture of wellington as you came by brown's shop. is it not fine? did you ever see a better likeness of the glorious hero of waterloo than that? is it not grand?" "it is indeed grand. i never saw anything like it. i think with you, mr. oakes." "that is a magnificent building, mr. long, which is in course of erection in adelaide street. it will be an honour to the architect, the proprietor, and the city." "it is indeed a magnificent building, and it will do honour to the architect, the proprietor, and the city," replied mr. long. "did you hear mr. bowles lecture the other night? was it not a grand piece of eloquence, of originality, and of literary power? i think that it was super-excellent." "just so, mr. oakes. it was, as you say, super-excellent; that is the exact idea. it was everything you describe. i fully concur in your remarks." "but i did not think much of the man that supplied our pulpit on sunday morning. he was too long, too loose, and too loud; a very poor substitute for our beloved pastor." "those are exactly my views upon that subject," responded long. "my opinion is that the probability of the restoration of popery in this country was never so strong as now, and unless something be done to interpose, it will become more probable still." "just so, mr. oates. my opinion is precisely the same as yours upon that point. we agree exactly." "i think mr. gladstone's pamphlet on the vatican decrees is likely to produce a reactionary effect upon the patronage of the romanists in his future support as the liberal leader." "that is what i think too, mr. oakes. it is very likely, as you say, to be so. your mind and mine agree upon that particular also." "i have a strong impression that the public worship act will have little effect in arresting the progress of ritualism, because of the apathy of the bishops." "that is just my impression, mr. oakes." "do you not think, mr. long, that the scepticism of the age is very subtle, powerful, and dangerous?" "yes, truly, mr. oakes, i do indeed think that the scepticism of the age is all you say it is." "i did not say it was so; you mistook my question for a statement, mr. long." with some little tremor, as though he had given offence, mr. long said, "oh dear no; you did not say so: i have made a mistake; do pardon me, mr. oakes." "that notion of george eliot, taught in the following lines, is full of atheistic teaching, and likely to be mischievous in its influence. speaking of his wish to have an immortality, his notion of it is only that of living in the minds of others in subsequent ages:- 'o may i join the choir invisible of those immortal dead, who live again in minds made better by their presence: so to live is heaven.' his notion of a heaven, you see, is limited to a life of immortality among the dead, who live in others made better by them--a posthumous influence for good is his only heaven." "yes, i see, mr. oakes," answered long. "just so: i believe all you say. you have expressed what i think about the atheistic theory of george eliot." it was in this way that mr. long assented to mr. oakes in everything he said. they separated, and each went on his way. as mr. long walked down the street, who should meet him but mr. stearns? and he began his conversation somewhat in the same order as mr. oakes, only he happened to take in almost every particular an opposite view. but this was of no consequence to mr. long. both mr. oakes and mr. stearns were his intimate friends, though not friends of each other, and he did not wish to disagree with either, so he assented to everything stearns said with as much readiness and affability as he did to what oakes said. the above is a brief specimen of the assenter in conversation. his fault shows itself to every observer; and if it is not a moral fault, it certainly is an intellectual one. every man in conversation ought to have a mind of his own for free and independent thought; and while he does not dogmatically and doggedly bring it into contact with others, he should avoid making it the tool of another man's. he should not throw it, as clay, into everybody's mental mould which comes in his way, to receive any shape which may be given to it. this is _softness_ which a healthful state of any mind does not justify--which the natural intellectual rights of man condemn. it is a _pliability_ of mind which no honourable man requires in conversation, and which he does not approve. it is mental stultification. it confines the action of mind to one party, and limits the circle of conversation to the compass which that mind pleases to give it. the proper contact of mind in conversation is mutual stimulus to action. friction produces fire, and when there are wise hands to supply suitable material on both sides, a genial glowing heat is the result, which thaws out the frigidness that otherwise might exist. each one warms himself at the other's fire; all who listen feel the influence, and lasting are the benefits which flow from such conversation. xxii. _the liar._ "a false witness shall not be unpunished; and he that speaketh lies shall not escape."--solomon. this is a talker who voluntarily speaks untruth with an intention to deceive. he is a _painter_, giving to subjects colours and views that he knows are false to the original, but which he means to be understood as true by the spectators. he is a _dramatist_, making representations which do not belong to the characters in the drama, and thereby imposing upon the credulity of the beholders. he is a _legerdemain_, showing black to be white, and white to be black, and red to be no colour--a _factor_, producing works which he vends as real, when he knows them to be shams--a _witness_, bearing testimony to things which have no existence--a _tradesman_, carrying on business in a fictitious name and with an imaginary capital. this talker may be met with in a variety of aspects and relations: in the shop, telling his customer that his goods are the best in town, and cheapest in price, when he knows that they are far from being either one or the other; in the market, declaring that the fruit is fresh gathered and fish just arrived, when he knows that both are on the eve of decay and rottenness from long keeping; in the manufactory, stating that the article is pure and unadulterated, when he knows that one half or three parts are impure and corrupt. "you shall have it at cost price," when perhaps the price is ten or twenty per cent. above it. "selling at twenty-five below cost," when the proprietor knows he will make a large profit. "they are salvage goods," or they are "damaged goods from a great fire in manchester or edinburgh," when they are old things which have been damaged in the owner's own warehouse or cellar. "william, if mr. cash calls to inquire if i am at home, tell him i am gone out for the day," said mr. brush to his servant, while he was the whole day engaged in some pet diversion in the bagatelle-room. "you shall most certainly have your new coat by thursday evening," says the tailor to mr. shaw, upon which promise he makes a special engagement to meet company. thursday evening comes, and mr. shaw finds the promise unfulfilled by the tailor, who knew at the time he should not do as he said. "o, yes, i will meet you at four o'clock on monday at mr. nuncio's," when he knew that he was purposing to go in quite an opposite direction at that very hour. "i certainly cannot pay your bill to-day: call on friday, and i will pay you," when he knows he has the money on hand, and that when you call on friday he will not pay you. there are yet three more aspects in which this talker appears before society--as _jocular_, as _officious_, as _pernicious._ as _jocular_, he talks with a view to amuse and create merriment by telling stories of his own invention, or what he has heard others repeat, and which he knows not to be true. as _officious_, he talks with a view, as he says, to benefit others. he may do it as a parent to benefit his children; or as a husband to benefit his wife; or as an officer in church or state to benefit those who are subject to him. he thinks the end justifies the means, and he can do evil that good may come. but this is an egregious mistake; for the divine injunction is that we must _not_ do evil that good may come. "and therefore," says bishop hopkins, "although thine own life or thy neighbour's depends upon it; yea, put the case it were not only to save his life, but to save his soul, couldest thou by this means most eminently advance the glory of god, or the general good and welfare of the church, yet thou oughtest not to tell the least lie to promote these great and blessed ends." as _pernicious_, he talks things that are false with a view to injure his neighbour, or any one towards whom he has an evil feeling. it is immaterial to him what the invention is, so that it will answer his malicious design. he can create rumours by wholesale, and dispense them to all who will degrade themselves by accepting them. aspersions, detractions, slanders, defamations, and calumnies he can conjure in his mind and pour out of his lips without the shadow of a justification. and as there are always persons with ready minds to receive whatever is said to the injury of others, and to circulate it as truth, the liar often succeeds in the accomplishment of his evil purpose. i will give briefly the traits of his character. 1. _he is a child of the devil._--"ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it" (john viii. 44). the liar, then, is a legitimate son of this lying father. he speaks as he is inspired by that black spirit of perdition. "thou never liest," says bishop hopkins, "but thou speakest aloud what the devil whispered softly to thee; the old serpent lies folded round in thy heart, and we may hear him hissing in thy voice. and therefore, when god summoned all his heavenly attendants about him, and demanded who would persuade ahab to go up and fall at ramoth-gilead, an evil spirit that had crowded in amongst them steps forth and undertakes the office as his most natural employment, and that wherein he most of all delighted. 'i will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets' (i kings xxii. 22). every lie thou tellest, consider that the devil sits upon thy tongue, breathes falsehood into thy heart, and forms thy words and accents into deceit." 2. _he acts contrary to the divine mind and nature._--god is truth and in him is no falsehood at all. what he hath said he will do; what he hath promised he will fulfil. all his thoughts are according to the perfect reality of things; and all his words are in exact accord with his thoughts. hence the sin of lying is contrary to his very nature, and an abomination in his sight. "these six things doth the lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among his brethren" (prov. vi. 16-19). "lying lips are abomination to the lord: but they that deal truly are his delight" (prov. xii. 22). 3. _he gives indubitable evidence of a depraved nature._--he is the opposite in nature to a child of "our father which is in heaven." "surely," says the lord of his children, "they are my people; children that will not lie: so he became their saviour" (isa. lxiii. 8). on the contrary, it is affirmed of the wicked that they "are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies" (ps. lviii. 3). again it is said, "thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. thou lovest evil more than good, and lying rather than to speak righteousness" (ps. lii. 2, 3). the wicked "delight in lies; they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly" (ps. lxii. 4). again it is said, "behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood" (ps. vii. 14). jeremiah's description of his people answers to the character of the liar in our day. "they bend their tongues like their bow for lies; but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth, for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the lord." "they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity" (jer. ix. 3, 5). 4. _he is generally a coward in respect to men, and a contemner of god._--"to say a man lieth," says montaigne, "is to say that he is audacious towards god, and a coward towards men." "whosoever lies," observes hopkins, "doth it out of a base and sordid fear lest some evil and inconvenience should come unto him by declaring the truth." "a liar," remarks bacon, "is brave towards god and a coward towards man. for a lie faces god, and shrinks from man." "the meanness of lying," says gilpin, "arises from the cowardice which it implies. we dare not boldly and nobly speak the truth, but have recourse to low subterfuges, which always show a sordid and disingenuous mind. hence it is that in the fashionable world the word _liar_ is always considered as a term of peculiar reproach." "lie not, but let thy heart be true to god, thy mouth to it, thy actions to them both. cowards tell lies, and those that fear the rod; the stormy working soul spits lies and froth." again, says the poet:- "dishonour waits on perfidy. the villain should blush to think a falsehood; 'tis the crime of cowards." 5. _as a rule he is the most condemned and shunned of all the talkers in society._--those who have any self-respect avoid him. the noble and virtuous stand aloof from his company. he is regarded as a dangerous person, possessed of deadly weapons, subject to a deadly malady. he is not depended upon at any time, or in anything. even his veracity is suspected, if not discredited altogether; so that when he does speak the truth there is little or no confidence reposed in what he says _as_ the truth. aristotle, being asked what a man would gain by telling a lie, answered, "not to be credited when he shall tell the truth." the poet, in a dialogue with vice, thus represents the liar or falsehood as the greatest fiend on earth. vice inquires of falsehood:- "and, secret one! what hast thou done to compare, in thy tumid pride, with me? _i_, whose career, through the blasted year, has been tracked by despair and agony." to which falsehood replies:- "what have i done? i have torn the robe from baby truth's unsheltered form, and round the desolated globe borne safely the bewildering charm: my tyrant-slaves to a dungeon floor have bound the fearless innocent, and streams of fertilizing gore flow from her bosom's hideous rent, which this unfailing dagger gave.... i dread that blood!--no more--this day is ours, though her eternal ray must shine upon our grave. yet know, proud vice, had i not given to thee the robe i stole from heaven, thy shape of ugliness and fear had never gained admission here." in view of the enormity of this sin, the language and feeling of the good is, "i hate and abhor lying;" "a righteous man hateth lying;" "the remnant of israel shall not do iniquity nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth." they pray against the sin, "remove from me the way of lying;" "remove far from me vanity and lies." they do not respect those who are guilty of the sin. "blessed is the man that maketh the lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies;" "he that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house; he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." it would be well if all professing christians would act upon this resolution of the psalmist, and exclude all liars from their presence. 6. _he is generally characterized for other evils as associated and produced by his lying._--the degeneracy of moral principle which can impose upon the credulity of mankind by the invention and statement of what is known to be untrue is capable of other acts of vice and immorality. hence the prophet hosea, in speaking to the israelites of the judgments that should come upon them, declares that "the lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of god in the land. by swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery they break out, and blood toucheth blood." here we see the brood of evils associated with lying. "a lying tongue," says solomon, "hateth those that are afflicted by it." it not only afflicts, but hates them whom it does afflict--hates them under the calamity of which itself has been the cause. "a liar," he again says, "giveth ear to a naughty tongue." he listens to lies, to slander, to cursing, to profanity, and the various evils constituting a "naughty tongue." 7. _he often tries to conceal his previous sins by lying, and to conceal his lying by subsequent sins._--ananias and sapphira sinned in keeping back part of the price, and then they lied in endeavouring to cover that (acts v.). cain sinned in murdering his brother, and then lied in the attempt to hide it (gen. iv. 9). jacob did wrong in appearing before his father as esau, and sustained his wrong by a lie. the brethren of joseph transgressed in dealing unkindly with him and selling him into the hands of the ishmaelites, and then to conceal the matter they deceived their father by lying (gen. xxxvii. 31, 32). samson committed sin by throwing himself into the power of delilah, and sought his deliverance from her hands by telling lies (judges xvi. 10). and so the liar has to resort to additional sin in defending himself against his lying. one lie begets another lie to sustain it. sometimes it calls forth an oath, a blasphemy, a curse, perjury, and other kinds of sin. gehazi lied to naaman concerning his master, and then to clear himself before his master he lied a second time (2 kings v. 22, 25). peter also lied in saying that he knew not jesus, and to sustain himself in it, when discovered, he cursed and swore, and thus doubled his crime (matt. xxvi. 72). "one lie," says owen, "must be thatched with another, or it will soon rain through." "he who tells a lie," remarks pope, "is not sensible how great a task he undertakes, for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one." "when one lie becomes due," says thackeray, "you must forge another to take up the old acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day." it is astounding to a serious mind to observe how some persons can run on in the repetition of falsehoods; and who, upon an apprehension of discovery, will yet go on paying the price of what they have told by continuing to lie on. it is also humiliating to one's humanity to notice oftentimes the cunning, subtlety, paltry tricks resorted to in order to cover over the lies which are exposed to detection. "this is the curse of every evil deed,- that, propagating still, it brings forth evil." 8. _he is almost invariably discovered in his sin._--"the lip of truth," says the wise man, "shall be established for ever; but a lying tongue is but for a moment" (prov. xii. 19). the moral government of god is maintained by truth. it is engaged in the promulgation and defence of truth. he who lies is a violator of its sacred laws, and exposes himself to the searching and grasping power of justice. the agents of the justice of god are numerous, and by one or the other the rebel is sure to be discovered and brought to public exposure in his criminality. there is a general love to truth and hatred to lies among mankind, and the belief or suspicion of a lie leads at once to the use of means to find it out, in order to know the truth and expose the falsehood. truth known as truth is never questioned. it remains inviolable and eternal. it stands as the admiration of the intelligent universe. but falsehood is transient in its power and reign, and exists while it does exist as the object of execration to all the rational beings of heaven and earth. 9. _he cannot go unpunished._--he is punished in the remorse and condemnation of his conscience; in the abhorrence of him in the judgment of every respectable member of society; in the continual fear he has of shameful discovery. none can trust him. it is against the moral instinct of human nature to confide in a liar. children cannot trust their parents when they know they lie. even the ties of kindred, however close, cannot create mutual assurance in the face of habitual falsehood. fidelity in every authority visits lying with punishment. children are punished by parents; servants by their masters. a liar is such a mischievous member of the community that the almost unanimous feeling towards him is one of condemnation. the scriptures contain most fearful words expressive of the retribution which shall come upon the liar:-"i will be a swift witness against false-swearers, and them that fear not me, saith the lord of hosts." "thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man." "what shall be given unto, or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue? sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper." "a false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape." "but the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." "and there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie." "for without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." in illustration of some of the preceding sentiments, i give the following:-an american lawyer says: "on entering college, i promised my mother, whom i loved as i have never loved another mortal, that while there i would not taste of intoxicating liquor, nor play at cards, or other games of hazard, nor borrow money. and i never did, and never have since. i have lived well-nigh sixty years, yet have never learned to tell a king from a knave among cards, nor hock from burgundy among wines, nor have i ever asked for the loan of a single dollar. thanks to my mother!--loving, careful, anxious for me, but not over-careful nor over-anxious. how could she be, when i was so weak and ignorant of my weakness, feeling myself strong because my strength was untried, and such a life as human life is, such temptations as beset the young, before me. "she did not ask me to promise not to swear. she would not wrong me by the thought that i _could_ swear; and she was right. i could not. how can any one so insult the holy, the all-excellent, our father, and best friend? nor did she ask me not to lie. she thought i _could_ not _lie_. had she thought otherwise, my promise would have been of little value to her. and i also thought i could not. i despised lying as a weakness, cowardice, meanness, the concentration of baseness. i felt strong enough, manly enough, to accomplish my end without it. i had no fear of facing my own acts. why should i shrink before my fellows for anything i had done? lie to them to conceal myself or my acts? nay, i would not have faults to be concealed. my own character, my own life, was more to me than the esteem of others. i would do nothing fit to have hidden, or which i might wish to hide. i thought i could not lie, and i could not for myself. "during my second college year there was a great deal of card-playing among the students. the faculty tried to prevent it, but found it difficult. though i never played, my chum did, and sometimes others played with him in our room when i was present. i not unfrequently saw the students at cards. one of the professors questioned me upon the subject. "'have you ever seen any card-playing among the students?' "'no, sir,' i answered firmly, determined not to expose my fellows. 'a lie of honour!' i said to myself. what coupling of contradictions! as well talk of 'honest theft!' 'innocent sin!' "'you are ignorant of any card-playing in the college building, brown?' "'yes, sir,' "'we can believe _you_, brown.' "i was ready to sink. nothing else could have smitten, stung me, like that. such confidence, and i so unworthy of it. still i held back the truth. "but i left the professor's room another person than i entered it--guilty, humbled, wretched. that one false word had spoiled everything for me. all my past manliness was shadowed by it. my ease of mind had left me, my self-respect was gone. i felt uncertain, unsafe. i stood upon a lie, trembling, tottering. how soon might i not fail? i was right in feeling unsafe. it is always unsafe to lie. my feet were sliding beneath me. one of the students had lost a quarter's allowance in play, and applied to his father for a fresh remittance, stating his loss. his father had made complaint to the college faculty, and there was an investigation of the facts. the money had been staked and lost in my room. i was present. "'was brown there?' asked the professor. "'he was.' "the professor's eyes rested on me. where was my honour _then_--my manliness? and where the trust reposed in me? did any say, 'we can believe _you_, brown,' after that? did any excuse my lie--any talk of my honour then? not one. they said, 'we didn't think it of you, brown!' 'i didn't suppose brown would lie for his right hand!' "it was enough to kill me. but there was no help. i had to bear my sin and shame as best i might, and try to outlive it. no one trusted me as before. no one could, for who knew whether my integrity might not again fail? i could not trust myself until i had obtained strength as well as pardon from god, nor even then, until i had many times been tried and tempted, and found his strength sufficient for me." * * * * * bessie was a little girl, not very old. one morning, as she stood before the glass pinning a large rose upon her bosom, her mother called her to take care of the baby a few minutes. now bessie wanted just then to go out into the garden to play, so she went very unwillingly. her mother bade her sit down in her little chair, placed the baby carefully in her lap, and left the room. the red rose instantly attracted the little one's attention, and quick as thought the chubby little fingers grasped it, and before bessie could say, "what are you about?" the rose was crushed and scattered. bessie was so angry that she struck the baby a hard blow. the baby, like all other babies, screamed right lustily. the mother, hearing the uproar, ran to see what was the matter. bessie, to save herself from punishment, told her mother that her little brother ben, who was playing in the room, had struck the baby as hard as he could. ben, although he declared his innocence, received the punishment which bessie so richly deserved. bessie went to school soon after, but she did not feel happy. that night, as she lay in her bed, she could not go to sleep for thinking of the dreadful wrong she had committed against her brother and against god; and she resolved that night to tell her mother the next morning. when morning came, however, she felt as if there was something kept her back; she could not make up her mind to confess the sin; it did not seem so great as the night before. it was not much, after all, her silly heart said. as day after day passed, bessie felt the burden less and less, and she might have fallen into the same sin again had a temptation presented itself, but for a sad event. one morning, when she came home from school, she found ben ill with a frightful throat distemper. he had been so all the forenoon. he continued to grow worse, and the next evening he died. poor bessie! it seemed as if her heart would break. kind friends tried to comfort her. they told her that he was happy; that he had gone to live with the saviour who loved little children; and if she was good, she would go to see him, though he could not come again to her. "o!" said the child, "i am not crying because he has gone to heaven, but because i told that lie about him; because he got the punishment which belonged to me." for a long time she refused to be comforted. several years have passed. bessie is now of woman's size; but the remembrance of that lie yet stings her soul to the quick. it took less than one minute to utter, but many years have not effaced the sorrow and shame which followed it. * * * * * a mother sat with her youngest daughter, a sprightly child, five years of age, enjoying an afternoon chit-chat with a few friends, when a little girl, a playmate of the daughter of mrs. p., came running into the sitting-room, and cried,-"where is jane? i've got something for her." "she is out," said the mother. "what have you got? show it to me," eagerly exclaimed hannah, the mother's favourite. "i'll give it to her." the little girl handed hannah a bouquet of flowers, which she had gathered for jane, and returned home with the faith that her kindness had not been misapplied. she had scarcely left the room, when hannah, standing by her mother's chair, talking to herself, said, loud enough to be heard across the room,-"i like flowers--she often calls me jane--she thinks i am jane--i'm going to keep this bouquet." the mother made no objection to the soliloquy, and hannah immediately began to pick the leaves from the handsome rose, for the purpose of making rose water. she had not completed her task when jane bounded into the room, and seeing hannah with flowers, exclaimed,-"i'm going to have a bouquet pretty soon. sally johnson said she would bring me one this afternoon." "but she won't," said hannah. "i'll go and see," returned jane, tripping as she spoke towards the front door. "here, jane," said the mother, "sally brought this bouquet for you, but you were not in, and she gave it to hannah." the tears started in jane's eyes. she felt that she had been robbed, and she knew that hannah had been preferred to her. hannah had been encouraged in a deliberate falsehood and in deception towards her sister. many a time since has that mother felt herself obliged to punish her daughter for prevarications, and often has she been heard to say that she wondered where so small a child learned so much deceit. this is a small affair at best, some may say; but do not "large streams from little fountains flow- tall oaks from little acorns grow?" and do not the "small beginnings" of instruction lay the foundation of man's or woman's character? the following lines are a solemn admonition against this sin, spoken by one who had committed it and fallen under its terrible punishment:- "my sin, ismenus, has wrought all this ill; and i beseech thee to be warned by me, and do not lie, if any man should ask thee but how thou dost, or what o'clock 'tis now; be sure thou do not lie, make no excuse for him that is most near thee; never let the most officious falsehood 'scape thy tongue; for they above (that are entirely truth) will make the seed which thou hast sown of lies yield miseries a thousandfold upon thine head, as they have done on mine." xxiii. _the censorious._ "judging with rigour every small offence."--hayward. he is a judge passing sentence upon persons and things without justice or charity. benevolent works in church or state are failures unless he has been a prominent party in their execution. personal motives are weighed in the balance and found wanting. thoughts, ere they are expressed, are even seen and censured. actions are pronounced false and defective. appearances are judged as realities, and realities as nonentities. things straight are seen as crooked, and things beautiful as deformed. where wiser men perceive order, strength, utility, he perceives confusion, weakness, and uselessness. an enterprise of which the community approve and co-operate in he stands aloof from, and satisfies his unhappy disposition with carping criticisms and ungenerous censures. a neighbour who does not reach his standard of moral excellence in character and action he pronounces lax in principles and delinquent in life. one who does not agree with him in his peculiar views of some disputed doctrine of christian faith or principle of church discipline he judges to be little better than a heretic or a heathen. it seems the instinct of his nature to find fault. he hears no preacher, reads no book, looks upon no work of art, without some expression of disapproval. god, providence, the bible, religion, do not escape his sharp and keen criticisms. his perception is so fine and his taste so exquisite that points of failure which a generous mind would overlook he discerns and speaks of with unfailing fidelity. he would at any time rather rub his nose against a thistle than smell at a flower. "mr. smith is a very excellent man," said a friend of mine one day in conversation to mr. pepper. "yes, he may be," said pepper in an indifferent way; "but perhaps you don't know him as well as i do." "what a noble gift of lord hill to the town of shenton, that park of one thousand acres!" "true, it was; but what were his motives in its bestowment? did he not expect to gain more than its value in certain ways that i need not mention?" "how sad that the family of hobson have come into such circumstances." "it is only a judgment upon them for the old man's sins." "have you heard that young dumas has entered the ministry?" "yes, and what for? only for the loaves and fishes." "what a kind providence it was that provided so suitably for widow bonsor and her family." "providence, indeed! was it not rather the benevolence of mr. lord and his friend squance?" "what an admirable picture that is in mr. robinson's window in bond street. it is a splendid piece of workmanship. don't you think so?" "a bad sky--very bad! cold as winter. that trunk of a tree on the right is as stiff and formal as a sign-post. it spoils the whole picture." "then you don't like it?" "there are a few good points in it; but it is full of faults." "the rev. mr. benson, of queen's-road church, is, in my judgment, an eloquent and powerful preacher. don't you think so, mr. pepper?" "well, as you ask me so pointedly, i am free to say that i think him a very good preacher _on the whole_. but, you know, he is far from perfect. i have again and again perceived his false logic, his weak metaphors, and his unsound expositions. still, he is passable, and you may go a long way before you hear a better." thus the censor meets you in every topic which you introduce in conversation. "all seems infected that the infected spy, and all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye." if you ask reasons for his censures, he cannot give you any, excepting one similar in kind to the following:- "i do not like you, doctor fell, the reason why i cannot tell; but i do not like you, doctor fell." "canting bigotry and carping criticism," says magoon, "are usually the product of obtuse sensibilities and a pusillanimous will. plutarch tells us of an idle and effeminate etrurian, who found fault with the manner in which themistocles had conducted a recent campaign. 'what,' said the hero, in reply, 'have you, too, something to say about war, who are like the fish that has a sword, but no heart?' he is always the severest censor on the merits of others who has the least worth of his own." again he says, "the sandwich islanders murdered captain cook, but adored his bones. it is after the same manner that the censorious treat deserving men. they first immolate them in the most savage mode of sacrifice, and then declare the relics of their victims to be sacred. crabbed members of churches and other societies will quarrel a pastor or leading member away, and with snappish tone will complain of his absence, invidiously comparing him with his successor, and making the change they have caused the occasion of a still keener fight, simply to indulge the unslumbering malice of their unfeeling heart. the rancour with which they would silence one, the envy with which they hurry another into seclusion, and the inexorable bitterness under the corrosion of which a third is brought prematurely to the grave, proves how indiscriminate are their carping comments, and how identical towards all degrees of merit is their infernal hate." pollok speaks of the censor in the following lines:- "the critics--some, but few, were worthy men; and earned renown which had immortal roots; but most were weak and vile; and as a cloudy swarm of summer flies, with angry hum and slender lance, beset the sides of some huge animal; so did they buzz about the illustrious man, and fain with his immortal honour, down the stream of fame would have descended; but alas! the hand of time drove them away: they were indeed a simple race of men, who had one only art, which taught them still to say, whate'er was done might have been better done; and with this art, not ill to learn, they made a shift to live; but sometimes, too, beneath the dust they raised, was worth awhile obscured: and then did envy prophesy and laugh. o envy! hide thy bosom! hide it deep: a thousand snakes, with black, envenomed mouths, nest there, and hiss, and feed through all thy heart!" "the manner in which cynical censors of artistic and moral worth proceed is the same in every place and age. in pope's time 'coxcombs' attempted to 'vanquish berkely with a grin,' and they would fain do the same to-day. 'is not this common,' exclaimed a renowned musician, 'the least little critic, in reviewing some work of art, will say, pity this and pity that--this should have been attired, that omitted? yea, with his wiry fiddle-string will he creak out his accursed variations. but let him sit down and compose himself. he sees no improvements in variations _then_.'" the fault of which the censorious talker is guilty has been defined as a "compound of many of the worst passions; latent pride, which discovers the mote in a brother's eye, but hides the beam in our own; malignant envy, which, wounded at the noble talents and superior prosperity of others, transforms them into the objects and food of its malice, if possible obscuring the splendour it is too base to emulate; disguised hatred, which diffuses in its perpetual mutterings the irritable venom of the heart; servile duplicity, which fulsomely praises to the face, and blackens behind the back; shameless levity, which sacrifices the peace and reputation of the absent, merely to give barbarous stings to a jocular conversation: all together forming an aggregate the most desolating on earth, and nearest in character to the malice of hell." the censorious talker, with all his criticisms and censures, never does any good, as none heed him but those who do not know him. his criticisms have no influence with the wise and judicious. though he may swim against the stream of general opinion, he can never turn the stream of general opinion to run with him. though he may talk contrary to others, he cannot persuade or constrain others to talk as he does. he may dissent in judgment from them, but he cannot bring them over to coincide with him; and it is a good thing for society that it is so. as he talks without wisdom and charity, so he talks to no purpose, excepting to prejudice weak and unwary minds, and degrade himself in the sober judgment of the intelligent and thoughtful. "voltaire said that the 'character of the frenchman is made up of the tiger and the ape;' but even such a composition may be turned to some useful account, while the inveterate fault-finder neutralizes, as far as possible, every attempt made by others to do good. to perform any task perfectly to his liking, would be as impossible as to 'make a portrait of proteus, or fix the figure of the fleeting air.' to speak favourably of anybody or anything is a trait of generosity entirely foreign to his nature; from temperament and confirmed habit, he 'must be cruel only to be kind.' the only benefit he occasions is achieved contrary to his intent; in his efforts to impede rising merit, he fortifies the energies he would destroy. said haydon, 'look down upon genius, and he will rise to a giant--attempt to crush him, and he will soar to a god.'" while the censorious man is most severe in judging others, he is invariably the most ready to repel any animadversions made upon himself; upon the principle well understood in medical circles, that the feeblest bodies are always the most sensitive. no man will so speedily and violently resent a supposed wrong as he who is most accustomed to inflict injuries upon his associates. not unfrequently is a fool as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and for ever is he more incorrigible. what an unhappy state of mind is that of the censorious talker! he is always looking with the eyes of jealousy, envy, or malice, to discern something for censure; and something he _will_ discern; true or false, it is of no consequence to him. he proceeds in direct opposition to the divine injunction, "judge not, lest ye be judged." "judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." he is like the pharisees of old, with two bags, one before and the other behind him. in the one before he deposits the faults of other people, and in the one behind he now and then, it may be, deposits the faults of himself. he is devoid of the charity which covereth a multitude of sins, which is the bond of perfectness, which "suffereth long, and is kind, which envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, which doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." this charity has not so much as cast her passing shadow upon the soul of the censor; and did the shadow or body of charity come within the range of his vision, he would not discern either the one or the other, because of the blindness of his heart. one of the finest expressions in the world is in the seventeenth chapter of proverbs, "he that covereth a transgression _seeketh love_; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends." in what a delightful communion with god does that man live who habitually seeketh love! with the same mantle thrown over him from the cross, with the same act of amnesty, by which he hopes to be saved, injuries the most unprovoked, and transgressions the most aggravated are covered in eternal forgetfulness. on the contrary, the censorious man often separates intimate friends by repeating a matter and digging up forgotten quarrels. the charity which is most divine is that which hides a multitude of faults. it is pure in itself, and labours to promote the peace and happiness of all. if one would be noble, he must be habitual in the cultivation of lofty principle and generous love. what advantage comes of the uncharitable criticisms and judgments which are passed one upon the other? is any one the better? do they not rather result in mutual ill-humour and enmity? who likes to have his motives called in question? who can endure with meekness to have himself and his works put through the crucible of a mere mortal, as though that mortal were the judge of eternal destinies? let us remember that we are all frail, and as such should exercise towards each other that charity which we hope the supreme one will exercise towards us. "oh what are we, frail creatures as we are, that we should sit in judgment man on man? and what were we, if the all merciful should mete to us with the same rigorous measure wherewithal sinner to sinner metes." xxiv. _the dogmatist._ "i am sir oracle: and when i ope my lips let no dog bark." shakespeare. this talker is one who sits in company as a king whose words are law; or as a god whose communications are divine; or as a judge whose decisions are unalterable. there is, however, this drawback to his supremacy--it is only in his _own_ imagination. he is to himself an infallible oracle--infallible in all points of theory and practice on which he converses. he has surrounded himself with such fortifications of strength, that to attack him with a view to gain a surrender on any questions of dispute is like trying to break a rock with a bird's feather, or taking gibraltar with a merchant ship's gun. he is invulnerable in everything. his words, like jupiter's bolts, come down upon you in such fury that your escape is as likely as that of a gnat thrown into a caldron of flaming oil. hercules crushing an infant in his grasp is a difficult task compared to the ease with which this giant talker grasps and crushes his opponent. in every mode of hostility he meets you as goliath met david--with lips of scorn and words of contempt--to presume to stand before him in contradiction. your logic is weak; or you beg the question; or you see only one side; or you want order of thought, breadth of view, clearness of perception; or you have not studied philosophy, or psychology, or history, sufficiently to judge of the question; or you are wrong altogether: you _must_ be so. thus his denunciations come down without mercy upon your poor soul; and alas for you if you have not enough of mental stamina, independence, and fortitude to stand up against them. if you are a lamb, you are torn to pieces as in the jaws of a lion; if you are trembling and diffident, you are overwhelmed as a dove in the claws of an eagle. he scathes with his lightning and awes with his thunder. he sweeps everything before him, and stands in the field as sole possessor. he is "sir ruler" of all opinion. he is "lord guide" of all thought; and to have a thought or an opinion of your own, contrary to his, is a presumption frowned upon with sternest ire. another trait in this talker is, he has nothing good to say of any one, or of anything that is of any one. he deals with others in the third person as he deals with you in the second person. "what do you think of so and so?" you ask: it may be of the highest personage in state or church, in literature or politics. "o, he is narrow, or he is selfish; or he is mean; or he is vain; or he is jealous; or he is little; or he is limited in his reading; or he is something else, which unfits him to be where he is or what he is." no one pleases him; nothing pleases him. everybody is wrong; everything is wrong. if there is a dark spot in the bright sky, he is sure to see it; if a thorn on the rose, he is bound to run his hand in it; if a hole in the garment, his finger will instinctively find its way there, and make it larger. i have met this talker in company more than once or twice; and i must say that my conversation with him has been anything but pleasant or satisfactory. i have thought every time that he has increased in his idiosyncracy, that he has become more and more dogged, self-willed, and obstinate. i have wished that he might see himself as others see him. but to this he has been as blind as an owl in mid-day. where is the salve that would give him this power of vision? he see himself as others see him! can the blind be made to see, or the deaf to hear? then may this miracle be wrought. he sees no one in his mirror but himself, and himself in full perfection. should he, perchance, at any time see another, it is in a manner that only enlarges the perception of his own personal excellences, and strengthens his consciousness of self-importance and self-satisfaction. * * * * * "do you think, mr. jones, that dr. sharpe's views of the natural immortality of the soul and the future condition of the wicked are tenable by reason and scripture?" asked mr. manly. "there is neither reason nor scripture in them," replied mr. jones, with dogmatic emphasis. "he is hemmed in by your 'orthodoxy.' he is narrow in his conceptions. he lacks breadth of thought. his logic is feeble. he is deficient in true exegesis of scripture. he has not looked into nature to catch its unfettered inspirations. his arguments are as weak as an infant's." "but are you not forgetting the scholarship of the doctor, underrating his powers, and losing sight of the general favour with which his work is received?" asked mr. manly. "forgetting his scholarship!" replied jones, with a dogmatic sneer; "how can i forget what he never had, and underrate powers which he never possessed? and as for the favour with which his book has been received, that is nothing to me. i think for myself: i speak for myself. i care nothing for the opinion of others. i say, and when i say i mean what i say, that there is no force in the doctor's arguments." "yes, but, mr. jones, all that is mere dogmatism on your part, and no argument," said mr. manly, calmly and firmly. "you accuse me of dogmatism, do you?" roared mr. jones, "dogmatism indeed! who are you, to be so bold? no argument, either! if i do not argue, who does? it is impudence on your part to say such a thing in my presence." mr. manly thought it wise to say no more about dr. sharpe's book. after a brief pause mr. jones told a most marvellous account of two men in south africa, to which mr. manly observed,-"that is a strange story, and hard to believe, mr. jones." "_it is so_, whether you believe it or no: _i_ know it is true, and _it is so_," replied mr. jones, positively. "but your _ipse dixit_ does not make it true." "my _ipse dixit_, indeed! have not i read it? do not i know it? be it true or false, i believe it; and i wonder at your impudence to call in question anything that i say," said jones, somewhat furiously. "do not excite yourself, mr. jones." "excite myself! isn't there enough to excite me? _i said so_, and that ought to have been enough without your contradiction." mr. manly said no more on that point, but after a while observed,-"the principle you advanced, mr. jones, a short time since, on geology seems to be altogether gratuitous, and can only be received for what it is worth." "gratuitous, indeed! gratuitous! you affirm it to be gratuitous, do you? i should like to know what right you have to say it is gratuitous? haven't i said it is so? and do you mean to insult me by saying it is only gratuitous?" roared out jones. "i do not mean to insult at all; but i was not prepared to receive it, as it is antagonistic to the views of the most eminent geologists of the present day," replied mr. manly, rather coolly. "what is that to me? my views are my own. i have found them myself. i hold them sacred. i care not who they contradict. i believe they are right. i affirm them so to you, and you should not dispute them." * * * * * it is thus the dogmatist stands upon his self-confidence and presumption, his fancied superiority of knowledge and learning. he virtually ignores everybody else's right to think and to know. he flings denunciation at the man who dares contradict him. he is his own standard of wisdom, and erects himself as the standard for other people. "to the law and the testimony," as they are embodied in him; and if there is not conformity to these, it is because there is no light in you. sometimes the dogmatist seems to rule supreme in the company of which he forms a part. but his rule is not acquired by the force of logic or the convincing power of truth. it is assumed or usurped. it may be that some are too modest to contradict him, or others may not have sufficient intelligence, or others may not think it worth their while, or others may have wisdom to perceive his folly, and answer him accordingly. hence he may imagine himself triumphant when no one disputes the field with him. he may think he reigns supreme in the circle, when, in fact, he reigns only over his own opinions, or rather is a slave to their despotic power. the dogmatist is far from having influence with the wise and intelligent. among the timid and ignorant he may rule in undisputed power; but to men of reason and thought he is repulsive. he is kept at arm's length as a piece of humanity whose "room is better than his person." in these days of free thought and free speech, who will submit to be hectored out of his right to think, and to speak as he thinks, by one who has nothing but his own dictatorial self-conceit to show as his authority, perhaps backed with a pretentious influence coming from a subordinate official position that he holds in church or state? even when the dogmatist possesses that amount of intelligence and position which legitimately place him above most of the company into which he may go, he is seldom or ever welcomed as an acceptable conversationalist. but when he is a man below mediocre--a pedant--he is insupportable. were it required to state what are the causes of the fault of this talker, they might be summed up in two words--_ignorance and pride_. the man who assumes to himself authority over other people's thought and speech must indeed possess a large measure of these qualities. he must estimate his powers at the highest value, and set down those of others at the lowest. he is wise in his own conceit, and in others foolish. he occupies a position which has been usurped by the stretch of his self-importance, and from which he should be summarily deposed by the unanimous vote of pure wisdom and sound intelligence. cowper, in speaking of this talker, thus describes him:- "where men of judgment creep and feel their way, the positive pronounce without dismay; their want of light and intellect supplied by sparks absurdity strikes out of pride. without the means of knowing right from wrong, they always are decisive, clear, and strong; where others toil with philosophic force, their nimble nonsense takes a shorter course; flings at your head conviction in the lump, and gains remote conclusions at a jump; their own defect invisible to them, seen in another, they at once condemn; and, though self-idolised in every case, hate their own likeness in a brother's face. the cause is plain, and not to be denied, the proud are always most provoked by pride; few competitions but engender spite, and those the most where neither has a right." xxv. _the altiloquent._ "with words of learned length and thundering sound." goldsmith. this is a talker not content to speak in words plain and simple, such as common sense teaches and requires. he talks as though learning and greatness in conversation consisted in fine words run together as beads on a string. you would infer on hearing him that he had ransacked johnson to find out the finest and loftiest words in which to express his ideas, so far as he has any. the regions in which ordinary mortals move are too mundane for him; so he rises aloft in flights of winged verbiage, causing those who listen below to wonder whither he is going, until he has passed away into the clouds, beyond their peering ken. at other times he speaks in such grandiloquence of terms as make his hearers open their eyes and mouths in vacant and manifold interjections! "how sublime! how grand! how surpassingly eloquent! was it not magnificent?" i will give the reader a few illustrations of this talker, as gathered from a variety of sources. "that was a masterly performance," said mr. balloon to his friend mr. gimblett, as they came out of church one sunday morning, when the rev. mr. german had been preaching on the _relation of the infinite to the impossible_. "yes," replied mr. gimblett, "i suppose it was very fine; but much beyond my depth. i confess to being one of the sheep who looked up and were not fed." "that's because you haven't a metaphysical mind," said mr. balloon, regarding his friend with pity; "you have got a certain faculty of mind, but i suspect you have not got the _logical grasp_ requisite for the comprehension of such a sermon as that." "i am afraid i have not," said mr. gimblett. "i tell you what it is," continued mr. balloon, "mr. german has a _head_. he's an intellectual giant, i hardly know whether he is greater as a subjective preacher, or in the luminous objectivity of his _argumentum ad hominem_. as an instructive reasoner, too, he is perfectly great. with what synthetical power he refuted the homoiousian theory. i tell you homoiousianism will be nowhere after that." "to tell the truth," said mr. gimblett, "i went to sleep at that long word, and did not awake until he was on theodicy." "ah, yes," said mr. balloon, "that was a splendid manifestation of ratiocinative word-painting. i was completely carried away when, in his magnificent, sublime, and marrowy style he took an analogical view of the anthropological." but at this point mr. balloon soared away into the air, and left mr. gimblett standing with wondering vision as to whither he had gone. at the time the atlantic telegraph was first laid a certain preacher thought proper to use it as an illustration of the connection between heaven and earth, thus: "when the sulphuric acid of genuine attrition corrodes the contaminating zinc of innate degeneracy and actual sinfulness, and the fervent electrical force of prayerful eternity ascends up to the residence of the eternal supreme one, you may calculate on unfailing and immediate despatch with all magnetical rapidity." a certain american altiloquent was once talking of liberty, when he said, "white-robed liberty sits upon her rosy clouds above us; the genius of our country, standing on her throne of mountains, bids her eagle standard-bearer wind his spiral course full in the sun's proud eye; while the genius of christianity, surrounded by ten thousand cherubim and seraphim, moves the panorama of the milky clouds above us, and floats in immortal fragrance--the very aroma of eden through all the atmosphere." an altiloquent was one day about taking a journey into the country. he was rather of a nervous tendency, having met with two or three accidents in travelling. before getting into the hired conveyance he asked the driver, "can you, my friend, conduct this quadruped along the highway without destroying the equilibrium of the vehicle?" the journey having been made without the "equilibrium of the vehicle" being destroyed, when he reached the inn where the horse was to lodge for the night, he said to the ostler, "boy, extricate this quadruped from the vehicle, stabulate him, devote him an adequate supply of nutritious aliment, and when the aurora of morn shall again illumine the oriental horizon i will reward you with pecuniary compensation for your amiable hospitality." on a certain occasion one of this class of talkers was dining in a country farm-house, when, among other vegetables on the table, cabbage was one. after despatching the first supply, he was asked by the hostess if he would take a little more, when he said, "by no means, madam. gastronomical satiety admonishes me that i have arrived at the ultimate of culinary deglutition consistent with the code of esculapius." a photographer once, describing his mode of taking pictures, said, "then we replace the slide in the shield, draw this out of the camera, and carry it back into the shadowy realm where cocytus flows in black nitrate of silver, and acheron stagnates in the pool of hyposulphite, and invisible ghosts, trooping down from the world of day, cross a styx of dissolved sulphate of iron, and appear before rhadamanthus of that lurid hades." a certain doctor once, conversing about the romantic scenery of westmoreland, said, "in that magnificent county you see an apotheosis of nature, and an apodeikneusis of the theopratic omnipotence." mr. paxton hood tells of a minister who described a tear "as that small particle of aqueous fluid, trickling from the visual organ over the lineaments of the countenance, betokening grief." of another, who spoke of "the deep intuitive glance of the soul, penetrating beyond the surface of the superficial phenomenal to the remote recesses of absolute entity or being; thus adumbrating its immortality on its precognitive perceptions." of another, an eminent man, head of a college for ministers, when repeating a well-known passage of scripture, "'he that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his'"--here he paused, and at last said, "well, out of his ventriculum shall flow 'living water!'" one altiloquent rendered "give us this day our daily bread" as follows: "confer upon us during this mundane sphere's axillary revolution our diurnal subsistence." and another, instead of saying, "jesus wept," said, "and jesus the saviour of the world burst into a flood of tears;" upon hearing which dr. johnson is said to have exclaimed in disgust, "puppy, puppy!" a minister once, speaking in the presence of a few friends met for the purpose of promoting the interests of a certain young men's christian association, relieved himself in the following: "when i think of this organization, with its complex powers, it reminds me of some stupendous mechanism which shall spin electric bands of stupendous thought and feeling, illuminating the vista of eternity with corruscations of brilliancy, and blending the mystic brow of eternal ages with a tiara of never-dying beauty, whilst for those who have trampled on the truth of christ, it shall spin from its terrible form toils of eternal funeral bands, darker and darker, till sunk to the lowest abyss of destiny." a physician, while in his patient's room, in speaking to the surgeon about him, said, "you must phlebotomize the old gentleman to-morrow." the old gentleman, who overheard, immediately exclaimed in a fright, "i will never suffer that." "sir, don't be alarmed," replied the surgeon; "he is only giving orders for me to bleed you." "o, as for the bleeding," answered the patient, "it matters little; but as for the other, i will sooner die than endure it." i have read of an irishman who, speaking of a house which he had to let, said, "it is free from opacity, tenebrosity, fumidity, and injucundity, or translucency. in short, its diaphaneity, even in the crepuscle, makes it a pharos, and without laud, for its agglutination and amenity, it is a most delectable commorance; and whoever lives in it will find that the neighbours have none of the truculence and immanity, the torvity, the spinosity, the putidness, the pugnacity, nor the fugacity observable in other parts of the town. their propinquity and consanguinity occasions jucundity and pudicity, from which and the redolence of the place they are remarkable for longevity." altiloquents are not unfrequently found among a class of young persons who think they must talk in a manner corresponding with their dress and appearance--fine and prim. a barber is a "tonsorial artist," and the place in which he works a "hair-dressing studio;" a teacher of swimming is a "professor of natation," and he who swims "natates in a natatorium;" a common clam-seller is a "vender of magnificent bivalves;" a schoolmaster is a "preceptor," or "principal of an educational institute;" a cobbler is a "son of crispin;" printers are "practitioners of the typographical art;" a chapel is a "sanctuary," a church a "temple," a house a "palace" or an "establishment," stables and pig-styes are "quadrupedal edifices and swinish tenements." one of this class, a young lady at school, considering that the word "eat" was too vulgar for refined ears, is said to have substituted the following: "to insert nutritious pabulum into the denticulated orifice below the nasal protuberance, which, being masticated, peregrinates through the cartilaginous cavities of the larynx, and is finally domiciliated in the receptacle for digestible particles." * * * * * "it is impossible," says a recent writer, "not to deplore so pernicious a tendency to high-flown language, because all classes of society indulge in it more or less; and because, as we have already said, it proceeds in every instance from mental deficiencies and moral defects, from insincerity and dissimulation, and from an effeminate proneness to use up in speaking the energy we should turn to doing and apply to life and conduct. without a substratum of sincerity, no man can speak right on, but runs astray into a kind of phraseology which bears the same relation to elegant language that the hollyhock does to the rose." the altiloquent talker may be called a _word-fancier_, searching for all the fine words discoverable, and then putting them together in a sort of mosaic-pavement style or artificial-flower order, making something to be considered _pretty_, or _fascinating_, or _profound_. "was it not beautiful?" asked miss bunting of mr. crump, after hearing one of these talkers. "did you ever hear anything like it?" "no, i did not," answered mr. crump, "and i do not wish to hear anything like it again. too much like a flourishing penman, miss bunting, who makes more of his flourishes than of his sense, and which attract the reader more than his communication." "but was he not very deep, mr. crump?" "no, miss bunting, he was not deep. you remind me of an occasion some time past when reading a book of an altiloquent style. a friend of mine asked, 'is it not deep?' i answered, 'not deep, but drumlie.' the drumlie often looks deep, and is liable to deceive; but it is shallow, as shallow as a babbling brook, as shallow as the beauty of the rose or the human countenance. sometimes you may think you have a pearl; but it is only a dewdrop into which a ray of light has happened to fall. such kind of talk, wherever it may be, is only like the aurora-borealis, or like dissolving views which for the moment please. but you know, miss bunting, it is the light of the sun that makes the day, and it is substantial food that feeds and strengthens. "balloons are very good things for rising in the air and floating over people's heads; but they are worthless for practical use in the stirring and necessary activities of life. gew-gaws are pretty things to call forth the wonder of children and ignorant gazers; but the judicious pass them with an askant look and careless demeanour. a table well spread with fine-looking artificial flowers and viands may be nice for the eye, but who can satisfy his hunger and thirst with them? thus it is with your altiloquent talkers, miss bunting. they give you, as a rule, only the tinsel, the varnish, the superficial, which vanishes into thin nothing under your analysis of thought or your reflection of intelligent light." xxvi. _the double-tongued._ "think'st thou there are no serpents in the world but those who slide along the glassy sod, and sting the luckless foot that presses them? there are who in the path of social life do bask their spotted skins in fortune's sun, and sting the soul." joanna baillie. he is so called because he carries two tongues in one--one for your presence and one for your absence; one sweet as honey, the other bitter as gall; one with which he oils you, the other with which he stings you. in talking _with_ you he is bland and affable; but in talking _about_ you he detracts or slanders. the other night, when at your hospitable board, he was complimentary and friendly; the night after, at the hospitable board of your neighbour, in your absence, he had no good word to say of you. such is the versatility of his nature, that he is called by a variety of names. sometimes he is named "_double-faced_," because he has two faces answering to his two tongues. sometimes he is named "_backbiter_," because if he ever bite any one it is behind his back, where he thinks he is not seen; and so soon is he out of sight, that you can only learn who has bitten you from some honest friend that saw him do it and instantly hide himself under a covering which he always carries about with him for such occasions. he is sometimes named a "_sneak_," because he has not courage to say candidly to your face what he means, but creeps about slyly among other people to say it, that he may evade your notice, and at the same time retain your confidence in him as a personal friend. he is sometimes named a "_snake-in-the-grass_," because he secretes himself in shady places, waiting his opportunity to sting without your knowing how or by whom it was done. in fine, he has been named a "_hypocrite_," who comes to you in "sheep's clothing," but is in truth a "ravening wolf." "his love is lust, his friendship all a cheat, his smiles hypocrisy, his words deceit." he welcomes you with a shake of the hand at his door, and says in soft flattering words, "how glad i am to see you, mr. johnson! pray do walk in;" and while you are laying your hat, gloves, and umbrella on the hall table, he whispers to some one in the parlour, "_that johnson has just come in, and i am sure i don't care to see him_." mrs. stubbs informs her husband on arriving home in the evening that she met mrs. nobbs in the street, and invited her to take a friendly cup of tea with them to-morrow, and then adds with emphasis, "_but i do hope she will not come!_" a young gentleman complimented miss stokoe the other night in company upon her "exquisite touch on the piano" and the "nightingale tones of her voice in singing;" but as he was walking home from the party with miss nance, he said to her (of course in the absence of miss stokoe) that "_miss stokoe, after all that is said in her praise, is no more than an ordinary pianist and singer_." "that was a most excellent sermon you gave us this morning," said mr. clarke to the rev. t. ross, as he was dining with him at his house. "i hope it will not be long before you visit us again." "i am obliged for your compliment," replied mr. ross. a day or two after mr. clarke was heard to say that he had never listened to such "_a dull sermon, and he hoped it would be a long time ere the reverend gentleman appeared in their pulpit again_." "what darling little cherubs your twins are," said mrs. horton to mrs. shenstone in an afternoon gathering of ladies at her house. "i really should be proud of them if they were mine: such lovely eyes, such rosy cheeks, such beautiful hair, and withal such sweet expressions of the countenance! and then, how tastily they are dressed! dear darlings! come and kiss me." mrs. shenstone smiled complacently in return; and shortly after retired from the room, when the two "little cherubs" approached their prodigious admirer, with a view to make friends and impress upon her the solicited kiss. she instantly put them at arm's length from her, saying to mrs. teague, who sat next her, "_what pests these little things are, treading on my dress, and obtruding their presence on me like this. i do wish mrs. shenstone had taken them out of the room with her_." "i am deeply grieved to learn," said farmer shirley one day to his neighbour, farmer stout, "that your circumstances are such as they are. now, if you think i can help you in any way, do not be backward in sending to me. you shall always find a friend in me." that very afternoon this same farmer shirley was heard to say in a company of farmers at the "queen's head" that stout had brought all his difficulties upon himself, and _he was not sorry for him a bit_. the next day stout availed himself of the "great kindness" offered him by shirley, and sent to ask the loan of a pound to pay the baker's bill, in order to keep the "staff of life" in the house for his family; when shirley sent word back to him that he had "no pounds to lend anybody, much less one _who had by his own extravagance brought himself into such difficult circumstances_." this double-tongued talker is not unfrequently met with in public meetings. especially is he heard in "moving votes of thanks," and "drinking toasts." fulsome praises and glowing eulogiums are poured out by him in rich abundance, which, as soon as the meetings are over, are eaten up again by the same person, but of course in the absence of his much-admired gods. it would not be difficult to go on with instances illustrative of these double-tongued exercises. they are almost as universal as the multifarious phases of society. they are met with in the street, in the shop, in the family, in the church, in the court, in the palace and cottage, among the rich and poor. addison, in writing of this fault in talking in his times, gives a letter which he says was written in king charles the second's reign by the "ambassador of bantam to his royal master a little after his arrival in england." the following is a copy, which will show how in those days the double-tongued talked, and how the writer, a stranger in this country, was impressed by it. "master,--the people where i now am have tongues further from their hearts than from london to bantam, and thou knowest the inhabitants of one of these places do not know what is done in the other. they call thee and thy subjects barbarians, because we speak what we mean, and account themselves a civilized people because they speak one thing and mean another; truth they call barbarity, and falsehood politeness. upon my first landing, one, who was sent by the king of this place to meet me, told me that he was extremely sorry for the storm i had met with just before my arrival. i was troubled to hear him grieve and afflict himself on my account; but in less than a quarter of an hour he smiled, and was as merry as if nothing had happened. another who came with him told me, by my interpreter, he should be glad to do me any service that lay in his power; upon which i desired him to carry one of my portmanteaux for me; but, instead of serving me according to his promise, he laughed, and bid another do it. i lodged the first week at the house of one who desired me to think myself at home, and to consider his house as my own. accordingly i the next morning began to knock down one of the walls of it, in order to let in the fresh air, and had packed up some of the household goods, of which i intended to have made thee a present; but the false varlet no sooner saw me falling to work but he sent me word to desire me to give over, for that he would have no such doings in his house. i had not been long in this nation before i was told by one for whom i had asked a certain favour from the chief of the king's servants, whom they here call the lord-treasurer, that i had eternally obliged him. i was so surprised at his gratitude that i could not forbear saying, 'what service is there which one man can do for another that can oblige him to all eternity?' however, i only asked him, for my reward, that he would lend me his eldest daughter during my stay in this country; but i quickly found that he was as treacherous as the rest of his countrymen. "at my first going to court, one of the great men almost put me out of countenance by asking ten thousand pardons of me for only treading by accident upon my toe. they call this kind of lie a compliment; for when they are civil to a great man, they tell him untruths, for which thou wouldst order any of thy officers of state to receive a hundred blows on his foot. i do not know how i shall negotiate anything with this people, since there is so little credit to be given to them. when i go to see the king's scribe, i am generally told that he is not at home, though perhaps i saw him go into his house almost the very moment before. thou wouldst fancy that the whole nation are physicians, for the first question they always ask me is, how i do; i have this question put to me above a hundred times a day; nay, they are not only thus inquisitive after my health, but wish it in a more solemn manner, with a full glass in their hands, every time i sit with them at the table, though at the same time they would persuade me to drink their liquors in such quantities as i have found by experience will make me sick. "they often pretend to pray for thy health also in the same manner; but i have more reason to expect it from the goodness of thy constitution than the sincerity of their wishes. may thy slave escape in safety from this double-tongued race of men, and live to lay himself once more at thy feet in the royal city of bantam." this double-tonguedness of which we have spoken is anything but creditable to an age that makes claim to such a high state of civilisation, to say nothing of christianity. it shows a gilded or superficial state of things, which cannot but end in consequences disastrous and irremediable. the finical and fashionable may call the candid speaker a boar, and shun him. he may be an outcast from their society: but, after all, his honesty and candour will wear better and longer than their sham and shoddy. his "nay, nay," and "yea, yea," will outlast and outshine their double-tongued prevarication and flattery. better a boar--if you know him to be such--than a wolf in sheep's clothing. a rough friend is more valuable than a hypocritical sycophant. "as thistles wear the softest down to hide their prickles till they're grown, and then declare themselves, and tear whatever ventures to come near; so a smooth knave does greater feats than one that idly rails and threats; and all the mischief that he meant, does, like the rattlesnake, prevent." archbishop tillotson, in speaking of this subject in his day, says, "the old english plainness and sincerity, that generous integrity of nature and honesty of disposition, which always argues true greatness of mind, and is usually accompanied with undaunted courage and resolution, is in a great measure lost amongst us. "it is hard to say whether it should more provoke our contempt or our pity to hear what solemn expressions of respect and kindness will pass between men almost upon no occasion; how great honour and esteem they will declare for one whom, perhaps, they never saw before; and how entirely they are all on a sudden devoted to his service and interest, for no reason; how infinitely and eternally obliged to him, for no benefit; and how extremely they will be concerned for him, yea, and afflicted too, for no cause. i know it is said in justification of this hollow kind of conversation that there is no harm, no real deceit in compliment, but the matter is well enough so long as we understand one another; words are like money, and when the current value of them is generally understood, no man is cheated by them. this is something, if such words were anything; but being brought into the account they are mere cyphers. however, it is a just matter of complaint that sincerity and plainness are out of fashion, and that our language is running into a lie; that men have almost quite perverted the use of speech, and made words to signify nothing; that the greatest part of the conversation of mankind is little else but driving a trade of dissimulation. "if the show of anything be good for anything, i am sure sincerity is better: for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to? now the best way in the world to seem to be anything is really to be what he would seem to be. besides that, it is many times as troublesome to make good the pretence of a good quality as to have it; and if a man have it not, it is ten to one but he is discovered to want it; and then all his pains and labour to seem to have it are lost." xxvii. _the dubious._ "man, on the dubious waves of error tossed, his ship half-foundered, and his compass lost, sees, far as human optics may command, a sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land: spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies; pants for 't, aims at it, enters it, and dies!" cowper. this is a talker of an opposite stamp to the dogmatist. the one knows and asserts with imperial positiveness, the other with childish trepidation and hesitancy. "it is so, it can't be otherwise, and you must believe it," is the dictatorial spirit of the dogmatist. "it may be so, i am not certain, i cannot vouch for its truthfulness: in fact, i am rather inclined to doubt it, but i would not deny nor affirm, or say one word to dispose you either way," is the utterance of the spirit of dubious. he is an oscillator, a pendulum, a wave of the sea, a weathercock. he has no certain dwelling-place within the whole domain of knowledge, in which to rest the sole of his feet with permanency. he sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels nothing with certainty, and hence he knows nothing by his senses but what is enveloped in the clouds of doubtfulness. he tenaciously guards himself in the utterance of any sentiment, story, or rumour, lest he expose himself to apprehension. his own existence is a fact of which he speaks with caution. his consciousness _may be_ a reality of which he can say a word. as to his soul, he does not like to speak of that with any assurance. the being of a god is a doctrine in the clouds, and he cannot affirm it with confidence. there _may be_ such places as china, india, africa, etc.; but as he has never seen them, he dare not venture his full belief in their existence. whatever he has seen, and whatever he has _not_ seen, seem to stand on the same ground as to the exercise of his faith. things worldly and religious, simple and profound, plain and mysterious, practical and theoretical, human and divine, personal and relative, present and future, near and afar off,--all seem to crowd around him with a hazy appearance, and he has no definite or certain knowledge respecting them of which to speak. all the things he has ever read or heard he seems to have forgotten, or to hold them with a vague and uncertain tenure. there is nothing within him to rely upon but doubts, fears, and _may bes_. he lives, moves, and has his being in uncertainties. he will not positively affirm whether his face is black or white, his nose long or short, his own or some other person's. he "guesses" that two and two make four, and that four and three do not make eight. he "guesses" that blue is not red, and that green is neither blue nor red. he "guesses" that the earth is globular, but would not like to assert that it is not a plain. he "guesses" that the sun gives light by day and the moon by night; but as for affirming either the one or the other, he would not like to commit himself to such positiveness. his talk is full of "hopes," "presumes," "may bes," "trusts," "guesses," and such-like expressions. he is certainly a _doubtful_ man to have anything to do with in conversation. i do not say he is _dangerous_. far from this, for he has not confidence enough in your actual materiality to make an assault upon your person; and he has not _certain_ knowledge sufficient to contend with your opinions, so that there is no need of apprehension upon either the mental or physical question. it is difficult to acquire any information from him, for who likes to add that to his stock of knowledge which is shrouded in doubts, and to which the communicator will not give the seal of his affirmation? of course some knowledge must be held and communicated problematically. such we are willing to take in its legitimate character. but our dubious talker appears to destroy all distinction and difference, and to arrange all knowledge in the probable or doubtful category, and hence he has nothing but doubtful information to impart, which in reality is no information. to enter into conversation with _dubious_, therefore, is no actual benefit to the intellect or the faith. it is harassing, perplexing, provoking to the man who possesses belief in the certainty of things. it is to him time lost, and words uttered in vanity. he retires from the scene with dissatisfaction and disgust. he pities the man who _knows_ nothing, whose intellect revolves in universal haziness, and whose soul is steeped in the quagmires of unrestrained scepticism. cowper does admirable justice to this talker in the following lines:- "_dubious_ is such a scrupulous good man- yes--you may catch him tripping if you can: he would not with a peremptory tone assert the nose upon his face his own; with hesitation admirably slow, he humbly hopes--presumes--it may be so. his evidence, if he were called by law to swear to some enormity he saw, for want of prominence and just relief, would hang an honest man and save a thief. through constant dread of giving truth offence, he ties up all his hearers in suspense; knows what he knows as if he knew it not; what he remembers, seems to have forgot; his sole opinion, whatsoe'er befall, centring at last in having none at all. yet, though he tease and baulk your listening ear, he makes one useful point exceeding clear; howe'er ingenious on his darling theme a sceptic in philosophy may seem, reduced to practice, his beloved rule would only prove him a consummate fool; useless in him alike both brain and speech, fate having placed all truth above his reach, his ambiguities his total sum, he might as well be blind, and deaf, and dumb." xxviii. _the suspicious._ "foul suspicion! thou turnest love divine to joyless dread, and mak'st the loving heart with hateful thoughts to languish and repine, and feed itself with self-consuming smart; of all the passions of the mind thou vilest art." spencer. the words of his mouth live with a spirit of doubt, incredulity, and jealousy. actions, thoughts, motives, are questioned as to their reality and disinterestedness. good counsel given in time of perplexity is attributed to some ulterior purpose which is kept out of view. gifts of beneficence are said to be deeds of selfishness--patronage is expected in an affair you have on hand, or you anticipate as much or more in return in some other ways. a family visited with a severe affliction is suspected to have the cause in some secret moral delinquency in the father, or mother, or elder son or daughter. a merchant meets with reverses in his business, and he is suspected of something wrong, for which these reverses are sent as punishment. a traveller meets with an accident, by which a member of his body is fractured or life taken away: he is suspected of having been a great sinner before god, for which his vengeance now visits him. the suspicious talker may be found in one or other phase of his character in almost every class and grade of society. how often the husband suspects the wife, and the wife the husband; the master the servant, and the servant the master; brothers suspect brothers; sisters sisters; neighbours neighbours; the rich the poor; the poor the rich. the talk of the suspicious is bitter, stinging, exasperating. how often it ends in jealousy, strife, quarrels, separations, and other evils of a similar kind! this talk seldom or ever effects any good. it more frequently excites to the very thing on which the suspicion has fixed its demon eye, but of which the subject of the suspicion was never guilty. suspicious talk, like many other kinds, has frequently no foundation to rest upon, excepting the fancy of an enfeebled mind or the ill-nature of an unregenerate heart. * * * * * "that was a very nice present which mr. muckleton sent you on christmas-day," said mr. birch to his neighbour. "o, yes," he replied in a sort of careless way; "i _know_ what he sent it for--that he may get my vote at the next election of town councillors. i can see through it." "did not mr. shakleton call at your house the other day? and were you not pleased to see him?" "so far as that goes, i was pleased; but i _know_ what he called for; not to see me or mine. it is not worth saying, but i _know_." "has not mrs. mount recently joined your church? she is an excellent lady, of very good means and intelligence. i should think you will value her acquisition to your number." "well, as for that, i cannot say. i like persons to act from pure motives in all things, especially in religious. don't you know mrs. mount is a widow, and there is in our church that squire nance, a bachelor? i needn't say any more." "the rev. mr. wem has left our church and gone to a church in london." "indeed! i was not aware of that, but i guess it is to obtain more salary." "how do you know that?" "how do i know it? you may depend he wouldn't have gone unless he could better himself." "my dear," said mrs. park to her husband one evening as they were sitting alone, "tom has gone with young munster to the city, and will be back about ten o'clock." "what has he gone there for?" asked mr. park, rather sternly. "no good, i venture to say. you know the temptations that are in the city, and he is not so steady as we would like him to be." when tom came home at ten o'clock, he had to endure a good deal of suspicious tongue-flagellation, which rather excited him to speak rashly in return. "i do really think," said mrs. lance, snappishly, to her servant one day, "you are guilty of picking and biting the things of the larder, besides other little tricks. now, i do not allow such conduct. it is paltry and mean." mrs. lance had no ground for this utterance but her own suspicions. the servant, conscious of her integrity, became righteously angry, and gave notice to leave at once. so mary left her suspicious mistress. she was not the first nor the sixth servant she had driven away by her suspicious talk in regard to the "larder," the "cupboards," the "drawers," and the "wardrobe." squire nutt one day went a drive of twelve miles in the country to attend "a hunt dinner," promising his wife that he would be home by eleven o'clock at night. this hour came, but no squire. twelve struck, and he had not returned. one struck, yea, even two, and no husband. mrs. nutt all this time was alone, watching for the squire, and suspecting with a vivid imagination where he had gone, and what he was doing. at half-past two a sound of wheels was heard coming to the door, and in a few minutes the suspected husband entered the hall, and greeted his little wife with signs of affection. instead of receiving him kindly in return, and waiting till the effects of the dinner had escaped before she called him to account, she began in a most furiously suspicious way to question him. "where have you been all this time? have you been round by netley hall? _i know all about what you have been up to._ this is a fine thing, this is, keeping me watching and waiting these hours, while you have been galavanting--ah! _i know where._" thus, not within curtains, but within the hall, mrs. nutt gave her husband a "caudle" lecture, but with little effect upon him. she had nothing but groundless suspicion; he had the inward satisfaction of a good conscience on the points respecting which she suspected him. as an illustration of another aspect of this talker we may take the friends who came to talk with job in his troubles. his wife was bad enough in her utterances, but his "friends" were worse. coleridge, in speaking of satan taking away everything he had, but left his wife, says,- "he took his honours, took his wealth, he took his children, took his health, his camels, horses, asses, cows, and the sly devil did not take his spouse." but his wife was kind and considerate to what his _friends_ were. she spake as one of the "foolish women;" but his friends came as philosophers, the wise ones, to converse with him; and yet, when they spoke to him, they had nothing but suspicions and doubts to utter as to his sincerity, motives, and purity; told him not to plead innocence in his circumstances, but confess all with candour, and show that he had been a profound hypocrite, and that god had visited him with his sore judgments as a punishment for his sins; for _they_ knew that all these things could not have come upon him if there had not been some "secret thing" with him. although job sometimes spoke "unadvisedly with his lips" in reply to the unjustifiable suspicions of his "friends," god stands on his side, and defends him in his rectitude and integrity. he rebukes with severity bildad the shuhite and his two companions, because of their uncharitable suspicions uttered against his servant. he was "angry" that they had not spoken truthfully "as his servant job;" "and they were to go," as one says, "to this servant job to be prayed for, and eat humble pie, and a good large slice of it too (i should like to have seen their faces while they were munching it), else their leisurely and inhuman philosophy would have got them into a scrape." * * * * * suspicion in talking is a disposition which renders its subject unacceptable to others and unhappy in himself. persons will have as little as possible to say to him or do with him, lest they fall under his ruling power; and this is what no one with self-respect cares to do. who likes to have himself, in his motives and deeds, put through the crucible of his narrow, prickly, stingy soul? he cannot see an inch from himself to judge you by. he "measures your cloth by his yard," and weighs your goods in his scales, and judges your colours through his spectacles; and of the justice and trueness of these nothing need be said. "suspicion overturns what confidence builds; and he that dares but doubt when there's no ground, is neither to himself nor others sound." the true remedy for suspicion in talking is more knowledge in the head and more love in the heart. as bats fly before the light, so suspicions before knowledge and love. throw open the windows of the soul, and admit the truth. be generous and noble in thoughts of others. give credit for purity of intention and disinterestedness of motives. build no fabric of fancies and surmises in the imagination without a solid basis. be pure in yourself in all things. "the more virtuous any man is in himself," says cicero, "the less easily does he suspect others to be vicious." xxix. _the poetic._ "i begin shrewdly to suspect the young man of a terrible taint--poetry; with which idle disease, if he be infected, there is no hope of him in a state course."--ben jonson. scraps of poetry picked up from burns, or thomson, or shakespeare, or tennyson, are ready to hand for every occasion, so that you may calculate upon a piece, in or out of place, in course of conversation. if you will do the prose, rely upon it he will do the poetic, much to his own satisfaction, if not to your entertainment. in walking he will gently lay his finger on your shoulder, saying, as he gathers up his recollection, and raising his head, "hear what my favourite poet says upon the subject." sometimes the poetic afflatus falls upon him as he converses, and he will impromptu favour you with an original effusion of rhyme or blank verse, much to the strengthening of his self-complacency, and to the gratification of your sense of the ludicrous. talking with mr. smythe, a young student, some time ago, i found he was so full of poetic quotations that i began to think whether all his lessons at college had not consisted in the learning of odds and ends from "gems" and "caskets" and "gleanings." speaking about the man who is not enslaved to sects and parties, but free in his religious habits, he paused and said, "you remind me, mr. bond, of what pope says,- 'slave to no sect, who takes no private road, but looks through nature up to nature's god.'" the subject of _music_ was introduced, when, after a few words of prose he broke out in evident emotion,- "music! oh, how faint, how weak, language fades before thy spell! why should feeling ever speak when thou canst breathe her soul so well? friendship's balmy words may pain, love's are e'en more false than they- oh! 'tis only music's strain can sweetly soothe and not betray." "those are very beautiful lines, mr. smythe," i observed; "can you tell me whose they are?" placing his hand to his head, he answered, "really, mr. bond, i do not now remember." "they are moore's," i replied. "oh yes, yes, so they are. i could give you numberless other pieces, mr. bond, equally fine and touching." "thank you, that will do for the present, mr. smythe." we began to talk about travelling in scotland, switzerland, and other parts, when i gave a little of my experience in plain words, as to the effect of the scenery upon my mind and health, when he suddenly interrupted me and said, "let me see, what is it the poet says upon that? if i can call it up, i will give it you, mr. bond,- 'go abroad, upon the paths of nature, and, when all its voices whisper, and its silent things are breathing the deep beauty of the world, kneel at its simple altar.'" i spoke of neglected genius both in church and state, when he exclaimed with much emphasis, as though the lines had fallen on my ears for the first time,- "full many a gem of purest ray serene, the dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air." a voyage to america, with a few incidents about the sea, were spoken of. "ah, ah, mr. bond," he said, "i have seen some fine lines by j. g. percival on that subject,- 'i, too, have been upon thy rolling breast, wildest of waters! i have seen thee lie calm as an infant pillowed in its rest on a fond mother's bosom, when the sky, not smoother, gave the deep its azure dye, till a new heaven was arched and glassed below.' "and then, mr. bond, you are familiar with- 'the sea! the sea! the open sea! the blue, the fresh, the ever free! without a mark, without a bound, it runneth the earth's wide region round; it plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; or like a cradled creature lies.'" i spoke of progress in the age in which we live, when he instantly said, "ah, that reminds me now of what tennyson says,- 'not in vain the distant beacons. forward, forward, let us range, let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change. through the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day; better fifty years of europe than a cycle of cathay.'" the worth of a good name was spoken of, and the words of solomon quoted in support of what was said. but solomon was not enough. the poetic spirit of our student was astir instantly within him, and broke forth in the well-known lines of shakespeare, already quoted in this volume,- "who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing, 'twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; but he who filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed." marriage and love were incidentally brought up, when, lo and behold, i found he was so brimful on these, that i was obliged to ask him to forbear, after a few specimens. having had so long an experience in those happy climes, i found he could not say anything that half came up to the reality. nevertheless, i am free to say, he did quote some sentiments which on him and the young ladies present seemed to have a most charming effect, especially one from tupper, who used in those times to be a pet poet with the fair sex and such as our student,- "love! what a volume in a word! an ocean in a tear! a seventh heaven in a glance! a whirlwind in a sigh! the lightning in a touch--a millennium in a moment! what concentrated joy, or woe, is blessed or blighted love!" "blighted love! ah," said mr. smythe, "that reminds me of tennyson's words," which he appeared to render with deep feeling,- "i hold it true, whate'er befall- i feel it when i sorrow most- 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." "these lines remind me," he observed, "and it is astonishing the poetic associations of my mind, mr. bond. these kind of pieces seem so linked together in my mind, that when i begin i can scarcely stop myself. well, i was going to give shakespeare's words,- 'ah me! for aught that ever i could read, could ever hear of tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.'" "but have you not a few lines, mr. smythe, on marriage, although you have not as yet entered into that happy state?" said mr. bond. "o dear yes! i have pieces without number. for instance, here is one from middleton,- 'what a delicious breath marriage sends forth- the violet's bed not sweeter! honest wedlock is like a banqueting-house built in a garden, on which the spring flowers take delight to cast their modest odours.' "here are some more," he remarked, "from cotton,- 'though fools spurn hymen's gentle powers, we who improve his golden hours, by sweet experience know that marriage rightly understood gives to the tender and the good a paradise below.'" still going on, he said, "here are some charming lines, mr. bond, from moore,- 'there's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, when two that are linked in one heavenly tie, with heart never changing and brow never cold, love on through all ills, and love on till they die. one hour of a passion so sacred is worth whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss; and oh! if there be an elysium on earth, it is this--it is this.'" at the close of these lines something occurred to stop mr. smythe going any further. poetic quotations in conversation are all very well, when given aptly and wisely; but coming, as they often do, as the fruits of affectation and pedantry, they are repulsive. one wishes in these circumstances that the talker had a few thoughts of his own in prose besides those of the poets which he so lavishly pours into one's jaded ears. xxx. _"yes" and "no."_ "let your communication be, yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil."--jesus christ. although in length "yes" and "no" are among the smallest and shortest words of the english language, yet they often involve an importance far beyond "the most centipedal polysyllables that crawl over the pages of johnson's dictionary." did persons stop to reflect upon the full import of these monosyllables, so easily uttered, they would undoubtedly use them with less frequency and more caution. i shall make no apology for quoting on this subject from a letter out of the "correspondence of r. e. h. greyson, esq.," written by him to miss mary greyson. "you remember the last pleasant evening in my last visit to shirley, when i accompanied you to the party at mrs. austin's. something occurred there which i had no opportunity of _improving_ for your benefit. so as you invite reproof--an invitation which who that is mortal and senior can refuse?--i will enlarge a little. "the good lady, our hostess, expressed, if you recollect, a fear that the light of the unshaded camphine was too bright, in the position in which you sat, for your eyes. though i saw you blinking with positive pain, yet, out of a foolish timidity, you protested, 'no; oh no; not at all!' now that was a very unneighbourly act of the tongue, thus to set at nought the eye; the selfish thing must have forgotten that 'if one member suffer, all the others must suffer with it.' my dear, never sacrifice your eyes to any organ whatever; at all events, not to the tongue,--least of all when it does not tell the truth. of the two, you had better be dumb than blind. "now, if i had not interposed, and said that you _were_ suffering, whether you knew it or not, you would have played the martyr all the evening to a sort of a--a--what shall i call it?--it must out--a sort of fashionable fib. you may answer, perhaps, that you did not like to make a fuss, or seem squeamish, or discompose the company; and so, from timidity, you said 'the thing that was not.' very true; but this is the very thing i want you to guard against; i want you to have such presence of mind that the thought of absolute truth shall so preoccupy you as to defy surprise and anticipate even the most hurried utterances. "the incident is very trifling in itself; i have noticed it because i think i have observed on other occasions that, from a certain timidity of character, and an amiable desire not to give trouble, or make a fuss, as you call it (there, now, mary, i am sure the medicine is nicely mixed--that spoonful of syrup ought to make it go down), you have evinced a disposition to say, from pure want of thinking, what is not precise truth. weigh well, my dear girl, and ever act on, that precept of the great master, which, like all his precepts, is of deepest import, and, in spirit, of the utmost generality of application, 'let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay.' "let truth--absolute truth--take precedence of everything; let it be more precious to you than anything else. sacrifice not a particle of it at the bidding of indolence, vanity, interest, cowardice, or shame; least of all, to those tawdry idols of stuffed straw and feathers--the idols of fashion and false honour. "it is often said that the great lesson for a young man or a young woman to learn is how to say 'no.' it would be better to say that they should learn aright how to use both 'yes' and 'no,'--for both are equally liable to abuse. "the modes in which they are employed often give an infallible criterion of character. "some say both doubtfully and hesitatingly, drawling out each letter--'y-e-s,' 'n-o,'--that one might swear to their indecision of character at once. others repeat them with such facility of assent or dissent, taking their tone from the previous question, that one is equally assured of the same conclusion, or, what is as bad, that they never reflect at all. they are a sort of parrots. "one very important observation is this--be pleased to remember, my dear, that 'yes,' in itself, always means 'yes,' and 'no' always means 'no.' "i fancy you will smile at such a profound remark; nevertheless, many act as if they never knew it, both in uttering these monosyllables themselves and in interpreting them as uttered by others. young ladies, for example, when _the_ question, as it is called, _par excellence_ (as if it were more important than the whole catechism together) is put to them, often say 'no' when they really mean 'yes.' it is a singular happiness for them that the young gentlemen to whom they reply in this contradictory sort of way have a similar incapacity of understanding 'yes' and 'no;' nay, a greater; for these last often persist in thinking 'no' means 'yes,' even when it really means what it says. "'pray, my dear,' said a mamma to her daughter of eighteen, 'what was your cousin saying to you when i met you blushing so in the garden?' "'he told me that he loved me, mamma, and asked if i could love him.' "'upon my word! and what did you say to _him_, my dear?' "'i said yes, mamma.' "'my dear, how could you be so----' "'why, mamma, what else _could_ i say? it was the--_truth_.' "now i consider this a model for all love-passages: and when it comes to your turn, my dear, pray follow this truth-loving young lady's example, and do not trust to your lover's powers of interpretation to translate a seeming 'no' into a genuine 'yes.' he might be one of those simple, worthy folk who are so foolish as to think that a negative is really a negative! "i grant that there are a thousand conventional cases in which 'yes' means 'no,' and 'no' means 'yes;' and they are so ridiculously common that every one is supposed, in politeness, not to mean what he says, or, rather, is not doubted to mean the contrary of what he says. in fact, quite apart from positive lying--that is, any intention to deceive--the honest words are so often interchanged, that if 'no' were to prosecute 'yes,' and 'yes' 'no,' for trespass, i know not which would have most causes in court. have nothing to do with these absurd conventionalisms, my dear. 'let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay.' if you are asked whether you are cold, hungry, tired, never, for fear of giving trouble, say the contrary of what you feel. decline giving the trouble if you like, by all means; but do not assign any false reason for so doing. these are trifles, you will say; and so they are. but it is only by austere regard to truth, even in trifles, that we shall keep the love of it spotless and pure. 'take care of the pence' of truth, 'and the pounds will take care of themselves.' "not only let your utterance be simple truth, as you apprehend it, but let it be decisive and unambiguous, according to those apprehensions. some persons speak as falteringly as if they thought the text i have cited ran, 'let your yea be nay, and your nay, yea.' and so they are apt to assent or dissent, according to the tenor of the last argument: 'yes--no--yes--no.' it is just like listening to the pendulum of a clock. "it is a great aggravation of the misuse of 'yes' and 'no,' that the young are apt to lose all true apprehension of their meaning, and think, in certain cases, that 'yes' cannot mean 'yes,' nor 'no' 'no.' "i have known a lad, whose mother's 'no' had generally ended in 'yes,' completely ruined, because when his father said 'no' in reply to a request for unreasonable aid, and threatened to leave him to his own devices if he persisted in extravagance, could not believe that his father meant what he said, or could prevail on justice to turn nature out of doors. but his father meant 'no,' and stuck to it, and the lad was ruined, simply because, you see, he had not noticed that father and mother differed in their dialects--that his father's 'no' always meant 'no,' and nothing else. you have read 'rob roy,' and may recollect that that amiable young gentleman, mr. f. osbaldistone, with less reason, very nearly made an equally fatal mistake; for every word his father had ever uttered, and every muscle in his face, every gesture, every step, ought to have convinced him that his father always meant what he said. "in fine, learn to apply these little words aright and honestly, and, little though they be, you will keep the love of truth pure and unsullied. "ah me! what worlds of joy and sorrow, what maddening griefs and ecstacies have these poor monosyllables conveyed! more than any other words in the whole dictionary have they enraptured or saddened the human heart; rung out the peal of joy, or sounded the knell of hope. and yet not so often as at first sight might appear, for these blunt and honest words are, both, kindly coy in scenes of agony. "there are occasions--and those the most terrible in life--when the lips are fairly absolved from using them, and when, if the eye cannot express what the muffled tongue refuses to tell, the tongue seeks any stammering compassionate circumlocution rather than utter the dreaded syllable. 'is there no hope?' says the mother, hanging over her dying child, to the physician, in whose looks are life and death. he dare not say 'yes;' but to such a question silence and dejection can alone say 'no.'" xxxi. _a group of talkers._ i. the misanthrope. he is sour and morose in disposition. he is a hater of his species. whether he was born thus, or whether he has gradually acquired it through contact with mankind, will best be ascertained from himself. i think, however, that he too frequently and too readily inclines in his nature to run against the angles and rough edges of men's ways and tempers, by which he is made sore and irritable, until he loses patience with everybody, and thinks everybody is gone to the bad. he is happy with no one, and no one is happy with him. his talk agrees with his temper. he says nothing good of anybody or anything. society is rotten in every part. he cares for no one's thanks. he bows to no one's person. he courts no one's smiles. there is neither happiness nor worth anywhere or in any one. he says,- "only this is sure: in this world nought save misery can endure." if you try to throw a more cheerful aspect upon things and breathe a more genial soul into his nature, he says to you,- "have i not suffered things to be forgiven? have i not had my brain seared, my heart riven, hopes sapped, name blighted, life's life lied away? and only not to desperation driven, because not altogether of such clay as rots into the souls of those whom i survey." he is hard to cure, but worse to endure. sunshine has no brightness for him. love has no charms. beauty has no smiles. flowers have no fragrance. all is desert to him; and alas! he is desert to all. ii. the story-teller.--he is ever and anon telling his anecdotes and stories, until they become as dull as an old newspaper handled for days together. he seldom enters your house or forms one of a company but you hear from him the same oft-repeated tales. he may sometimes begin on a new track, but he soon merges into the old. you are inclined to say, "you have told me that before;" but respect to the person who speaks, or a sense of good manners, restrains, so you are under the necessity of enduring the unwelcome repetition. i have known this talker, again and again, rise from his seat with an intention of going because of a "pressing engagement," and yet he has stood, with hat in hand, for a further half-hour, telling the same stories which on similar occasions he had told before. i knew what was coming, and wished that he had left when he rose at first to do so, rather than afflict me with the same worn-out threadbare tales of three-times-three repetition in my ears. i have thought, whence this failing? whether from loss of memory or from the fact that these things have been so often repeated that, when once begun, they instinctively and in the very order in which they are laid in the mind find an irresistible outlet from the mouth: like a musical-box, when wound up and set a-going, goes on and on, playing the same old tunes which one has heard a hundred times, and which it has played ever since a musical-box it has been. i am inclined to think, however uncharitable my thinking may seem, that this is the chief cause of his fault. i think so because i have frequently noticed him saying as soon as he has begun, "have not i told you this before?" and i have answered, "yes, you have;" still he has gone on with the old yarn, telling it precisely in the same way as before; as the aforesaid instrument plays its old tunes without variation right through to the end. the affliction would not be so bad to bear if he cut his stories short; but, unfortunately, he does not, and i verily believe cannot, any more than the parson who has repeated his sermons a hundred times can curtail, or leave out some of the old to substitute new. not only so; another addition to the burden one has to endure is, that he always repeats his stories with such apparent self-satisfaction--a smile here, a laugh there, a "ha-ha-ha" in another place; at the same time you feel he is a bore, and wish his old saws were a hundred miles away. one has been reminded, in hearing him talk, of what menander says about the dodonian brass, that if a man touched it only once it would continue ringing the whole day in the same monotonous tone. thus this talker, touch him on the story-key, and he plays away until you are jaded in listening. "his copious stories, oftentimes begun, end without audience, and are never done." is there a remedy for this talker? i fear not. he has practised so long--for he generally is sixty or seventy years old--that little hope can be entertained of his cure. he will have to _wear_ out. this, however, you can do for yourself; only go into his company _once_, and you will not be afflicted with his repetition; and if he would go into the same company only once, it would secure to him a more enduring reputation. cowper, in his day, it would seem, met with such a talker as i have been describing. he thus refers to him:- "sedentary weavers of long tales give me the fidgets, and my patience fails. 'tis the most asinine employ on earth, to hear them tell of parentage and birth, and echo conversation dull and dry, embellished, with, _he said and so said i_. at every interview their route the same, the repetition makes attention lame; we bustle up with unsuccessful speed, and in the saddest part cry, _droll indeed!_" after thus expressing his own experience under the rod of this talker, he suggests the way in which he should exercise himself in his vocation:- "a tale should be judicious, clear, succinct; the language plain, and incidents well linked; tell not as new what everybody knows, and new or old still hasten to a close; there centring in a focus round and neat, let all your rays of information meet. what neither yields us profit nor delight is like a nurse's lullaby at night; guy earl of warwick and fair elenore, or giant-killing jack would please me more." iii. the careless.--this talker is heedless of what, and how, and to whom he talks. he consults no propriety of speech; he has no respect of persons. he never asks, "will it be wise to speak thus at this time? is this the proper person to whom i should say it? shall i give offence or deceive by speaking in this way? what will be the consequence to the absent of my making this statement concerning them? is tittle-tattle, or rumour, or mischief maker, or slanderer, or blabber in this company, who will make capital out of what i say?" i do not mean that one should be always so precise in speaking, that what he says should be as nicely measured and formed as a new-made pin. this, however, is one thing, and to speak without thought or consideration is another. the careless talker would save others as well as himself from frequent difficulties if he would get into the way of pondering, at least somewhat, the things which he has to say, so as to be sure that what he says will not injure another more than he would like to be injured himself. i will give one illustration of this careless and thoughtless way of talking. in a gathering of friends belonging to a certain church in n---the minister's name came up as the subject of conversation. many eulogiums were passed upon his character, among others one expressive of his high temperance principles, and the service he was rendering to the temperance cause in the town. there happened to be present in the company a young gentleman of rather convivial habits, who assented to their compliments of the minister. he thought he was a very excellent man and a pleasant companion. "in fact," he said, "it was only the other day when he and i drank brandy and water together." what a compliment this to give to a minister and a teetotaller! of course the particulars were not inquired into there and then; but miss rumour, who was present, made a note of it in her mind, and as soon as she left the company she spread it abroad until the statement of the thoughtless young gentleman came to the ears of the deacons of the church, who solemnly arraigned the minister before them, and summoned the accuser into their presence. he declared that what he had said was positively true, but had evidently been misunderstood. "your excellent minister," he said, "and i _have_ drunk brandy and water together; but then _i_ drank the brandy, and _he_ drank the _water_." iv. the equivocator.--he speaks in such a way as to convey the impression that he means what he says and at the same time leaves himself in his own mind at liberty to go contrary to what he says, without considering himself guilty of breach of truth should he do so. he speaks so as to give you reason for believing him; and then, if he fail to verify your faith, he tells you he did not say so positively. hence his chief phrases of speech are, "may be so;" "it is more than likely i shall;" "there is little doubt upon the question;" "it is more than probable it will be so." he means these phrases to have the same effect upon you as the positive or imperative mood; and yet if you take them in this sense, and he does not act up to them, he says, "o, i did not say i would." much evil has been done by this way of talking in business, in families, in the social circle. how many a tradesman has lost valuable hours in waiting and expecting some one who has promised him by, "it is more than probable," that he would meet him at such an hour. and when reminded of his failure, he said, "i did not promise." with a similar understanding based on a promise of the same kind, how frequently has the housewife made ready her person, her children, her rooms, and her larder, to receive guests on a day's visit! disappointment has been the result; perhaps hard thoughts, if not harder feelings, have been felt, and it has been a long time ere any preparation has been made for the same guests again. a mother in a family says to her little son, "now, john, you be a very good boy, and give your sister betsy no trouble while i am gone to see your aunt charlotte, and may be i will bring you back a noah's ark." the mother goes to see aunt charlotte; meanwhile john is trying in all his strength to be a "good boy, and to give his sister betsy no trouble." little johnny is wishing his mother would return. the hour is getting late. he is becoming heavy with sleep. he says to his sister,-"i am so tired. i do want mother to come home and bring me the nice present she promised. o how glad i shall be to have a noah's ark!" at last mother enters the house, and her little boy rushes to meet her, asking as the first thing,-"mother, have you brought the present you promised?" "what present, my boy?" the mother asks. "noah's ark, mother." "did i promise to buy you noah's ark? are you not mistaken?" "you said _may be_ you would do it; and i expected you would." "but _may be_, my dear, is not a promise." with these words the little boy set on crying at his great disappointment, and could not be comforted. now this way of talking to children is calculated to give them wrong views of truthfulness, and to cherish within them a similar way of equivocation. it creates hopes and blights them. it gives ground for expectation, and then destroys it. "let your communication be, yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil." "the promises of god are all yea." v. the absent-minded.--it is far from being pleasant to meet in conversation a talker of this class. to ask a question of importance or to give a reply to one whose mind is wandering in an opposite direction is anything but complimentary and assuring. how mortifying to be speaking to a person who you think is sweetly taking in all you say, and when finished you find you have been talking to one whose mind was as absent from what you said as a man living in america or new zealand! he wakes up, perhaps, to consciousness, some time after you have done speaking, with the provoking interrogatory, "i beg pardon, sir; but pray what were you speaking about just now?" he has been known at the dinner-table to ask a blessing at least three times. he has been seen in company to make one of his best bows in reply to what he supposed was a compliment paid him, when it was intended for some other person. he has been heard try to give a narrative of great interest; but before he had got half-way through he lost his mind in the story, and ran two or three into one. he has been known almost to rave with self-indignation while calling back some one to whom he had forgotten to state the object of meeting, although they had been together some time in promiscuous talk. he has been seen at the tea-table in a heated discussion, thinking of his brightest idea just as he was in the act of swallowing his tea, and by the time the tea was gone his idea was gone, and of course he lost the day. one has heard of an eminent minister so absent-minded in talk at the tea-table that he has taken about twenty cups of tea, and has not only exhausted the supply of tea, but after using the teaspoon in each cup has thrown it behind him on the sofa, until all the spoons have been gone as well as all the tea; and only when he has been told that there was no more of either has he woke up to know how much tea he had drunk, and what had become of the spoons. one of these talkers, in the midst of conversation in a large circle of friends, tried to quote the lines following:- "i never had a dear gazelle, to glad me with its soft black eye, but when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to die." but, instead of repeating them correctly, his mind became absent, and thought of a parody on the lines, which ran as follows:- "i never had a piece of bread, particularly long and wide, but fell upon the sanded floor, and always on the buttered side." so in his attempt to render the first correctly he mingled the beauties of both as follows:- "i never had a dear gazelle, particularly long and wide, but when it came to know me well, and always on the buttered side." a story is told of a clergyman who went a walk into the country. coming to a toll-bar, he stopped, and shouted to the man, "here! what's to pay?" "pay for what?" asked the man. "for my horse." "what horse? you have no horse, sir!" "bless me!" exclaimed the clergyman, looking between his legs. "i thought i was on horseback." he had fallen into a thoughtful mood in his walk, and being more accustomed to riding than walking, in his absence of mind he made the blunder. vi. the bustling.--this talker you will generally find to be a man rather small in stature, with quick eye, sharp nose, nervous expression of face, and limbs ever ready for prompt action. he has little patience with other people's slowness, and wastes more time and temper in repeating his own love of despatch than would be required to do a great deal of work. his tongue is as restless as his hands and feet, both of which are in unceasing motion. he asks questions in such rapidity that it is difficult for the ear to catch them. he is always in a hurly-burly. he has more business to attend to than he knows how. his engagements are so numerous that many of them must be broken. if he call to see you, he is always in a hurry; he cannot sit down; he must be off in a minute. he often rushes into your room so suddenly that you wonder what is the matter, throws down his hat and gloves as though he had no time to place them anywhere, and, taking out his watch, he regrets that he can only spare you two minutes; and you would not have been sorry if it had been only one. he leaves you much in the same manner as he came, with a slam of the door which goes through you, and steps back two or three times to say something which he had forgotten. "if you go to see him," says one, "on business, he places you a chair with ostentatious haste; begs you will excuse him while he despatches two or three messengers on most urgent business; calls each of them back once or twice to give fresh instalments of his defective instructions; and having at last dismissed them, regrets as usual that he has only five minutes to spare, whereof he spends half in telling you the distracting number and importance of his engagements. if he have to consult a ledger, the book is thrown on the desk with a thump as if he wished to break its back, and the leaves rustle to and fro like a wood in a storm. meanwhile he overlooks, while he gabbles on, the very entries he wants to find, and spends twice the time he would if he had proceeded more leisurely. in a word, everything is done with a bounce, and a thump, and an air, and a flourish, and sharp and eager motions, and perpetual volubility of tongue. his image is that of a blind beetle in the twilight, which, with incessant hum and drone and buzz, flies blundering into the face of every one it chances to meet." vii. the contradictory.--the contradictory talker is one who steps into the arena of conversation with an attitude which says in effect, "it matters not what you say, good or bad, wise or foolish, of my opinion or against my opinion, i am here to contradict. it is my mind, my habit, my nature to do it, and do it i will." and so he does. his tongue, like the point of a weathercock, veers round to face the sentiment or fact from whatever quarter it may come. you express your views upon some eminent minister of the gospel. he says, "i do not think with you." your friend gives his views upon some theory in science. he says, "i am altogether of another opinion." some one else gives his views of a political scheme in contemplation. he says, "i think the very opposite." a fourth states his views on some doctrine of theology. he says, "they are far from orthodox." a fifth ventures to give his opinion on a late experiment in natural philosophy. he says, "i think it was entirely a blunder." thus he stands in hostile, pugilistic attitude to every one, as though he had made up his mind to it long ago. he acts upon the principle, "whatever you say now, i will contradict it, and if you agree with me, i will contradict myself. you shall not say anything that i will not contradict." except you should tell him he was a wise man, which of course would be a questionable truth, there is indeed no opinion or proposition in which he would agree with you. he reminds one of the irishman who, despairing of a _shindy_ at a fair, everything being so quiet and peaceful, took off his coat, and, trailing it in the mud, said, "and, by st. patrick, wouldn't i like to see the boy that would tread on that same!" you are thus challenged to combat; and you must either be mute or stand the chance of being cudgelled at every position you take. the best way is to be mute rather than be in a constant (for the time being) ferment of strife and conflict. this quibbling or contradictory talk may sometimes be met with in the family as existing between brothers or sisters. they are continually opposing and contradicting each other in things trifling and indifferent, differing in opinion for no other reason, apparently, than that they have got in the habit of doing so. "it is not so, fanny; you know it is not, and why do you say so?" said fred, warmly. "i say it is," replied fanny; "and i am surprised that you should contradict me." "it is just like you, fanny, to be always opposed to me, and i wonder you should be so." this habit of contradiction in a family is anything but pleasant and happy, and should be checked by parents, as well as guarded against by the children themselves. viii. the technicalist.--he is a talker who indulges much in the slang of his calling. the naval cadet, for instance, poetically describes his home as "the mooring where he casts anchor," or "makes sail down the street," hails his friend to "heave to," and makes things as plain as a "pikestaff," and "as taut as a hawser." the articled law clerk "shifts the venue" of the passing topic to the other end of the room, and "begs to differ from his learned friend." the new bachelor from college snuffs the candle at an "angle of forty-five." the student of surgery descants upon the comparative anatomy of the joint he is carving, and asks whether "a slice of adipose tissue will be acceptable." the trade apprentice "takes stock" of a dinner party, and endorses the observation of "ditto." the young chemist gives a "prescription" for the way you should go to town. the student of logic "syllogizes" his statement, and before he draws a conclusion he always lays down his "premise." the architect gives you a "plan" of his meaning, and "builds" you an argument of thought. thus, you may generally infer the profession or occupation of this talker from the technical terms he employs in conversation. ix. the liliputian.--i give this designation to him, not because of his physical stature, for he may be of more than ordinary proportions in flesh and blood; and in fact he often is. his talk is _small_; what some would call "chit-chat." he deals in pins and needles, buttons and tapes, nutmegs and spices: things of course, in their places, necessary, but out of place when you have plenty of them, and they are being ever and anon pressed on your notice. he has no power of conception or utterance beyond the commonplace currency of the time of day, state of the weather, changes of the moon, who was last married, who is going to be, when dog days begin, what he had for dinner, when he bought his new hat, when he last went to see his mother, when he was last sick, and how he recovered, etc. cowper pictures this talker in the following lines:- "his whispered theme, dilated, and at large, proves after all a wind-gun's airy charge, an extract of his diary--no more, a tasteless journal of the day before. he walked abroad, o'ertaken in the rain, called on a friend, drank tea, stepped home again, resumed his purpose, had a word of talk with one he stumbled on, and lost his walk. i interrupt him with a sudden bow, adieu, dear sir! lest you should lose it now." x. the envious.--this talker is one much allied to the detractor, whom we have considered at length in a former part of this volume. he cannot hear anything good of another without having something to say to the contrary. if you speak of a friend of yours possessed of more than ordinary gifts or graces, he interjects a "but" and its connections, by which he means to counterbalance what you say. like his ancestor cain, he seeks to kill in the estimation of others every one who stands more acceptable to society than himself. the disposition of the envious is destructive and murderous. anything that exceeds himself in appearance, in circumstances, in influence, he endeavours to destroy, so that _he_ may stand first in esteem and praiseworthiness. but he is a deceiver of himself. others see his motive and aim, and, like jehovah in the beginning, discover his malicious spirit, and condemn him as a vagabond and fugitive in society. he becomes a _marked_ man, and whoever sees him avoids him as a destroyer of everything amiable and of good report. it is bad enough to _feel_ envy in the heart; but to bring it forth in words in conversation makes it doubly monstrous and repulsive. such a talker is revolting to all amiable and justly disposed persons in the social circle. xi. the secret talker.--"be sure, now, you do not tell any one what i am going to say to you," is a phrase that one talker often says to another: "certainly not," is the ready rejoinder. so the secret is given in charge; and no sooner have the two friends parted than the entrusted fact or rumour is divulged, perhaps, to the very first person with whom he comes in conversation, told of course as a "secret never to be repeated." he had power to hear it, but not power to retain it. he is a _leaky_ vessel, a sieve-receiver, not able to keep anything put within him. there is oftentimes deception, if not absolute lying, in this talker. why does he receive the secret with the strong promise, "i will tell no one, upon my honour," if he cannot retain it in his own bosom? such persons are not to be trusted _twice_. as soon as you discover your facts given under covenant of secrecy are blabbed to others, you say, "i shall not trust him again:" and very properly too. of course he tells as a secret what you tell him as a secret; but if he cannot retain it, how can he expect others? it is in this way that a matter, which in the first instance is spoken of under the most strict confidence, becomes a well-known fact, as though the public bellman had been hired to proclaim it in the streets. xii. the snubber.--there is a man sometimes met with in society, whose business, when he talks, seems to be the administration of rebuke, in a spirit and with a tone of voice churlish and sarcastic, by which he would stop the increase of knowledge, check the development of mind, and arrest the growth of heroic souls. he is far from amiable in his disposition, or happy in his temper. he is a knotty piece of humanity, which rubs itself against the even surface of other portions, much to its annoyance, and to his own irritability. he is like a frost, nipping the tender blossoms of intellect, and stopping the growth of a youthful branch of promise. he is shunned by the gentle and sensitive. the independent and bold repel him, and pay him back in his own coin, a specie which he does not like, although he does a large business with it himself. the word itself is banished from polite society; but alas! the custom is by no means proscribed. the sound is, to some extent, significant of the sense. "to snub" is certainly not euphonious, and would sadly offend the ears of many who are addicted to the habit. snubbing is of various kinds. for instance, there is the snub direct, sharp, and decisive, that knocks the tender, sensitive spirit at once; there is the covert snub, nearly allied to being talked at; the jocose snub, veiling the objectionable form of reproof under an affected pleasantry; and there is also a most unpleasant form of snubbing, frequently used by well-meaning persons to repress forwardness or personal vanity. it is very true that children and young people often exhibit forwardness, vanity, and many other qualities extremely distasteful to their wiser elders; but it is questionable if snubbing was ever found an effectual cure for such faults. it may smother the evil for the time; but in such cases it is better to encourage children to speak their thoughts freely, patiently, gently, to show them where they are wrong, and trust to a kind voice and tender indulgence to win the hearts that snubbing would most certainly, sooner or later, alienate. so far, then, from snubbing curing faults of character, it will be found to be a frightful source of evil: it renders a timid child reserved, and it may be deemed fortunate if the conscientious principle is strong enough to preserve him from direct deceit. indecision of character, too, is a common result of snubbing; for there can be no self-reliance when the mind is wondering within itself whether such or such an action will be snubbed. some dispositions may in time become tolerably callous to reproof; but it rarely happens that even those most seasoned by incessant rebukes ever entirely lose the uncomfortable feeling which snubbing occasions. it is, in fact, a perpetual mental blister; and it is grievous to see how blindly people exercise it on those they dearly love. it may occur to some, who can think as well as snub, that the benefit to be derived from anything calculated to wound sensitive feelings must be very questionable; but the plain fact is, that nine times out of ten it is done unthinkingly, and from the impulse of the moment. it may be but a small unkindness at the time, the words forgotten as soon as uttered; but in many instances the effects of a snubbed childhood last a lifetime. these remarks are offered in the hope that they may be useful in pointing out the evil of this very prevalent habit. it is most certainly a violation of the holy commandment of doing to others as we would be done by, and requires to be diligently watched against. there is no one addicted to the practice of snubbing others who likes to be snubbed himself. the law of love should not only dwell in the heart, but should also baptize the lips. xiii. the argumentative.--this talker has so fully studied whateley and mill, and his mind is so naturally constructed, that he must have every thought syllogistically placed, and logically wrought out to demonstration, beyond the shadow of a shade of doubt. with countenance grave he approaches close to your person, and with the tip of one forefinger on the tip of the other forefinger, he begins, "now mark, sir, this is the proposition which i lay down--the _quality_ and _quantity_ of it i will not now stop to state--'no one is free who is enslaved by his appetites: a sensualist is enslaved by his appetites, therefore a sensualist is not free.' now, sir, there is no escape from this conclusion, if you admit the _premise_, the _major_ and the _minor_ of my argument." "it is most conclusive and demonstrative," observed mr. allgood. "what have you to say, mr. goose, about the propriety of enforcing the penal laws against the papists, who, as you know, are in the heart of their religion so opposed to the protestant laws and constitution of this country?" again placing the tip of his forefinger on his right hand upon the tip of his forefinger on his left hand, he said, "if penal laws against papists were enforced, they would have cause of grievance; but penal laws against them are not enforced, therefore they have no such cause." "that is very clear and convincing," observed mr. allgood again. "do you think, mr. goose," again asked mr. allgood--he could not argue, but only ask questions--"that the practice of oath-taking is in any way beneficial and to be commended?" once more assuming his former logical attitude, with additional signs of thought and gravity, as though the question demanded great consideration, mr. goose at length said,-"mr. allgood, if men are not likely to be influenced in the performance of a known duty by taking an oath to perform it, the oaths commonly administered are superfluous; if they are likely to be so influenced, every one should be made to take an oath to behave rightly throughout his life; but one or the other of these must be the case; therefore, either the oaths commonly administered are superfluous, or every man should be made to take an oath to behave rightly throughout his life." "thank you, mr. goose, thank you, for placing the thing in such a lucid and irrefutable light," answered mr. allgood, who seemed to be in mist all the time mr. goose was laying down his argument. had mr. allgood gone on with his questions up to the thousandth, each one being distinct from the other, mr. goose would have answered him, as far as he could, in the same formal, argumentative manner. but mr. allgood was getting jaded; the stretch of attention required by the reasoning of mr. goose was telling upon his patience; so he slided away to talk with one who spoke in less categorical style: not so propositional, syllogistic, and demonstrative. and, as a rule, who does not sympathise with mr. allgood, as against mr. goose, in his method of talk? syllogisms, propositions, predicates, majors, minors, sorites, enthymeme, copula, concrete, and such-like logical terms are all very well from a professor to his students in a lecture room, but introduced into ordinary conversation in company they are altogether out of place. no one with good taste, unless he has fearfully forgotten it, will disfigure his talk with them, however pure and efficient a logician he may be in reality. some of this class of talkers are nothing but mere shams in their art. they affect a knowledge of argumentative processes, and obtrude upon your attention by false reasoning conclusions which perhaps _appear_ as legitimate as possible. you cannot deny, yet you cannot believe. you cannot refute by your logic, neither can you admit by your faith. such are most of the sceptical talkers on the bible, christianity, etc. milton speaks of this argumentative talker when he says,- "but this juggler would think to chain my judgment, as mine eyes, obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb." another species of this talker is thus described by butler, in "hudibras":- "he'd undertake to prove, by force of argument, a man's a horse; he'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, and that a lord may be an owl; a calf an alderman, a goose a justice, and rooks committee men and trustees." another kind may be noticed: the one whose arguments are generally of a class which, when seen through and used by sound wit, rebound upon himself. trumball, in his "m'fingal," thus describes him:- "but as some muskets do contrive it, as oft to miss the mark they drive at, and though well aimed at duck or plover, bear wide, and kick their owners over,- so fared our squire, whose reas'ning toil would often on himself recoil, and so much injured more his side, the stronger arguments he apply'd." one more of this class of talkers may be mentioned, viz., the man who forces his logic upon you in such a dogmatic manner as leaves you without any hope of reply. you give him all the glory of victory. for the sake of peace and safety you remain passive, and think this the best valour for the occasion. cowper refers to him in the following lines:- "vociferated logic kills me quite, a noisy man is always in the right; i twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair, fix on the wainscot a distressful stare; and when i hope his blunders are all out, reply discreetly, to be sure--no doubt!" xiv. the religious.--he is one that obtrudes his views and experience upon others in ways, times, and places which are far from prudent and commendable. between his talk and his conduct there is a wide disparity. from his words you would judge him a saint: from his conduct a sinner. abroad he is a christian: at home he is an infidel. bunyan describes this character in his own simple and forcible way: "i have been in his family, and have observed him both at home and abroad; and i know what i say of him is the truth. his house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savour. there is neither prayer nor sign of repentance for sin; yea, the brute, in his kind, serves god far better than he. he is the very stain, reproach, and shame of religion to all that know him: it can hardly have a good word in that end of the town where he dwells, through him--a saint abroad, and a devil at home! his poor family find it so. he is such a churl; such a railer at and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for him nor speak of him. men that have any dealings with him say it is better to deal with a turk than with him, for fairer dealings they shall have at his hands. this talkative, if it be possible, will go beyond them, defraud, beguile, and overreach them. besides, he brings up his sons to follow in his steps; and if he finds in any of them a 'foolish timorousness' (for so he calls the first appearance of a tender conscience), he calls them fools and blockheads, and by no means will employ them in much, or speak to their commendation before others. for my part, i am of opinion that he has, by his wicked life, caused many to stumble and fall, and will be, if god prevent not, the ruin of many more." the apostle james in his epistle refers to this talker: "if any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." and how is he to bridle his tongue? why, not only from slander and profanity, but from _saying_, "when he is tempted, i am tempted of god; for god cannot tempt to evil; neither tempteth he any man." also, from making empty and pharisaic pretensions to a high state of piety, while there are glaring contradictions in the life: "what doth it profit, if a man say that he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?" as though the apostle should say, "you talkers about religion are not always the most practical exemplifiers of it. not he who _says_ he is religious, but he who _lives_ religious is the justified one before god and man. enough of talk, talk, talk: let us have the _reality_ in heart experience and in life deeds." "'say well' from 'do well' differs in letter; 'say well' is good, but 'do well' is better. 'say well' says godly, and helps to please; but 'do well' lives godly, and gives the world ease. 'say well' in danger of death is cold; 'do well' is harnessed, and wondrous bold. 'say well' to silence sometimes is bound; but 'do well' is free for every stound. 'say well' has friends, some here some there; but 'do well' is welcome everywhere. by 'say well' many a one to god's word cleaves; but for lack of 'do well' it quickly leaves. if 'say well' and 'do well' were joined in one frame, then all were done, all were won, and gotten were the game." xv. the prejudiced.--rumour and ignorance form the foundation of prejudice. "that is an injurious book for your children to read," said mr. rust one day to mr. moon, concerning a volume of the "primrose series," which he was looking at in smith's library. all mr. rust knew about the volume was something which had casually dropped in conversation the day before, in the house of a friend where he was visiting; but that was sufficient to prejudice him against the book. "i hear you have invited the rev. jonas winkle to be the pastor of your church," said the rev. t. little to deacon bunsen. "yes, we have," the deacon replied. "i am sorry to hear it; for if all that is said about him is true, you have made a mistake." and what did this reverend brother know of the other reverend brother to justify him in speaking thus? why, just nothing at all. true, he had heard a rumour, but personal knowledge he had none. however, what he said so influenced the mind of deacon bunsen, that he did all he could to have the invitation withdrawn; which being done, the rev. mr. little, by certain "wire pulling" on his part, and a good word spoken for him by a layman of wealth on his part, managed to secure the pastorate of the said church for himself. "i hear that young bush is coming into your bank as cashier," observed mr. young to mr. monk, the manager. "yes; he enters upon his duties next week." "but have you not heard what is afloat about him?" "no. i have heard nothing." "then the less said the soonest mended," answered young. now this mr. young knew nothing personally against young bush, but had heard a rumour which prejudiced him to speak in this way of him; the result of which was that the manager evinced suspicion of the young man until he had been in the bank some time, and by his unquestionable conduct had proved that mr. young's insinuation was nothing but prejudice grounded upon rumour and ignorance of him. thus it is that the prejudiced talker may do a great deal of mischief against persons of the most innocent character. prejudice has nothing to justify it, but everything to condemn it. the person subject to it evinces a mind devoid of the breadth, strength, and independence characteristic of true manhood; and the sooner he disposes of rumour and ignorance as the creator of words on his tongue, the better for his reputation. before he speaks of persons or things he will act wisely to "come and see" by personal interview and experience. xvi. the boaster.--this talker is somewhat akin to the _egotist_; nevertheless there is a distinction and difference. what he is, what he has done, where he has been, his acquaintances, his intentions, his prospects, his capabilities, his possessions, are the subjects of his talk in such a braggadocio spirit and style as disgusts the intelligent, and imposes upon the simple. has he done you a charitable deed? has he been heroic in an act of mercy? has he given a contribution to an object of beneficence? has he performed some feat of gymnastics? has he made a good bargain in business? has he said or done something which has elicited the faintest praise from an observer?--with what a flourish he brags of each in its turn! everybody and everything must stand aside while he and his doings are exhibited in full glory before the company. it is well when these mountebanks meet with treatment such as they deserve. a honest word or two spoken by a fearless hearer of their loud talking will soon cause their balloon to collapse, or bring their exhibition to a sudden end. and then how pitiable they do look! where is boasting then? alas, it is excluded; and their glory is turned into shame. a young man who in his travels had visited the isle of rhodes was once boasting in company of how he had out-jumped all the men there, and all the rhodians could bear witness of it. one of the company replied, "if you speak the truth, think this place to be rhodes, and jump here;" when it turned out that he could do nothing, and was glad to make his exit. the english proverb, "great boast and small roast," is applicable to such. it is said in history that a friend of cæsar's had preserved a certain man from the tyranny of the triumvirate proscription; but he so frequently talked about it in a boasting manner, that the poor man ultimately exclaimed, "pray thee, restore me to cæsar again! i had rather undergo a thousand deaths than to be thus continually upbraided by thee with what thou hast done for me." and who does not sympathise with this feeling when any one who has in a way been a friend is ever and anon boasting of it in conversation? "we must not," as one says, "make ourselves the trumpet of our benevolence in liberalities and good deeds, but let them, like john the baptist, be the speaking son of a dumb parent--speak to the necessity of our brother, but dumb in the relation of it to others. it is for worthless empirics to stage themselves in the market and recount their cures, and for all good christians to be silent in their charitable transactions." "the highest looks have not the highest mind, nor haughty words most full of highest thought; but are like bladders blown up with the wind, that being pricked, evanish into nought." "who knows himself a braggart, let him fear this; for it will come to pass that every braggart shall be found an ass." xvii. the quarrelsome.--what is said of the irishman may be said of this talker, "he is only in peace when he is in a quarrel." his flowers are thistles, and his sweets bitters. the more you study to be quiet, the more he aims to make a noise. the least imaginable thing in word, look, or act he takes as a cause for bickering and contention. as a neighbour, as a fellow member in a family, as a fellow workman, as a fellow traveller, he is disagreeable and annoying. he quarrels with you alike for things you do to please him or things you do to displease him. when two such persons meet, peace takes to her wings and flies away, leaving war of words, if not of weapons, in her room. benvolio in _romeo and juliet_ was one of this steel. mercutio addressing him says, "thou! why thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or less in his beard than thou hast. thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. what eye but such eye would spy out such a quarrel? thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat; and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. didst thou not fall out with a man for wearing his new doublet before easter? with another, for tying his new shoes with old ribbons? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling!" xviii. the profound.--he leaves you at the edge, but himself plunges like an expert diver into the vasty deeps; and there in twilight visible, if not in darkness felt, he converses with you about the mysterious, the metaphysical, the mystical, the profound. as you gaze with wondering vision, you hear a voice, but see no man. he invites you down into his caves of ocean thought; but, as you see not where he is, and know not the way to follow, nor think it worth while to go at a venture, you prefer remaining on the shore. nor is it always the _depth_ into which this talker delights to go. were it this, with _transparency_, there would not be so much objection. he too frequently plunges into muddled waters, or makes them so by his movements therein. he persuades himself that he has acquired profound knowledge of philosophy from the dark and mystical writings of the germans translated into english. with this persuasion he courts your attention, while he discourses to you in terms and phrases of marvellous vagueness about the ego within us--the infinite and the immense, the absolute, the entity and nonentity, and such-like subjects, of which you can make neither "top nor tail," and of which he knows nothing save the terms and phrases that he strings together with such adept expertness and palpable absurdity. "what do you think," asked mr. stanley of professor rigg, "of hegel's paradox, that nothing is equal to being, and that if being and nothing be conjoined you have existence?" the professor answered with his usual gravity and profundity: "nothing could be more profound, and as lucid as profound, if hegel's theory of the 'evolution of the concrete' was remembered. according to that theory the concrete is the idea which, as a unity, is variously determined, having the principle of its activity within itself, while the origin of the activity, the act itself, and the result, are one, and constitute the concrete. the innate contradiction of the concrete is the basis of its development, and though differences arise, they at last vanish into unity. to use the words of hegel, there is 'both the movement and repose in the movement. the difference hardly appears before it disappears, whereupon there issues from it a full and complete unity.'" "that is very clear and satisfactory," observed mr. stanley, ironically; not seeing anything but confusion confounded in the whole of it. "what is your view," he asked again, "of the hegelian 'absolute'?" "this," said the professor, "is nothing but a continual process of thinking, without beginning and without end. now that the evolution of ideas in the human mind is the process of all existence--the essence of the absolute--of a deity, so that deity is nothing more than the absolute ever striving to realize itself in human consciousness." without questioning the truthfulness of such a doctrine, so _plainly expressed_, mr. stanley proceeded to ask, in a way rather beyond himself, "whether there was not a little to be said for schelling's notion that the rhythmical law of all existence is cognisable at the same time by the internal consciousness of the subjective self, in the objective operation of nature?" to this question, somewhat mystical it must be confessed, the professor replied in his usual style of profundity:-"i see clearly enough schelling's great ingenuity; but think his three movements or potencies--that of 'reflexion,' whereby the infinite strives to realize itself in the finite--that of 'subsumption,' which is the striving of the absolute to return from the finite to the infinite--and that of the 'indifference-point,' or point of junction of the two first--were not to be admitted; for is it not clear as the day that the poles ever persist in remaining apart, the indifference-point having never been fixed by schelling?" in these ways mr. stanley and the professor kept up the conversation until i and the rest of the company were perfectly involved in dense mists and fogs, wishing that the sun of simple truth would shine, to bring us into clear seeing and firm foot-standing. we longed for the day without a cloud. at last they ceased, and after a brief interval we found ourselves where we were before they began, with no more knowledge of the mystical, and no less love to the simplicity of truth spoken in words of plain meaning and thoughts of undisguised transparency. xix. the wonderer.--this is a talker with whom one very often meets in the walks of life. his peculiarity in conversation is the use of the word _wonder_ in almost every statement he makes and question he asks. it is a strange peculiarity, and i _wonder_ that he should so frequently indulge in its use; i _wonder_ that he does not discover some other mode of expression. i once met with him at a railway station, and after wishing him the compliments of the day, almost his first word was, "i _wonder_ how long my train will be before it starts?" scarcely had he time to get his breath, when he said, "i _wonder_ what o'clock it is." i looked at my watch and told him. instantly he said, "i _wonder_ whether it rains; i hope not." i assured him that it did not when i came on the platform; then he quickly said, "i _wonder_ whether it will rain to-morrow; i hope not, for i have a long journey to take by coach." i remember once travelling with a gentleman in a railway carriage between london and bristol. besides him and me there were three or four more passengers in the compartment, ladies and gentlemen. scarcely had we left the paddington station ere he began _wondering_. "i _wonder_," said he, "how fast this train goes." oh, about forty miles an hour, i replied. "i _wonder_, does this train stop at reading?" i think it does, i answered. then whispering in my ear, he said, "i _wonder_ who that old gentleman is in yon corner of the carriage." i really do not know; he is a stranger to me, i observed. after a few minutes' pause, in which he seemed to have indulged a profound meditation, he again whispered in my ears, saying, "i _wonder_ who that lady is sitting next to you." i cannot say, i replied. the train travelled on at a great speed, passing station after station in rapid succession. again he said, "i _wonder_ how fast we are travelling now." oh, perhaps sixty miles an hour. quickly, he said, "i _wonder_ what station that is we have just passed." i think it is swindon. after a brief pause:-"i _wonder_ what time this train gets into bristol." it is due at ten o'clock. "i _wonder_ will it be punctual." thus he was wondering ever and anon until we reached the bristol station, where we parted, he going one way and i another; perhaps he _wondering_ who i was, and i _wondering_ who he was. i remember meeting another wonderer in the house of a friend of mine with whom i had intended to spend part of the evening. scarcely had we been introduced to each other when he said,-"i _wonder_ whether the republican or democrat candidate is elected to the american presidency." that is a matter in which i do not profess to be posted up, i replied. then he said, "i _wonder_ how lord salisbury is getting on in the conference." from all the newspaper reports he seems to be getting on very well, i observed. after a very brief pause, he said, "i _wonder_ whether there will be war. i _wonder_ whether russia really means war or peace." it is exceedingly difficult to say, i observed. diplomacy is so involved, so intricate, so uncertain, that no one can say until all things are really settled. "i _wonder_," he immediately said, "whether england will go to war." i cannot say, i answered; i sincerely hope not. "if there be war, i _wonder_," he said, "which way it would go. i _wonder_ whether russia would take constantinople. i _wonder_ whether she would crush turkey. i _wonder_ what the effect would be upon our way to india. i _wonder_ how germany and austria would act in the matter." after he had done, i said, i _wonder_ what time it is. he said, "it is eight o'clock." i must go, i have another engagement at half-past eight. so leaving my friend's friend in his _wonders_, i retired. another wonderer i met with shortly after the one just named, when the conversation turned upon the new bishopric of cornwall. "i _wonder_ what effect it will have upon the methodists." it will stir them up to duty and diligence, i hope. "i _wonder_ who will be the bishop." i don't know. "i _wonder_, will he be high church or low." that i cannot say. "i _wonder_ what he will do when he finds the county so filled with methodists and methodist chapels." he will find something to do, i said, if he means to put them down. "i _wonder_ whether he will put them down," he said. you need not wonder about that, i rejoined. "i _wonder_ why?" wonder why! he may as well try to put down the cornish hills into plains or valleys. the fact is, one can scarcely speak with any one, or enter any company, but the first utterance he hears is "i wonder." persons wonder what the weather will be; they wonder what time it is; they wonder who is going to preach on sunday; they wonder what the preacher's text will be; they wonder what will be for dinner; they wonder who will be in the company; they wonder who is going to be married; they wonder who is dead in the next newspaper. in fine, this _wonder_ is a wonderful word in almost everybody's lips. i _wonder_ whether some other mode of expression could not be adopted, which would either be a substitute for it, or somewhat of variation: so that the _wonderer_ may not be so common a talker in the circles of society. but it is one thing to be _always_ wondering, and quite another thing to wonder occasionally, when the statement made, or question asked, is of such a nature as to _require_ or to _demand_ a _wonder_. it is possible to get into the way of wondering so that you will not know when you do _wonder_. it is supposed that persons only _wonder_ when things of great surprise and astonishment are heard, such as the fall of stars, the overthrow of cities by earthquakes, etc. at the reading or hearing of such things, it seems natural that persons should _wonder_. but why they should wonder at almost every trivial thing they ask in ordinary conversation is to me an inexplicable mystery. there is another use of the word which i had nearly forgotten. in american society i remember this word is used in the opposite sense to what it is in this country. "i have just come from new york by steamboat, and i saw mr. bouser on board." "well; i _wonder_!" is the reply. "i saw the moon in the sky as i came here this evening." "i _wonder_!" is the answer. "do you know i met a little girl of the sunday-school in the street?" "i _wonder_!" said a grave-looking lady. "mr. and miss lane are going to be married next week by mr. sparks." "i really _wonder_!" was the general exclamation of the company, although they had heard it before at different times. this wonderer in america is, if possible, more ludicrous than in england. in both he is ludicrous; and the sooner he changes into some other form of talker, more sensible, the better. xx. the termagant.--this is a talker chiefly of the female sex; and it is in this gender we shall give our sketch. jemima, the wife of job sykes, was a woman of turbulent and fiery temper; but he was a man calm and self-possessed. her tongue was as the pen of a ready-writer, in the rapidity with which it talked, and as the point of a needle and the edge of a razor in the keenness of its words. sometimes she was loud and boisterous, violent and raging, attacking her prey as a tigress, rather than as a human being. sometimes she was snappish, snarling, waspish. her husband, her children, her servants, her neighbours, all came in for their share, in their turn, of her bites, stings, and poisons. it was, however, poor job who fell in for the lion's share. alas for him! he often found the words of solomon to be true: "it is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman" (prov. xxi. 19). as there was no wilderness into which he could fly to escape the tongue of his dear jemima, he would fly away into a solitary room, or into the adjoining garden, or into a neighbour's house, or take a walk in the lonely road,--anywhere to shelter himself from the fiery droppings of his termagant spouse. the least imaginable thing that crossed her will or temper would set jemima's tongue-machine a-going; and when once started, it rattled away like a medley of tin, glass, and stones turned in a churn. it threw out words like razors, darts, fire-brands, scorpions, wasps, mosquitos, flying helter-skelter in all directions about the head of poor job, and he seldom escaped without wounds which lasted for days together. he has been known to receive cuts and bruises that have prevented his speaking to his "darling" for weeks in succession. mrs. caudle's lectures to her husband were mild, entertaining, and instructive to what job sykes received from mrs. sykes. mrs. caudle, i think, always addressed her beloved in the evening within curtains, when he was in such a condition of mind and body as rendered him impervious to the entrance of her loving words; so that he would even go to sleep under them, as a babe under the soothing lullaby of its mother. but job's dear wife fired away at him anywhere, at any time: night or day, at home or from home, in company or out of company. given the least cause, the attack would begin and be carried on until the ammunition was exhausted. as we have said, job was of a quiet disposition, although firm and never yielding his place to his "weaker vessel;" and he generally found that silence or "soft answers" were his best weapons. and so they are in every such case: and if any one of my readers is afflicted with a wife like job sykes' wife, he will find that his policy is the wisest to follow. sometimes a cure is effected in this talker, and the husband rejoices in the salvation wrought out for him. sometimes there is no cure excepting in the paralysis of death. this, too, is salvation to many hen-pecked husbands, in which they also rejoice. such has been the mighty deliverance accomplished for some, that they have even celebrated it by appropriate epitaphs on the tombstones of their buried partners. the following is one said to be at burlington, massachusetts:- "sacred to the memory of anthony drake, who died for peace and quietness' sake, his wife was constantly scolding and scoffing, so he sought repose in a twelve dollar coffin." there is another in ellon churchyard:- "here lies my wife in earthly mould, who, when she lived, did nought but scold. peace! wake her not, for now she's still; she had, but now i have _my_ will." xxxii. _a model talker._ "let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man."--paul. having devoted the previous pages to sketches of faulty talkers, i propose in this concluding chapter to give a description of a talker who may be exhibited as a model for imitation. as there is but one model man in the world, so there is only one model talker. the apostle james tells us who he is: "if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." but who is the man that offends not in word? where is he to be found? is he not rather an ideal being than a _real_ one? be he ideal or real, it may answer some good end to set him forth as far as his ideality or reality can be apprehended. it may be well to premise just here that when it is said "he _offends not in word_," it does not imply that no one ever _takes offence_ at his word, but that he offends not through any defect in his intention, that he is not held blamable or responsible for any offence taken at his word. not until every _hearer_ is perfect as well as every talker will offence cease on both sides. did offence taken by the hearer necessarily involve offence given by the talker, he of whom it was said, "never man spake like this man," would fail to be perfect; yea, even god himself would come short of perfection: for how many took offence at the words of jesus! and how many are continually offended at the words of the almighty! the following may be given as the outline features of a model talker. there is only space for an outline. he endeavours, as far as possible, to ascertain the temper and disposition of those with whom he talks. he is cautious how he receives and repeats anything that he hears from one in whose veracity he has not implicit confidence. if any one with whom he is talking says anything that is detrimental to the character and interests of an absent person, he hopes charitably that it is not true, and avoids circulating it in his conversation or in other ways. he does not impose his talk upon others against prudence and propriety. "he spareth his words in wisdom and understanding" (prov. xvii. 27). "whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles" (prov. xxi. 23). "he that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life" (prov. xiii. 3). no corrupt communication proceeds out of his mouth; no bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil-speaking, malice; no filthiness nor jesting, nor blasphemy, nor reviling, nor slander. (see eph. iv. 29, v. 4; col. iii. 8.) in the presence of fiery temper and enraged passion he says nothing to add fuel to the flame, but keeps calm and self-possessed. he never retaliates, or gives reviling for reviling, but contrariwise--good for evil, blessing for cursing. he flatters not any one in any way, but speaks the words of truth and soberness. he is not as the fox in the fable, who commended the singing of the crow when he wanted something that was in his mouth. he finds out as far as he can what is the particular _forte_ of knowledge held by those with whom he talks, and prudently converses upon it so as to promote mutual edification. he chooses such words as shall, in the clearest, truest, and most effective way, embody his thoughts and sentiments. he speaks the truth in everything, everywhere, and to every one, without equivocation, prevarication, or unjust hyperbolism. he avoids all affectation as a thing of the mountebank or pantomime, and appears himself without a jezebel's paint or a jacob's clothing, so that you may know at once who he is, what he says, and what he means. he reverences god and truth, avoiding as demoniacal all profane swearing, cursing, blasphemy, scoffing, and jeering. he modulates his voice to suit the company, the subject, and the place where he talks. he does not interrupt another in his talk, unless it is immoral, but hears him through, that he may the better understand him. he accustoms himself to think before he speaks. as zeno advises, he dips his tongue in his mind before he allows it to talk. it is said that a fool thinks _after_ he has spoken, and a wise man _before_. he does not pry with a curious and inquisitive spirit into the affairs of others. if they are wise not to reveal, he is wise not to inquire. he is no blabber, to divulge secrets committed to his bosom for security by confiding friendship. he speaks not evil of the absent, unless in case of self-defence, or as a witness, or in vindication of righteousness and truth; and when he does, he adheres closely to fact, and evinces the absence of envy, malice, or vindictiveness in his motives. he guards against the exhibition of his own wisdom, knowledge, goodness, as a boaster or egotist. he is no more a self-flatterer than a flatterer of others. he does not mark the failings of those who talk with him or around him in company, and take them up in carping criticism or biting ridicule. he does not dogmatize, wrangle, quibble, as though he was an autocrat or a pugilist. he thinks and lets think. he is as willing for others to talk their views in their way as he wishes them to be willing that he should do the same. he is no censor or grumbler. he remembers that he shall be judged, and judges not others. in everything he gives thanks. if things and persons are not as he thinks they should be, he tries to make them better, rather than spend his words and time in useless complaining. he is no willow to bend before every breeze of opinion, nor an oak to stand unmoved in every change of the intellectual atmosphere. he maintains his conscientious convictions with manly dignity and independence, but not with a dogged tenacity which snaps at every resistance, and holds on simply because he will. he blends the grave and joyous in his conversation. he is neither a jester nor a hermit; neither a misanthrope nor a fool. "sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing," he "weeps with them that weep, and rejoices with them that rejoice." he is like the heavens; he has sunshine and cloud, each in its season, seemly, appropriate, useful. "though life's valley be a vale of tears, a brighter scene beyond that vale appears, whose glory, with a light that never fades, shoots between scattered rocks and opening shades; and while it shows the land the soul desires, the language of the land she seeks inspires. thus touched, the tongue receives a sacred cure of all that was absurd, profane, impure; held within modest bounds, the tide of speech pursues the course that truth and nature teach; no longer labours merely to produce the pomp of sound or tinkle without use; where'er it winds, the salutary stream, sprightly and fresh, enriches every theme, while all the happy man possessed before, the gift of nature, or the classic store, is made subservient to the grand design for which heaven formed the faculty divine. so, should an idiot, while at large he strays, find the sweet lyre on which an artist plays, with rash and awkward force the chords he shakes, and grins with wonder at the jar he makes; but let the wise and well-instructed hand once take the shell beneath his just command: in gentle sounds it seems as it complained of the rude injuries it late sustained, till, tuned at length to some immortal song, it sounds jehovah's name, and pours his praise along." such is my model talker. another hand may have drawn a different one: perhaps much better, _or_ perhaps much worse. some, in looking at him, may be disposed to think that he is too antiquated, too precise, too spiritual, too scripturified; not enough broadness, strength, liberty. before this judgment is formed, let there be a further examination of the entire character. "but it is all very well to give an ideal picture. we want the reality, and where can he be found?" that is perfectly true. the _reality_ is wanted in every family, society, church, and nation in the wide world. my reader, do you see and approve the ideal? then aim at the _reality_, and to be the first model human talker that has ever lived in this babel-talking world. mark well the failings of others in the use of their tongues, and strive to avoid them in your own. a heart and head united in being right will do almost everything in making the tongue right. when the interior of a watch is in order, it will generally indicate the right time: when a man in the belfry wisely pulls the rope attached to a bell, it will give a proper sound: when a musician is perfect in his art, and his instrument in tune, the music he plays will agree thereto. so, reader, is it with the tongue, when the "man of the head and heart" are perfect in christ jesus. seek, and obtain this, and you will be among those who "offend not in word." "what! never speak one evil word, or rash, or idle, or unkind? o how shall i, most gracious lord, this mark of true perfection find? thy sinless mind in me reveal, thy spirit's plenitude of grace; and all my spoken words shall tell the fulness of a loving heart." the end. printed by hazell, watson, and viney, london and aylesbury. by the same author. valuable work for ministers, lay preachers, sunday school teachers, etc. eighth edition, _revised and enlarged, 8vo, cloth, 12s. 6d.; half morocco, 18s.; whole morocco, elegant, 25s._ a cyclopædia of illustrations of moral and religious truths; consisting of definitions, metaphors, synonymes, contrasts, analogies, statistics, anecdotes, etc. _designed for the pulpit, the platform, the school, and the family: selected from authors ancient and modern._ the following particulars may be mentioned as the peculiar features of this work:-i. =arrangement=: the subjects are consecutively and analytically placed, so that the illustrations desired can at once be found by a reference to the letters beginning the proper word of the subject. each illustration has over it the precise subject, as near as could be ascertained, for which it was intended by the author, forming in itself a thought upon the general subject. ii. =comprehensiveness=: scarcely any point within the compass of theology and morals, in all their phases and relations, is omitted. there is from one to ninety or a hundred illustrations on each general subject. the work contains between six and seven thousand illustrations, gathered from more than eight hundred authors. iii. =newness of illustration=: the greater proportion of the matter has never appeared before the public, apart from the respective authors. there is also a variety of _original_ illustrations, for the first time appearing in print. _clergymen of the church of england, ministers of all denominations, lay preachers, sunday school teachers, and all purchasers, have testified to the excellence of this work, as well as the press in england and america. the fact that the_ =eighth edition= _has been called for in so short a time is a sufficient recommendation of its worth and usefulness._ jarrold & sons, 3, paternoster buildings, london. * * * * * transcriber's note: additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text. the following misprints have been corrected: "misanthorpe" corrected to "misanthrope" (page xiv) "scorcerer" corrected to "sorcerer" (page 103) "acquiantances" corrected to "acquaintances" (page 175) "anbody" corrected to "anybody" (page 200) "i i" corrected to "i" (page 209) "or" corrected to "to" (page 238) -or the deaf or hear? "a a" corrected to "a" (page 269) "suggusts" corrected to "suggests"(page 290) "meer" corrected to "mere" (page 308) "rupublican" corrected to "republican" (page 322) "is is" corrected to "is" (page 328) other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation usage have been retained. 