Chapter II: Part 2

Naturally, it is not to be expected that Yale and Harvard men should meet on terms of perfect amity immediately and that the old bitterness should disappear within the time of our own generation. Such a miracle is beyond the scope of our intention. Too much has happened. Just what it was that Yale originally did to Harvard we don't profess to know. It was enough we suppose to justify the trial of the issue by combat four times a year in the major sports. Curiously enough, for a good many years Yale seemed to grow more and more right if judged in the light of these tests. But the truth is mighty and shall prevail and the righteousness of Harvard's cause began to be apparent with the coming of Percy Haughton. God, as some cynic has said, is always on the side which has the best football coach.

Our suggestion is that whatever deep wrong Yale once committed against Harvard, a process of diminution of feeling should be allowed to set in. After all, can't the men of Cambridge be broadminded about these things and remember that nothing within the power of Yale could possibly hurt Harvard very much? Even in the days when the blue elevens were winning with great regularity there should have been consolation enough in the thought that Harvard's Greek department still held the edge. Seemingly nobody ever thought of that. In the 1906 game a Harvard half-back named Nichols was sent in late in the game while the score was still a tie. On practically the first play he dropped a punt which led directly to a Yale touchdown and victory.

Throughout the rest of his university career he was known in college as "the man who dropped the punt." When his brother entered Harvard two years later he was promptly christened, and known for his next four years, as "the brother of the man who dropped the punt."

Isn't this a little excessive? It seems so to us, but the emphasis has not yet shifted. Only a month or so ago we were talking in New Haven before an organization of Yale graduates upon a subject so unpartisan as the American drama--though to be sure Harvard has turned out ten playwrights of note to every one from Yale--and somehow or other the talk drifted around to football. In pleading for less intensity of football feeling we mentioned the man who dropped the punt and his brother and told how Yale had recovered the fatal fumble on Harvard's nineteen-yard line. Then, with the intention of being jocose, we remarked, "The Yale eleven with characteristic bulldog grit and courage carried the ball over the line." To our horror and amazement the audience immediately broke into applause and long cheers.

Some of my best friends are Yale men and there is no basis for the common Harvard assumption that graduates of New Haven's leading university are of necessity inferior to the breed of Cambridge. Still, there is, perhaps, just a shade of difference in the keenness of perception for wit. Practically all the Harvard anecdotes about Yale which we know are pointed and sprightly, while Yale is content with such inferior and tasteless jibes as the falsetto imitation which begins "Fiercely fellows, sift through." Even the audience of graduates to which we referred was singularly cold to the anecdote about the difference in traditions which prevails at New Haven and at Cambridge. "When a Yale man is sick, the authorities immediately assume that he is drunk. When a Harvard man is drunk, the authorities assume that he is sick."

Nor were we successful in retelling the stirring appeal of a well-known organizer who was seeking to consolidate various alumni bodies into a vast unified employment agency for college men. "There should be," he cried, "one great clearing house. Then when somebody came for a man to tutor his children we could send him a Harvard man and if he needed somebody to help with the furnace, we'd have a Yale graduate for him."

Joking with undergraduates we found still more disastrous. After the last Harvard-Yale football game--score Harvard 9, Yale 0, which doesn't begin to indicate the margin of superiority of the winning team--we wrote an article of humorous intent for a New York newspaper. Naturally our job as a reporter prevented us from being partisan in our account of the game. Accordingly, in a temperate and fairminded spirit, we set down the fact that, through the connivance of the New York press, Yale has become a professional underdog and that any Harvard victory in which the score is less than forty-two to nothing is promptly hailed as a moral victory for Yale.

Developing this news angle for a few paragraphs, we eventually came to the unfortunate fist fight between Kempton of Yale and Gaston of Harvard which led to both men being put out of the game. It was our bad luck to see nothing but the last half second of the encounter. As a truthful reporter we made this admission but naturally went on to add, "Of course, we assume that Kempton started it." For weeks we continued to receive letters from Yale undergraduates beginning, "My attention has been called to your article" and continuing to ask with great violence how a reporter could possibly tell who started a fight without seeing the beginning of it. Some letters of like import were from Princeton men.

Princeton is always quick to rally to the defense of Yale against Harvard. This suggests a possibly common meeting ground for Harvard and Yale. Of course, they can hardly meet on the basis of a common language for the speech of Yale is quite alien. For instance, they call their "yard" a "campus." Also, there are obvious reasons why they cannot meet as equal members in the fellowship of educated men. Since this is a nonpartisan article designed to promote good feeling it will probably be just as well not to go into this. Though football is the chief interest at New Haven, Yale men often display a surprising sensitiveness to attacks on the scholarship of their local archaeologists. Nor will religion do as a unifier. Yale is evangelical and prays between the halves, while Harvard is mostly agnostic, if it isn't Unitarian. No, just one great cause can be discovered in which Harvard men and Yale men can stand shoulder to shoulder and lift their voices in a common cause. Each year some public spirited citizen ought to hire Madison Square Garden and turn it over to all graduates and undergraduates of Harvard and of Yale for a great get-together meeting in which past differences should be forgotten in one deep and full throated shout of "To Hell with Princeton!"

Bacillus and Circumstance

IT is evening in the home of Peter J. Cottontail. The scene is a conventional parlor of a rabbit family of the upper middle class. About the room there is the sort of furniture a well-to-do rabbit would have, and on the shelves the books you would naturally expect. _Leaves of Grass_ is there, of course; possibly _Cabbages and Kings_, and perhaps a volume or two of _The Winning of the West_, with a congratulatory inscription from the author. The walls have one or two good prints of hunting scenes and an excellent lithographic likeness of Thomas Malthus, but most of the space is given over to photographs of the family.

In the center of the room is a small square table, the surface of which is covered with figures ranged in curious patterns such as 2 x 5 = 10, and even so radical an arrangement as 7 x 8 = 56. At the rise of the curtain Peter J. Cottontail is discovered seated in an easy chair reading the current edition of _The New York Evening Post_. He is middle-aged and wears somewhat ill fitting brown fur, tinged with gray, and horn-rimmed spectacles. He looks a little like Lloyd George. As a matter of fact, his grandfather was Welsh. The actor should convey to the audience by means of pantomime that he has made more than a thousand dollars that afternoon by selling Amalgamated Cabbage short, and that there will be a tidy surplus for himself even after he has fulfilled his promise to make up the deficit incurred by the charity hop of the Bone Dry Prohibition Union. Now and again he smiles and pats his stomach complacently. It is essential that the actor should indicate beyond the peradventure of a doubt that Peter J. Cottontail has never touched spirituous or malt liquors or anything containing more than two per cent of alcohol per fluid ounce.

As P. J. Cottontail peruses his paper the ceiling of the room is suddenly plucked aside and two hands are thrust into the parlor. One of the hands seizes Mr. Cottontail, and the other hand, which holds a hypodermic needle, stabs the helpless householder and injects into his veins the contents of the needle. It is a fluid gray and forbidding. There is no sound unless the actor who plays Cottontail chooses to squeak just once.

Here the curtain descends. It rises again almost immediately, but five days are supposed to have elapsed. Mr. Cottontail is again seated in the center of the room, and he is again reading _The Evening Post_. The property man should take pains to see that the paper shall be dated five days later than the one used in the prologue. It might also be well to change the headline from "Submarine Crisis Acute" to "Submarine Crisis Still Acute." It is also to be noted that on this occasion Mr. Cottontail has removed his right shoe in favor of a large, roomy slipper. On the opposite side of the table sits Mrs. Cottontail. She is middle-aged but comely. A strong-minded female, one would say, with a will of her own, but rather in awe of the ability and more particularly the virtue of Mr. Cottontail. Yet Mr. Cottontail is evidently in ill humor this evening. He takes no pleasure in his paper, but fidgets uneasily. At last he speaks with great irritation.

MR. COTTONTAIL--Is that doctor ever coming?

MRS. COTTONTAIL--I left word at Doctor Cony's house that you were in a good deal of pain, and that he should come around the minute he got home. (_The door bell rings_.) Here he is now. I'll send him up. (_She goes out the door, and a few moments later there enters Dr. Charles Cony. He is a distinguished and forceful physician, but a meager little body for all that. He carries a black bag_.)

DR. CONY (_removing his gloves and opening the bag_)--Sorry I couldn't get here any sooner, but I've been on the go all day. An obstetrician gets mighty little rest hereabouts, I can tell you. Well, now, Mr. Cottontail, what can I do for you? What seems to be the trouble?

COTTONTAIL (_pointing to the open door, and lifting one finger to his mouth_)--Shush!

DR. CONY--Really! (_The physician crosses the room in one hop and closes the door_.)

COTTONTAIL--The pain's in my foot. My big toe, I think, but that's not what worries me--

DR. CONY (_breaking in_)--Pains worse at night than it does during the daytime, doesn't it? Throbs a bit right now, hey?

COTTONTAIL--Yes, it does, but that isn't the trouble.

DR. CONY--That's trouble enough. I'll try to have you loping around again in a month or so.

COTTONTAIL--But there's more than the pain. It's the worry. I haven't told a soul. I thought at first it might be a nightmare.

DR. CONY--Dreams, eh? Very significant, sometimes, but we'll get to them later.

COTTONTAIL--But I'm afraid it wasn't a dream.

DOCTOR--What wasn't a dream?

COTTONTAIL--Last Tuesday evening I was sitting in this room, quietly reading _The Evening Post_, when suddenly something tore the ceiling away, and down from above there came ten horrible pink tentacles and seized me in an iron grasp. Then something stabbed me with some sharp instrument. I was too frightened to move for several minutes, but when I looked up the ceiling was back in place as if nothing had touched it. I felt around for the wound, but the only thing I could find, was a tiny scratch that seemed so small I might have had it some time without noticing it. I couldn't be sure it was a wound. In fact, I tried to make myself believe that the whole thing was all a dream, until I was taken sick to-night. Now I'm afraid that the sword, or whatever it was that stabbed me, must have been poisoned.

DR. CONY (_sharply_)--Let me look at your tongue. (Cottontail complies.) Seems all right. Hold out your hands. Spread your fingers. (_He studies the patient for a moment_.) Nothing much the matter there. (_Producing pen and paper_.) If it was only March now I'd know what to say. Let's see what we can find out about hereditary influence. Father and mother living?

COTTONTAIL--I had no father or mother. I came out of a trick hat in a vaudeville act.

DR. CONY--That makes it a little more difficult, doesn't it? Do you happen to remember what sort of a hat?

COTTONTAIL (_a little proudly_)--It was quite a high hat.

DR. CONY--Yes, it would be. What color?

COTTONTAIL--Black and shiny.

DR. CONY--That seems normal enough. I'm afraid there's nothing significant there. (_Anxiously_.) No fixed delusions? You don't think you're Napoleon or the White Rabbit or anything like that, do you? Do you feel like growling or biting anybody?

COTTONTAIL--Of course not. There's nothing the matter with my brain.

DR. CONY--Perhaps you went to sleep and dreamed it all.

COTTONTAIL--No, I distinctly saw the ceiling open and I felt the stab very sharply. I couldn't possibly have been asleep. I was reading a most interesting dramatic review in _The Evening Post_.

DR. CONY--But you weren't stabbed in the big toe, now, were you?

COTTONTAIL--Well, no.

DR. CONY--And you will admit that the ceiling's just the same as it ever was?

COTTONTAIL--It looks the same from here. I haven't called any workmen in yet to examine it.

DR. CONY--Take my advice and don't. Just let's keep the matter between ourselves and forget it. I'm afraid you've been working too hard. Drop your business. Do a little light reading, and after a bit maybe I'd like to have you go to a show. Something with songs and bunny-hugging and jokes and chorus girls. None of this birth control stuff. I don't see how any self-respecting rabbit could go to a play like the one I saw last night. (_He goes to his instrument case and produces a stethoscope_.)

DR. CONY--Have you had your heart examined lately?

COTTONTAIL (_visibly nervous_)--No.

DR. CONY--Any shortness of breath or palpitation?

COTTONTAIL--I don't think so.

DR. CONY--If that's a vest you have on, take it off. There, now. (_He stands in front of Cottontail with his stethoscope poised in the air. Cottontail is trembling. Dr. Cony allows the hand holding the stethoscope to drop to his side and remarks provocatively_), I'll bet you Maranville doesn't hit .250 this season.

COTTONTAIL (_amazed_)--Really, sir, I never bet. No, never. I don't know what you are talking about, anyway.

DR. CONY--That's all right, that's all right. Don't agitate yourself. Just a little professional trick. I wanted to calm you down. Now (_he makes a hurried examination_), Mr. Cottontail, I don't want you to run. I don't want you to climb stairs. Avoid excitement and don't butter your parsnips. Fine words are just as good, no matter what anybody may tell you, and they don't create fatty tissue. Of course, you've got to have some exercise. You might play a little golf. Say, about three holes a day.

COTTONTAIL (_sadly_)--Three holes?

DR. CONY--Yes, that will be enough.

COTTONTAIL (_musing_)--It's a little tough, doctor. I can still remember the day I won my "H" at dear old Hassenpfeffer in the 'cross-country run. I had the lungs and the legs then. Even now I can feel the wind on my face as I came across the meadow and up that last, long hill. They were cheering for me to come on. I can tell you I just leaped along. It was nothing at all for me. If I'd sprinted just a bit sooner I could have been first in a hop. Anyhow, I was second. There was nobody ahead of me but the Tortoise. (_Cheerlessly_) Three holes of golf a day!

DR. CONY--Come, come, sir, be a rabbit. There's no cheating nature, you know. You had your fun, and now you must pay.

COTTONTAIL--What's the matter with me?

DR. CONY--Plain, old-fashioned gout.

COTTONTAIL--What does that come from?

DR. CONY (_with evident relish_)--From too much ale or porter or claret or burgundy or champagne or sherry or Rhine Wine or Clover Clubs or Piper Heidsieck or brandy or Bronxes or absinthe or stingers, but the worst of all and the best of all is port wine.

COTTONTAIL (_horrified_)--You mean it comes from drinking?

Dr. Cony--In all my twenty-five years of professional practice I have never known a case of gout without antecedent alcoholism.

COTTONTAIL (_much relieved_)--Well, then, it can't be gout. I've never taken a drink in my life.

Dr. Cony--In all my twenty-five years of professional experience I've never made an incorrect diagnosis. It is gout.

COTTONTAIL--But I'm president of the Bone Dry Prohibition Union.

Dr. Cony--The more shame to you, sir.

COTTONTAIL--What shall I do?

DR. CONY--Obey my instructions implicitly. A good many doctors will tell you that they can't cure gout. Undoubtedly they are right. They can't. But I can. Only you simply must stop drinking. Cutting down and tapering off to ten or twelve drinks a day won't do. You must stop absolutely. No liquor at all. Do you understand? Not a drop, sir.

COTTONTAIL (_his nose violently palpitating with emotion_)--I never took a drink in my life. I'm president of the Bone Dry Prohibition Union. I was just sitting quietly reading _The Evening Post_--

DR. CONY--Save that story for your bone-dry friends. I have nothing to do with your past life. I'm not judging you. It's nature that says the alcoholic must pay and pay and pay. I'm only concerned now with the present and the future, and the present is that you're suffering from alcoholism manifested in gout, and the future is that you'll die if you don't stop drinking.

COTTONTAIL--I tell you I promised my Sunday school teacher when I was a boy that I would always be a Little Light Bearer, and that I would never take a drink if I lived to be a hundred.

DR. CONY--Don't worry, you won't live that long, and don't take on so. You're not the first one that's had his fun and then been dragged up by the heels for it. Cheer up. Remember the good times that are gone. Life can't be all carrots, you know.

COTTONTAIL--But I never had any good times.

DR. CONY--Oh, yes, you did, I'll warrant you. There must have been many merry nights as the bottle passed around the table. (_With evident gusto_) Maybe there was a rousing song--"When Leeks Are Young in Springtime"--or something like that, and I wouldn't be surprised if now and again there was some fluffy little miss to sing soprano to your bass. Youth! Youth! To be young, a rabbit and stewed. (_Quoting reminiscently_) "A leaf of lettuce underneath the bough." After all, salad days are the best days. I never meet an old rabbit with gout but I take off my hat and say, "Sir, you have lived."

COTTONTAIL (_wildly_)--It's not true. I never lived like that. I never took a drink in my life. You can ask anybody. Nobody ever saw me take a drink.

DR. CONY--That's bad. You solitary drunkards are always the hardest to handle. But you've simply got to stop. You must quit drinking or die, that's all there is to it.

COTTONTAIL--This is terrible. It must have been that poisoned sword. I tell you, I was just sitting here quietly, reading _The Evening Post_--

DR. CONY--My dear sir, please rid yourself right away of the alcoholic's habit of confusing cause and effect. He thinks he's sick because green elephants are walking on him, while, as a matter of fact, green elephants are walking on him because he's sick. It's terribly simple, when you stop to figure it out.

COTTONTAIL--You don't think I saw any pink monster come through the ceiling?

DR. CONY--On the contrary, I'm sure you did. But the point is, you mustn't see him again, and the only way to avoid seeing him is to quit drinking. Your fun's done. Now, be a good patient and tell me you'll stop drinking--

COTTONTAIL--I tell you I never had any fun. I never had any fun--

DR. CONY--Well, strictly speaking, it isn't the fun that hurts you, it's the rum. You must stop, even if you hate the stuff. Do you understand?

COTTONTAIL (_hysterical_)--I can't stop, I can't stop; I never started, I can't stop--

DR. CONY--Very well, sir, I must insist on taking the only measure that will save your life. (_He steps to the door and calls_) Mrs. Cottontail, will you come here immediately?

(_Enter Mrs. Cottontail_.)

COTTONTAIL--My dear--

DR. CONY--If you please, madame. Let me explain first. You can have it out with your husband later. I'm sorry to tell you, Mrs. Cottontail, that your husband has gout. He has contracted it from excessive drinking. You knew, of course, that he was a heavy drinker?

MRS. COTTONTAIL (_surprised, but not in the least incredulous_)--I couldn't go so far as to say I knew it.

DR. CONY--He must stop or he'll die.

COTTONTAIL (_rapidly and wildly_)--I can explain everything, my dear. The doctor's all wrong. The whole trouble is somebody pulled the roof off the other day and stabbed me with a poisoned sword. I was right here in this room. I was just quietly reading _The Evening Post_. I knew no good would come of our moving into this new apartment house, with its fancy wire and green paint and free food, and all the rest of it.

DR. CONY (_to Mrs. Cottontail, who aids him in ignoring the patient_)--You can see for yourself, madame, just how rational he is. I leave him in your care, Mrs. Cottontail. Don't let him out of your sight. Try and find out where he gets his liquor. If he pleads with you for a drink, be firm with him. Follow him everywhere. Make him obey. It won't be hard in his enfeebled condition. I'll be around to-morrow. (_To Cottontail_) Remember, one drink may be fatal.

(_Exit Dr. Cony_.)

COTTONTAIL--My dear, it was a pink monster, with an enormous dagger. It lifted off the ceiling--

MRS. COTTONTAIL--Peter, can't you even be temperate in your lies?

COTTONTAIL (_sinking helplessly in his chair_)--My dear, I was just sitting quietly, reading _The Evening Post_--

MRS. COTTONTAIL--You brute! I always had a feeling you were too good to be true.

COTTONTAIL (_feebly and hopelessly_)--I was just sitting, reading _The Evening Post_ (_his voice trails off into nothingness. He sits motionless, huddled up in the chair. Suddenly he speaks again, but it is a new voice, strangely altered._) Mopsy, give me _The Sun_.

MRS. COTTONTAIL (_looking at him in amazement_)--What do you say?

COTTONTAIL (_His muscles relax. His eyes stare stupidly. He speaks without sense or expression_)--_The Sun! The Sun! The Evening Sun!_

(_He is quite mad_.)

(_Curtain_.)

Death Says It Isn't So

THE scene is a sickroom. It is probably in a hospital, for the walls are plain and all the corners are eliminated in that peculiar circular construction which is supposed to annoy germs. The shades are down and the room is almost dark. A doctor who has been examining the sick man turns to go. The nurse at his side looks at him questioningly.

THE DOCTOR (_briskly_)--I don't believe he'll last out the day. If he wakes or seems unusually restless, let me know. There's nothing to do.

He goes out quietly, but quickly, for there is another man down at the end of the corridor who is almost as sick. The nurse potters about the room for a moment or two, arranging whatever things it is that nurses arrange. She exits l. c., or, in other words, goes out the door. There is just a short pause in the dark, quiet room shut out from all outside noises and most outside light. When the steam pipes are not clanking only the slow breathing of the man on the bed can be heard. Suddenly a strange thing happens.

The door does not open or the windows, but there is unquestionably another man in the room. It couldn't have been the chimney, because there isn't any. Possibly it is an optical illusion, but the newcomer seems just a bit indistinct for a moment or so in the darkened room. Quickly he raises both the window shades, and in the rush of bright sunlight he is definite enough in appearance. Upon better acquaintance it becomes evident that it couldn't have been the chimney, even if there had been one. The visitor is undeniably bulky, although extraordinarily brisk in his movements. He has a trick which will develop later in the scene of blushing on the slightest provocation. At that his color is habitually high. But this round, red, little man, peculiarly enough, has thin white hands and long tapering fingers, like an artist or a newspaper cartoonist. Very possibly his touch would be lighter than that of the nurse herself. At any rate, it is evident that he walks much more quietly. This is strange, for he does not rise on his toes, but puts his feet squarely on the ground. They are large feet, shod in heavy hobnail boots. No one but a golfer or a day laborer would wear such shoes.

The hands of the little, round, red man preclude the idea that he is a laborer. The impression that he is a golfer is heightened by the fact that he is dressed loudly in very bad taste. In fact, he wears a plaid vest of the sort which was brought over from Scotland in the days when clubs were called sticks. The man in the gaudy vest surveys the sunshine with great satisfaction. It reaches every corner of the room, or rather it would but for the fact that the corners have been turned into curves. A stray beam falls across the eyes of the sick man on the bed. He wakes, and, rubbing his eyes an instant, slowly sits up in bed and looks severely at the fat little man.

THE SICK MAN (_feebly, but vehemently_)--No, you don't. I won't stand for any male nurse. I want Miss Bluchblauer.

THE FAT MAN--I'm not a nurse, exactly.

THE SICK MAN--Who are you?

THE FAT MAN (_cheerfully and in a matter of fact tone_)--I'm Death.

THE SICK MAN (_sinking back on the bed_)--That rotten fever's up again. I'm seeing things.

THE FAT MAN (_almost plaintively_)--Don't you believe I'm Death? Honest, I am. I wouldn't fool you. (_He fumbles in his pockets and produces in rapid succession a golf ball, a baseball pass, a G string, a large lump of gold, a receipted bill, two theater tickets and a white mass of sticky confection which looks as though it might be a combination of honey and something--milk, perhaps_)--I've gone and left that card case again, but I'm Death, all right.

THE SICK MAN--What nonsense! If you really were I'd be frightened. I'd have cold shivers up and down my spine. My hair would stand on end like the fretful porcupine. I'm not afraid of you. Why, when Sadie Bluchblauer starts to argue about the war she scares me more than you do.

THE FAT MAN (_very much relieved and visibly brighter_)--That's fine. I'm glad you're not scared. Now we can sit down and talk things over like friends.

THE SICK MAN--I don't mind talking, but remember I know you're not Death. You're just some trick my hot head's playing on me. Don't get the idea you're putting anything over.

THE FAT MAN--But what makes you so sure I'm not Death?

THE SICK MAN--Go on! Where's your black cloak? Where's your sickle? Where's your skeleton? Why don't you rattle when you walk?

THE FAT MAN (_horrified and distressed_)--Why should I rattle? What do I want with a black overcoat or a skeleton? I'm not fooling you. I'm Death, all right.

THE SICK MAN--Don't tell me that. I've seen Death a thousand times in the war cartoons. And I've seen him on the stage--Maeterlinck, you know, with green lights and moaning, and that Russian fellow, Andreyeff, with no light at all, and hollering. And I've seen other plays with Death--lots of them. I'm one of the scene shifters with the Washington Square Players. This isn't regular, at all. There's more light in here right now than any day since I've been sick.

THE FAT MAN--I always come in the light. Be a good fellow and believe me. You'll see I'm right later on. I wouldn't fool anybody. It's mean.

THE SICK MAN (_laughing out loud_)--Mean! What's meaner than Death? You're not Death. You're as soft and smooth-talking as a press agent. Why, you could go on a picnic in that make-up.

THE FAT MAN (_almost soberly_)--I've been on picnics.

THE SICK MAN--You're open and above board. Death's a sneak. You've got a nice face. Yes; you've got a mighty nice face. You'd stop to help a bum in the street or a kid that was crying.

THE FAT MAN--I have stopped for beggars and children.

THE SICK MAN--There, you see; I told you. You're kind and considerate. Death's the cruellest thing in the world.

THE FAT MAN (_very much agitated_)--Oh, please don't say that! It isn't true. I'm kind; that's my business. When things get too rotten I'm the only one that can help. They've got to have me. You should hear them sometimes before I come. I'm the one that takes them off battlefields and out of slums and all terribly tired people. I whisper a joke in their ears, and we go away, laughing. We always go away laughing. Everybody sees my joke, it's so good.

THE SICK MAN--What's the joke?

THE FAT MAN--I'll tell it to you later.

Enter the Nurse. She almost runs into the Fat Man, but goes right past without paying any attention. It almost seems as if she cannot see him. She goes to the bedside of the patient.

THE NURSE--So, you're awake. You feel any more comfortable?

The Sick Man continues to stare at the Fat Man, but that worthy animated pantomime indicates that he shall say nothing of his being there. While this is on, the Nurse takes the patient's temperature. She looks at it, seems surprised, and then shakes the thermometer.

THE SICK MAN (_eagerly_)--I suppose my temperature's way up again, hey? I've been seeing things this afternoon and talking to myself.

THE NURSE--No; your temperature is almost normal.

THE SICK MAN (_incredulously_)--Almost normal?

THE NURSE--Yes; under a hundred.

She goes out quickly and quietly. The Sick Man turns to his fat friend.

THE SICK MAN--What do you make of that? Less than a hundred. That oughtn't to make me see things; do you think so?

THE FAT MAN--Well, I'd just as soon not be called a thing. Up there I'm called good old Death. Some of the fellows call me Bill. Maybe that's because I'm always due.

THE SICK MAN--Rats! Is that the joke you promised me?

THE FAT MAN (_pained beyond measure_)--Oh, that was just a little unofficial joke. The joke's not like that. I didn't make up the real one. It wasn't made up at all. It's been growing for years and years. A whole lot of people have had a hand in fixing it up--Aristophanes and Chaucer and Shakespeare, and Mark Twain and Rabelais--

THE SICK MAN--Did that fellow Rabelais get in--up there?

THE FAT MAN--Well, not exactly, but he lives in one of the most accessible parts of the suburb, and we have him up quite often. He's popular on account of his after-dinner stories. What I might call his physical humor is delightfully reminiscent and archaic.

THE SICK MAN--There won't be any bodies, then?

THE FAT MAN--Oh, yes, brand new ones. No tonsils or appendixes, of course. That is, not as a rule. We have to bring in a few tonsils every year to amuse our doctors.

THE SICK MAN--Any shows?

THE FAT MAN--I should say so. Lots of 'em, and all hits. In fact, we've never had a failure (_provocatively_). Now, what do you think is the best show you ever saw?

THE SICK MAN (_reminiscently_)--Well, just about the best show I ever saw was a piece called "Fair and Warmer," but, of course, you wouldn't have that.

THE FAT MAN--Of course, we have. The fellow before last wanted that.

THE SICK MAN (_truculently_)--I'll bet you haven't got the original company.

THE FAT MAN (_apologetically_)--No, but we expect to get most of them by and by. Nell Gwyn does pretty well in the lead just now.

THE SICK MAN (_shocked_)--Did she get in?

THE FAT MAN--No, but Rabelais sees her home after the show. We don't think so much of "Fair and Warmer." That might be a good show for New York, but it doesn't class with us. It isn't funny enough.

THE SICK MAN (_with rising interest_)--Do you mean to say you've got funnier shows than "Fair and Warmer"?

THE FAT MAN--We certainly have. Why, it can't begin to touch that thing of Shaw's called "Ah, There, Annie!"

THE SICK MAN--What Shaw's that?

THE FAT MAN--Regular Shaw.

THE SICK MAN--A lot of things must have been happening since I got sick. I hadn't heard he was dead. At that I always thought that vegetable truck was unhealthy.

THE FAT MAN--He isn't dead.

THE SICK MAN--Well, how about this "Ah, There, Annie!"? He never wrote that show down here.

THE FAT MAN--But he will.

THE SICK MAN (_enormously impressed_)--Do you get shows there before we have them in New York?

THE FAT MAN--I tell you we get them before they're written.

THE SICK MAN (_indignantly_)--How can you do that?

THE FAT MAN--I wish you wouldn't ask me. The answer's awfully complicated. You've got to know a lot of higher math. Wait and ask Euclid about it. We don't have any past and future, you know. None of that nuisance about keeping shall and will straight.

THE SICK MAN--Well, I must say that's quite a stunt. You get shows before they're written.

THE FAT MAN--More than that. We get some that never do get written. Take that one of Ibsen's now, "Merry Christmas"--

THE SICK MAN (_fretfully_)--Ibsen?

THE FAT MAN--Yes, it's a beautiful, sentimental little fairy story with a ghost for the hero. Ibsen just thought about it and never had the nerve to go through with it. He was scared people would kid him, but thinking things makes them so with us.

THE SICK MAN--Then I'd think a sixty-six round Van Cortlandt for myself.

THE FAT MAN--You could do that. But why Van Cortlandt? We've got much better greens on our course. It's a beauty. Seven thousand yards long and I've made it in fifty-four.

THE SICK MAN (_suspiciously_)--Did you hole out on every green or just estimate?

THE FAT MAN (_stiffly_)--The score is duly attested. I might add that it was possible because I drove more than four hundred yards on nine of the eighteen holes.

THE SICK MAN--More than four hundred yards? How did you do that?

THE FAT MAN--It must have been the climate, or (_thoughtfully_) it may be because I wanted so much to drive over four hundred yards on those holes.

THE SICK MAN (_with just a shade of scorn_)--So that's the trick. I guess nobody'd ever beat me on that course; I'd just want the ball in the hole in one every time.

THE FAT MAN (in gentle reproof)--No, you wouldn't. Where you and I are going pretty soon we're all true sportsmen and nobody there would take an unfair advantage of an opponent.

THE SICK MAN--Before I go I want to know something. There's a fellow in 125th Street's been awful decent to me. Is there any coming back to see people here? (_A pause_.)

THE FAT MAN--I can't explain to you yet, but it's difficult to arrange that. Still, I wouldn't say that there never were any slumming parties from beyond the grave.

THE SICK MAN (_shivering_)--The grave! I'd forgotten about that.

THE FAT MAN--Oh, you won't go there, and, what's more, you won't be at the funeral, either. I wish I could keep away from them. I hate funerals. They make me mad. You know, they say "Oh, Death, where is thy sting?" just as if they had a pretty good hunch I had one around me some place after all. And you know that other--"My friends, this is not a sad occasion," but they don't mean it. They keep it sad. They simply won't learn any better. I suppose they'd be a little surprised to know that you were sitting watching Radbourne pitch to Ed. Delehanty with the bases full and three balls and two strikes called. Two runs to win and one to tie.

THE SICK MAN--Will Radbourne pitch?

THE FAT MAN--Sure thing.

THE SICK MAN--And, say, will Delehanty bust that ball?

THE FAT MAN--Make it even money and bet me either way.

THE SICK MAN--I don't want to wait any longer. Tell me that joke of yours and let's go.

The light softens a little. The room is almost rose color now. It might be from the sunset. The Fat Man gently pushes the head of the Sick Man back on the pillow. Leaning over, he whispers in his ear briefly and the Sick Man roars with laughter. As his laughter slackens a little The Fat Man says, "I'll meet you in the press box," and then before you know it he's gone. The Sick Man is still laughing, but less loudly. People who did not know might think it was gasping. The Nurse opens the door and is frightened. She loudly calls "Doctor! Doctor!" and runs down the corridor. The Sick Man gives one more chuckle and is silent. The curtains at one of the windows sway slightly. Of course, it's the breeze.

(_Curtain_.)

The Library of a Lover

THE responsibilities of a book reviewer, always heavy, sometimes assume a gravity which makes it quite impossible for them to be borne on any single pair of shoulders. We have received a letter to-day upon which so much depends that we hesitate to answer without requesting advice from readers. It is from a young man in Pittsburgh who identifies himself merely by the initials X. Q., which we presume to be fictitious. He writes as follows:

"As a reader of the book columns of _The Tribune_ I am humbly requesting your assistance in the matter of a little experiment that I desire to perform. I find myself highly enamored of a superlatively attractive young lady who has, however, one apparent drawback to me. That lies in the fact that she has never cultivated a taste for really worth while reading. Such reading to me is one of the greatest of life's pleasures. Now, my idea is this: that this reading taste may be developed by the reading of a number of the best books in various lines. I have decided upon an experiment wherein a list of fifty books shall be furnished by you and a serious attempt made by the young lady to read them. When she has completed this reading I shall ask her to make a thoroughly frank statement as to whether a reading habit has been cultivated which will enable her to enjoy good literature. I would appreciate very much your furnishing me a list of fifty of the very best books which you consider suitable for the experiment which I have in mind. The lady in question has read but little, but has completed the regulation high school course and in addition has taken two years at one of the recognized girls' schools of the country."

Obviously, the making of such a list involves a responsibility which we do not care to assume. We do not like to risk the possibility that our own particular literary prejudices might rear a barrier between two fond hearts. After all, as somebody has said, fond hearts are more than Conrads. However, we do venture the suggestion that if the young man's intentions are honorable, fifty books is far too great a number for the experiment which he has in mind. We have known many a young couple to begin life with no possession to their name but a common fondness for the poems of W. E. Henley. We have known others to marry on Kipling and repent on Shaw.

Of course, it would be a great deal easier for us to advise the young man if we knew just what sort of a wife he wanted. If she likes _Dombey and Son_ and _Little Dorrit_ it seems to us fair to assume that she will be able to do a little plain mending and some of the cooking. On the other hand, if her favorite author is May Sinclair, we rather think it would be well to be prepared to provide hired help from the beginning. Should she prefer Eleanor H. Porter, we think there would be no danger in telling the paperhangers to do the bedroom in pink. After all, if she is a thoroughgoing follower of Pollyanna and the glad game, you don't really need any wall paper at all. It would still be her duty to be glad about it.

But we are afraid that some of this is frivolous and beside the point, and we assume that the young man truly wants serious advice to help him in the solution of his problem. Since marriage is at best a gamble, we advise him earnestly not to compromise his ardor with any dreary round of fifty books. Let him chance all on a single volume. And what shall it be? Personally, we have always been strongly attracted by persons who liked _Joan and Peter_, but we know that there are excellent wives and mothers who find this particular novel of Wells's dreary stuff. There are certain dislikes which might well serve as green signals of caution. A young man, we think, should certainly go slow if she does not like _An Inland Voyage_, or _Virginibus Puerisque_, or _The Ebb Tide_ or _Sentimental Tommy_. He should take thought and ask himself repeatedly, "Is this really love?" if she confesses a distaste for _Tono Bungay_, or _Far from the Madding Crowd_, or _Caesar and Cleopatra_. And if she can find no interest in _Conrad in Quest of His Youth_, or _Mary Olivier_ or _Huckleberry Finn_, let him by all means stipulate a long engagement. But if she dislikes _Alice in Wonderland_ let the young man temporize no more. It is then his plain duty to tell her that he has made a mistake and that what he took for love was no more than the passing infatuation of physical passion.

A Bolt from the Blue

JOHN ROACH STRATON died and went to his appointed kingdom where he immediately sought an audience with the ruler of the realm.

"Let New York be destroyed," shouted Dr. Straton as he pushed his way into the inner room. The king was engaged at the moment in watching a sparrow fall to earth and motioned the visitor to compose himself in silence, but there was an urgency in the voice and manner of the man from earth which would not be denied. "Smite them hip and thigh," said Dr. Straton and the king looked down at him and asked, "Is the necessity immediate?"

"Delay not thy wrath," said Dr. Straton, "for to-day on thy Sabbath sixty thousand men, women, and children of New York have gathered together to watch a baseball game."

The ruler of the realm looked and saw that 11,967 persons were watching the Yankees and the White Sox at the Polo Grounds.

"A good husky tidal wave would confound them," urged Straton, but the king shook his head.

"Remember the judgment you heaped upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah," suggested Straton.

The ruler of the realm nodded without enthusiasm. "I remember," he said, "but as I recollect it didn't do much good."

Dr. Straton's bright hopefulness faded and the king hastened to reassure him. "We can think up something better than that," he said, and had the visitor been an observant man he might have noticed that the streets of the kingdom were paved with tact. "Now there was the Tower of Babel," said the ruler of the realm reflectively, "that was a creative idea. That was a doom which persisted because it had ingenuity as well as power. That's what we need now."

Suddenly there dawned in the face of the king an idea, and it seemed to Dr. Straton as if he were standing face to face with a sunrise. The doctor lowered his eyes and he saw that the men and the women Sabbath breakers of New York were all upon their feet and shouting, though to his newly immortal senses the din came feebly. "Now," he said, with an exultation which caused him to slip into his old pulpit manner, "let 'em have it."

But the king with keener vision than Dr. Straton, saw that it was the ninth inning, the score tied, runners on first and second, and Babe Ruth coming to bat. "The time has not come," said the king, and he pushed the doctor gently and made him give ground a little. And they waited until two strikes had been pitched and three balls. The next one would have cut the heart of the plate, but Babe Ruth swung and the ball rose straight in the air. Up and up it came until it disappeared from the view of all the players and spectators and even of the umpires. Soon a mighty wrangle began. Miller Huggins claimed a home run and Kid Gleason argued that the ball was foul. The umpires waited for an hour and then, as the ball had not yet come down, Dineen was forced to make a decision and shouted "Foul!" while the crowd booed. One of the pop bottles injured him rather badly and there was a riot for which it was necessary to call out the reserves. Everybody went home disgruntled and a month later the Lusk bill abolishing Sunday baseball was passed.

And all the time the ball continued to rise until suddenly the king, thrusting out his left hand, caught it neatly and slipped it into his pocket. It was not a conventional pocket, for there were planets in it and ever-lasting mercy and other things. For a long time Dr. Straton had been awed into silence by the mighty miracle, but now he spoke, reverently but firmly.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but you will observe that there is a sign in the baseball park which says 'All balls batted out of the diamond remain the property of the New York Baseball Club and should be thrown back!'"

The ruler of the realm smiled. "You forget," he answered, "that if I threw the ball back from this great height it might strike a man and kill him, it might crash through a huge office building, it might even destroy the Calvary Baptist Church."

Then for the first time a touch of sharpness came into the voice of Dr. Straton. "All that is immaterial," he said. "I think I know my theology well enough to understand that law is law and right is right, come what may."

"Oh, but it's not nearly as simple as all that," remonstrated the king. "There are right things which are so harsh and unpleasant that they become wrong; and wrong things which are, after all, so jolly that it's hard not to call them right. Why, sometimes I have to stop a fraction of a century myself to reach a decision. It's terribly complicated. The problem is infinite. No mere man, quick or dead, has any right to be dogmatic about it."

"Come, come," said Dr. Straton, and now there was nothing but anger in his voice, "I've heard all those devilish arguments before. When I came here I thought you were God and that this was Heaven. I know now that there's been a mistake. God is no mollycoddle."

He turned on his heel and started to walk away before he remembered that he was a Southern gentleman as well as a clergyman and bowed stiffly, once. Then he went to the edge of the kingdom and jumped. Where he landed it would be hard to say. Only a carefully trained theologian could tell.

Inasmuch

ONCE there lived near Bethlehem a man named Simon and his wife Deborah. And Deborah dreamed a curious dream, a dream so vivid that it might better be called a vision. It was not yet daybreak, but she roused her husband and told him that an angel had come to her in the vision and had said, as she remembered it, "To-morrow night in Bethlehem the King of the World will be born." The rest was not so vivid in Deborah's mind, but she told Simon that wise men and kings were already on their way to Bethlehem, bringing gifts for the wonder child.

"When he is born," she said, "the wise men and the kings who bring these gifts will see the stars dance in the heavens and hear the voices of angels. You and I must send presents, too, for this child will be the greatest man in all the world."

Simon objected that there was nothing of enough value in the house to take to such a child, but Deborah replied, "The King of the World will understand." Then, although it was not yet light, she got up and began to bake a cake, and Simon went beyond the town to the hills and got holly and made a wreath. Later in the day husband and wife looked over all their belongings, but the only suitable gift they could find was one old toy, a somewhat battered wooden duck that had belonged to their eldest son, who had grown up and married and gone away to live in Galilee. Simon painted the toy duck as well as he could, and Deborah told him to take it and the cake and the wreath of holly and go to Bethlehem. "It's not much," she said, "but the King will understand."

It was almost sunset when Simon started down the winding road that led to Bethlehem. Deborah watched him round the first turn and would have watched longer except that he was walking straight toward the sun and the light hurt her eyes. She went back into the house and an hour had hardly passed when she heard Simon whistling in the garden. He was walking very slowly. At the door he hesitated for almost a minute. She looked up when he came in. He was empty handed.

"You haven't been to Bethlehem," said Deborah.

"No," said Simon.

"Then, where is the cake, and the holly wreath, and the toy duck?"

"I'm sorry," said Simon, "I couldn't help it somehow. It just happened."

"What happened?" asked Deborah sharply.

"Well," said Simon, "just after I went around the first turn in the road I found a child sitting on that big white rock, crying. He was about two or three years old, and I stopped and asked him why he was crying. He didn't answer. Then I told him not to cry like that, and I patted his head, but that didn't do any good. I hung around, trying to think up something, and I decided to put the cake down and take him up in my arms for a minute. But the cake slipped out of my hands and hit the rock, and a piece of the icing chipped off. Well, I thought, that baby in Bethlehem won't miss a little piece of icing, and I gave it to the child and he stopped crying. But when he finished he began to cry again. I just sort of squeezed another little piece of icing off, and that was all right, for a little while; but then I had to give him another piece, and things went on that way, and all of a sudden I found that there wasn't any cake left. After that he looked as if he might cry again, and I didn't have any more cake and so I showed him the duck and he said 'Ta-ta.' I just meant to lend him the duck for a minute, but he wouldn't give it up. I coaxed him a good while, but he wouldn't let go. And then a woman came out of that little house and she began to scold him for staying out so late, and so I told her it was my fault and I gave her the holly wreath just so she wouldn't be mad at the child. And after that, you see, I didn't have anything to take to Bethlehem, and so I came back here."