money you're paying for me is utterly wasted."
"Ah!"
"Yes. I can't look in the face of a hungry designer and beat him down to
within a dollar of the cost of materials. And--and--my suggestions upon
broader lines don't seem to cause much hooray."
"Well--" the junior partner sat up--"since you admit----" He paused for
his partner to speak the words of discharge.
But Houghton was looking quizzically at the college man. "What was your
idea as to broader lines?"
Brainard hesitated. "Well, it seemed to me that Pepper is trying to do
two things that are antagonistic: be _'élite'_ and sell chewing-gum. The
fact is that _élite_ people don't chew gum. I'd like to know how the
statement, 'Old Tulu--Best by Test,' will make a kid on the corner with
a cent in his fist have an attack of mouth-watering."
Kaufmann roused himself. "It is true. Our gum _is_ the best."
"I'm not disputing that, but still it's _gum_. If you're trying to
increase the vulgar habit of gum-chewing--well--you can't do it by
advertising the firm's financial standing, its age, or the purity of its
output. That would do for an insurance company or a bank--but _gum_! Who
cares for purity! All they want to know is if it _schmeckt gut_." This
last with a humorous glance at Kaufmann.
The latter was scowling. Brainard was touching a tender spot.
"Well, what would you do?"
Brainard flushed. He felt the tone of sarcasm in the elder man's voice.
He tightened his lips. "At least, I'd change the name of the gum!"
"Change the name!" Kaufmann was horrified.
"Well, nobody wants 'Old Tulu.' They want 'New Tulu' or 'Fresh Tasty
Tulu.' At least, something to appeal to the imagination of
Sadie-at-the-ribbon-counter."
"Oh!" observed Houghton. "And the name you suggest?"
"Well,--say something like 'Lulu Tulu.'"
"Gott!" Kaufmann struck the desk a blow with his fist. It was an insult
to his father's memory.
Brainard rose. "I'm sorry," he said, "if I have offended. To save you
any further bother, I'll just cut it out after Saturday. I--thank you
for the chance"--he smiled a little ruefully--"the chance you have given
me. Good day, gentlemen."
He turned on his heel and left the office.
* * * * *
As John Houghton was driven home that night, he became suddenly
conscious that he would soon meet the apparition of the afternoon in the
flesh. And though, of course, there was no need, he found himself
rehearsing the justification of his position. "Lulu Tulu" indeed!
Imagine the smile that would have illumined the faces at the club on
such an announcement. The impudence of the boy to have suggested it to
him--him who had so often held forth upon the value of conservatism in
business! And he remembered with pride the speaker who had once said,
"It is such solid vertebrae as Mr. Houghton that form the backbone of
our business world." That speaker had been Bender, of the New York
Dynamo Company. Poor Bender! The Western Electric Construction had got
him after all.
This line of thought caused Houghton to reach in his pocket and produce
a letter. He went over the significant part again.
"Our Mr. Byrnes reports the clinching of the subway vending-machine
contract," it read, "and this, together with our other business, will
give us over half of the New York trade. With this statement before us,
we feel that we can make a winning fight if you still refuse to consider
our terms. In view of recent developments, we cannot repeat our former
offer but if you will consider sixty-seven as a figure----"
Sixty-seven! And a year before he would not have taken one hundred and
ten! In the bitterness of the moment, he wondered if he, too, would
finally go the way that Bender had.
And then, as the butler swung the door back, he was recalled to the
matter of Tom Brainard by the sight of a familiar figure that floated
toward him as airily as had its astral self that afternoon.
He kissed her and went to his study. Just before dinner was not a time
to discuss such things. But later, as he looked across the candelabra at
his daughter, all smiles and happiness in that seat that had been her
mother's, he regretted that he had not, for----
"Daddy," Dorothy was saying, "I got such a funny note from Tom this
afternoon. He says there has been a change at the office and that you
will explain."
"Yes."
"Well----?" She paused eagerly. "It's something awfully good--I know."
Her father frowned and caught her eye. "Later," he said significantly.
The girl read the tone, and the gaiety of the moment before was gone.
After that they ate in silence.
One cigar--two cigars had been smoked when she stole into the library.
Since coffee (whether from design or chance he never knew), she had
rearranged her hair. Now it was low on her neck in a fashion of long
ago, with a single curl that strayed over a white shoulder to her bosom.
She knelt at his side without a word.
He looked down at her. Somehow he had never seen her like this
before--that curious womanly expression.
"Tell me," was all she said.
And, as he told Tom Brainard's failure to fit in, he watched her
closely. "I'm sorry," he concluded.
"So am I, daddy," she returned steadily; "because I am going to marry
him."
"What?"
"Oh, you knew--you must have," she said, "when I asked you to give him
the chance."
The father was silent. In fancy he again heard Dolly Warner promising,
against her parents' advice, to wait for her John to "get on in the
world."
"Well?" he asked.
"Do you think you've given him a fair chance?"
He was restored to his usual poise. "I suppose he complained that I
didn't."
Dorothy's eyes went wide. "No, he said that after I had heard the news
from you, he would leave everything to me."
"Oh!"
"But, father, I don't think you _have_ been fair. Tom is right. _I_
don't chew gum, do I?"
"Well----" He was indignant. Then he stopped thoughtfully. "No."
"But Mary downstairs does. She wouldn't be offended at 'Lulu Tulu.' I
dare say she'd think it 'just grand.'"
He returned no answer.
"Come, daddy," she went on. "New York has grown lots--even since I was
little. And--and some people get behind the times. They think they're
being dignified when it's only that they're antiquated."
He looked shrewdly at her. "I never heard you talk like that before.
Where did you----"
"Tom said that a week ago," she admitted. "And he said, too, that he
could double the results if he only had full swing. Instead, you admit
he's a mere clerk for that horrid Pepper. Oh, daddy, daddy," she
pleaded. "Give him a chance." Then her voice went low again. "I'm going
to marry him anyway," she said, "and you don't want this between. If he
fails, I'll stand the loss from what mother left me. Give him full
swing--a real chance, daddy! He's going to be--_your son_."
John Houghton looked into the earnest girlish face. He wound the curl
about his finger. "Kaufmann has always wanted to visit the Fatherland,"
he said irrelevantly.
She gave a quick, eager look. "And that Pepper could go on a vacation."
* * * * *
Days drag very slowly at a summer resort, especially when one has
promised not to write to him. But Dorothy's father had kept his word, so
she could but do the same. Behind, in the sweltering city, in full
charge for six weeks was Tom Brainard. His authority included permission
to invent and use any new labels or trade-marks he saw fit.
The girl at the seashore, however, was also busy--amusing her father
that he might not give too much time to thinking. And then, when three
of the six weeks had passed, came the accident to the motor car.
She was told that with rest and no worries, her father would recover in
a week or two. She cheerfully fitted into the rôle of assistant to the
nurse in charge, and, as soon as the doctor allowed, prepared to read
his mail to him as he lay, eyes and head bandaged. But as she opened and
glanced over the accumulated letters, she suddenly went pale. She read
one in particular from end to end, and then, with a scared, furtive look
at the bandaged figure, slipped it into a pocket.
Later, when her father had finished dictating to her, she answered the
concealed letter herself.
Again the days drifted. The bandages were removed; but still the girl
continued to scan the mail. Her vigilance was rewarded. She flushed over
a second letter which, with one in a worn envelope, she took to her
father.
He saw the careworn expression. "My little girl has been overworking,"
he said.
She held out the worn letter. "I've had this for some time--but--but I
waited for something more, and here it is." She showed the other.
He took the first, and when he had finished, his hand was trembling.
"I regret to report that things are in a chaos," it ran. "All of the
regular advertising has been withdrawn. The usual entertainment money
for salesmen classed under this head has been stopped. In consequence,
our city trade has tumbled fearfully--and you know how bad it was
before. The worst news I have to offer is in regard to Mr. Brainard
personally. Our detective reports that his time outside is spent in most
questionable company. He has been seen drinking at roof-gardens with a
certain dissipated pugilist named Little Sullivan, and was traced with
this man to the apartment of a song-and-dance woman named Violette. He
seems to be spending money extravagantly and visits certain bohemian
quarters in the vicinity of Jones Street, where he puts in his time with
disreputable-looking men. I beg leave to advise immediate
action.--Mowbray."
"My God!" groaned Houghton. This explained that derisive offer of
fifty-one from Consolidated Pepsin.
"And you kept this from me?"
"They said not to worry you," she said. "I--I've had enough for two.
Besides, I answered it."
"You did! What----?"
"I told them to wait a little longer."
The father groaned again.
"I just _had_ to, daddy; and then today this letter came."
He seized it eagerly. It read: "You were right about waiting. Suspend
all action."
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"We'll find out tomorrow," he answered grimly.
The 4:30 train gave John Houghton just time to reach the office before
it closed. Dorothy went home. Her father, roused by the evil news of the
day before, had impressed her with all that it might mean in a material
way. As though that mattered!--as though anything could hurt her more!
She would have been willing to go with Tom Brainard in rags before--but
now!
She sat by the telephone with clenched fists, her traveling veil still
pushed up on her hat, the lines that had come into her face during the
past week deepening with the dusk. At last--a long, sharp ring!
"Yes--father--not dine at home--meet you at the Yolland--a guest.
Yes--but about Tom--what?--7:30--But about Tom, daddy? Good-by?!! But,
daddy!!!"
It was no use. He had hung up. She called feverishly for the office, but
the reply was, "They do not answer." Mechanically she went up to her
room. "The blue mousseline, Susan," she said.
As the maid laid it out, she walked the floor. Through the window the
park lay green and inviting. She longed to fly to the cool grass and
run--and run----
From below came the loud, rasping notes of a street-piano that, in some
incomprehensible fashion, had wandered to the deserted row of houses.
The noise, for all that there was a pleasing swing to the air, irritated
her. She threw the man a quarter. "Go away," she waved.
At last the maid said her mistress was ready, and Dorothy, without
questioning the decision, allowed herself to be put into the brougham.
The drive seemed hours long, and then--her father's face told her
nothing. Without a word, he led her to a reception-room. As they
entered, a figure sprang to meet them.
For a moment she hesitated. Then, "Tom!" she cried, and caught his hand.
He saw the whiteness of her face, and all the yearnings of their
separation matched it upon his.
"Dorothy!" he faltered.
Her father interrupted. "Tom is to explain how he has quadrupled our
business in the last week."
A sudden weakness seized her. She followed them unsteadily. Seated at a
table, however, she was able to smile again. At that moment, the
orchestra, striking up, suddenly caught her attention.
"Tum--tum-tum--tum-tum--tum"--that haunting, swinging melody of the
street-piano.
"What tune is that?" she asked.
Brainard smiled. "_That_ is a tune that has suddenly become popular. Any
night you may see hundreds of East Side children dancing on the asphalt
and singing it."
"Yes," she said. "I heard it on a street-piano."
"It's called," he went on, '"My Lulu Tulu Girl.' All the grinders have
it. Billy Tompkins, Noughty-three, who lives in the Jones Street social
settlement, worked that for me. Those dagoes worship him--saved a kid's
life or something."
A light came into John Houghton's eyes.
"That's part of the scheme. Aspwell wrote the song. I found him down in
bohemia working on an opera. But, for the sake of old days in the senior
extravaganza, he turned off 'My Lulu Tulu Girl.' You know those orders
on your desk are for our new brand, 'Lulu Tulu.' The song was
introduced two weeks ago at the Metropolitan Roof by Violette, a young
lady who married our old football trainer, Little Sullivan. We'll hear
her later--I have tickets. Then we'll go to Leith's; there's a turn
there by 'Jim Bailey and his Six Lulu Tulu Girls'--rather vulgar (while
they dance they chew the gum and perform calisthenics with it) but it
seems to go. Then----"
"Tom!"
"After we've dined, I'll show you our regular magazine and newspaper
advertising in the reading-room--double space. You see, I couldn't ask
you to increase, so I stopped it for a time and saved up. But I hope
you'll stand for it regularly. It's mainly pictures of Miss. Lulu Tulu
in a large Florodora hat, with verses below apostrophizing the poetry of
motion of her jaws. Then there's a line of limericks about the
adventures of the 'Lulu Tulu Gummies'--small gum-headed tykes--always in
trouble until they find Lulu. I got Phillips to do that as a personal
favor."
"Also Noughty-something, I suppose," remarked Houghton.
"Yes. But he graduated before my time. I knew his work in the college
annual. He's in the magazines now. Then I got Professor Wheaton--'Jimmy
the Grind' we used to call him--his folks wanted him to be a
poet--imagine Jimmy a poet!--I got Professor Wheaton to give us some
readers on 'Tulu as a Salivary Stimulant,' 'The Healthful Effect of Pure
Saliva on Food Products' and 'The Degenerative Effect of Artificially
Relieving an Organ of its Proper Functions.' That hits the Pepsin
people, you see----"
And so it ran--until he had covered his plan fully, and Dorothy's face
with happy smiles.
"Tom," said the father, "if I had opened that letter instead of Dolly!"
Dorothy suddenly became demure under their gaze and sought to change the
subject. "Then you admit, daddy, that a college man is of some use?"
"I'll admit that Tom got the business. But that was because he is
naturally clever and business-like, not because----"
"Just a moment," said Brainard. "I think I can show that you're
mistaken. I found out that Pepper was doing the wrong thing--by the
first rule of criticism (freshman English): 'What is the author trying
to do? Does he do it? Is it worth doing?' Substitute 'advertising man'
for 'author' and you have a business that is worth doing (since you
continue it)--and by the other two questions I saw his incongruity of
subject-matter and expression.' My economics taught me the 'law of
supply and demand.' 'Analytical research of original authorities' taught
me where the demand was. There was only the problem of a cause to
stimulate it. Through deductive logic' and 'psychology' I got the cause
that would appeal, and the effect worked out in an increased demand
which we were ready to supply--just like a problem in math."
The elder man smiled. "I don't understand a word you say, but it seems
to have _worked_ well. In the future, bring in as many of your Noughty
friends as we need. I'll answer for Kaufmann."
The other shook his head. "I'm not sure they would be any too anxious."
Houghton gasped in surprise. "What's that--they wouldn't be anxious to
go into _business_! Why not?"
"Why not?" There was equal amazement in the younger man's tone. "Would
you be anxious to leave a place where you're surrounded by friends
you've tried--friends that won't stab you in the back the next minute
and call it a 'business deal'--where you're respected and in control of
things, and plunge out to become a freshman in the world-life, to do the
sorting and trying all over again?"
"I remember--I remember----"
"And besides, what right has any one to assume that _business_ is above
art, charity or even mere learning? Billy Tompkins, in the slums helping
dagoes, is a failure to his father--so is Aspwell with his opera--so is
Williams with his spectacles in his lab. But--who knows--when the Great
Business is finally balanced----" He stopped, conscious that he was
growing too rhetorical.
"If you loved college ideals so much more than business," observed
Houghton, "then why did you come to us?"
A different light stole into the younger man's eyes. "Because"--he
answered, "because I loved something else better than either." And he
reached his hand under the cloth to one who understood.
That is all--except that the next offer of Consolidated Pepsin was,
"Will you please name your own terms?"
THE TEWANA
BY
HERMAN WHITAKER
Reprinted from _The Blue Mule_ _A Western Magazine of Stories_, of
February, 1906 by permission
SHE WAS a Tewana of the Tehuantepec Isthmus, a primal woman,
round-armed, deep-breasted, shapely as the dream on which Canova modeled
Venus. Her skin was of the rich gold hue that marks the blood unmuddied
by Spanish strain; to see her, poised on a rich hip by the river's
brink, wringing her tresses after the morning bath, it were justifiable
to mistake her for some beautiful bronze. Moreover, it were easy to see
her, for, in Tehuantepec, innocence is thoughtless as in old Eden. When
Paul Steiner passed her one morning, she gave him the curious open-eyed
stare of a deer, bade him a pleasant "_Buenos días, Señor!_" and would
have proceeded, undisturbed, with her toilet, but that he spoke. In this
he was greatly mistaken. Gringos there are--praise the saints!--who can
judge Tehuantepec by the insight of kindred purity, but Paul had to
learn by the more uncomfortable method of a stone in the face.
He ought not, however, to be too severely handled for his dulness.
Though a mining engineer, nature had endowed him with little beyond the
algebraic qualities necessary to the profession; a German-American, a
dull birth and heredity had predestined him for that class which clothes
its morality in fusty black and finds safety in following its neighbor
in the cut of its clothes and conduct. As then, he was not planned for
original thinking, it is not at all surprising that he should--when
pitchforked by Opportunity into the depths of tropical jungles--lose his
moral bearings, fail to recognize a virtue that went in her own golden
skin, and so go down before a temptation that, of old, populated the
sexless desert.
That his error continued in the face of Andrea's stone is certainly more
remarkable, though this also should be charged rather against her
mismarksmanship than to the wearing quality of his electro-plate
morality. It is doubtful if even the ancient Jews had found "stoning" as
efficacious a "cure for souls" had they thrown wide as she. Anyway, Paul
stood "unconvicted," as the revivalists have it, and being moved to
chagrin instead of shame, he carried the story of Andrea's surprising
modesty to Bachelder.
Here was a man of other parts. An artist, he had traced the spinning
meridians over desert and sea, following the fluttering wing of the muse
till she rewarded his deathless hope by pausing for him in this small
Indian town. Expecting to stay a week, he had remained fifteen years,
failing to exhaust in that long time a tithe of its form and color.
Screened by tropical jungle, a mask of dark palms laced with twining
_bejucas_, it sat like a wonderfully blazoned cup in a wide green saucer
that was edged with the purple of low environing hills--a brimming cup
of inspiration. Save where some oaken grill supplied an ashen note, its
adobe streets burned in smoldering rose, purple and gold--the latter
always predominant. It glowed in the molten sunlight, shone in the soft
satin of a woman's skin; the very dust rose in auriferous clouds from
the wooden-wheeled ox-carts. But for its magenta tiling, the pillared
market stood, a huge monochrome, its deep yellows splashed here and
there with the crimson of the female hucksters' dresses. This was their
every-day wear--a sleeveless bodice, cut low over the matchless
amplitudes and so short that the smooth waist showed at each uplift of
the round, bronze arms; a skirt that was little more than a cloth wound
about the limbs; a shawl, all of deep blood color. Small wonder that he
had stayed on, and on, and on, while the weeks merged into months, and
months into years.
He lived in the town's great house, an old feudal hacienda with walls
two yards thick, recessed windows oaken grilled, and a pleasant patio
where the hidalgo could take his ease under cocoanut palms and lemon
trees while governments went to smash without. Here Bachelder was always
to be found in the heat of the day, and here he listened with huge
disgust to Paul's story. Because of their faith, strength and
purity--according to their standards--he had always sworn by the Tewana
women, setting them above all others, and though a frank sinner against
accepted moral codes, he would never have confused nudity with vice.
"Man!" he exclaimed--so loudly that Rosa, his housekeeper, imagined that
something was going wrong again with the painting--"Man! all the dollars
you will ever earn would buy nothing more than her stone! If you want
her, you will have to marry her."
"Oh, don't look so chopfallen!" he went on, scornfully, when Paul
blinked. "I mean marriage as she counts it. You will have to court her
for a couple of months--flowers, little gifts, small courtesies, that
sort of thing; then, if she likes you, she will come and keep your
house. When, later, you feel like settling down in the bosom of
respectability, there won't be a shred of law to hold you."
Now if Paul lacked wit to analyze and apply to his own government a
moral law that has evolved from the painful travail of the generations,
it does not follow that he was too stupid to feel irony. Reddening, he
put forth the usual declaimer of honorable intention with the glib
tongue of passion. He meant well by the girl! Would give her a good
home, find her better than she had ever been found in her life! As for
marrying? He was not of the marrying kind! Never would! and so on,
finishing with a vital question--did Bachelder know where she lived?
His color deepened under the artist's sarcastic glance. "So that's what
you're after? I wondered why you picked me for a father confessor. Well,
I don't, but you won't have any trouble in finding her. All the women
sell something; she's sure to be on the market in the morning. You will
get her quite easily. The girls seem to take pride in keeping a Gringo's
house--I don't know why, unless it be that they are so dazzled by the
things we have that they cannot see us for what we are."
* * * * *