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[Illustration: Book Cover]
[Illustration: JOHN KENDRICK BANGS]
The Idiot at Home
By
John Kendrick Bangs
Illustrated by
F. T. Richards
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS _Publishers_
1900
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
* * * * *
THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
THE ENCHANTED TYPEWRITER. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. 16mo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1.25.
COFFEE AND REPARTEE and THE IDIOT. 1 vol. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1.25.
THE DREAMERS: A CLUB. Illustrated by EDWARD PENFIELD. 16mo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1.25.
A REBELLIOUS HEROINE, A Story. Illustrated by W. T. SMEDLEY. 16mo,
Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges, $1.25.
A HOUSE-BOAT ON THE STYX. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. 16mo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1.25.
THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT. Illustrated by PETER NEWELL. 16mo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1.25.
PASTE JEWELS. Being Seven Tales of Domestic Woe. 16mo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1.00.
GHOSTS I HAVE MET, AND SOME OTHERS. With Illustrations by NEWELL, FROST,
and RICHARDS. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.
THE BICYCLERS, AND THREE OTHER FARCES. Illustrated, 16mo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1.25.
PEEPS AT PEOPLE. Illustrated by EDWARD PENFIELD. 16mo, Cloth,
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MR. BONAPARTE OF CORSICA. Illustrated by H. W. MCVICKAR. 16mo, Cloth,
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THE WATER GHOST, AND OTHERS. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental $1.25.
THREE WEEKS IN POLITICS. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents.
* * * * *
NEW YORK AND LONDON:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
* * * * *
Copyright, 1900, by JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
TO
"MISS BANGS OF LONDON"
FROM
"MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK"
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 1
II. A LITTLE DINNER TO SOME OLD FRIENDS 21
III. IN THE LIBRARY 43
IV. AS TO A SMALL DINNER 63
V. ON THE MAINTENANCE OF AN ATTIC 84
VI. THE IDIOT'S GARDEN 105
VII. HOUSEHOLD POETRY 125
VIII. SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE HIRED MAN 145
IX. ON SOCIAL ACCOUNTS 165
X. AS TO SANTA CLAUS 185
XI. AS TO NEW-YEAR'S DAY 205
XII. SOME DOMESTIC INTENTIONS 228
XIII. A SUBURBAN COMPLICATION 249
XIV. SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE MOTH 269
XV. SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE BURGLAR 288
XVI. CONCLUSION 301
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS _Frontispiece_
"POSSESSED A LIBRARY OF FIRST EDITIONS" 5
"'THEY NEVER HAD THE FUN OF BUYING THEM'" 9
"'GUARANTEED TO HANG ONTO A GARMENT IN A GALE'" 13
"'AND SOME PEOPLE SAY WAGNER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT'" 17
"TOMMY AND MOLLIE GAVE THE COOK A GREAT DEAL OF TROUBLE" 23
"'LET THE FATHERS LOOK AFTER THE CHILDREN AT NIGHT'" 29
"A LITTLE FIGURE CLAD IN WHITE" 35
"'I'D RATHER BE SPANKED THAN NOT NOTICED AT ALL'" 39
"'I DID NOT SMOKE UNTIL I WAS FIFTY'" 45
"'SMOKING KEEPS INSECTS FROM THE PLANTS'" 49
"THE BIBLIOMANIAC WAS INVESTIGATING THE CONTENTS OF THE LOWER
SHELVES" 53
"'I PREFERRED TO PAY THE $49.50'" 57
"THE COOK HAD TAKEN WINGS ONTO HERSELF" 65
"'TWO BIG BOXES OF POTATOES, A CAN OF FRENCH PEASE, AND A BOTTLE
OF SARSAPARILLA'" 69
"'THE PEOPLE DOWN-STAIRS BORROWED OUR DINING-ROOM CHAIRS'" 75
"'WHO WAS IT?' ASKED MRS. IDIOT" 79
"'I SET OFF A GIANT CRACKER UNDER HIS CHAIR'" 87
"'WOULD HANG THAT PORTRAIT UPON THE WALL OF MY BEDROOM'" 91
"'STARTED TO PREACH WITH THE RECIPE FOR A WASHINGTON PIE'" 95
"'A LITTLE BUNDLE OF MY OWN LETTERS'" 101
"'WE SPRINKLED IT IN PERSON'" 107
"'HE DISCOVERED THE ONE PERFECT STALK'" 111
"'IT WOULD DE DEUCEDLY AWKWARD ... IF THEY WOULD EXPLODE IN THE
MOUTH OF THE PERSON WHO WAS EATING THEM'" 115
"SHE COULD SLAM THEM DOWN ON THE HEARTH-STONES LIKE TORPEDOES'" 119
"'THE JOYS AND WOES OF THE TOILERS WHO MINED IT'" 127
"'FOR THOUGH I'M BUT A CARPET-TACK,'" ETC. 131
"'I SHOULD HESITATE TO TRY TO DRIVE A CANAL-BOAT'" 137
"'I HAVEN'T EVER HAD A HOME; I'VE ALWAYS BOARDED'" 141
"'I FEEL THAT I COULD GO OUT AND MOW THREE ACRES OF GRASS'" 147
"'HE WOULD GO OUT DAY AFTER DAY AND SIT DOWN BESIDE IT'" 151
"'HE SHOVELS OFF A FOOT-PATH'" 155
"'SPEND A WHOLE DAY ON ONE WINDOW'" 161
"'WELL, I'M FOND OF GOLF'" 167
"'AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL TEA'" 171
"'THE BABY IS ROCKED TO SLEEP EVERY NIGHT'" 175
"'POOR DICK DAWKINS ISN'T TAKEN CARE OF AT ALL'" 179
"'DR. PREACHLY ONLY GOT EIGHT PAIRS LAST XMAS'" 189
"'A CHINA DOLL TO THE DAUGHTER OF A CARPENTER'" 193
"'HULLO, SONNY! HAD A GOOD TIME?'" 197
"'I GAVE MY DOLLY AWAY TO-DAY'" 201
"'I DON'T QUITE CATCH YOUR DRIFT'" 207
"'I FELT AS IF I HAD SWALLOWED AN OVERSHOE'" 213
"'I FOUND EIGHT SANDWICHES AND A PINT OF SALTED ALMONDS'" 219
"'THEY WERE FOUND SOME DAYS LATER WHEN THE ROOM WAS PUT IN
ORDER'" 223
"'THERE'S NOT MUCH MONEY IN STOCKS'" 231
"'A NICE LITTLE BASKET-HAT ON HER HEAD TO HOLD THE PINS IN'" 235
"'AN ELECTRIC NOTICE TO QUIT'" 239
FINDING OUT WHAT IS BEING COOKED FOR DINNER 245
"'COURTING HIS BEST GIRL ON SOME OTHER FELLOW'S STONE WALL'" 251
"'HOLDING UP A GREAT OSAGE ORANGE'" 255
"'THE PICTURE OF A HEART WITH AN ARROW DRAWN THROUGH IT'" 259
"'IT TOOK MY HIRED MAN TWO WEEKS TO SCRUB IT OUT'" 265
"'AN UNPAID GROCER'S BILL BECOMES AN ABSOLUTE PLEASURE'" 271
"'THE LION, THE ELEPHANT, THE TIGER, ALL HAVE THEIR WORK TO DO'" 275
"'THEY EAT UP MY NEW CLOTHES'" 279
"'WASTED MY ENERGY UPON THE UNRESPONSIVE AIR'" 283
I
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
"My dear," said the Idiot one morning, as he and his good wife and the
two little ones, Mollie and Tommy, sat down at the breakfast-table, "now
that we are finally settled in our new house I move we celebrate. Let's
give a dinner to my old friends of Mrs. Smithers's; they were nice old
people, and I should like to get them together again. I saw Dr. Pedagog
in the city yesterday, and he inquired most affectionately, not to say
anxiously, about the children."
"Why should he be anxious about the children?" asked Mrs. Idiot,
placidly, as she sweetened her husband's coffee. "Does he suspect them
of lacking completeness or variety?"
The Idiot tapped his forehead significantly.
"He didn't know whether they take after you or after me, but I relieved
his mind on that score," he said. "I told him that they didn't take
after anybody that either of us ever knew. They have started in on a
line of Idiocy that is entirely their own. He seemed very much pleased
when I said that, and observed that he was glad to hear it."
Mrs. Idiot laughed.
"It was very nice of the Doctor to ask about them, but I am a little
afraid he wants to take a hand in their bringing up," she said.
"No doubt of it," said the Idiot. "Pedagog always was anxious to
experiment. Many a time I have suspected him of having designs even on
me."
"Mrs. Pedagog told me last year that he had devised an entirely new
system of home training," observed Mrs. Idiot, "and they both regretted
that they had no children of their own to try it on."
"And of course you offered to lend Tommy to them?" said the Idiot, with
a sly glance at his son, who was stowing away his oatmeal at a rate that
bade fair to create a famine.
"Of course," said Mrs. Idiot. "He's got to get raw material somewhere,
and I thought Tommy would be just the thing."
"Well, I ain't a-goin'," said Tommy, helping himself liberally and for
the third time to the oatmeal.
"My son," said the Idiot, with a mock show of sternness, "if your mother
chooses to lend you to any one it is not for you to say that you 'ain't
a-goin'. It may be that I shall interfere to the extent of demanding to
know what security for your safe return is offered, but otherwise
neither you nor I shall intervene. What your mother says is law for you
as well as for me. Please understand that, Thomas."
"All right, pa," said Tommy; and then he added in an undertone,
presumably to the butter, "But I ain't a-goin', just the same."
"I'll go," said Mollie, who rather liked the idea of being lent to
somebody, since it involved a visit to some strange and therefore
fascinating spot away from home. "Lend me to somebody, will you, mamma?"
"Yes, ma, lend Mollie to 'em," said Tommy, with, a certain dry
enthusiasm, "and then maybe you can borrow a boy from somebody else for
me to play with. I don't see why you don't swap her off for a boy,
anyhow. I like her well enough, but what you ever wanted to buy her for
in the beginning I don't know. Girls isn't any good."
"Thomas," said the Idiot, "you talk too much, and, what is more, you say
vain things which some day you will regret. When you get older you will
recall this dictum of yours, that 'girls isn't any good,' with a blush
of shame, and remember that your mother was once a girl."
"Well, she's outgrown it," said Tommy; and then reverting to his
father's choice of words, he added, "What is dictums, anyhow?"
"Pooh!" cried the little girl. "Smarty don't know what dictums is!"
"Suppose you two young persons subside for a few minutes!" interrupted
the Idiot. "I wish to talk to your mother, and I haven't got all day.
You'll be wanting some bread and butter to-morrow, and I must go to town
and earn it."
"All right, pa," said Tommy. "I ain't got anything to say that I can't
say to myself. I'd rather talk to myself, anyhow. You can be as sassy--"
"Thomas!" said the Idiot, severely.
"All right, pa," said Tommy; and with a side remark to the cream-jug,
that he still thought Mollie ought to be swapped off for something, it
didn't matter what as long as it wasn't another girl, the boy lapsed
into a deep though merely temporary silence.
"You said you'd like to give a dinner to Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog and the
others," said Mrs. Idiot. "I quite approve."
"I think it would be nice," returned the Idiot. "It has been more than
six years since we were all together."
"You wouldn't prefer having them at breakfast, would you?" asked Mrs.
Idiot, with a smile. "I remember hearing you say once that breakfast was
your best time."
"How long is six years, pa?" asked Tommy.
"Really, Thomas," replied the Idiot, severely, "you are the most absurd
creature. How long is six years!"
"I meant in inches," said Tommy, unabashed. "You always told me to ask
you when I wanted to know things. Of course, if you don't know--"
"It's more'n a mile, I guess," observed Mollie, with some superiority of
manner. "Ain't it, pa?"
The Idiot glanced at his wife in despair.
"I don't think, my dear, that I am as strong at breakfast as I used to
be," said he. "There was a time when I could hold my own, but things
seem to have changed. Make it dinner; and, Tommy, when you have deep
problems to solve, like how long is six years in inches, try to work
them out for yourself. It will fix the results more firmly in your
mind."
"All right, pa," replied Tommy; "I thought maybe you knew. I thought you
said you knew everything."
[Illustration: "POSSESSED A LIBRARY OF FIRST EDITIONS"]
In accordance with the Idiot's suggestion the invitations were sent out.
It was a most agreeable proposition as far as his wife was concerned,
for the Idiot's old associates, his fellow-boarders at Mrs.
Smithers-Pedagog's "High-Class Home for Single Gentlemen," had proved
to be the stanchest of his friends. They had, as time passed on, gone
their several ways. The Poet had made himself so famous that even his
bad things got into print; the Bibliomaniac, by an unexpected stroke of
fortune, had come into possession of his own again, and now possessed a
library of first editions that auctioneers looked upon with envious
eyes, and which aroused the hatred of many another collector. The Doctor
had prospered equally, and was now one of the most successful operators
for appendicitis; in fact, could now afford to refuse all other practice
than that involved in that delicate and popular line of work. The genial
gentleman who occasionally imbibed had not wholly reformed, but, as the
Idiot put it, had developed into one who occasionally did _not_ imbibe.
Mr. Brief had become an assistant district attorney, and was prominently
mentioned for a judgeship, and Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog lived placidly along
together, never for an instant regretting the inspiration which led them
to economize by making two into one. In short, time and fortune had
dealt kindly with all, even with Mary, the housemaid, who was now
general manager of the nursery in the Idiot's household.
The home life of "Mr. and Mrs. Idiot" had been all that either of the
young people could have wished for, and prosperity had waited upon them
in all things. The Idiot had become a partner in the business of his
father-in-law, and even in bad times had managed to save something,
until now, with two children, aged five and six, he found himself the
possessor of his own home in a suburban city. It had been finished only
a month when the proposed dinner was first mentioned, and the natural
pride of its master and mistress was delightful to look upon.
"Why, do you know, my dear," said the Idiot one evening, on his return
from town, "they are talking of asking me to resign from the club
because they say I am offensive about this place, and Watson says my
conversation has become a bore to everybody because the burden of my
song yesterday was pots and pans and kettles and things like that?"
"I suppose clubmen are not interested in pots and pans and kettles and
things," Mrs. Idiot observed. "Some people aren't, you know."
"Not interested?" echoed the Idiot. "What kind of people can they be not
to be interested in pots and pans and kettles and things? I guess it's
because of their dense ignorance."
[Illustration: "'THEY NEVER HAD THE FUN OF BUYING THEM'"]
"They never had the fun of buying them, perhaps," suggested Mrs. Idiot.
[Illustration: "'GUARANTEED TO HANG ONTO A GARMENT IN A GALE'"]
"Possibly," assented the Idiot. "And I'll tell you one thing, Pollie,
dear," he added, "if they had had that fun just once, instead of
squandering their savings on clothes and the theatre, and on horses,
you'd find every blessed one of those chaps thronging the hardware shops
all day and spending their money there. Why, do you know I even enjoyed
getting the clothes-pins, and what is more, it was instructive. I never
knew before what countless varieties of clothes-pins there were. There's
the plain kind of commerce that look like a pair of legs with a polo-cap
on. I was brought up on those, and I used to steal them when I was a
small boy, to act as understudies for Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth
in my Noah's ark. Then there's the patent kind with a spring to it that
is guaranteed to hang onto a garment in a gale if it has to let go of
the rope. Very few people realize the infinite variety of the
clothes-pin, and when I try to tell these chaps at the club about it
they yawn and try to change the subject to things like German opera and
impressionism and international complications."
"How foolish of them!" laughed Mrs. Idiot. "The idea of preferring to
talk of Wagner when one can discourse upon clothes-pins!"
"I am afraid you are sarcastic," rejoined the Idiot. "But you needn't
be; if you'd only reason it out you'd see at once that my view is
correct. Anybody can talk about Wagner. Any person who knows a picture
from a cable-car can talk with seeming intelligence on art, and even a
member of Congress can talk about international complications off-hand
for hours; but how many of these people know about clothes-pins?"
"Very few," said Mrs. Idiot, meekly.
"Very few, indeed," observed the Idiot. "And the same way with
egg-beaters. I'll bet you a laundry-stove that if I should write to the
_Recorder_ to-morrow morning, and ask a question about Wagner, the
musical editor would give me an answer within twenty-four hours; but
with reference to egg-beaters it would take 'em a week to find out. And
that's just the trouble. The newspapers are filled up with stuff that
everybody knows about, but they don't know a thing about other things on
the subject of which the public is ignorant."
"I think," said Mrs. Idiot, reflectively, "that that is probably due to
the fact that they consider Wagner more important than an egg-beater."
[Illustration: "'AND SOME PEOPLE SAY WAGNER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN
THAT'"]
"Well, then, they don't know, that's all," rejoined the Idiot, rising
and walking out into the kitchen and taking the fascinating object over
which he was waxing so enthusiastic from the dresser drawer. "Just look
at that!" he cried, turning the cog-wheel which set the three
intersecting metal loops whizzing like a squirrel in its wheel-cage.
"Just look at that! It's beautiful, and some people say Wagner is more
important than that."
"Well, I must say, my dear," said Mrs. Idiot, "that I have a leaning
that way myself. Of course, I admit the charm of the egg-beater, but--"
"Tell me one thing," demanded the Idiot. "Can you get along without
Wagner?"
"Why, yes," Mrs. Idiot replied, "if I have to."
"And can you get along without an egg-beater?" he cried, triumphantly.
The evidence was overwhelming, and Mrs. Idiot, with an appreciative
ebullition of mirth, acknowledged herself defeated, and so charmingly
withal, that the next day when her husband returned home he brought her
two tickets for the opera of Siegfried as a reward for her graceful
submission.
"I could have bought ten dozen muffin-rings for the same money," said
he, as he gave them to her, "but people who know when to give in, and do
give in as amiably as you do, my dear, deserve to be rewarded; and, on
the whole, when you use these tickets, if you'll ask me, I think I'll
escort you to Siegfried myself."
II
A LITTLE DINNER TO SOME OLD FRIENDS
[Illustration: "TOMMY AND MOLLIE GAVE THE COOK A GREAT DEAL OF TROUBLE"]
Ten days later all was excitement at the Idiot's new home. Tommy and
Mollie were in a state bordering upon frenzy, and gave the cook a great
deal of trouble, requesting a taste of this, that, and the other thing,
which she was preparing for the dinner to Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog, the
Bibliomaniac, and the others. Inwardly, too, they were somewhat
wrathful, for they could not understand why they were not permitted to
dine with their parents as usual.
"I guess maybe it's your manners that keeps you away, Tommy," said
Mollie.
"Hoh!" said Tommy. "It can't be that, because pa says I ain't got any.
It's because you're too young to be introdoosed into society, and I've
got to stay up-stairs and look after you. If you weren't a girl!"
Here Tommy clenched his fists and looked unutterable things. Mollie
shuddered and was glad she was a girl as she imagined the awful things
Tommy would do to her had she been a boy.
"Neither of 'em's it, Tommy," she said, in a conciliatory manner. "It's
because they ain't got enough dining-room chairs, that's why. I know,
because I counted 'em, and there's only eight, and there's nine people
comin'."
"I guess maybe that's it," said Tommy, pacified somewhat. "And anyhow, I
don't care. I saw that piece of paper ma gave Jennie, and she wrote down
all the things they're goin' to have, and it's goin' to be two hours
between the soup and the ice-cream. I couldn't ever wait that long for
the ice-cream. I don't see why they don't begin with ice-cream."
"I guess maybe we're better off as it is," said Mollie. "Popper and
mommer ain't likely to forget us, and, besides, we can talk."
And with this comforting reflection the little ones retired to their
nursery contented in mind and spirit--and they didn't suffer a bit.
Their "popper and mommer" didn't forget them. The ice-cream was
excellent, and they had their share of it almost before the guests began
with their oysters.
At seven o'clock Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog had arrived, and at seven-ten all
the invited guests were present.
"If it hadn't been for my wife," Mr. Pedagog whispered in his host's
ear, "I should have been late, too."
"Don't apologize, old man," replied the Idiot, gripping the
Schoolmaster's hand warmly. "I sometimes go to dinners on time myself."
In a few moments dinner was announced, and shortly after all were
seated, and in memory of old times the guests naturally waited for the
Idiot to begin.
"Do you know," he said, as he squeezed the juice from a luscious lemon
over an unprotesting oyster, at the same time glancing affectionately
over the company, "I haven't felt so much at home for years as I do
now."
"Not very complimentary to your wife," said Mr. Brief.
"Oh, I know what he means," observed Mrs. Idiot.
"And I have so many other opportunities to compliment her," said the
Idiot.
"But really, Mrs. Pedagog," he added, addressing the good lady who sat
at his right, "I feel absolutely contented to-night. All the good things
of the past and of the present seem to be concentrated about this
board--except the three up-stairs, who can't very well be here."
"Three?" asked Mr. Pedagog. "I thought there were only two--"
"Certainly," said the Idiot. "Tommy and Mollie, but there is Mary, your
old housemaid. We can't very well ask them to dine with us, you know."
"I don't see why Tommy and Mollie can't be invited," said Mr. Pedagog,
much to the Idiot's surprise, it seemed so like a violation of his
system, as it might be presumed to be.
"You believe in having children at table, then, Mr. Pedagog?" asked Mrs.
Idiot.
"Most certainly," said the Schoolmaster. Mrs. Pedagog glanced smilingly
at Mrs. Idiot, as much as to say, "Oh, these men!"
"I certainly do approve of having children at table on all occasions,"
he continued. "How else are they to learn how to conduct themselves? The
discipline of the nursery is apt to be lax, and it is my belief that
many of the bad table manners of the present-day child are due to the
sense of freedom which eating dinner in the nursery naturally
inculcates."
"There is something in what you say," said the Idiot. "Tommy, for
instance, never learned to throw a French pancake across the table at
his sister by watching his mother and myself here in the dining-room,
yet in the freedom of the nursery I have known it done."
"Precisely," said Mr. Pedagog. "That very little incident illustrates my
point exactly. And I have no doubt that in the nursery the offence
seemed less heinous than it would had it occurred in the dining-room,
and hence did not meet with the full measure of punishment that it
deserved."
"I have forgotten exactly what was done on that occasion," said the
Idiot, calmly. "It is my impression that I compelled Thomas to eat the
pancake."
"I am sure I never heard of the incident before," said Mrs. Idiot, her
cheeks growing very red. "He didn't really, did he, dear?"
"By jove!" cried the Idiot, snapping his forefinger against his thumb,
"what a traitor I am, to be sure. I promised Thomas never to tell, and
here I've given the poor little chap away; but the boy was excusable, I
assure you all--that is, he was excusable in a sense. Mollie had
previously hit him in the eye with a salted almond, and--"
"It is quite evident," put in Mrs. Pedagog, her womanly sympathy leading
her to rush to the aid of Mrs. Idiot, who seemed somewhat mortified over
the Idiot's confidences, "that you were not at home, my dear. I have
myself observed that extraordinary episodes of this nature generally
happen when it is the father who is left in charge of the children."
"Quite right, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Doctor, nodding his head gravely.
"I have noticed the same thing in my professional practice. As long as
the mother is about discipline is maintained, but once leave the father
in charge and riot is the order of the day."
"That's exactly what I was going to say," said the Idiot. "Many a time
when Mrs. Idiot has gone out shopping, as she did on the day in
question, and I have remained at home for a rest, I have wished
before evening came that I had gone shopping and let my wife have the
rest. As a matter of fact, the bringing up of children should be left to
the mother--"
"Oh, but the father should have something to do with it," interrupted
Mrs. Idiot. "It is too great a responsibility to place on a woman's
shoulders."
"You didn't let me finish, my dear," said the Idiot, amiably. "I was
going to say that the mother should bring the children up, and the
father should take 'em down when they get up too high."
"My views to a dot," said Mr. Pedagog, with more enthusiasm than he had
ever yet shown over the Idiot's dicta. "Just as in ordinary colonial
government, the home authorities should govern, and when necessary a
stronger power should intervene."
"Ideal--is it not?" laughed Mrs. Idiot, addressing Mrs. Pedagog. "The
mother, Spain. The children, Cuba. Papa, the great and glorious United
States!"
"Ahem! Well," said Mr. Pedagog, "I didn't mean that exactly, you know--"
"But it's what you said, John," said Mrs. Pedagog, somewhat severely.
[Illustration: "'LET THE FATHERS LOOK AFTER THE CHILDREN AT NIGHT'"]
"Well, I don't see why there can't be a division of responsibility,"
said the Poet, who had never married, and who knew children only as a
theory. "Let the mothers look after them in the daytime, and the fathers
at night."
This sally was greeted with an outburst of applause, it was so
practical.
"Excuse me!" said the Idiot. "I'm not selfish, but I don't want to have
charge of the children at night. Why, when Tommy was cutting his teeth I
suffered agonies when night came on. I was down-town all day, and so
wasn't very much bothered then, but at night it was something awful. Not
only Tommy's tooth, but the fear that his mother would tread on a tack."
"That was unselfish," said Mr. Pedagog, dryly. "You weren't afraid of
treading on one yourself."
"How could I?" said the Idiot. "I had all I could do trying to keep my
wife from knowing that I was disturbed. It is bad enough to be worried
over a crying babe, without being bothered by an irritated husband, so I
simply lay there pretending to be asleep and snoring away for dear
life."
"You are the most considerate man I ever heard of," said Mrs. Pedagog,
smiling broadly.
"You don't mean to say," said the Poet, with a frown, "that you made
your wife get up and take all the trouble and bother--"
"I'd only have been in the way," said the Idiot, meekly.
"So he kept quiet and pretended to snore like the good old Idiot that he
is," put in the Doctor. "And he did the right thing, too," he added. "If
all fathers would obliterate themselves on occasions of that sort, and
let the mothers rule, the Tommys and Dickies and Harrys would go to
sleep a great deal more quickly."
"We are rambling," said Mr. Pedagog. "The question of a father's duty
towards a teething son has nothing to do with the question of a child's
right to dine with his parents."
"Oh, I don't know," said the Idiot. "If we are to consider this matter
scientifically we must start right. Teething is a natural first step,
for if a child hath no teeth, wherewithal shall he eat dinners with his
parents or without them?"
"That is all very well," retorted Mr. Pedagog, "but to discuss
fire-engines intelligently it is not necessary to go back to the times
of Elisha to begin it."
Mr. Whitechoker--now the Rev. Theophilus Whitechoker, D.D., for he, too,
had prospered--smiled deprecatingly. There is no man in the world who
more thoroughly appreciates a biblical joke than the prosperous
clergyman.
"Well," said the Idiot, reflectively, "I quite agree with your
proposition that children should dine in the dining-room with their
parents and not up-stairs in the nursery, with a lot of tin soldiers and
golliwogs. The manners of parents are no better than those of tin
soldiers and golliwogs, but their conversation is apt to prove more
instructive; and as for the stern father who says his children must dine
in the kitchen until they learn better manners, I never had much
confidence in him or in his manners, either."
"I don't see," said the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed,
"how you can discipline children in the nursery. If they misbehave in
the dining-room you can send them up-stairs to the nursery, but if they
misbehave in the nursery, where the deuce can you send them?"
"To bed," said Mr. Brief.
"Never!" cried the Idiot. "Children, Mr. Brief, as I understand
them--and I have known three very well; myself as a boy, and Tommy and
Mollie--children, as I understand them, are never naughty for the mere
fun of being so. Their wickedness grows out of their wonderful stores of
unexpended and unexpendable energy. Take my son Thomas on last Saturday
afternoon, for instance. It was a rainy Saturday, and Tommy, instead of
being out-of-doors all morning and afternoon getting rid of his
superfluous vitality, had been cooped up in the house all day doing
nothing. Shortly before dinner we had a difference of opinion which
lasted for more time than I like to think about. I was tired and
irritable. Tommy wasn't tired, but he _was_ irritable, and, from his
point of view, was as right as I was. He had the best of me to the
extent that I was tired and he wasn't. I had the best of him to the
extent that I had authority and he hadn't--"
"And who came out ahead?" asked Mr. Pedagog.
"I did," said the Idiot, "because I was bigger than he was; but what I
was going to say was this: Mr. Brief would have sent him to bed,
thereby adding to the boy's stock of energy, already too great for his
little mind to control."
"And what did you do?" asked Mr. Brief.
"Nothin'," said a small but unmistakably masculine voice from behind the
portieres.
"Thomas!" said the Idiot, severely, as all turned to see who had spoken.
[Illustration: "A LITTLE FIGURE CLAD IN WHITE"]
A little figure clad in white, ably supported by a still smaller figure,
also clad in white, but with an additional ruffle about the neck, both
of them barefooted, appeared in the doorway.
"Why, Mollie!" said Mrs. Idiot.
"We comed down to thee how you wath gettin' along," said the little
girl.
"Yes, we did," said the boy. "But he didn't do a thing to me that day,"
he added, climbing on his father's knee and snuggling down against his
vest-pocket with a sweet little sigh of satisfaction. "Did you, pa?"
"Yes, Thomas," said the Idiot. "Don't you remember that I ignored you
utterly?"
[Illustration: "'I'D RATHER BE SPANKED THAN NOT NOTICED AT ALL'"]
"Yes, I do," said Tommy. "But I'd rather be spanked than not noticed at
all."
"I am afraid," said Mr. Pedagog a few hours later, as he and Mrs.
Pedagog were returning home, "I am very much afraid that the Idiot's
children are being spoiled."
"I hope they are!" returned the good lady, "for really, John, I never
knew a boy or a girl to grow into man or womanhood and amount to
anything who hadn't been spoiled in childhood. Spoiling is another name
for the attitude of parents who make comrades of their children and who
do not set themselves up as tyrants--"
"But the veneration of a child for his father and mother--" Mr. Pedagog
began.
"Should not degenerate into the awe which one feels for an unrelenting
despot!" interrupted Mrs. Pedagog.
The old gentleman discreetly retired from the field.
As for Mrs. and Mr. Idiot, they retired that night satisfied with the
evening's diversion, and just before he turned out the light the Idiot
walked into the nursery to say good-night to the children.
"You're a good old pop!" said Tommy, with an affectionate hug. "_The
best I ever had!_"
As for Mollie, she was sleeping soundly, with a smile on her placid
little face which showed that, "spoiled" as she was, she was happy; and
what should the Idiot or any one else seek to bring into a child's life
but happiness?
III
IN THE LIBRARY
The Bibliomaniac had come off into the country to spend Sunday with the
Idiot, and, as fortune would have it, Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog also appeared
on the scene. After the mid-day dinner the little party withdrew to the
library, where the Bibliomaniac began to discourse somewhat learnedly
upon his hobby.
"I am glad to see, my dear Idiot," he observed, as he glanced about the
room at the well-filled shelves, "that as you grow older you are
cultivating a love of good literature."
"I heartily echo the sentiment," said Mr. Pedagog, as he noted the
titles of some of the volumes. "I may add that I am pleasurably
surprised at some of your selections. I never knew, for instance, that
you cared for Dryden, and yet I see here on the top shelf a voluminous
edition of that poet."
"Yes," said the Idiot. "I have found Dryden very useful indeed.
Particularly in that binding and in so many volumes. The color goes very
well with the hangings, and the space the books occupy, eked out by a
dozen others of the same color, gives to that top shelf all the esthetic
effect of an attractive and tasteful frieze. Then, too, it is always
well," he added, with a sly wink at Mrs. Idiot, "to have a lot of books
for a top shelf that is difficult to reach that nothing under the canopy
could induce you to read. It is not healthful to be stretching upward,
and with Dryden upon the top shelf my wife and I are never tempted to
undermine our constitutions by taking him down."
The Bibliomaniac laughed.
"Your view is at least characteristic," said he, "and to tell you the
absolute truth, I do not know that your judgment of the literary value
of Dryden is at variance with my own. Somebody called him the Greatest
Poet of a Little Age. Perhaps if the age had been bigger he'd not have
shone so brilliantly."
"Lowell," observed Mr. Pedagog, "was responsible for that remark, if I
remember rightly, and I have no doubt it is a just one, and yet I do not
hold it up against Dryden. Man does not make the age. The age makes the
man. Had there been any inspiring influences at work to give him a
motive, an incentive, Dryden might have been a greater poet. To excel
his fellows was all that could rightly be expected of him, and that he
did."
"Assuredly," said the Idiot. "That has always been my view, and to-day
we benefit by it. If he had gone directly to oblivion, Mrs. Idiot and I
should have been utterly at a loss to know what to put on that top
shelf."
The Idiot offered his visitors a cigar.
"Thank you," said the Bibliomaniac, taking his and sniffing at it with
all the airs and graces of a connoisseur.
[Illustration: "'I DID NOT SMOKE UNTIL I WAS FIFTY'"]
"I don't know but that I will join you," said Mr. Pedagog. "I did not
smoke until I was fifty, and I suppose I ought not to have taken it up
then, but I did, and I have taken a great deal of comfort out of it. My
allowance is fifty-two cigars a year, one for each Sunday afternoon," he
added, with a kindly smile.
"Well, you want to look out you don't get smoker's heart," said the
Idiot. "When a man plunges into a bad habit as rashly as that, he wants
to pull up before it is too late."
"I have felt no ill effects since the first one," rejoined Mr. Pedagog.
"But you, my dear Idiot, how about your allowance? Is it still as great
as ever? As I remember you in the old days you were something of a
cigarette fiend."
[Illustration: "'SMOKING KEEPS INSECTS FROM THE PLANTS'"]
"I smoke just as much, but with this difference: I do not smoke for
pleasure any more, Mr. Pedagog," the Idiot replied. "As a householder I
smoke from a sense of duty. It keeps moths out of the house, and insects
from the plants."
[Illustration: "THE BIBLIOMANIAC WAS INVESTIGATING THE CONTENTS OF THE
LOWER SHELVES"]
The Bibliomaniac meanwhile had been investigating the contents of the
lower shelves.
"You've got a few rare things here, I see," he observed, taking up a
volume of short sketches illustrated by Leech, in color. "This small
tome is worth its weight in gold. Where did you pick it up?"
"Auction," said the Idiot. "I didn't buy it by weight, either. I bought
it by mistake. The colored pictures fascinated me, and when it was
put up I bawled out 'fifteen.' Another fellow said 'sixteen.' I wasn't
going to split nickels so I bid 'twenty.' So we kept at it until it was
run up to 'thirty-six.' Then I thought I'd break the other fellow's
heart by bidding fifty, and it was knocked down to me."
"That's a stiff price, but on the whole it's worth it," said the
Bibliomaniac, stroking the back of the book caressingly.
"But," said Mr. Pedagog, "if you bid on it consciously where did the
mistake come in?"
The Idiot sighed. "I meant cents," he said, "but the other chap and the
auctioneer meant dollars. I went up and planked down a half-dollar and
was immediately made aware of my error."
"But you could have explained," said Mr. Pedagog.
[Illustration: "'I PREFERRED TO PAY THE $49.50'"]
"Oh, yes," said the Idiot, "I _could_, but after all I preferred to pay
the extra $49.50 rather than make a public confession of such infernal
innocence before some sixty or seventy _habitues_ of a book-auction
room."
"And you were perfectly right!" said the Bibliomaniac. "You never would
have dared set your foot in that place again if you had explained. They
would have made life a burden to you. Furthermore, you have not paid too
dearly for the experience. The book is worth forty dollars; and to learn
better than to despise the man who makes his bid cautiously, and who
advances by small bids rather than by antelopian jumps, is worth many
times ten dollars to the man who collects rare books seriously. In the
early days I scorned to break a five-dollar bill when I was bidding,
just as you refused, as you put it, to split nickels, and many a time I
have paid as high as twenty-five dollars for books that could have been
had for twenty-one, because of that foolish sentiment."
"I have often wondered," Mr. Pedagog put in at this point, holding his
cigar in a gingerly and awed fashion, taking a puff at it between words,
by which symptoms the man who seldom smokes may always be identified, "I
have often wondered what was the mission of a private library, anyhow.
And now that I find you two gentlemen interested in a phase of
book-collecting with which I have had little sympathy myself, possibly I
may, without being offensive, ask a question. Do you, for instance,
Mr. Idiot, collect books because you wish to have something nobody else
has got, or do you buy your books to read?"
"That is a deep question," said the Idiot, "and I do not know that I can
answer it off-hand. I have already confessed that I bought Dryden for
his decorative quality. I purchased my Thackeray to read. I bought my
Pepys Diary because I find it better reading than a Sunday newspaper,
quite as gossipy, and with weather reports that are fully as reliable.
But that particular Leech I bought because of my youthful love for
colored pictures."
"But you admit that it is valuable because of its rarity, and that
compared to fifty dollars' worth of books that are not rare it is not to
be compared with them from a literary point of view?" said Mr. Pedagog.
"I presume," said the Idiot, "that the fifty dollars I expended on that
book would have provided me with a complete Shakespeare in one volume;
all of Byron in green cloth and gold top; all of Dickens, Thackeray,
Bulwer, and Austen in six volumes, with a margin of forty-five dollars
left with which for nine years I could have paid for a subscription to
the Mercantile Library, containing all the good reading of the present
day and all the standard works of the past. But I rather like to have
the books, and to feel that they are my own, even if it is only for the
pleasure of lending them."
"Still, if a man collects books merely for their contents--" persisted
Mr. Pedagog.
"He is a wild, extravagant person," said the Idiot. "He might save
himself hundreds of dollars, not to say thousands. The library on that
plan need not occupy an honored place among the rooms of the house. A
mere pigeon-hole with a subscriber's card to a circulating library filed
away in it will do as well, or if the city or town in which he lives
maintains a public library he may spare himself even that expense."
"Good for you!" exclaimed the Bibliomaniac. "That's the best answer to
the critics of book-collectors I have heard yet."
"I agree with you," said Mr. Pedagog. "It is a very comprehensive reply.
As for you, my dear Bibliomaniac, why do you collect books?"
"Because I love 'em as books," replied the Bibliomaniac. "Because of
their associations, and because when I get a treasure I have the bliss
of knowing I have something that others haven't."
"Then it is selfishness?" asked Mr. Pedagog.
"Just as everything else is," returned the Bibliomaniac. "You, sir, if I
may be personal without wishing to be offensive, are wedded to Mrs.
Pedagog. You take pleasure in knowing that she belongs to you and not to
any one else. The Idiot here is proud of his children, and is glad they
are his children and nobody else's. _I_ am wedded to my rare books, and
it rejoices my soul to pick up a volume that is unique, and to know that
it belongs to me and to no one else. If that is selfishness, then all
possession is selfish."
"That's about it," said the Idiot. "You collect books just as Mormons
and Solomon used to collect wives. You are called a Bibliomaniac. I
suppose Brigham Young and Solomon would have been known as
Gamyomaniacs--though I don't suppose that age in women as in books is a
requisite of value to marrying men--and they are both of them supposed
to be rather canny persons."
Mr. Pedagog puffed away in silence. It was evident that the _argumentum
ad hominem_ did not please him.
"Well," he said, after awhile, "possibly you are right. If a man wants a
library to be a small British Museum--"
"He will take better care of his rarities than the Idiot does," said the
Bibliomaniac, putting the rare Leech back into its place. "If that were
mine I'd put it out of the reach of my children."
"I didn't know you had any," said the Idiot, eagerly.
"Oh, you know what I mean," retorted the Bibliomaniac. "You place Dryden
on the top shelf where Tommy and Mollie cannot get at him. But this
book, which is worth ten larger paper editions of Dryden, you keep
below, where the children can easily reach it. It's a wonder to me
you've been able to keep it in its present superb condition."
"The mind of a child," said Mr. Pedagog, sententiously, "is above
values, above all conceits. It is the mind of sincerity, and a rare book
has no greater attraction to the boy or girl than one not so favored."
"That is not my reason," said the Idiot. "I know children pretty well,
and I have observed that they are ambitious, and in a sense rebellious.
They want to do what they cannot do. That is why, when mothers place jam
on the top shelf of the pantry, the children always climb up to get it.
If they would leave it on the dining-room table, within easy reach, the
children would soon cease to regard it as a thing to be sought for. Make
jam a required article of diet and the little ones will soon cease to
want it. So with that book. If I should put that out of Tommy's reach,
Tommy would lie awake nights to plan his campaign to get it. Leaving it
where it is he doesn't think about it, doesn't want it, is not forbidden
to have it, and so it escapes his notice."
"You have the right idea, the human idea," said Mr. Pedagog, and even
the Bibliomaniac was inclined to agree. But just then Tommy happened in,
with Mollie close after. The boy walked straight to the bookcase, and
Mollie gathered up the large shears from the Idiot's table, and together
they approached their father.
"Pa," said Mollie, holding up the scissors, "can I borrow these?"
"What for?" asked the Idiot.
"We want to cut the pictures out o' this," said Tommy, holding up the
fifty-dollar Leech.
After all, it is difficult to lay down a cast-iron rule as to how a
private library should be constructed or arranged, particularly when
one's loyalty is divided between one's children and one's merely bookish
treasures.
IV
AS TO A SMALL DINNER
[Illustration: "THE COOK HAD TAKEN WINGS UNTO HERSELF"]
It was sad but true. Mr. and Mrs. Idiot had invited Mr. Whitechoker and
Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog and the Poet to dinner, and for some reason or
another the cook had taken wings unto herself and flown, and the guests
were expected within two hours.
"I see now," said the Idiot, "why they call it taking French leave.
Nobody who doesn't understand French understands it. If it wasn't
French, or if somebody would translate it for us, we might be able to
comprehend it; as it is, it is one of the mysteries, and, as usual, we
must make the best of it. Life, after all, my dear, consists largely of
making the best of things."
"Well, I'm sure I don't know what to do," said Mrs. Idiot, despairfully,
"unless you telegraph them all not to come, and tell them why."
"It is too late to do that," said the Idiot, looking at his watch.
"They've probably all left home by this time. Poets and clergymen and
old people like Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog always do start an hour too early,
for fear of missing their train."
"I wouldn't care so much about the Poet," said Mrs. Idiot; "he doesn't
know enough about housekeeping, anyhow, to make it matter. But Mr.
Whitechoker and Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog--I simply can't ask them to camp
out, as it were. The very fact that Mrs. Pedagog would become
sympathetic immediately she learned what had happened would in itself be
unbearable."
"I thought women liked sympathy?" said the Idiot, with a proper
manifestation of surprise.
"So they do; but you might just as well talk about claret as meaning one
thing as of sympathy being all of the same brand," Mrs. Idiot answered.
"Certain kinds of claret are insufferable--sour and heady. I suppose
there are sixty different kinds."
"Sixty-two," said the Idiot, blandly. "The sixty you mean and two more
whose names I have forgotten."
"I wish you would be serious for a moment," Mrs. Idiot retorted, with as
near an approach to irritation as was possible to one of her amiable
disposition. "And it's just the same way with sympathy," she continued;
"Mrs. Pedagog will lay this whole trouble to my inexperience. Probably
she never had a servant take French leave in her life on the eve of a
dinner-party."
"I'll bet she didn't," said the Idiot. "And for why? Because she never
gave a dinner-party in all her life. The habits of early life cling unto
old age, and even as in her early days as a boarding-house keeper she
never gave anything, so now she doubtless considers giving a dinner as a
reckless waste of opportunity. And she is quite right. Does a lawyer
invite his friends to join him in an opinion? Never. Does Mr. Tiffany
request Mr. and Mrs. Idiot to accept a diamond tiara given in their
honor? Not. Does a true poet, with three names on his autograph, give a
poem to anybody when he can sell it? Not if he knows it. Why, then,
expect a landlady, by birth and previous training, to _give_ a dinner?"
"I notice," said Mrs. Idiot, severely, "that you are always willing to
give your views!"
[Illustration: "'TWO BIG BOXES OF POTATOES, A CAN OF FRENCH PEASE, AND A
BOTTLE OF SARSAPARILLA'"]
"Precisely, my dear, and that proves my point," replied the Idiot,
amiably. "I am not a professional viewer, and I am not a photographer by
trade. Therefore, why should I not _give_ my views? But really," he
added, "I wouldn't bother; it'll all come out right. I don't know just
how, but I am confident we shall have the most glorious dinner of our
lives. When I was down cellar this morning looking at the gas-meter I
saw two big boxes full of potatoes, a can of French pease, and a bottle
of sarsaparilla, and if they don't like what they get it will be because
they are exacting. And I'll wager you from what I know of their manners
that if you gave them dried apples, cold tongue, and milk they'd say it
was the most delightful repast they ever sat down to."
"But _I'd_ know they didn't mean it," said Mrs. Idiot, smiling in spite
of her woe.
"And that brings up the question, why should your conscience be
troubled by the insincerity of others?" said he. "Now, I'll tell you
what we'll do. You fry the potatoes and I'll boil the can of pease; I
think four minutes will boil them hard, like an egg, and together we'll
put the sarsaparilla on ice, and bluff the whole thing through. Bluffing
was always my strong point, and I have noticed, my dear, that in
whatever I have tried to do since we were married you have contributed
at least ninety per cent. to success. My bluff plus your efforts to make
the thing a go will send our dinner to a premium."
Mrs. Idiot remained properly silent. As a matter of fact, she was not
even listening. She was considering. What on earth to do was the
question in her mind, and it so entirely absorbed it that she
fortunately had little left for the rather easy views of the Idiot
himself.