Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

This system of dealing in dream-dollars, which seems to be the special prerogative of governments and large corporations, is called “Credit,” and a pretty how-do-you-do it is, too. “Credit,” as applied to you and me, means that we have until the fifteenth of the month to dig up the actual gold ore with which to pay our bills. But for a large corporation or a nation it means that, so long as the Treasurer can sign his name, they are on Easy Street. I sign a check, in a kidding way, and give it to Altmeyer’s Meat Market. And what does Altmeyer do? Right away _he presents it at my bank_! And then hell breaks loose. Telephone-calls, registered letters, night-sweats--you’d think the whole world had gone money-mad. And I have to go and get a printing-press and _print_ him his money in half a day.

But let Mr. Mellon sign a check for a billion dollars and no one even looks at the signature to see if it is genuine. It is folded up and put in the vest-pocket and never touched again for years. Is it ever presented for payment? Oh, no! Mr. Mellon signed it, never mind the money! You’d think Mr. Mellon was Richard Dix or Button Gwinnett. I could get pretty sore about the whole thing and so could you, if you had any spunk about you.

Now, in our family, there are four people, exclusive of the servant (who is lame). We have only three really to figure on, however, as the baby works.

In France, there are of course more people than that, but none nicer. It has been estimated that in each French sock there are fifteen thousand francs. In the southern provinces, where they don’t wear socks, the money is stored away in the peasants’ cheeks, or in hollow trees. This is going to make it hard to keep exact accounts because you can’t tell how much you have on hand. But nothing is worth while unless you have to work for it, which is one of the least true things that ever was said. So what I would advise would be for every French peasant to get a little pocket notebook (the J. C. Hall Co. of Providence, R. I., sell a neat little set for a dollar, a book for each month) and keep a strict personal account of everything spent--and, what is more important, everything received.

For instance, let us take a typical French shopkeeper (and wouldn’t I _like_ to take one, and push him into the Somme!) named Jaques Duquesne. If we could get him to keep a personal account-book, marking down so much for _tabac_, so much for _vin_, so much for _lavabo_, and then, on the opposite page, received so much from sale to American tourist, so much from non-sale to American tourist, etc., etc., then the government officials would have a record of his financial status not one word of which could be deciphered.

But personal accounts are the only solution of the French situation, just as they were the only solution to our family crisis. My own personal account book is a joy to behold, especially if you are in the mood for a good laugh. Sometimes I get to laughing so that I can’t jot down the items. “Car-fare” I put down, and I haven’t ridden in a street-car since I used to go to dancing-school. Another good item is “Personal Improvement.” You’d be surprised at what you can crowd into Personal Improvement. If you are anything like me practically anything you do to yourself would be an improvement. My Personal Improvement account is going to run into thousands of dollars a year, and I don’t begrudge a cent of it.

To summarize then:

1. The franc is the monetary unit of France.
2. The franc is not so stable.
3. Verbs ending in _aître_ retain the circumflex on the _i_
whenever it is followed by _t_.
4. And how are _you?_

SEX IS OUT

According to Dr. Max Hartmann (I used to have a dentist named Dr. Hartmann, but he was a dentist) there is no such thing as absolute sex. If 60% of your cells are masculine, you rate as a male. If 60% are feminine, you sit with the girls. All combinations are possible up to 99 and 1, but the 100 percenter in either sex is a myth. Dr. Hartmann says so.

This is going to be a big surprise to a lot of people. If the Government should ever take it into its head to make public lists of sex-percentages, as it now does income taxes, whole communities would be upset and perhaps “topsy-turvy” would not be too strong a word for what things would be.

We are concerned in this course, however, merely with the effect of this negation of sex on the drama. It looks from where we are sitting (G-112-113) like the death blow to the Living Theater in this country. And in France--well, it will simply mean that they can’t give even Punch and Judy shows. What would be the fun in sitting through a scene like the following?

(The scene isn’t quite set yet; so the orchestra will play the overture over again.)

ROGER: Ever since that night I met you at the dance, my male percentage has been increasing. I used to register 65%. Yesterday in Liggetts I took a test and it was eighty-one.

MARY: You had your heavier overcoat on.

ROGER: Please, dear, this is no time for joking. I never was more serious in all my life. And that means only one thing. Haven’t you--aren’t you--do you register just the same as you did?

MARY (_looking at her finger-nails_): No. I have gone up seven points. But I thought it was because I had cut down on my starches.

ROGER: Starches nothing! Can’t you see, dear? Don’t you understand what it all means?

MARY (_pulling away_): Why am I letting you talk to me like this? We mustn’t. Fred will be home at any minute.

ROGER: Fred! Hah! I suppose you know what his last test was? I suppose he told you?

MARY: Why--er--no. That is--of course he did. Fred tells me everything.

ROGER: Well, then, I suppose you know that when he was examined for life insurance last week they found that his masculine cells totaled up to forty-seven and that included his American Legion button, too.

MARY: Fred? Forty-seven? Why, it isn’t possible. Why, only yesterday--

ROGER: Never mind that! Figures don’t lie. The best that Fred can ever be to you from now on is a sister.

MARY: This is all so sudden. I must have time to think. Fred my sister! It seems incredible!

ROGER: Don’t you see, Mary dear, what the percentages tell us? (_Song Cue_)

_You and I Total Up to a Hundred_

Oh, Love brings a message of roses,
And Love a sweet litany tells,
Of the girls I have known, and the girls who have blown,
And their respective number of cells.

_Cho._

There was Alice who rated a cool sixty-two,
She wore knickers and called me her “matey,”
There was Betty so true, with her large eyes of blue,
On a clear day she registered eighty.
There was Norma, my queen, who gave seventeen,
As her quota of masculine units,
But my heart it now yearns, on the latest returns,
(_Spoken_: Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine!)
For M-A-R-Y, my sweet Winona.

You can see for yourself, there is going to be no fun in figuring out sex on the back of an envelope. We might as well give the whole thing up and go in for hockey.

UNCLE EDITH’S GHOST STORY

“Tell us a ghost story, Uncle Edith,” cried all the children late Christmas afternoon when everyone was cross and sweaty.

“Very well, then,” said Uncle Edith, “it isn’t much of a ghost story, but you will take it--and like it,” he added, cheerfully. “And if I hear any whispering while it is going on, I will seize the luckless offender and baste him one.

“Well, to begin, my father was a poor wood-chopper, and we lived in a charcoal-burner’s hut in the middle of a large, dark forest.”

“That is the beginning of a fairy story, you big sap,” cried little Dolly, a fat, disagreeable child who never should have been born, “and what we wanted was a _ghost_ story.”

“To be sure,” cried Uncle Edith, “what a stupid old woopid I was. The ghost story begins as follows:

“It was late in November when my friend Warrington came up to me in the club one night and said: ‘Craige, old man, I want you to come down to my place in Whoopshire for the week-end. There is greffle shooting to be done and grouse no end. What do you say?’

“I had been working hard that week, and the prospect pleased. And so it was that the 3:40 out of Charing Cross found Warrington and me on our way into Whoopshire, loaded down with guns, plenty of flints, and two of the most beautiful snootfuls ever accumulated in Merrie England.

“It was getting dark when we reached Breeming Downs, where Warrington’s place was, and as we drove up the shadowy path to the door, I felt Warrington’s hand on my arm.

“‘Cut that out!’ I ordered, peremptorily. ‘What is this I’m getting into?’

“‘Sh-h-h!’ he replied, and his grip tightened. With one sock I knocked him clean across the seat. There are some things which I simply will not stand for.

“He gathered himself together and spoke. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was a bit unnerved. You see, there is a shadow against the pane in the guest room window.’

“‘Well, what of it?’ I asked. It was my turn to look astonished.

“Warrington lowered his voice. ‘Whenever there is a shadow against the windowpane as I drive up with a guest, that guest is found dead in bed the next morning--dead from fright,’ he added, significantly.

“I looked up at the window toward which he was pointing. There, silhouetted against the glass, was the shadow of a gigantic man. I say, ‘a man,’ but it was more the figure of a large weasel except for a fringe of dark-red clappers that it wore suspended from its beak.”

“How do you know they were dark red,” asked little Tom-Tit, “if it was the shadow you saw?”

“You shut your face,” replied Uncle Edith. “I could hardly control my astonishment at the sight of this thing, it was so astonishing. ‘That is in my room?’ I asked Warrington.

“‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I am afraid that it is.’

“I said nothing, but got out of the automobile and collected my bags. ‘Come on,’ I announced cheerfully, ‘I’m going up and beard Mr. Ghost in his den.’

“So up the dark, winding stairway we went into the resounding corridors of the old seventeenth-century house, pausing only when we came to the door which Warrington indicated as being the door to my room. I knocked.

“There was a piercing scream from within as we pushed the door open. But when we entered, we found the room empty. We searched high and low, but could find no sign of the man with the shadow. Neither could we discover the source of the terrible scream, although the echo of it was still ringing in our ears.

“‘I guess it was nothing,’ said Warrington, cheerfully. ‘Perhaps the wind in the trees,’ he added.

“‘But the shadow on the pane?’ I asked.

“He pointed to a fancily carved piece of guest soap on the washstand. ‘The light was behind that,’ he said, ‘and from outside it looked like a man.’

“‘To be sure,’ I said, but I could see that Warrington was as white as a sheet.

“‘Is there anything that you need?’ he asked. ‘Breakfast is at nine--if you’re lucky,’ he added, jokingly.

“‘I think that I have everything,’ I said. ‘I will do a little reading before going to sleep, and perhaps count my laundry.... But stay,’ I called him back, ‘you might leave that revolver which I see sticking out of your hip pocket. I may need it more than you will.’

“He slapped me on the back and handed me the revolver as I had asked. ‘Don’t blow into the barrel,’ he giggled, nervously.

“‘How many people have died of fright in this room?’ I asked, turning over the leaves of a copy of _Town and Country_.

“‘Seven,’ he replied. ‘Four men and three women.’

“‘When was the last one here?’

“‘Last night,’ he said.

“‘I wonder if I might have a glass of hot water with my breakfast,’ I said. ‘It warms your stomach.’

“‘Doesn’t it though?’ he agreed, and was gone.

“Very carefully I unpacked my bag and got into bed. I placed the revolver on the table by my pillow. Then I began reading.

“Suddenly the door to the closet at the farther end of the room opened slowly. It was in the shadows and so I could not make out whether there was a figure or not. But nothing appeared. The door shut again, however, and I could hear footfalls coming across the soft carpet toward my bed. A chair which lay between me and the closet was upset as if by an unseen shin, and, simultaneously, the window was slammed shut and the shade pulled down. I looked, and there, against the shade, as if thrown from the _outside_, was the same shadow that we had seen as we came up the drive that afternoon.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” said little Roger, aged six, at this point.

“Well, go ahead,” said Uncle Edith. “You know where it is.”

“I don’t want to go alone,” whined Roger.

“Go with Roger, Arthur,” commanded Uncle Edith, “and bring me a glass of water when you come back.”

“And whatever was this horrible thing that was in your room, Uncle Edith?” asked the rest of the children in unison when Roger and Arthur had left the room.

“I can’t tell you that,” replied Uncle Edith, “for I packed my bag and got the 9:40 back to town.”

“That is the lousiest ghost story I have ever heard,” said Peterkin.

And they all agreed with him.

FASCINATING CRIMES

_III. The Missing Floor_

It has often been pointed out that murderers are given to revisiting the scenes of their crimes. The case of Edny Pastelle is the only one on record where the scene of the crime revisited the murderer.

Edny Pastelle was a Basque elevator woman who ran one of the first elevators installed in the old Fifth Avenue Hotel, which stood at the corner of Twenty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, New York City. The elevator was of the surrey type, and was pushed from floor to floor by the operator, who was underneath climbing on a ladder. It was Mlle. Pastelle’s daily task to hoist such personages as Chauncey M. Depew, Boss Tweed and Harriet Beecher Stowe up to their rooms in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. In fact, she is said to have been Miss Stowe’s model for _Uncle Tom_ in the novel of that name (with the word “Cabin” added to it).

In the evenings, when Edny Pastelle was not on duty, she carried Punch and Judy shows about town for whoever wanted them. As not many people wanted them, Edny’s evenings were pretty much her own.

_--Courtesy of John Held, Jr., and Life._
]

The evening of July 7, 1891, however, is on record as being not Edny’s, but Max Sorgossen’s.

Max Sorgossen worked in the Eden Musée, which was situated on Twenty-third Street just below the Fifth Avenue Hotel. His job was to put fresh cuffs on the wax figure of Chester A. Arthur in the Presidential Group. At five o’clock every afternoon he also took “Ajeeb,” the mechanical chess player, out in the back yard for his exercise.

At five-thirty on the afternoon in question Max Sorgossen had just knocked off work and was strolling up Twenty-third Street in search of diversion. In the back of his mind was an idea that perhaps he might find another mechanical chess player for “Ajeeb” and a girl for himself and that the four of them might go down to Coney Island for the evening, as the weather was warm. As he passed the service entrance of the Fifth Avenue Hotel he met Edny Pastelle, who was likewise calling it a day. (She called it a _jour_, but that is the Basque of it.)

Edny and Max had known each other in finishing school, and so there seemed no impropriety in his speaking to her and asking her if she knew of a mechanical chess player for “Ajeeb” and if she would look with favor on an evening at Coney.

The two were seen entering a restaurant on Twenty-first Street to talk it over at 6:10. At 9:20 the next morning guests of the hotel, on trying to descend in the elevator, found it stuck between the first and third floors. When the car was finally dislodged, it was found to contain the body of Max Sorgossen. Furthermore, _the second floor, where the elevator should have stopped, was gone_!

Edny was arrested and the trial took place in the Court of Domestic Relations, since she was a domestic and there had evidently been relations, albeit unfriendly. The prosecuting attorney was a young lawyer named William T. Jerome, later William Travers Jerome. Following is a transcript of the cross-examination:

_Q._ What did you do after Sorgossen spoke to you on Twenty-third
Street?

_A._ Pardon.

_Q._ What did you do after Sorgossen spoke to you on Twenty-third
Street?

_A._ Plenty.

_Q._ Very good, Mr. Bones. And now tell me, why _is_ a man with a
silk hat on like Mary Queen of Scots?

_A._ What Scots?

_Q._ I’m asking _you_.

_A._ Animal, vegetable or mineral?

_Q._ Mineral.

_A._ The tidy on the back of that chair?

_Q._ No.

_A._ Cyrus W. Field?

_Q._ Give up?

_A._ Three spades.

_Q._ Double three spades.

At this point, counsel for the defense objected and the case was thrown out into a higher court, where Edny Pastelle was acquitted, or whatever you call it.

It was some thirty years later that the missing second floor of the old Fifth Avenue Hotel was discovered. A workman laying wagers on the sixteenth floor of the Fifth Avenue Building (erected on the site of the old Fifth Avenue Hotel) came across a floor which was neither the fifteenth, sixteenth nor seventeenth. The police were called in and, after several weeks of investigation and grilling, it was identified as the missing floor of the old hotel, the floor at which the little romance of Edny Pastelle had come to such an abrupt end. How it came to be on the sixteenth floor of the Fifth Avenue Building nobody knows. Perhaps Max Sorgossen could tell.

THE END OF THE SEASON

The William K. Vanderbilt mansion at Fifty-second Street and Fifth
Avenue is, according to report, not to be torn down, but will be
transported bodily to Long Island where it will be re-erected as a
country home. The same fate is also reported to await the Cornelius
Vanderbilt “château” at Fifty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue which
was sold last Spring for $7,100,000. Both mansions are, it is said,
to be moved to Long Island and re-assembled by purchasers as yet
unnamed.

--_News Item._

SCENE

Fifth Avenue between Fifty-second and Fifty-seventh Streets 3 a. m.

CHARACTERS

Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt’s House.
Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt’s House.

* * * * *

MRS. W. K.’S HOUSE: You-hoo!

MRS. CORNELIUS’ HOUSE: You-hoo!

MRS. W. K.’S HOUSE: Are you awake?

MRS. C.’S HOUSE: Am I awake? I should say I am. We’re moving down to the country tomorrow, you know.

MRS. W. K.’S HOUSE: We move down next week. How are you going down?

MRS. C.’S HOUSE: The Herman W. Oberholzer Wrecking Company, I think--if it’s pleasant. The men said they would be here at seven. _Imagine!_ The front steps are going down first; so there will be something there when we get there. The little towers are crazy to go down with the front steps, but I don’t think I’ll let them. I think they ought to stay and go down with the rest of the house. You’re all going down together, aren’t you?

MRS. W. K.’S HOUSE: Oh, I suppose so. I dread the whole thing and will be glad when it’s over. We’ve had all those impossible people tramping through the house all week--charity, you know. Some days it just seemed as if I couldn’t stand it. One man actually wanted to take a bath in the marble tub! My dear, I was _furious_! I think that when we do get to the country, I’ll just go to bed and stay there.

MRS. C.’S HOUSE: Why don’t you hurry up and come down with us tomorrow? The Oberholzer people are awfully nice and I’m sure there’d be room.

MRS. W. K.’S HOUSE: Oh, I don’t know. I’m so tired I just can’t think.

MRS. C.’S HOUSE: My dear, you could do it just as easily as not. Just throw together the things you’ll need--the Blashfield murals and the Caen stair-case--and have them ready at seven-thirty. Then, just as soon as we are all on the truck, I’ll tell the Oberholzer men to come right over and get you and we can all go down together.

MRS. W. K.’S HOUSE: Oh, dear, I’ve half a mind to do it; I do so want to get out of the city. Somehow I’ve been awfully depressed about things lately. New York isn’t what it used to be. And then the selling of the lot and everything, and all these big business buildings coming into the neighborhood. A thirty-three story one here, you know.

MRS. C.’S HOUSE: My dear, what do you think of _us_! A forty-two story _hotel_, if you please! We got rather used to the Plaza, but I’m glad that I sha’n’t be here to see this new thing.

MRS. W. K.’S HOUSE: Do you know, I think I’ll just _tear_ and get ready to go down with you in the morning. We have practically no front-steps, you know, and we can just sort of camp out down there until the roof and other things come down. Seven-thirty, you say?

MRS. C.’S HOUSE: That’s what the wrecking people said, I suppose that means eight or half-past. We’ll have to eat luncheon on the way. We’ll have plenty of chicken for you.

MRS. W. K.’S HOUSE: My dear, don’t be silly. I’ll bring the sandwiches, and perhaps when they tear the cellar up they may find enough champagne for just the two of us.

MRS. C.’S HOUSE: That will be _divine_! Seven-thirty, then.

MRS. W. K.’S HOUSE: Good night, my dear. And don’t forget, I’m bringing the sandwiches!

EXAM TIME

What ought to be the last word in our national craze for examinations and tests is found in the announcement of an aged man in North Carolina that he is ready to take the “Charlie Ross Test.”

“The Charlie Ross Test” seems to have for its object the examination of the candidate to see whether or not he is the Charlie Ross who was kidnaped, as a little boy, from his home in Germantown, Pa., in 1873. The successful candidate is to receive an embossed certificate with the name “Charlie Ross” in Old English type at the top. He is also allowed to say, “I am Charlie Ross,” when introducing himself to people.

Candidates in the Charlie Ross Test are given two hours in which to complete the examination, and a choice of seven questions out of ten. Question No. 4, however (“Are you white or black?”), must be answered, as the Charlie Ross who was kidnaped was known to have been white.

Mr. Julius Dellinger, the present contestant, has been cramming for the test for over six months, and feels fairly confident that he will pass with flying colors. A question of ruling came up last week, when it was discovered that Mr. Dellinger had been tutoring on the side with a man supposed to have been the original Charlie Ross’s uncle, but it was decided to allow this provided that the candidate does not take notes into the examination-room with him.

“What will you do if you win?” Mr. Dellinger was asked.

“I will be just the happiest man in the world,” was the reply. “First of all, I will have stationery made with ‘C. R.’ on it, and then I will look up all my new relatives in the Ross family and perhaps visit them for a while.”

“When you have passed the Charlie Ross Test, do you expect to take the Ambrose Bierce Test?” the reporter asked.

“I looked into the Ambrose Bierce Test before I decided on the Charlie Ross one,” Mr. Dellinger said, “but as Bierce was quite well on in years when he disappeared in Mexico, it would be rather a tough examination to take. So many people knew what Bierce looked like, and then, too, there would always be the possibility that I might _not_ be Bierce after all. It would be very humiliating to get up before the Board of Regents and discover that you were Charlie Ross when you were taking the Ambrose Bierce examination, or vice versa.”

“Had you ever thought that perhaps you might be the Man with the Iron Mask?” Mr. Dellinger was asked.

“Well, that would hardly be possible,” he said with a smile, “as the Man with the Iron Mask lived in the seventeenth century and spoke French. I speak no French. Still,” he added with a touch of wistfulness, “I might learn.”

“Aside from the language,” the reporter suggested, “it ought to be an easier test than either the Ross or Bierce one, for no one knows what the Man with the Iron Mask looked like.”

Mr. Dellinger thought for a minute. Then a look of determination came into his eyes. “I’ll send for a set of last year’s examination papers tomorrow,” he said. And into his bearing there crept something of the grand manner, a slightly imperious gesture with the hand, a courtly toss to the head. For the Man with the Iron Mask was said by some to have been the son of Cardinal Mazarin and Anne of Austria.

With a low bow the reporter withdrew.

THROWING BACK THE EUROPEAN OFFENSIVE

This is probably the hardest time of year for for those of us who didn’t go to Europe last summer. It was bad enough when the others were packing and outlining their trips for you. It was pretty bad when the postcards from Lausanne and Venice began coming in. But now, in the fall, when the travelers are returning with their Marco Polo travelogs, now is when we must be brave and give a cheer for the early frost.

There are several ways to combat this menace of returning travelers. The one that I have found most effective is based on the old football theory that a strong offense is the best defense. I rush them right off their feet, before they can get started.

In carrying out this system, it is well to remember that very few travelers know anything more about the places they have visited than the names of one hotel, two points of interest, and perhaps one street. You can bluff them into insensibility by making up a name and asking them if they saw that when they were in Florence. My whole strategy is based on my ability to make up names. You can do it, too, with practice.

Thus, let us say that I am confronted by Mrs. Reetaly who has just returned from a frantic tour of Spain, southern France, and the Ritz Hotel, Paris. You are inextricably cornered with her at a tea, or beer night, or something. Following is a transcript of the conversation. (Note the gathering power of my offense.)

MRS. R.: Well, we have just returned from Europe, and everything seems so strange here. I simply can’t get used to our money.

MR. B.: I never see enough of it to get used to it myself. (_Just a pleasantry._)

MRS. R.: When we were in Madrid, I just gave up trying to figure out the Spanish money. You see, they have _pesetas_ and--

MR. B.: A very easy way to remember Spanish money is to count ten _segradas_ to one _mesa_, ten _mesas_ to one _rintilla_ and twenty _rintillas_ to one _peseta_.

MRS. R.: Oh, you have been to Spain? Did you go to Toledo?

MR. B.: Well, of course, Toledo is just the beginning. You pushed on to Mastilejo, of course?

MRS. R.: Why--er--no. We were in quite a hurry to get to Granada and--

MR. B.: You didn’t see Mastilejo? That’s too bad. Mastilejo is Toledo multiplied by a hundred. Such mountains! Such coloring! Leaving Mastilejo, one ascends by easy stages to the ridge behind the town from which is obtained an incomparable view of the entire Bobadilla Valley. It was here that, in 1476, the Moors--

MRS. R.: The Moorish relics in Granada--

MR. B.: The Moorish relics in Granada are like something you buy from Sears-Roebuck compared to the remains in Tuna. You saw Tuna, of course?

MRS. R.: Well, no (_lying her head off_), we were going there, but Harry thought that it would just be repeating what--

MR. B.: The biggest mistake of your life, Mrs. Reetaly, the biggest mistake of your life! Unless you have seen Tuna, you haven’t seen Spain.

MRS. R.: But Carcassonne--

MR. B.: Ah, Carcassonne! Now you’re talking! Did you ever see anything to beat that old diamond mill in the _Vielle Ville_? Would they let you go through it when you were there?

MRS. R.: Why, I don’t think that we saw any old diamond mill. We saw an old--

MR. B.: I know what you’re going to say! You saw the old wheat sifter. Isn’t that fascinating? Did you talk with the old courier there?

MRS. R.: Why, I don’t remember--

MR. B.: And the hole in the wall where Louis the Neurotic escaped from the Saracens?

MRS. R.: Yes, wasn’t that--? (_Very weak._)

MR. B.: And the stream where they found the sword and buckler of the Man with the Iron Abdomen?

MRS. R. (_edging away_): Yes, indeed.

MR. B.: And old Vastelles? You visited Vastelles, surely?... Mrs. Reetaly, come back here, please! I just love talking over these dear places with someone who has just been there.... May I call on you some day soon and we’ll just have a feast of reminiscence?... Thank you. How about tomorrow?

And from that day to this, I am never bothered by Mrs. Reetaly’s European trip, and you needn’t be, either, if you will only study the above plan carefully.

The other method is based on just the opposite theory--that of no offense, or defense, at all. It is known as “dumb submission,” and should be tried only by very phlegmatic people who can deaden their sensibilities so that they don’t even hear the first ten minutes of the traveler’s harangue. The idea is to let them proceed at will for a time and then give unmistakable evidence of not having heard a word they have said. Let us say that Mr. Thwomly has accosted me on the train.

MR. T.: It certainly seems funny to be riding in trains like this again. We have been all summer in France, you know, and those French trains are all divided up into compartments. You get into a compartment--_compartimon_, they call them--and there you are with three or five other people, all cooped up together. On the way from Paris to Marseilles we had a funny experience. I was sitting next to a Frenchman who was getting off at Lyons--Lyons is about half way between Paris and Marseilles--and he was dozing when we got in. So I--

MR. B.: Did you get to France at all when you were away?

MR. T.: This was in _France_ that I’m telling you about. On the way from Paris to Marseilles. We got into a railway carriage--

MR. B.: The railway carriages there aren’t like ours here, are they? I’ve seen pictures of them, and they seem to be more like compartments of some sort.

MR. T. (_a little discouraged_): That was a French railway carriage I was just describing to you. I sat next to a man--

MR. B.: A Frenchman?

MR. T.: Sure, a Frenchman. That’s the _point_.

MR. B.: Oh, I see.

MR. T.: Well, the Frenchman was asleep, and when we got in I stumbled over his feet. So he woke up and said something in French, which I couldn’t understand, and I excused myself in English, which _he_ couldn’t understand, but I saw by his ticket that he was going only as far as Lyons--

MR. B.: You were across the border into France, then?

MR. T. (_giving the whole thing up as a bad job_): And what did _you_ do this summer?

Whichever way you pick to defend yourself against the assaults of people who want to tell you about Europe, don’t forget that it was I who told you how. I’m going to Europe myself next year, and if you try to pull either of these systems on _me_ when I get back, I will recognize them at once, and it will just go all the harder with you. But, of course, _I_ will have something to tell that will be worth hearing.

AN INTERVIEW WITH VICE-PRESIDENT DAWES

Interviewing Vice-Presidents is always a ticklish business, unless you happen to find one who isn’t ticklish.

So I took General Dawes into my confidence right at the start.

“General Dawes,” I said, “what is your feeling about the Senate?”

“You mean the Roman Senate, do you not?” asked the grizzled warrior.

“Well, yes, now that you speak of it,” I replied. Here was a chance to have some fun at the expense of Catiline.

“The Senate is all right,” said General Dawes. “It is the tribunes of the people that cause all the trouble. They and the lictors.”

“How would you lictor have a glass of beer?” I asked the Vice-President.

Well, that got us to giggling, as you may very well imagine. First I would hit him, and then he would hit me.

“If the Senate rules were to be changed, so that for ‘quorum’ it should read ‘jorum,’ what would you think?” I asked him, spitting out two teeth (good ones, too).

“‘Jorum’ instead of ‘quorum’?” he asked, stalling for time. “What would I think?”

“You heard me, Mr. Vice-President,” I retorted.

“I should say, suh--” he began.

“I didn’t know that you were from the South,” I interrupted.

“I’m not. That was just something caught in my throat.”

At this point, General Dawes looked out the window. “Where are we?” he asked, peering into the darkness. “Is this New Haven we are coming into, porter?”

But the porter was just as much puzzled as General Dawes was, being a Southern Pacific porter on his first trip on the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R.

“I could tell with a bit of litmus paper,” he said.

Quickly I clapped my hand over General Dawes’ mouth.

“Do you ever wonder, Mr. Vice-President,” I asked him, “just what life is all about?”

“_Do_ I?” said General Dawes from behind my palm. “That’s all I ever wonder about.”

“Wasn’t it Voltaire who asked ‘_Que suis-je, ou suis-je, ou vais-je, et d’ou suis-je tiré?_’”

“That all sounds very silly,” retorted the General in a rage. “And besides, there should be an accent over all those ‘u’s’.”

“The General did not have his nap today,” I explained to the conductor. “He is cross.”

“This is my street anyway,” said the Vice-President, hopping up and getting into his middy-blouse. And, without a word, he was gone.

THE _LIFE_ POLAR EXPEDITION

_En route with “Life’s” Bicycle Expedition to the North Pole.--May 17._

We are now just between Woodlawn and Mt. Vernon, at a point where there seems to be some sort of road-digging going on. This means that we shall have to sit down and wait for them to finish, or else go back and take a roundabout route. We are just a little discouraged.

“Chief,” Lieut.-Commander Connelly said to me as we were pedalling through Morrisania (168th Street), “do you ever have any doubts about our catching up with the others--Amundsen and Byrd, I mean?”

I felt a strange little chill creep around my heart. Was this mutiny?

“Have you heard any of the men talking?” I asked, without looking at him.

“Well, no, not exactly,” he replied, “but Ensign Thermaline asked me yesterday how long I figured out that it would be before we sighted one of the other expeditions.”

“You can tell Ensign Thermaline,” I said, “that if he will keep his feet pedalling ’round and ’round just as fast as he can and maintain his balance, the rest of us will do the same.”

Lieut.-Commander Connelly looked at me with tears in his eyes. “Aye, aye, sir,” was all that he said, but it spoke volumes.

From Mott Haven, where we spent the night, we have pedalled due north over the Grand Concourse, stopping only once at a repair shop to get a new thumb-piece for Ensign Thermaline’s bell. Ensign Thermaline had been using the bell almost constantly since leaving 57th Street, being one of the most cautious pilots in the expedition.

A peculiarity of the country which we all have noticed since crossing over the Harlem River is the rows upon rows of large apartment houses which have sprung up along the route. At first none of us spoke of it, but finally Lieut.-Commander Connelly could keep his thoughts to himself no longer. “Have you noticed the large number of apartment houses along the way?” he asked. We all admitted that we had.

In front of one of these apartment houses an interesting sight met our eyes. A little boy was seen riding along in what looked like a very small automobile and it was in effect really an automobile except that it was propelled by the little boy’s feet, which were in direct contact with the sidewalk. Some members of the expedition were in favor of stopping and getting the little boy to join, but wiser counsel prevailed and we decided that it would take him too long to get his winter things packed and that we ought not to incur any more delays than we should run into in the natural course of events. “He would have been cute, though,” said Lieut-Commander Connelly wistfully.

Just the other side of Williamsbridge we ran into an obstacle which for a while threatened to hold us up indefinitely. Right in our path we came to a high wall surrounding a reservoir. We sent Ensign Thermaline up to take soundings and he returned, making a long face, and reporting that the reservoir was practically ten feet deep.

“What a place to build a reservoir anyway!” I said, and the other joined me in my disgust.

Fording the darned thing being out of the question, we decided that it would be better to take one of the roads which seemed to lead around it. We chose the one to the left because left is Lieut.-Commander Connelly’s favorite direction. And Dame Fortune was with us in our choice, for it led, after a while, right into the Bronx River Parkway, which was _just_ where we wanted to be. Had we taken the road to the right, there is no telling where we should have ended up.[1]

It was in passing Woodlawn Cemetery that we got into the discussion which is still raging as we sit by the roadside before Mt. Vernon. The sight of the miles and miles of monuments in Woodlawn depressed Lieut.-Commander Connelly and set him thinking.

“Man’s span is _so_ short,” he said, drawing up alongside my “bike” (as we call our wheels). “Man’s span is so short that it seems hardly worth all the fuss and pother of trying, doesn’t it?” he whispered.

“I think that word is ‘bother,’” I said.

“Which word?” he asked.

“The word you called ‘pother,’” I replied, a little cruelly, I am afraid.

“Are you _sure_?” he asked.

“As sure as one can be of anything in this old world,” I said.

“That’s just it,” the lieutenant-commander returned, “what _can_ one be sure of? We are born, grow up, make our little plans--and what sad, brave little plans they are, too--and then just as we think we are succeeding”--the young explorer stopped and looked at the rows of tombstones on our left.

“I know, Lieutenant-Commander,” I said, sympathetically. “You don’t have to say it.”

And so we rode on in silence, until we reached this sort of digging-up they are doing in the road. Then I said: “Oh, the devil!” And at this rather pat climax to a discussion on philosophy, we both laughed.

But if we are held up very long here it will be no laughing matter, for in the papers we read that Amundsen is already on his way to the Pole from Spitsbergen.

(_The brave boys of the “Life” Polar Expedition are pedalling furiously in a northerly direction and expect to reach Mt. Vernon any day now. Another despatch from Commander Benchley will appear next week._)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The right road also leads to the Bronx River Parkway.--EDITOR.

A GHOST STORY

(_As Sherwood Anderson Would Write It If He Weren’t Prevented_)

1

David Perk sat on the edge of his bed. It was nearly midnight and in a few minutes the ghost would come. The ghost would come, all right, all right. Why not? Milt Neevis had seen it here in this very room, and Milt got drunk every Thursday night and rolled in the bran-mash they had fixed for the horses out in Rob McCarver’s barn. And Milt knew women, too. When Spring came to Panis Junction, and the soft smell of honeysuckle drifted into town over Ernest Tamson’s tannery down by the tracks, Milt used to sneak out at eleven o’clock every night and go in swimming alone in the Women’s Public Baths. Naked. Milt knew women all right. Lordy!

And Milt Neevis had told David Perk that at midnight the ghost would be sure to come. And what’s more, it might be a female ghost, Milt said. Male and female. Hot dickety-dog!

2

David Perk was sitting on the edge of his bed waiting for the ghost. Why should he--David Perk--be afraid? Why should anyone be afraid? Why should you be afraid? Why should I be afraid? Sex was sex, wasn’t it? That night in Chicago. Why had he left Ella? Ella had been his first wife and every Friday night she used to bake potatoes and cut them open to put butter in them. David had liked to see her cut open the baked potatoes. Perhaps it hurt them to be cut open. Why not? Potatoes had sex, just the same as you and me or old Milt Neevis rolling in the bran-mash out in Rob McCarver’s barn. Male potatoes. Female potatoes. Cut them open and put butter in them. And paprika. Ella had cut them open and put butter in them that night back in Chicago. And David had left her. Not because she did that. David had liked that. It had made him feel all queer all over. Lordy! Ella would never understand how it made him feel. So he had left her. Male potatoes in the same dish with female potatoes. Milt Neevis swimming alone naked in the Women’s Public Baths on a Spring night. Slicky-slicky!

3

David Perk sitting on the edge of his bed waiting for the ghost. Perhaps a girl ghost. He was a man, wasn’t he? Secretary Stanton of Lincoln’s cabinet had been a man, hadn’t he? Why Stanton? Well, why not Stanton? He, David Perk, had never seen Stanton, had he? Nor G. A. Henty. Nor Cyrus W. Field. All men, weren’t they? And what were men made for if not for women?

“_Hill-dill, come over the hill,
Or else I’ll catch you standing still._”

That night in Detroit. When he had left Irma. Irma had been his second wife. Irma had large bones and cried easily. One night in the Spring she and David had gone out into the fields and pulled up all the grass. A mare and a stallion pulling up grass in the fields and chewing it. They had chewed grass all night. Big sensation. Grass between your teeth. Green, sharp grass. Big male moon in the sky looking for its mate. Little female stars skipping about looking for their mates. Never finding them. David never finding anyone. Twenty-three! Skidoo!

4

That night in Boston when David had met Theresa. Theresa was his third wife. The State House dome in the moonlight. Niggers singing on the Common. Niggers who had been freed. Irishmen singing on the Common. Sailors with girls on their laps on the benches. Spooning. Tremont Street. Boylston Street. Trolley cars. English sparrows with Spring in their veins. Men and women. Boys and girls. Male babies and female babies. Sex! America!

And here was he, David Perk, sitting--all hot and bothered--on the edge of his bed waiting for the ghost to come. And old Milt Neevis down in Rob McCarver’s barn rolling in the bran-mash.

5

Downstairs Edith was asleep. Edith was David Perk’s fourth wife. Edith slept on her right side with the right arm stretched out behind her and her left hand under her cheek. And after that--what? After _what_ what? What did it matter what? Here was the ghost. The ghost that Milt Neevis had told him about. And Milt had said it might be a female!

David felt all queer. He felt as he had felt that night in Toronto when he had left Marian, his fifth wife. “All alone by the telephone waiting for a ring, a ting-a-ling.” Things hadn’t gone right--for him and Marian--not right at all.

“_Higgledy-piggledy, my black hen.
She lays eggs for gentlemen._”

Eggs for gentlemen, eh? Lord, what a time! But what was a fellow to do? What had she been thinking about? What had he--David--been thinking about? Chinks jabbering in their laundry. Chinks jabbering out in front of their laundry. The War. The Red Cross. The Fifth Liberty Loan. Was he--David--afraid? Was he--or was she--jealous of her? Not by a damn sight. Well, he and Irma had certainly messed things up. And he smiled to himself. Would the ghost know? Would she understand what Irma hadn’t understood? What Marian hadn’t understood? What Edith--downstairs sleeping this very minute with her right arm stretched out behind her--wasn’t understanding? How come?

6

It was Spring outside and the warm breeze over the lilac bushes carried the smell of Ernest Tamson’s tannery to David. Did the ghost smell it too? “Come in.” David was out of bed now, standing beside the ghost. She was a woman all right. And David was a man. God’s man. Flames in her eyes--deep red flames--deep blue flames. The old oaken bucket. The iron-bound bucket. The moss-covered bucket. Heigh-ho! Old Black Joe!

David was packing his grip. His two military brushes. One male. The other female. Male and female created He them. Why be ashamed of it? The ghost was looking at David with a queer look in her eyes. She knows what’s what, old man. Sure thing. She wants me to go with her. Why not? Male and Female created He them. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. “And ’twas from Aunt Dinah’s quilting party, I was seeing Nelly home.”

7

David Perk and the girl ghost were leaving the house. He felt her close to him. It was! It wasn’t! It was! He knew that she was thinking the long, long thoughts of a woman. And he--David--was thinking the long, long thoughts of a man. They were across Nalbro Harris’ backyard now. Now they were on the train for Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. David Perk. And back in the gray house Edith was sleeping with her right arm stretched out behind her and her left hand under her cheek. On her right side. Well, toodle-oo!

DISCOVERING WEBER AND FIELDS

_If There Had Been Erudite Criticism in the Nineties_

From the lowly precincts of the music halls has arisen a new pair of pragmatists. The names that appear on the bills are Weber and Fields, but the hands are the hands of William James. And so and so and so and so.

The method of these zanies is eclectic. From Zeno the Stoic they have taken the doctrine of “six-times-six-is-thirty-six.” From Anaxagoras the theory that the Whole is less than any of its parts. From Francis Bacon the denial of Truth as a substantive. From L. G. B. three dozen woolen stockings and a crate of oranges.

Take for example the scene where _Mike_ and _Meyer_ are discussing occupations (in itself pure dialectics):

MEYER: Vot are you doing?

MIKE: Voiking in a nut factory.

MEYER: Doing vot?

MIKE: Nutting.

MEYER: Sure--but vot are you _doing_?

MIKE: Nutting.

MEYER: I know, but vot voik are you doing?

MIKE: Nutting, I tole you.

MEYER (_poking his finger in Mike’s eye_): Ou-u-u-u, how I lofe you!

Here we have the new philosophy of the subconscious, the stirrings of a new American humor which derives from the modern German school of _Merkwürdigkeit_, or _Es-giebt-also-es-ist_. In the American mind is being born, through the medium of the music hall, a consciousness of national social satire which bids fair to revolutionize thought on this side of the Atlantic. Could a better example be found than the following dialogue between these two super-clowns in their latest show:

MIKE (_referring to off-stage noises_): A soldier has been shot.

MEYER: Vere vos he shot?

MIKE: In de eggcitement!

Here, in these words, lies America. The America of today, with its flaring gas lights, its thundering cable cars, the clatter of its hansoms, and the deafening whistle of its peanut stands. The young, vibrant spirit of America, locked in the message of two clowns! And, with the coming of jazz, twenty years from now, we shall see the full expression of the young nation’s strivings toward the Greater Smooch.

WATER FOOTBALL

_Suggestions to the Rules Committee for Making Use of Rain_

Whatever it is that the football rules committee does during that week in the spring that it spends in New York (and you can’t tell me that a group of healthy men can stay in a New York hotel room all the time and think of nothing but football, football, football) it certainly makes no provision for rain on the day of a big game. And anyone who has sat through four two-hour periods in a downpour will tell you that football, as it is played today, is essentially a fair-weather sport.

I had a cousin who went to the Harvard-Yale game last year and contracted gelatin-trouble, owing to the sizing in his fur coat having soaked through into his spine and gone the rounds of his entire system. He sat in a large puddle (one of the largest in the Yale Bowl, he tells me, and you know what a big place the Yale Bowl is) and along about six o’clock, on the way home in the machine, he felt a queer sort of spinal disintegration. “As if I were going to pieces,” is the way he expressed it. He thought nothing of it until his arms and legs began to come off and then he went somewhere and lay down. Whatever it was that finally became of him, the point is that watching football in the rain is no darned fun and the least that the rules committee can do is to make some regulations covering a situation that so frequently exists.

For instance, when it is found that the field is going to be knee-deep in mud and water, there ought to be some way of changing the nature of the game entirely, so that the very elements which would, under the old rules, work toward a spoiling of the game, might be turned into favorable factors for all concerned.

Thus we might have a play (to be called “left half around the sandbar”) in which, at the signal, the left halfback takes the ball from the quarter, tosses it into a dory, shoves off, and rows around right end. His interference, also in dories, could ward off tacklers by splashing water in their faces, use of the oars as clubs to be called illegal. To meet this play, it would be the function of the defensive backs to row through and, if possible, force the man with the ball in his boat to row onto a sandbar or else create such a wash that it upsets him.