But there shall be no personalities.
To sit in classes, to delve into the encyclopedia or the
past-performances page, will not make us wise. As the poet says,
"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers." Wisdom is dew, which, while
we know it not, soaks into us, refreshes us, and makes us grow.
Knowledge is a strong stream of water turned on us through a hose.
It disturbs our roots.
Then, let us rather gather wisdom. But how to do so requires
knowledge. If we know a thing, we know it; but very often we are not
wise to it that we are wise, and -
But let's go on with the story.
II
Once upon a time I found a ten-cent magazine lying on a bench in a
little city park. Anyhow, that was the amount he asked me for when
I sat on the bench next to him. He was a musty, dingy, and tattered
magazine, with some queer stories bound in him, I was sure. He turned
out to be a scrap-book.
"I am a newspaper reporter," I said to him, to try him. "I have been
detailed to write up some of the experiences of the unfortunate ones
who spend their evenings in this park. May I ask you to what you
attribute your downfall in - "
I was interrupted by a laugh from my purchase - a laugh so rusty and
unpractised that I was sure it had been his first for many a day.
"Oh, no, no," said he. "You ain't a reporter. Reporters don't talk
that way. They pretend to be one of us, and say they've just got in
on the blind baggage from St. Louis. I can tell a reporter on sight.
Us park bums get to be fine judges of human nature. We sit here all
day and watch the people go by. I can size up anybody who walks past
my bench in a way that would surprise you."
"Well," I said, "go on and tell me. How do you size me up?"
"I should say," said the student of human nature with unpardonable
hesitation, "that you was, say, in the contracting business - or maybe
worked in a store - or was a sign-painter. You stopped in the park to
finish your cigar, and thought you'd get a little free monologue out
of me. Still, you might be a plasterer or a lawyer - it's getting kind
of dark, you see. And your wife won't let you smoke at home."
I frowned gloomily.
"But, judging again," went on the reader of men, "I'd say you ain't
got a wife."
"No," said I, rising restlessly. "No, no, no, I ain't. But I _will_
have, by the arrows of Cupid! That is, if - "
My voice must have trailed away and muffled itself in uncertainty and
despair.
"I see you have a story yourself," said the dusty vagrant - impudently,
it seemed to me. "Suppose you take your dime back and spin your yarn
for me. I'm interested myself in the ups and downs of unfortunate
ones who spend their evenings in the park."
Somehow, that amused me. I looked at the frowsy derelict with more
interest. I did have a story. Why not tell it to him? I had told
none of my friends. I had always been a reserved and bottled-up man.
It was psychical timidity or sensitiveness - perhaps both. And I smiled
to myself in wonder when I felt an impulse to confide in this stranger
and vagabond.
"Jack," said I.
"Mack," said he.
"Mack," said I, "I'll tell you."
"Do you want the dime back in advance?" said he.
I handed him a dollar.
"The dime," said I, "was the price of listening to _your_ story."
"Right on the point of the jaw," said he. "Go on."
And then, incredible as it may seem to the lovers in the world who
confide their sorrows only to the night wind and the gibbous moon, I
laid bare my secret to that wreck of all things that you would have
supposed to be in sympathy with love.
I told him of the days and weeks and months that I had spent in
adoring Mildred Telfair. I spoke of my despair, my grievous days
and wakeful nights, my dwindling hopes and distress of mind. I even
pictured to this night-prowler her beauty and dignity, the great sway
she had in society, and the magnificence of her life as the elder
daughter of an ancient race whose pride overbalanced the dollars of
the city's millionaires.
"Why don't you cop the lady out?" asked Mack, bringing me down to
earth and dialect again.
I explained to him that my worth was so small, my income so minute,
and my fears so large that I hadn't the courage to speak to her of
my worship. I told him that in her presence I could only blush and
stammer, and that she looked upon me with a wonderful, maddening smile
of amusement.
"She kind of moves in the professional class, don't she?" asked Mack.
"The Telfair family - " I began, haughtily.
"I mean professional beauty," said my hearer.
"She is greatly and widely admired," I answered, cautiously.
"Any sisters?"
"One."
"You know any more girls?"
"Why, several," I answered. "And a few others."
"Say," said Mack, "tell me one thing - can you hand out the dope
to other girls? Can you chin 'em and make matinée eyes at 'em and
squeeze 'em? You know what I mean. You're just shy when it comes to
this particular dame - the professional beauty - ain't that right?"
"In a way you have outlined the situation with approximate truth," I
admitted.
"I thought so," said Mack, grimly. "Now, that reminds me of my own
case. I'll tell you about it."
I was indignant, but concealed it. What was this loafer's case or
anybody's case compared with mine? Besides, I had given him a dollar
and ten cents.
"Feel my muscle," said my companion, suddenly, flexing his biceps. I
did so mechanically. The fellows in gyms are always asking you to do
that. His arm was as hard as cast-iron.
"Four years ago," said Mack, "I could lick any man in New York outside
of the professional ring. Your case and mine is just the same. I come
from the West Side - between Thirtieth and Fourteenth - I won't give the
number on the door. I was a scrapper when I was ten, and when I was
twenty no amateur in the city could stand up four rounds with me. 'S
a fact. You know Bill McCarty? No? He managed the smokers for some
of them swell clubs. Well, I knocked out everything Bill brought up
before me. I was a middle-weight, but could train down to a welter
when necessary. I boxed all over the West Side at bouts and benefits
and private entertainments, and was never put out once.
"But, say, the first time I put my foot in the ring with a professional
I was no more than a canned lobster. I dunno how it was - I seemed to
lose heart. I guess I got too much imagination. There was a formality
and publicness about it that kind of weakened my nerve. I never won a
fight in the ring. Light-weights and all kinds of scrubs used to sign
up with my manager and then walk up and tap me on the wrist and see me
fall. The minute I seen the crowd and a lot of gents in evening clothes
down in front, and seen a professional come inside the ropes, I got as
weak as ginger-ale.
"Of course, it wasn't long till I couldn't get no backers, and I didn't
have any more chances to fight a professional - or many amateurs,
either. But lemme tell you - I was as good as most men inside the ring
or out. It was just that dumb, dead feeling I had when I was up against
a regular that always done me up.
"Well, sir, after I had got out of the business, I got a mighty grouch
on. I used to go round town licking private citizens and all kinds of
unprofessionals just to please myself. I'd lick cops in dark streets
and car-conductors and cab-drivers and draymen whenever I could start
a row with 'em. It didn't make any difference how big they were, or
how much science they had, I got away with 'em. If I'd only just have
had the confidence in the ring that I had beating up the best men
outside of it, I'd be wearing black pearls and heliotrope silk socks
to-day.
"One evening I was walking along near the Bowery, thinking about
things, when along comes a slumming-party. About six or seven they
was, all in swallowtails, and these silk hats that don't shine. One
of the gang kind of shoves me off the sidewalk. I hadn't had a scrap
in three days, and I just says, 'De-light-ed!' and hits him back of
the ear.
"Well, we had it. That Johnnie put up as decent a little fight as
you'd want to see in the moving pictures. It was on a side street,
and no cops around. The other guy had a lot of science, but it only
took me about six minutes to lay him out.
"Some of the swallowtails dragged him up against some steps and began
to fan him. Another one of 'em comes over to me and says:
"'Young man, do you know what you've done?'
"'Oh, beat it,' says I. 'I've done nothing but a little punching-bag
work. Take Freddy back to Yale and tell him to quit studying
sociology on the wrong side of the sidewalk.'
"'My good fellow,' says he, 'I don't know who you are, but I'd like
to. You've knocked out Reddy Burns, the champion middle-weight of the
world! He came to New York yesterday, to try to get a match on with
Jim Jeffries. If you - '
"But when I come out of my faint I was laying on the floor in a
drug-store saturated with aromatic spirits of ammonia. If I'd known
that was Reddy Burns, I'd have got down in the gutter and crawled past
him instead of handing him one like I did. Why, if I'd ever been in a
ring and seen him climbing over the ropes, I'd have been all to the
sal-volatile.
"So that's what imagination does," concluded Mack. "And, as I said,
your case and mine is simultaneous. You'll never win out. You can't
go up against the professionals. I tell you, it's a park bench for
yours in this romance business."
Mack, the pessimist, laughed harshly.
"I'm afraid I don't see the parallel," I said, coldly. "I have only a
very slight acquaintance with the prize-ring."
The derelict touched my sleeve with his forefinger, for emphasis, as
he explained his parable.
"Every man," said he, with some dignity, "has got his lamps on
something that looks good to him. With you, it's this dame that
you're afraid to say your say to. With me, it was to win out in the
ring. Well, you'll lose just like I did."
"Why do you think I shall lose?" I asked warmly.
"'Cause," said he, "you're afraid to go in the ring. You dassen't
stand up before a professional. Your case and mine is just the same.
You're a amateur; and that means that you'd better keep outside of the
ropes."
"Well, I must be going," I said, rising and looking with elaborate
care at my watch.
When I was twenty feet away the park-bencher called to me.
"Much obliged for the dollar," he said. "And for the dime. But
you'll never get 'er. You're in the amateur class."
"Serves you right," I said to myself, "for hobnobbing with a tramp.
His impudence!"
But, as I walked, his words seemed to repeat themselves over and over
again in my brain. I think I even grew angry at the man.
"I'll show him!" I finally said, aloud. "I'll show him that I can
fight Reddy Burns, too - even knowing who he is."
I hurried to a telephone-booth and rang up the Telfair residence.
A soft, sweet voice answered. Didn't I know that voice? My hand
holding the receiver shook.
"Is that _you_?" said I, employing the foolish words that form the
vocabulary of every talker through the telephone.
"Yes, this is I," came back the answer in the low, clear-cut tones
that are an inheritance of the Telfairs. "Who is it, please?"
"It's me," said I, less ungrammatically than egotistically. "It's me,
and I've got a few things that I want to say to you right now and
immediately and straight to the point."
"_Dear_ me," said the voice. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Arden!"
I wondered if any accent on the first word was intended; Mildred was
fine at saying things that you had to study out afterward.
"Yes," said I. "I hope so. And now to come down to brass tacks." I
thought that rather a vernacularism, if there is such a word, as
soon as I had said it; but I didn't stop to apologize. "You know, of
course, that I love you, and that I have been in that idiotic state
for a long time. I don't want any more foolishness about it - that is,
I mean I want an answer from you right now. Will you marry me or not?
Hold the wire, please. Keep out, Central. Hello, hello! Will you, or
will you _not_?"
That was just the uppercut for Reddy Burns' chin. The answer came
back:
"Why, Phil, dear, of course I will! I didn't know that you - that is,
you never said - oh, come up to the house, please - I can't say what I
want to over the 'phone. You are so importunate. But please come up
to the house, won't you?"
Would I?
I rang the bell of the Telfair house violently. Some sort of a human
came to the door and shooed me into the drawing-room.
"Oh, well," said I to myself, looking at the ceiling, "any one can
learn from any one. That was a pretty good philosophy of Mack's,
anyhow. He didn't take advantage of his experience, but I get the
benefit of it. If you want to get into the professional class, you've
got to - "
I stopped thinking then. Some one was coming down the stairs. My
knees began to shake. I knew then how Mack had felt when a
professional began to climb over the ropes.
I looked around foolishly for a door or a window by which I might
escape. If it had been any other girl approaching, I mightn't have -
But just then the door opened, and Bess, Mildred's younger sister,
came in. I'd never seen her look so much like a glorified angel. She
walked straight tip to me, and - and -
I'd never noticed before what perfectly wonderful eyes and hair
Elizabeth Telfair had.
"Phil," she said, in the Telfair, sweet, thrilling tones, "why didn't
you tell me about it before? I thought it was sister you wanted all
the time, until you telephoned to me a few minutes ago!"
I suppose Mack and I always will be hopeless amateurs. But, as the
thing has turned out in my case, I'm mighty glad of it.
BEST-SELLER
I
One day last summer I went to Pittsburgh - well, I had to go there on
business.
My chair-car was profitably well filled with people of the kind one
usually sees on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silk
dresses cut with square yokes, with lace insertion, and dotted veils,
who refused to have the windows raised. Then there was the usual
number of men who looked as if they might be in almost any business
and going almost anywhere. Some students of human nature can look at
a man in a Pullman and tell you where he is from, his occupation and
his stations in life, both flag and social; but I never could. The
only way I can correctly judge a fellow-traveller is when the train is
held up by robbers, or when he reaches at the same time I do for the
last towel in the dressing-room of the sleeper.
The porter came and brushed the collection of soot on the window-sill
off to the left knee of my trousers. I removed it with an air of
apology. The temperature was eighty-eight. One of the dotted-veiled
ladies demanded the closing of two more ventilators, and spoke loudly
of Interlaken. I leaned back idly in chair No. 7, and looked with
the tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head just
visible above the back of No. 9.
Suddenly No. 9 hurled a book to the floor between his chair and the
window, and, looking, I saw that it was "The Rose-Lady and Trevelyan,"
one of the best-selling novels of the present day. And then the
critic or Philistine, whichever he was, veered his chair toward the
window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud, of Pittsburgh,
travelling salesman for a plate-glass company - an old acquaintance
whom I had not seen in two years.
In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with
such topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination.
Politics might have followed next; but I was not so ill-fated.
I wish you might know John A. Pescud. He is of the stuff that heroes
are not often lucky enough to be made of. He is a small man with a
wide smile, and an eye that seems to be fixed upon that little red
spot on the end of your nose. I never saw him wear but one kind of
necktie, and he believes in cuff-holders and button-shoes. He is as
hard and true as anything ever turned out by the Cambria Steel Works;
and he believes that as soon as Pittsburgh makes smoke-consumers
compulsory, St. Peter will come down and sit at the foot of
Smithfield Street, and let somebody else attend to the gate up in
the branch heaven. He believes that "our" plate-glass is the most
important commodity in the world, and that when a man is in his home
town he ought to be decent and law-abiding.
During my acquaintance with him in the City of Diurnal Night I had
never known his views on life, romance, literature, and ethics. We
had browsed, during our meetings, on local topics, and then parted,
after Chateau Margaux, Irish stew, flannel-cakes, cottage-pudding,
and coffee (hey, there! - with milk separate). Now I was to get more
of his ideas. By way of facts, he told me that business had picked
up since the party conventions, and that he was going to get off at
Coketown.
II
"Say," said Pescud, stirring his discarded book with the toe of his
right shoe, "did you ever read one of these best-sellers? I mean
the kind where the hero is an American swell - sometimes even from
Chicago - who falls in love with a royal princess from Europe who is
travelling under an alias, and follows her to her father's kingdom
or principality? I guess you have. They're all alike. Sometimes
this going-away masher is a Washington newspaper correspondent,
and sometimes he is a Van Something from New York, or a Chicago
wheat-broker worthy fifty millions. But he's always ready to break
into the king row of any foreign country that sends over their queens
and princesses to try the new plush seats on the Big Four or the B.
and O. There doesn't seem to be any other reason in the book for their
being here.
"Well, this fellow chases the royal chair-warmer home, as I said, and
finds out who she is. He meets her on the _corso_ or the _strasse_ one
evening and gives us ten pages of conversation. She reminds him of
the difference in their stations, and that gives him a chance to ring
in three solid pages about America's uncrowned sovereigns. If you'd
take his remarks and set 'em to music, and then take the music away
from 'em, they'd sound exactly like one of George Cohan's songs.
"Well, you know how it runs on, if you've read any of 'em - he slaps
the king's Swiss body-guards around like everything whenever they
get in his way. He's a great fencer, too. Now, I've known of some
Chicago men who were pretty notorious fences, but I never heard of
any fencers coming from there. He stands on the first landing of the
royal staircase in Castle Schutzenfestenstein with a gleaming rapier
in his hand, and makes a Baltimore broil of six platoons of traitors
who come to massacre the said king. And then he has to fight duels
with a couple of chancellors, and foil a plot by four Austrian
archdukes to seize the kingdom for a gasoline-station.
"But the great scene is when his rival for the princess' hand, Count
Feodor, attacks him between the portcullis and the ruined chapel,
armed with a mitrailleuse, a yataghan, and a couple of Siberian
bloodhounds. This scene is what runs the best-seller into the
twenty-ninth edition before the publisher has had time to draw a
check for the advance royalties.
"The American hero shucks his coat and throws it over the heads of the
bloodhounds, gives the mitrailleuse a slap with his mitt, says 'Yah!'
to the yataghan, and lands in Kid McCoy's best style on the count's
left eye. Of course, we have a neat little prize-fight right then
and there. The count - in order to make the go possible - seems to be
an expert at the art of self-defence, himself; and here we have the
Corbett-Sullivan fight done over into literature. The book ends with
the broker and the princess doing a John Cecil Clay cover under the
linden-trees on the Gorgonzola Walk. That winds up the love-story
plenty good enough. But I notice that the book dodges the final
issue. Even a best-seller has sense enough to shy at either leaving a
Chicago grain broker on the throne of Lobsterpotsdam or bringing over
a real princess to eat fish and potato salad in an Italian chalet on
Michigan Avenue. What do you think about 'em?"
"Why," said I, "I hardly know, John. There's a saying: 'Love levels
all ranks,' you know."
"Yes," said Pescud, "but these kind of love-stories are rank - on the
level. I know something about literature, even if I am in plate-glass.
These kind of books are wrong, and yet I never go into a train but
what they pile 'em up on me. No good can come out of an international
clinch between the Old-World aristocracy and one of us fresh
Americans. When people in real life marry, they generally hunt up
somebody in their own station. A fellow usually picks out a girl that
went to the same high-school and belonged to the same singing-society
that he did. When young millionaires fall in love, they always select
the chorus-girl that likes the same kind of sauce on the lobster that
he does. Washington newspaper correspondents always many widow ladies
ten years older than themselves who keep boarding-houses. No, sir,
you can't make a novel sound right to me when it makes one of C. D.
Gibson's bright young men go abroad and turn kingdoms upside down
just because he's a Taft American and took a course at a gymnasium.
And listen how they talk, too!"
Pescud picked up the best-seller and hunted his page.
"Listen at this," said he. "Trevelyan is chinning with the Princess
Alwyna at the back end of the tulip-garden. This is how it goes:
"'Say not so, dearest and sweetest of earth's fairest flowers.
Would I aspire? You are a star set high above me in a royal
heaven; I am only - myself. Yet I am a man, and I have a heart
to do and dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned
sovereign; but I have an arm and a sword that yet might free
Schutzenfestenstein from the plots of traitors.'
"Think of a Chicago man packing a sword, and talking about freeing
anything that sounded as much like canned pork as that! He'd be much
more likely to fight to have an import duty put on it."
"I think I understand you, John," said I. "You want fiction-writers
to be consistent with their scenes and characters. They shouldn't
mix Turkish pashas with Vermont farmers, or English dukes with Long
Island clam-diggers, or Italian countesses with Montana cowboys, or
Cincinnati brewery agents with the rajahs of India."
"Or plain business men with aristocracy high above 'em," added Pescud.
"It don't jibe. People are divided into classes, whether we admit it
or not, and it's everybody's impulse to stick to their own class.
They do it, too. I don't see why people go to work and buy hundreds
of thousands of books like that. You don't see or hear of any such
didoes and capers in real life."
III
"Well, John," said I, "I haven't read a best-seller in a long time.
Maybe I've had notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell me
more about yourself. Getting along all right with the company?"
"Bully," said Pescud, brightening at once. "I've had my salary raised
twice since I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I've bought a
neat slice of real estate out in the East End, and have run up a
house on it. Next year the firm is going to sell me some shares of
stock. Oh, I'm in on the line of General Prosperity, no matter who's
elected!"
"Met your affinity yet, John?" I asked.
"Oh, I didn't tell you about that, did I?" said Pescud with a broader
grin.
"O-ho!" I said. "So you've taken time enough off from your plate-glass
to have a romance?"
"No, no," said John. "No romance - nothing like that! But I'll tell
you about it.
"I was on the south-bound, going to Cincinnati, about eighteen months
ago, when I saw, across the aisle, the finest-looking girl I'd ever
laid eyes on. Nothing spectacular, you know, but just the sort you
want for keeps. Well, I never was up to the flirtation business,
either handkerchief, automobile, postage-stamp, or door-step, and she
wasn't the kind to start anything. She read a book and minded her
business, which was to make the world prettier and better just by
residing on it. I kept on looking out of the side doors of my eyes,
and finally the proposition got out of the Pullman class into a case
of a cottage with a lawn and vines running over the porch. I never
thought of speaking to her, but I let the plate-glass business go to
smash for a while.
"She changed cars at Cincinnati, and took a sleeper to Louisville over
the L. and N. There she bought another ticket, and went on through
Shelbyville, Frankfort, and Lexington. Along there I began to have
a hard time keeping up with her. The trains came along when they
pleased, and didn't seem to be going anywhere in particular, except to
keep on the track and the right of way as much as possible. Then they
began to stop at junctions instead of towns, and at last they stopped
altogether. I'll bet Pinkerton would outbid the plate-glass people
for my services any time if they knew how I managed to shadow that
young lady. I contrived to keep out of her sight as much as I could,
but I never lost track of her.
"The last station she got off at was away down in Virginia, about
six in the afternoon. There were about fifty houses and four hundred
niggers in sight. The rest was red mud, mules, and speckled hounds.
"A tall old man, with a smooth face and white hair, looking as proud
as Julius Cæsar and Roscoe Conkling on the same post-card, was there
to meet her. His clothes were frazzled, but I didn't notice that
till later. He took her little satchel, and they started over the
plank-walks and went up a road along the hill. I kept along a piece
behind 'em, trying to look like I was hunting a garnet ring in the
sand that my sister had lost at a picnic the previous Saturday.
"They went in a gate on top of the hill. It nearly took my breath
away when I looked up. Up there in the biggest grove I ever saw was a
tremendous house with round white pillars about a thousand feet high,
and the yard was so full of rose-bushes and box-bushes and lilacs
that you couldn't have seen the house if it hadn't been as big as the
Capitol at Washington.
"'Here's where I have to trail,' says I to myself. I thought before
that she seemed to be in moderate circumstances, at least. This
must be the Governor's mansion, or the Agricultural Building of a
new World's Fair, anyhow. I'd better go back to the village and get
posted by the postmaster, or drug the druggist for some information.
"In the village I found a pine hotel called the Bay View House. The
only excuse for the name was a bay horse grazing in the front yard. I
set my sample-case down, and tried to be ostensible. I told the
landlord I was taking orders for plate-glass.
"'I don't want no plates,' says he, 'but I do need another glass
molasses-pitcher.'
"By-and-by I got him down to local gossip and answering questions.
"'Why,' says he, 'I thought everybody knowed who lived in the big
white house on the hill. It's Colonel Allyn, the biggest man and the
finest quality in Virginia, or anywhere else. They're the oldest
family in the State. That was his daughter that got off the train.
She's been up to Illinois to see her aunt, who is sick.'
"I registered at the hotel, and on the third day I caught the young
lady walking in the front yard, down next to the paling fence. I
stopped and raised my hat - there wasn't any other way.
"'Excuse me,' says I, 'can you tell me where Mr. Hinkle lives?'
"She looks at me as cool as if I was the man come to see about the
weeding of the garden, but I thought I saw just a slight twinkle of
fun in her eyes.
"'No one of that name lives in Birchton,' says she. 'That is,' she
goes on, 'as far as I know. Is the gentleman you are seeking white?'
"Well, that tickled me. 'No kidding,' says I. 'I'm not looking for
smoke, even if I do come from Pittsburgh.'
"'You are quite a distance from home,' says she.
"'I'd have gone a thousand miles farther,' says I.
"'Not if you hadn't waked up when the train started in Shelbyville,'
says she; and then she turned almost as red as one of the roses on
the bushes in the yard. I remembered I had dropped off to sleep on a
bench in the Shelbyville station, waiting to see which train she took,
and only just managed to wake up in time.
"And then I told her why I had come, as respectful and earnest as I
could. And I told her everything about myself, and what I was making,
and how that all I asked was just to get acquainted with her and try
to get her to like me.
"She smiles a little, and blushes some, but her eyes never get mixed
up. They look straight at whatever she's talking to.
"'I never had any one talk like this to me before, Mr. Pescud,' says
she. 'What did you say your name is - John?'
"'John A.,' says I.
"'And you came mighty near missing the train at Powhatan Junction,
too,' says she, with a laugh that sounded as good as a mileage-book to
me.
"'How did you know?' I asked.
"'Men are very clumsy,' said she. 'I knew you were on every train. I
thought you were going to speak to me, and I'm glad you didn't.'
"Then we had more talk; and at last a kind of proud, serious look came
on her face, and she turned and pointed a finger at the big house.
"'The Allyns,' says she, 'have lived in Elmcroft for a hundred years.
We are a proud family. Look at that mansion. It has fifty rooms.
See the pillars and porches and balconies. The ceilings in the
reception-rooms and the ball-room are twenty-eight feet high. My
father is a lineal descendant of belted earls.'
"'I belted one of 'em once in the Duquesne Hotel, in Pittsburgh,'
says I, 'and he didn't offer to resent it. He was there dividing his
attentions between Monongahela whiskey and heiresses, and he got
fresh.'
"'Of course,' she goes on, 'my father wouldn't allow a drummer to set
his foot in Elmcroft. If he knew that I was talking to one over the
fence he would lock me in my room.'
"'Would _you_ let me come there?' says I. 'Would _you_ talk to me
if I was to call? For,' I goes on, 'if you said I might come and
see you, the earls might be belted or suspendered, or pinned up with
safety-pins, as far as I am concerned.'
"'I must not talk to you,' she says, 'because we have not been
introduced. It is not exactly proper. So I will say good-bye, Mr. - '
"'Say the name,' says I. 'You haven't forgotten it.'
"'Pescud,' says she, a little mad.
"'The rest of the name!' I demands, cool as could be.
"'John,' says she.
"'John - what?' I says.
"'John A.,' says she, with her head high. 'Are you through, now?'
"'I'm coming to see the belted earl to-morrow,' I says.
"'He'll feed you to his fox-hounds,' says she, laughing.
"'If he does, it'll improve their running,' says I. 'I'm something of
a hunter myself.'
"'I must be going in now,' says she. 'I oughtn't to have spoken to you
at all. I hope you'll have a pleasant trip back to Minneapolis - or
Pittsburgh, was it? Good-bye!'
"'Good-night,' says I, 'and it wasn't Minneapolis. What's your name,
first, please?'
"She hesitated. Then she pulled a leaf off a bush, and said:
"'My name is Jessie,' says she.
"'Good-night, Miss Allyn,' says I.
"The next morning at eleven, sharp, I rang the door-bell of that
World's Fair main building. After about three-quarters of an hour an
old nigger man about eighty showed up and asked what I wanted. I gave
him my business card, and said I wanted to see the colonel. He showed
me in.
"Say, did you ever crack open a wormy English walnut? That's what
that house was like. There wasn't enough furniture in it to fill an
eight-dollar flat. Some old horsehair lounges and three-legged chairs
and some framed ancestors on the walls were all that met the eye. But
when Colonel Allyn comes in, the place seemed to light up. You could
almost hear a band playing, and see a bunch of old-timers in wigs
and white stockings dancing a quadrille. It was the style of him,
although he had on the same shabby clothes I saw him wear at the
station.
"For about nine seconds he had me rattled, and I came mighty near
getting cold feet and trying to sell him some plate-glass. But I got
my nerve back pretty quick. He asked me to sit down, and I told him
everything. I told him how I followed his daughter from Cincinnati,
and what I did it for, and all about my salary and prospects, and
explained to him my little code of living - to be always decent and
right in your home town; and when you're on the road, never take more
than four glasses of beer a day or play higher than a twenty-five-cent
limit. At first I thought he was going to throw me out of the window,
but I kept on talking. Pretty soon I got a chance to tell him that
story about the Western Congressman who had lost his pocket-book
and the grass widow - you remember that story. Well, that got him to
laughing, and I'll bet that was the first laugh those ancestors and
horsehair sofas had heard in many a day.
"We talked two hours. I told him everything I knew; and then he began
to ask questions, and I told him the rest. All I asked of him was to
give me a chance. If I couldn't make a hit with the little lady, I'd
clear out, and not bother any more. At last he says:
"'There was a Sir Courtenay Pescud in the time of Charles I, if I
remember rightly.'
"'If there was,' says I, 'he can't claim kin with our bunch. We've
always lived in and around Pittsburgh. I've got an uncle in the
real-estate business, and one in trouble somewhere out in Kansas.
You can inquire about any of the rest of us from anybody in old
Smoky Town, and get satisfactory replies. Did you ever run across
that story about the captain of the whaler who tried to make a
sailor say his prayers?' says I.
"'It occurs to me that I have never been so fortunate,' says the
colonel.
"So I told it to him. Laugh! I was wishing to myself that he was a
customer. What a bill of glass I'd sell him! And then he says:
"'The relating of anecdotes and humorous occurrences has always seemed
to me, Mr. Pescud, to be a particularly agreeable way of promoting
and perpetuating amenities between friends. With your permission, I
will relate to you a fox-hunting story with which I was personally
connected, and which may furnish you some amusement.'
"So he tells it. It takes forty minutes by the watch. Did I laugh?
Well, say! When I got my face straight he calls in old Pete, the
superannuated darky, and sends him down to the hotel to bring up my
valise. It was Elmcroft for me while I was in the town.
"Two evenings later I got a chance to speak a word with Miss Jessie
alone on the porch while the colonel was thinking up another story.
"'It's going to be a fine evening,' says I.
"'He's coming,' says she. 'He's going to tell you, this time, the
story about the old negro and the green watermelons. It always comes
after the one about the Yankees and the game rooster. There was
another time,' she goes on, 'that you nearly got left - it was at
Pulaski City.'
"'Yes,' says I, 'I remember. My foot slipped as I was jumping on the
step, and I nearly tumbled off.'
"'I know,' says she. 'And - and I - _I was afraid you had, John A. I
was afraid you had._'
"And then she skips into the house through one of the big windows."
IV
"Coketown!" droned the porter, making his way through the slowing car.
Pescud gathered his hat and baggage with the leisurely promptness of
an old traveller.
"I married her a year ago," said John. "I told you I built a house in
the East End. The belted - I mean the colonel - is there, too. I find
him waiting at the gate whenever I get back from a trip to hear any
new story I might have picked up on the road."
I glanced out of the window. Coketown was nothing more than a ragged
hillside dotted with a score of black dismal huts propped up against
dreary mounds of slag and clinkers. It rained in slanting torrents,
too, and the rills foamed and splashed down through the black mud to
the railroad-tracks.
"You won't sell much plate-glass here, John," said I. "Why do you get
off at this end-o'-the-world?"
"Why," said Pescud, "the other day I took Jessie for a little trip to
Philadelphia, and coming back she thought she saw some petunias in
a pot in one of those windows over there just like some she used to
raise down in the old Virginia home. So I thought I'd drop off here
for the night, and see if I could dig up some of the cuttings or
blossoms for her. Here we are. Good-night, old man. I gave you the
address. Come out and see us when you have time."
The train moved forward. One of the dotted brown ladies insisted
on having windows raised, now that the rain beat against them. The
porter came along with his mysterious wand and began to light the car.
I glanced downward and saw the best-seller. I picked it up and set it
carefully farther along on the floor of the car, where the rain-drops
would not fall upon it. And then, suddenly, I smiled, and seemed to
see that life has no geographical metes and bounds.
"Good-luck to you, Trevelyan," I said. "And may you get the petunias
for your princess!"
RUS IN URBE
Considering men in relation to money, there are three kinds whom I
dislike: men who have more money than they can spend; men who have
more money than they do spend; and men who spend more money than they
have. Of the three varieties, I believe I have the least liking for
the first. But, as a man, I liked Spencer Grenville North pretty
well, although he had something like two or ten or thirty millions -
I've forgotten exactly how many.
I did not leave town that summer. I usually went down to a village
on the south shore of Long Island. The place was surrounded by
duck-farms, and the ducks and dogs and whippoorwills and rusty
windmills made so much noise that I could sleep as peacefully as if
I were in my own flat six doors from the elevated railroad in New
York. But that summer I did not go. Remember that. One of my friends
asked me why I did not. I replied:
"Because, old man, New York is the finest summer resort in the world."
You have heard that phrase before. But that is what I told him.
I was press-agent that year for Binkly & Bing, the theatrical managers
and producers. Of course you know what a press-agent is. Well, he is
not. That is the secret of being one.
Binkly was touring France in his new C. & N. Williamson car, and Bing
had gone to Scotland to learn curling, which he seemed to associate in
his mind with hot tongs rather than with ice. Before they left they
gave me June and July, on salary, for my vacation, which act was in
accord with their large spirit of liberality. But I remained in New
York, which I had decided was the finest summer resort in -
But I said that before.
On July the 10th, North came to town from his camp in the Adirondacks.
Try to imagine a camp with sixteen rooms, plumbing, eiderdown quilts,
a butler, a garage, solid silver plate, and a long-distance telephone.
Of course it was in the woods - if Mr. Pinchot wants to preserve the
forests let him give every citizen two or ten or thirty million
dollars, and the trees will all gather around the summer camps, as the
Birnam woods came to Dunsinane, and be preserved.
North came to see me in my three rooms and bath, extra charge for
light when used extravagantly or all night. He slapped me on the back
(I would rather have my shins kicked any day), and greeted me with