Chapter XIII: An Unsuccessful Fiasco

I AM not quite sure whether I have spoken of it but by
profession, trade, occupation, I am a writer. I write short
stories under an assumed name and therefore the telling of the
events of the summer is in a manner easy for me.

But I not only write stories; I also at times read stories, and
I have been known to recite—not in an impassioned way but merely
foolishly. The previous winter had been a hard one in more ways
than one for both Ethel and myself, but toward the close of it
the winning of a prize in a story competition had given me
enough money to enable me to knock off work for all summer, and
it had seemed wise to take advantage of such a chance to rest
and lie fallow.

I did not mention my occupation at the start because I was
afraid that readers would say, “Oh, dear, this is a story by a
literary man, and nothing will happen in it.” You see now-a-days
when men in all walks of life write of what they have done, and
make books of their writings, the people who read books have
gotten to the point when they look with suspicion on a story
that is written by a mere professional writer. They say, “Oh, he
has done nothing but write. Let us read the book of the man who
has first done and has then written.”

But you who have read thus far may feel in a way friendly to
Minerva, and the rest, and so I take you into my confidence and
make the pun to you that won for me a rebuke from Ethel. Letters
spell livelihood for me.

The Congregational Minister, Egbert Hughson, and his wife
returned to us in a few minutes and after the moving accident
had been discussed for a certain length of time, he came to the
matter that had brought him up.

He was a smooth shaven alert, Western man of about thirty, I
should say, and I marked him out as a type of the modern
muscular Christian, and this guess proved to have been correct.
He was an Iowan who had come East to study, had graduated from
Williams and after a year in a small Iowa church had been called
to Egerton through the good offices of a former class-mate.

I hope I may not be accused of egotism if I set down plainly
what Mr. Hughson said. The denouement is not what an egotist
would roll under his tongue. During the narration of the episode
let me treat Philip Vernon quite as if he did not press the keys
with which I am writing this.

“Mr. Vernon, I did not know until Deacon Fotherby told me, that
we had so distinguished a man amongst us. I have read your
sketches in the _Antarctic Monthly_ with a great deal of
pleasure, and although you use a pen name, still I happened to
know that you were the author. I also understand that you
sometimes recite.”

I bowed assent. I could have told him the rest. He was going to
say: “Now the Y. P. S. C. E. are about to give a little literary
entertainment for the benefit of the library and it would add
interest to the proceedings if you would do us the great honor
of reciting one or more pieces for us, or perhaps read something
of your own.”

I guessed right. He said it, allowing for certain unimportant
verbal variations. I think it was the Y. M. S. C., instead of
the Y. P. S. C. E., and instead of saying “it would add interest
to the proceedings,” he said it would “give the affair a
literary flavour”—words of the same import.

I told him that Mrs. Vernon had come up to rest, but that did
not head him off. I really didn’t suppose it would. I was merely
making his task a little difficult, so that he would appreciate
me the more. We writers all do things like that. If I had fallen
into his arms and had said, “Recite; why I’ll do the whole
programme,” while he would have thanked me, he would have felt
that he had gotten me so easily that I could not be worth much.

“Well, surely,” said he, “it won’t tire Mrs. Vernon for you to
come and talk to us. You’ll be doing a favour to your fellows.”

Ah, now it was time for me to come down gracefully off my perch,
and I consented to sing my little song. Altruism is the lesson
of the hour, and I think I have learned it. I have been taught
it often enough by various committees. Committees believe firmly
in altruism. “Altruism,” say they, “is the getting of a man to
do something worth something for nothing.” Some define altruism
as “Depriving the labourer of his hire for the good of others.”

I would not care to be misunderstood in this matter. I really
think that if a man has talents he ought to use them to the
benefit of his fellows, but I have known so many poor strugglers
in New York who, when they were struggling most frantically,
have been asked by complaisant committees to _give_ their
services for the entertainment of the Grand-Daughters of
Evolution or some other body perfectly capable of _paying_ for
their services that I am rather glad of this opportunity of
freeing my mind.

Altruism begins at home. If you believe in it, practise it
yourself, but until you have learned to think about the _needs_
of the other fellow, don’t ask him to think of your _luxuries_.

The upshot of the whole matter was that I told Mr. Hughson that
I would be glad to come and recite the following Wednesday (a
week later), and a week later we hired Bert’s wagon, and with
James holding the reins, Minerva by his side (of course we could
not leave her at home alone) and Ethel and I on the back seat,
we drove down to the Sunday School of the church.

I wish that the good pastor had introduced me. He was a man who
had moved among his fellows and who knew life and had a sense of
values, while the man who did introduce me, and who shall be
nameless, was insincere, shallow, a flatterer and fond of the
sound of his own voice.

I can say these things thus plainly, because he is now spending
a year or so in State prison for breaking the sixth commandment.
(No need to look it up; it is “Thou Shalt Not Steal.”)

To tell the truth, I did not want to be introduced. I had not
recited for months, and I was feeling frightfully nervous. So
much so that my knees wabbled, my palms were moist and my throat
parched.

I would gladly have given the Y. M. S. C. ten dollars to release
me, only I didn’t have my check-book with me.

This full-whiskered man, who was the Sunday School
superintendent, took his long length up onto the platform and
bowing and grimacing said, in a hard, flat voice,

“Ladies and gentlemen, I think that we of Egerton have always
been fortunate in securing the summer services of various people
who are eminent in the walks of life to which it has pleased God
to call them. You may remember that last summer we had the
eminent English scientist, Professor Drysden, who did some very
clever card tricks for us; the year before we had Rev. Amaziah
Barton, who sang a very amusing coon song for us, and I think it
was the year before that that the famous Arctic explorer, whose
name escapes me, entertained us with ventriloquial tricks. All
these men showed in thus—er—doing things that were in a measure
outside of the ordinary line of their duties, how manifold are
the workings of the human brain.

“To-night we have with us a man whose name is known wherever the
English language is spoken; a man whose erudite works are upon
every shelf, a man who has reflected lustre upon the language
spoken by Chaucer and Spenser—”

(I have never written anything under the name of Philip Vernon,
so that my hearers were so far entirely in the dark as to my
identity.)

“Mr. Vernon is a frequent contributor to the _Antarctic
Magazine_, and those of us who feel that the month has not been
well spent until we have absorbed its contents know Mr. Vernon’s
work as we know our Bibles.

“We have been told by a celebrated philosopher that a little
nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men, and there
is a great deal of truth in the remark. I am not above smiling
at a joke myself; no one can afford to be so engrossed with the
affairs of the world as never to permit a jocose remark to pass
his lips.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and so Mr. Vernon
is going to unbend to-night, and will make you shriek with
laughter by his card tricks.”

Here he was interrupted by the Rev. Mr. Hughson, who said in a
loud whisper, “No, he is going to recite.”

I was boiling. If I had been Mark Twain himself, such an
introduction would have made whatever followed in the nature of
an anti-climax. As I was to the audience simply an unknown “Mr.
Vernon,” it was little less than cruelty to animals.

“Oh, surely. I am sure we are all prepared to laugh heartily at
the witticisms and comical actions of Mr. Philip Vernon, the
great author whom I now take pleasure in introducing to you.”

Ethel was well in the back of the room. She hates to hear me
recite, as she is always afraid that I will go to pieces, a fear
that I have often told her was groundless, as whatever else may
happen, I always keep control of myself, but this evening the
malapropos idiocies of the asinine gentleman on the platform
upset me so that I hardly knew what I was doing when I stumbled
up alongside of him.

I had chosen a poem that is not humourous in itself, but by
means of perverting its written meanings and by the use of
uncouth gestures the thing has served to create amusement among
my friends and (when I am feeling in the mood for it) even among
my enemies. But to-night I was not feeling humourous; only
angry.

I bowed to the audience, bowed to the minister, bowed to the
idiot who had misintroduced me, and then I began the thing, and
to Ethel’s intense relief (for I happened to look at her) the
audience burst out into laughter before I had finished the first
verse. The second verse caused them to laugh still more, and
instead of keeping my wits entirely on the matter in hand I
allowed myself to think of both what my audience was doing and
what the man had been saying, and the consequence was what it is
apt to be if a man loses grip of his work. I lost my lines. I
had recited the thing dozens of times, but now not a word would
come to me. I smoothed my moustache and coughed in character,
and took a step or two around the platform, as if I were leading
up to some business and then I bowed suddenly and walked into
the cloak room, where I was followed by Ethel, and for the next
two minutes I had all I could do to restrain her sobs. She was
hysterical.

As for me, I was angry clear through, and when the pastor came
in I started to tell him, but he raised his hand and I saw that
he understood better than I could say. He grasped my hand and I
knew that he was a man of feeling.

“It’s all right,” said he. “The audience is laughing and
applauding, and they think you meant to do it. Go back and give
them something else.”

It was as if a flash of lightning had shown me a way of escape
from a perilous lodgment.

“Do you mean it?” said I.

He opened the door a little and I could hear them clapping their
hands.

“Ethel, I’ll go in and tell them that story I wrote for Mazie.”

Back to the platform I went, with my mind full of a nonsense
story I had written for my niece.

I was received by enthusiastic applause, and heartened by their
kindly feeling I told them the following story, which I called:

“The Mother of Little Maude and Little Maude.”

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Maude, and she
went out a-driving in a four-wheeled carriage drawn by two
four-legged horses and driven by one two-legged driver. And the
dear little girl named Maude sat on the front seat by the
two-legged driver and Maude’s dear Mama sat on the back seat by
herself, which is not the same as _beside_ herself.

And all of a sudden the horses, which had only been running
before, began to run away. And the dear little girl named Maude
wished to let her mamma know that they were running away, but
she did not wish to alarm her too suddenly, for sometimes shocks
are serious.

And the dear little girl named Maude saw a reporterman walking
along the sidewalk looking for news for his paper. So she called
to the reporterman and said, “I wish to speak to you on
business.”

And the reporterman was agile, and he jumped on the step of the
carriage, and the little girl said to him, “Please get it into
your paper that the horses are running away, and I wish my dear
mamma to know it. I am none other than little Maude.”

And the reporterman did not know that the lady on the back seat
was the mamma of little Maude, so he raised his cap and jumped
from the carriage and nearly fell down in so doing, for the
horses were now running madly on eight legs, and the driver was
getting nervous and the reporterman went to the newspaper office
and wrote: “The horses of the little girl who is none other than
little Maude, are running away and it is a pretty serious
business, for her mamma does not know it, and there is no
telling when the horses will stop.”

And they slapped this news into type, and then it was printed in
the newspaper, and a newsboy took the papers and ran into the
street, crying “Extry! Extry! Full account of the running away
of the horses of the little girl, who is none other than little
Maude.”

And Maude’s mamma heard the little boy, and she beckoned to him
to bring her a paper. And the newsboy was also agile, and he
leaped upon the step and sold a paper to the lady for a cent and
then he jumped off again, for he had other papers to sell.

And the mamma of little Maude began to read the news. And when
she came to the part that said the horses of little Maude were
running away, she looked straight ahead and saw that it was
indeed true.

And with great presence of mind she climbed over the back seat
and dropped to the ground unhurt. And when little Maude saw that
her dear mamma had escaped, she also climbed over the back seat
and dropped to the ground unhurt. And when the driver saw that
Maude’s mamma and little Maude had escaped, he also climbed over
the back seat and dropped to the ground unhurt.

And the two horses, who were very intelligent and who had
wondered what would be the outcome of their runaway, got into
the carriage and they also climbed over the back seat and
dropped to the ground unhurt.

* * * * *

The ride home was pleasanter than I had expected it to be. When
I had stepped off the platform after my fiasco, I understood how
a suicide felt. When I stepped off the second time I felt
better.

“I almos’ bus’ laughin’,” said Minerva, as she climbed into the
carriage.

“Thank you, Minerva,” said I, fully appreciating both the
compliment and her peril.

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