Dear me! how can he live with only eight pairs of slippers? But, after
all, slippers are an appropriate gift for a clergyman," he added, "and
Santa Claus should be credited with that fact. Slippers have soles, and
the more slippers he gets the easier it is to save their soles, and
therefore--"
"Really, my dear, you are flippant," said Mrs. Idiot.
"Not at all," rejoined the Idiot. "I am merely trying to sit on two
stools at once--to retain my respect for Dr. Preachly without giving up
my everlasting regard for Santa Claus. If I can't do both I am very much
afraid it will be Dr. Preachly, and not Santa Claus, who will go to the
wall in this establishment, and that would be sad. I can't say I think
much of the doctor's logic. Do you?"
"I didn't notice his logic," Mrs. Idiot replied.
"Very likely," said the Idiot; "from what you tell me of his discourse I
imagine he must have left it at home, which is a bad thing to do in an
argument. To begin, he called Santa a lie, did he?"
"Yes; said he didn't exist at all."
"Good! Then how could he have been a snob?"
"Why, while of course I have no sympathy with his conclusions, Dr.
Preachly handled that point pretty well. It certainly is true that in
the homes of the rich there is a lavishness of gifts that you don't
find in the homes of the poor, and therefore Santa Claus treats the rich
better than he does the poor. We all know that."
"Hum!" said the Idiot. "And so it is Santa Claus who is the snob, eh,
and not Fortune?"
"Well, Dr. Preachly did not touch upon that. All he said was that Santa
Claus was a snob for favoring 'high society' and in many cases
absolutely ignoring the submerged."
"But I don't see how," said the Idiot.
"Suppose he brings a diamond necklace to the daughter of a Croesus?"
"Precisely," said the Idiot.
[Illustration: "'A CHINA DOLL TO THE DAUGHTER OF A CARPENTER'"]
"And a china doll to the daughter of a carpenter?" said Mrs. Idiot.
"That's tact, not snobbishness," said the Idiot. "What would the
daughter of a carpenter do with a diamond necklace? The china doll is
not only more appropriate, but a better plaything."
"Well, anyhow, he gives richly to those that have, and sparsely, if at
all, to those that haven't, Dr. Preachly said," said Mrs. Idiot.
"There is scriptural authority for that," observed the Idiot. "I wonder
if Dr. Preachly reads his Bible! Perhaps I'd better send him one for
Christmas instead of a pair of galoshes. He'll find in the Bible that
'to him that hath shall be given,' and so forth. But to return to the
logic--"
"I told you I didn't notice it," said Mrs. Idiot.
"Nor did Dr. Preachly, my dear; passed it by as if it were a poor
relation, apparently. But this is true, a lie is an untruth. Truth alone
lives, therefore an untruth does not live. Santa Claus is a lie and does
not live, and is a snob, according to our reverend logician. Now, how
can one who does not live be a snob or anything else? Truly, I wish Dr.
Preachly would be more careful in his statements. As a pew-holder in his
church I do not like to hear him denounce something that does not exist
as having unworthy qualities. It's like shaking a sword at nothing and
patting yourself on the back afterwards for your courage; still more in
this instance is it like batting your poor mortal head against the hard
surface of an everlasting rock, and our clergy should be in better
business.
"Let 'em fight the harmful lies--the lies of false social ideas as
propagated by distinctions of pew-holding, for instance. The man who
sits in the front of the church is no better than the man who sits at
the back, and is frequently his inferior; but has he more or has he less
influence? The man who hands in his check for ten thousand dollars,
having that and more to spare, is not more the friend of religion and
Christianity than the poor beggar who stumbles in and puts his penny in
the plate, thus diminishing by one-fifth his capital. Suppose Santa
Claus is in a material sense a fancy or a lie; Heaven help Dr. Preachly
if he can't see the beauty and the ethical value of the deception. Is he
not the embodiment of the golden rule, and is he not, after all--God
bless him and them!--something beautiful in the eyes of the children?"
"I'm flippant, and I know it, but there are some things I cling to," he
added, after a pause. "Santa Claus is one of them, and Dr. Preachly can
preach through all eternity, and, with all due respect to him, he can't
remove from my mind the beauty of an idea that was planted there by two
people who were practical enough, my father and my mother. I've
inherited Santa Claus, and I'm not going to give him up, and no
preacher in our church or in the church of others can take him away from
me by one sermon, or by an infinite number of sermons, however sincere
they may be. Is dinner ready?"
Dinner was ready. It was eaten reflectively, and after it the children
went to Sunday-school. From this Tommy returned with a swollen eye,
which later became dark.
"Hullo, pop!" he said, addressing the Idiot as he entered the house.
[Illustration: "'HULLO, SONNY! HAD A GOOD TIME?'"]
"Hullo, sonny!" replied the Idiot, observing the swollen eye. "Had a
good time?"
"Yep," said the boy; "pretty good."
"Been fighting?" suggested the Idiot.
"Not so very much," said the boy; "only a little." And he began to sing
a popular air, as if he didn't care much about life in general, and
didn't mind an aching eye, which was rapidly, by its inflammation,
giving away the fact that he had met with trouble.
"What did you learn at Sunday-school?" asked the Idiot.
"More blessed to give than to receive," said Tommy.
"Good!" said the Idiot. "I hope you will remember that, sonny. There is
no satisfaction in all the world like that of giving if you can afford
it."
[Illustration: "'I GAVE MY DOLLY AWAY TO-DAY'"]
"I think tho, too," said Mollie, sitting down on her father's lap with
the contented sigh of a little girl who has discovered that life is not
all an illusion. "I gave my dollie away to-day, papa," she added. "She
wath only thawdust, and Pollie Harrington hath her now. She was a
drefful care, and I'm glad to be ridden of her."
But the Idiot's mind was not on dolls, and he showed it. His boy's eye
proved a greater care.
"Come here, my boy," he said.
The boy approached inquiringly.
"How did this happen?" the Idiot asked. "Your eye is swollen."
"Oh, I don't know," cried Tommy, exultantly. "Jimmie Roberts said there
wasn't no Santy Claus."
"Well?"
"I said there was, an' then I gave him one on the end of his nose."
Here the boy struggled away from his father, as if he had done something
he was willing to stand by.
"Let me understand this," said the Idiot. "Jimmie said--"
"There wasn't any Santy Claus," interrupted Tommy.
"Then what did you say?" asked the Idiot.
"I told him he didn't know what he was talking about," said Tommy.
"Why did you say that?"
"Because he was wrong, papa," said Tommy. "I've seen Santy Claus; I saw
him last year."
"Ah! You did, eh? I was not aware of that fact."
Tommy began to laugh.
"You can't fool me, daddy," he said, climbing onto his father's knee.
"Of course I've seen him, and he's the bulliest feller in all the world.
_You're him!_"
And a hug followed.
Later on Mrs. Idiot and the Idiot sat together. The latter was deep in
thought.
"Children have queer notions," said he, after a while.
"They are generally pretty right, though," observed Mrs. Idiot. "You are
a pretty good Santa Claus, after all," she added.
"Pollie," said the Idiot, rising, "I believe in Santa Claus because he
represents the spirit of the hour, and whoever tries to turn him down
tries to turn down that spirit--the most blessed thing we have. Let's
keep the children believing in Santa Claus, eh?"
"I agree," said Mrs. Idiot. "For the secret is out. You are Santa Claus
to them."
"Heaven grant I may always be as much," said the Idiot. "For if a father
is Santa Claus, and a boy or a girl believes in Santa Claus as a friend,
as a companion, as something that brings them only sincerity and love
and sympathy, then may we feel that Tiny Tim's prayer has been answered,
and that God has blessed us all."
XI
AS TO NEW-YEAR'S DAY
It was New-Year's eve, and Mr. and Mrs. Idiot with their old friends
were watching the old year die. The old year had been a fairly
successful one for them all, and they were properly mournful over its
prospective demise, but the promise of the new was sufficiently bright
to mitigate their sorrow.
"What a sandwich life is, after all!" ejaculated the Idiot.
Mr. Pedagog started nervously. The remark was so idiotic that even its
source seemed to make it inexcusable.
[Illustration: "'I DON'T QUITE CATCH YOUR DRIFT'"]
"I don't quite catch your drift," said he.
"As the man said when an avalanche of snow fell off his neighbor's roof
and missed him by an inch," said the Idiot. "Why, just think a moment,
Doctor, and my drift will overwhelm you. Look about you and consider
what we have ourselves demonstrated to-night. If that does not prove
life a series of emotional sandwiches, then I don't know what a sandwich
is. Twenty minutes ago we were all gladness over the prosperity of the
year gone by. Five minutes ago we were all on the verge of tears because
the good old year is going the way of all years. An hour from now we
will be joyously acclaiming the new. Two thick slices of joy with a thin
slice of grief between."
"Ah!" said Mr. Pedagog. "I see. There is something in the analogy, after
all. The bread of joy and the ham of sorrow, as you might put it; do
make up the sum of human existence; but in some cases, my lad, I am
afraid you will find there is only one slice of bread to two of ham."
"No doubt," replied the Idiot, "but that does not affect my proposition
that life is a sandwich. If one slice of ham between two slices of bread
is a ham sandwich, why is not one slice of bread between two slices of
ham a bread sandwich? What is a sandwich, anyhow? The dictionary says
that a sandwich is something placed between two other things; hence,
all things are sandwiches, because there is nothing in the world, the
world being round, that is not between two other things. Therefore, all
things being sandwiches, life is a sandwich, Q. E. D."
"Is life a thing?" demanded Mr. Pedagog.
"Certainly," said the Idiot. "And a mighty good thing, too. If you don't
believe it look the word thing up in the dictionary. All things are
things."
"But," continued the Schoolmaster, his old spirit of antagonism rising
up in his breast, "granted that life is a thing, what is it between so
that it becomes a sandwich?"
"The past and the future," said the Idiot. "It is a slice of the
immediate between a slice of past and one of future."
Mr. Pedagog laughed.
"You are still the same old Idiot," he said.
"Yes," said the Idiot. "Gibraltar and I and Truth are the three
unchangeable things in this life, and that's why I am so happy. I'm in
such good company. Gibraltar and Truth are good enough companions for
anybody."
Meanwhile Mollie and Tommy, who had been allowed to sit up upon this
rare occasion, stirred uneasily.
"Ith I a thandwich, popper?" said the little girl, sleepily, raising her
head from her father's shoulder and gazing into his eyes.
"Yes, indeed, you are," said her father, giving her an affectionate
squeeze. "A sugar sandwich, Mollie. You're really good enough to eat."
"Well, I'd rather be a pie," put in Tommy; "an apple pie."
"Very well, my son," returned the Idiot. "Have your own way. Henceforth
be a pie if you prefer--an apple pie. But may I ask why you express this
preference?"
"Oh, because," said Tommy, "if I'm to be an apple pie somebody's got to
fill me chock-full of apple sauce."
"The son of his father," observed Mr. Whitechoker.
"I think it is a pity," Mrs. Pedagog put in at this point, "that some of
the good old customs of the New Year have gone out."
"As to which, Mrs. Pedagog?" asked the Idiot.
"Well, New-Year's calling particularly," explained the lady. "It is no
longer the thing for people to make New-Year's calls, and I must confess
I regret it. It used to be a great pleasure to me in the old days to
receive the gentlemen--my old friends, and relatives, and boarders."
"Why distinguish between your old friends and your boarders, Mrs.
Pedagog?" interrupted the Idiot. "They are synonymous terms."
"They are now," said the good lady, "but--ah--they weren't always. I
used sometimes to think you, for instance, didn't like me as much as you
might."
"I didn't dare," explained the Idiot. "If I'd liked you as much as I
might I'd have told you so, and then Mr. Pedagog would have got jealous
and there'd have been a horrid affair."
The lady smiled graciously, and Mr. Pedagog threw a small paper pellet
at the Idiot.
"I'm much obliged to you for holding off, Idiot," he said. "I don't know
where I'd have been to-day if you'd got in ahead of me. Mrs. Pedagog has
always had a soft spot in her heart for you."
"I've got the other spot," said the Idiot, "and a pair of aces are hard
to beat in pairs; but I think I voice Mrs. Pedagog's sentiments in the
matter, Mr. Pedagog, when I say that she and I would always have been
glad to see you every other New-Year's day if I had been the fortunate
winner of her hand."
"And Mr. Pedagog and I would have been glad to see you and Mrs. Pedagog
in the sandwich years," said Mrs. Idiot to her husband; and then,
turning to the Schoolmaster, added, "Wouldn't we, Mr. Pedagog?"
"No, madame," returned Mr. Pedagog, courteously. "You might have been,
but I would not. If I had married you I could never have seen any one
else with pleasure. I should have kept my eyes solely for you."
"John!" cried Mrs. Pedagog, arching her eyebrows.
"Pleasantry, my dear--mere pleasantry," returned the Schoolmaster,
tapping his fingers together and smiling sweetly upon Mrs. Idiot.
"You didn't finish, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot. "You were telling us
how you used to enjoy New-Year's calling before it went out."
"Yes," replied Mrs. Pedagog. "It was charming. I used positively to
look forward to its coming with delight. We women, Mr. Idiot, found the
old custom very delightful."
"But the men, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot, "did you ever think of
them?"
"What else did we think of? What else is there for a woman to think
about?" replied Mrs. Pedagog.
"Jane!" cried Mr. Pedagog.
"_Pleasantry, my dear--mere pleasantry_," returned Mrs. Pedagog,
frigidly. And Mr. Pedagog lit a cigar. It is not always pleasant to be
quoted.
"Still," said the Idiot, "you thought of men only as creatures of the
moment--"
"Entirely," said Mrs. Pedagog.
"And not as creatures of the week following," said the Idiot.
"What has that to do with it?" asked Mrs. Pedagog.
"Much--from the man's stand-point," returned the Idiot. "His digestion
was butchered to make a woman's holiday. Take myself as an example. I
used to make New-Year's calls; and to get through with my list by
midnight, I had to start in at nine o'clock in the morning."
"Nine o'clock is not so early," said Mr. Whitechoker.
"It's early for cake and pickled oysters," said the Idiot. "And for
chicken salad and wedding-cake, and for lemonade and punch, and for
lobster and egg-nog, and for ice-cream and _pâté-de-foie-gras_."
"H'm!" said Mr. Pedagog, reflectively. "That's true."
"Quite so," observed Mr. Whitechoker, brushing off his vest, upon which
the ashes of his cigar had rested. "Especially for the punch."
"There was no punch in my house," said Mrs. Pedagog. "Indeed, I always
served a very simple luncheon. We did have chicken salad, of course, but
the chicken was good and the salad was crisp--"
"I'd swear to it," said the Idiot.
"And we had egg-nog, but there was more egg than nog in it--"
"Again I'd swear to it," said the Idiot, smacking his lips.
"And as for the lobsters, nobody ever complained--"
"He'd have been a lobster himself who would," said the Idiot. "But that
does not prove that no one ever suffered."
"And as for the pickled oysters, no one ever suffered from them that I
knew of," continued the good lady. "They are harmless eaten in
moderation."
[Illustration: "'I FELT AS IF I HAD SWALLOWED AS OVERSHOE'"]
"Exactly right," cried the Idiot. "No gentleman would ever complain of
pickled oysters, even if they were made of inferior rubber, eaten in
moderation. Yet I recall in my own experience a pickled oyster of most
impressive quality. He was not a pickled oyster of the moment. He was
the Admiral Dewey of pickled oysters. In appearance he resembled every
other pickled oyster I ever met, but--well, he kept me in a state of
worry for a month. Just eating him alone was eating pickled oysters in
immoderation. I felt as if I had swallowed an overshoe. He was a
charming pickled oyster, Mrs. Pedagog, and he was devoted to me, but he
involved me in complications alongside of which the Philippine question
is child's play. If a New-Year's caller could have confined his
attentions to the ladies he met no harm would have come to him, but he
couldn't, you know. The day was one continuous round of effort and
indigestibles. What a man got at your house and had to eat merely to
show his appreciation of your hospitality was all right and wholesome.
Your lobster and egg-nog could do him no harm, but he couldn't stop with
yours; he had to continue, and consume lobsters and egg-nog everywhere
else and all day long. The day resolved itself into a magnificent gorge
alongside of which that of Niagara seems like a wagon-rut. It finally
came down to the point where either man or the custom had to die, and
man being selfish, the custom went. Did you ever consider exactly how
much indigestible food an amiable, well-meaning person had to consume in
a round of, say, three dozen calls, Mrs. Pedagog?"
Mr. Brief nodded his approval. "Now you've struck it," he said. "I've
been there, Idiot."
"I must confess," said Mrs. Pedagog, "that I never looked into that
question."
"Well, I'll tell you," the Idiot resumed. "The last time I made
New-Year's calls I figured it out for the doctor the next morning, and
as I recall the statistics, in the course of that day I ate one hundred
and twenty-nine pickled oysters, thirteen plates of chicken salad, seven
plates of lobster salad, five plates of mulled sardines, twenty-three
plates of ice-cream, four hundred and sixty-three macaroons,
eighty-seven sandwiches ranging from lettuce and ham to chicken and
potted goose-liver, enough angel-cake to feed all the angels there are
and two more, sixteen Welsh rarebits that were being made just as I
happened in, and crystallized ginger and salted almonds and marrons to
the extent of about eighteen pounds."
"Mercy!" cried Mrs. Pedagog.
"Say, pa, where was I then?" asked Tommy, his eyes glittering with
delight.
"You were eating green cheese on the moon, Tommy," said the Idiot.
"Wisht I'd been with you," said Tommy. "Must o' been better than bein' a
pie."
"And all of these things," continued the Idiot, with a wink at his son,
"I washed down with six gallons of lemonade, nineteen cups of coffee,
eighteen cups of tea, and a taste of claret punch."
"And how about the egg-nog?" asked the Bibliomaniac, slyly.
"I judge there were about six crates of eggs in it," said the Idiot. "I
never had the nerve to estimate the nog-end of it."
"What did the doctor say when you told him all that?" asked Mrs.
Pedagog.
The Idiot chuckled. "What did he say?" he cried. "Why, I should think
you could guess. He blamed it all on the Welsh rarebits, but he thought
he could get me into shape again in time for the next New Year. I've
never been the same man since."
"Well, the way I look at it," said Mrs. Pedagog, "is that it is a great
pity that women must be deprived of a function that gives them pleasure
because the men make pigs of themselves."
"But you don't understand, Mrs. Pedagog," the Idiot persisted. "I grant
you that the man who eats all that makes a pig of himself, but he has no
choice. He can't help himself. When a charming hostess insists, he'd be
a greater pig if he refused to partake of her hospitality. The custom
involved an inevitable sacrifice of man's digestion upon the altar of
woman. That's all there was about it. If it could have been arranged so
that a man could take a hamper about with him and stow all the cakes and
salads and other good things away in that, and eat them later as he
happened to need or want them, instead of in his own inner self, the
good old custom might have been preserved, but that is impossible in
these conventional days."
"You needn't have eaten it all," put in Mrs. Idiot. "You could have
pretended to eat it and put it down somewhere."
[Illustration: "'I FOUND EIGHT SANDWICHES AND A PINT OF SALTED
ALMONDS'"]
[Illustration: "'THEY WERE FOUND SOME DAYS LATER WHEN THE ROOM WAS PUT
IN ORDER'"]
"I know that, my dear. I didn't even on that occasion eat it all--I only
ate what I told you. I found eight sandwiches and a pint of salted
almonds in my coat-tail pocket the next morning, which I managed
surreptitiously to hide away while my hostesses were getting me
something else, and in one place, while nobody was watching me, I hid a
half-dozen pickled oysters under a sofa, where I suppose they were found
some days later when the room was put in order."
As the Idiot spoke the clock struck twelve, and the guests all rose up.
"Here's to the New Year!" said Mr. Pedagog.
"Not yet," interposed the Idiot. "That's only a signal for the Welsh
rarebits to be brought in. I've sworn them off for the New Year, but I
haven't for the old. The clock is a half-hour fast."
"No, my dear," said Mrs. Idiot. "It was, but I put it back. It's exactly
right now."
"Then," said the Idiot, "I join you in the toast, Mr. Pedagog. Here's to
the New Year: may it bring joy to everybody. Meanwhile may it bring also
the Welsh rarebits."
"I thought you'd sworn off," suggested Mr. Pedagog.
"So I had," replied the Idiot, "but circumstances over which I have no
control force me to postpone my reformation for another twelve months.
If they had been served at half-past eleven I should have stuck to my
resolve; as they have been delayed until twelve-one I cannot do less
than eat them. I do not believe in wilful waste; and besides, it is
quite as much the duty of the host to consume the good things he places
before his guests as it is for the guests to partake. I can wait a year,
I think, without wholly ruining what little digestion my former devotion
to New-Year's calling has left me. Gentlemen, I propose the ladies: May
their future be as golden as this rarebit; and for the men, may they
always be worthy to be the toast upon which that golden future may rest
with the certainty born of confidence."
And the guests fell to and ate each a golden buck to the New Year--all
save Mollie and Tommy. These two important members of the household went
up to their little beds, but just before going to sleep Tommy called
through the door to his little sister:
"Mollie!"
"Yeth!"
"Want to play a game with me to-morrow?"
"Yeth!"
"Well, you get a cake and a pie and some gingersnaps and a lot of apples
and some candy and we'll play New-Year's calls."
"Splendid!" lisped Mollie. "You'll call on me?"
"Yes," said Tommy; "and all you'll have to do will be to force food on
me."
And they soon passed into the land of dreams.
XII
SOME DOMESTIC INVENTIONS
[Illustration: "'THERE'S NOT MUCH MONEY IN STOCKS'"]
"I think I'll give up the business of broking and go into inventing,"
said the Idiot one Sunday morning, as he and Mrs. Idiot and their
friends sat down at breakfast. "There's not much money in stocks, but
the successful inventor of a patent clothes-pin makes a fortune."
"I'd think twice about that before acting," observed Mr. Brief. "There
may not be much money in stocks, but you can work eight hours a day, and
get good pay in a broker's office, while the inventor has to wait upon
inspiration."
"True enough," said the Idiot; "but waiting on inspiration isn't a bad
business in itself. You can play golf or read a rattling good novel, or
go to a yacht-race while you wait."
"But where does the money come in?" asked Mr. Pedagog, his usual
caution coming to the fore.
"Inspiration brings it with her," said the Idiot, "and by the barrel,
too. What's the use of toiling eight hours a day for fifty weeks in a
year for three thousand dollars when by waiting on inspiration in a
pleasant way you make a million all of a sudden?"