may be to you, if you go at it intelligently, scientifically." When Mr.
Brush was obsessed with an idea, it was useless to oppose him. The best
policy was to let it take its course. "As I have often told you," he
continued, "housekeeping could be greatly simplified if you women would
only--"
Seeing that he was about to launch into a homily on efficiency, such as
she had heard him deliver at least twenty times in the three months she
had been married to him, she said:
"If you're going to get breakfast, hadn't you better hurry and take your
bath?"
"That's so," he admitted. Shuffling briskly to the bathroom, he was soon
foaming at the mouth with tooth-paste.
There was a loud buzzing sound from the direction of the kitchen.
"Henry!" called Mrs. Brush, "there goes the dumb-waiter. Shall I answer
it?"
"No; I'll ho," he replied pastily out of the corner of his mouth. Still
busily agitating his tooth-brush, so as not to waste any time, he
paddled to the dumb-waiter and called: "He'o! Whash you wa'?"
"Garbage!" replied a gruff voice. A rattling of ropes announced that the
car was on its way.
Mr. Brush opened the "sanitary garbage closet," and, screwing up his
face and tooth-brush, seized something that was mighty unlike a rose. He
held the pail out at arm's-length as he carried it to the dumb-waiter.
_Buzz, buzz, buzz_, went the buzzer.
"Huh?" gurgled Mr. Brush, nervously swallowing a generous amount of
tooth-paste.
"Garbage!" repeated the voice.
Mr. Brush looked helplessly at the can on the dumb-waiter and then at
his incapacitated hands.
"Put your garbage on!" roared the voice.
Mr. Brush sputtered; then, extracting the tooth-brush with the fourth
and fifth knuckles of his left hand, he shouted back indignantly:
"I 'id!"
"Then why didn't you _say_ so?" And down went the dumb-waiter with a
jerk.
Mr. Brush returned to the bathroom. As he was in the midst of shaving,
the buzzer sounded again. This time he was on the alert and ready for
any argument. Leaving his razor, but not his lather, he hurried back to
the kitchen in a combative mood.
"What do you want?" he yelled defiantly as he opened the door of the
dumb-waiter. There was no answer; but facing him on the shelf of the car
stood his empty pail, silent, stolid, indifferent to his bravado. He
snatched it off and returned to his ablutions.
On account of the extreme lateness of the hour, he decided to finish off
with a quick shower-bath, first hot and then cold. Just as he removed
his last garment, the buzzer sounded again.
"Aw, go ahead and buzz!" he said between his teeth.
As he stepped into the hot downpour, the door-bell rang.
"Whoever that is can wait."
But apparently the person in question had no desire to do so, for the
bell sounded again and again. To complete the symphony, the telephone
chimed in with its merry tune.
"Gwendolyn!" called Mr. Brush, distractedly amid the roar of waters.
But she, having fallen into a pleasant doze while waiting for her
breakfast, did not hear him. The bells and buzzer had by this time
settled into a sustained chord like that of the whistles at New-year's.
Bounding out of the tub to the mat, Mr. Brush wrapped his form, which
still glistened with pearly drops, in his bath-robe, and slip slopped
frigidly down the hall.
"Hello!" he cried, snatching off the telephone-receiver. "No, this is
_not_ Schmittberger the butcher!" Then he darted to the front door.
Opening it, he found the postman waiting with a letter.
"Two cents due, please."
The buzzer continued its heavy droning, and the telephone started up
again.
"Two cents, two cents," repeated Mr. Brush in befuddlement.
The postman stared.
"Two cents; yes, two cents," reiterated Mr. Brush, groping immodestly
for pockets where there were none.
"You said that before."
"Oh, excuse me! I'll get it right off. Now, where did I put that purse?
Let me think." But thinking in the neighborhood of that telephone was an
impossibility. He would have to quiet the thing. So, clapping the
receiver to his ear, he protested, "Hello! hello!"
"Will you _kindly_ give me Schmittberger's butcher shop?"
"Good grief!" he exclaimed, letting the receiver fall. It swung by its
tail, pendulum-wise, barking infuriated clicks.
Mr. Brush staggered to the bedroom. With reeling brain, he ransacked all
his chiffonier drawers for the purse which was lying in plain view on
top. By the time he had discovered it and started back to the door, the
buzzer in the kitchen was having delirium tremens. Floundering to the
spot, he gasped:
"What do you want?"
"Ice!" was the husky reply.
"All right, I'll send it down. No, I mean, you send it up."
As the dumb-waiter rose, the temperature fell, and Mr. Brush soon found
himself in the presence of a beautiful blue berg. With chattering teeth,
he reached forward and drew it to him. The door of the dumb-waiter
closed automatically, and he was left alone in the kitchen with the
iceberg in his arms.
How to open the ice-box was a problem. After attempting unsuccessfully
to cajole the catch by fondling it with the corner of the berg, he tried
nudging it with his elbow. It would not take the hint. Indeed, it
refused utterly to move until he got down on his knees before it and
rubbed it with his shoulder.
Finally, however, the door opened, disclosing a rival berg, attended by
a throng of bottles, siphons, and butter-crocks. A cold, inhospitable
crowd they were, resenting any intrusion.
Thus rebuffed, Mr. Brush, who felt as though he were being frozen and
cauterized at the same time, deposited the berg upon the cover of the
wash-tubs. It coasted forward, threatening an avalanche. Clutching it at
the brink, he paused, and wondered what he would do next.
The door-bell saved him the trouble of deciding. He had entirely
forgotten the postman! Setting the berg upon a chair, he scurried out,
and offered him a dollar bill, chattering apologies for the delay.
"Haven't you anything smaller?" asked the postman, impatiently.
"N-no, I d-don't think so."
"Then why did you keep me here all this time? I'll have to come back
later."
He started off.
"Stop! Wait a moment! I'd rather make you a present of the ninety-eight
cents. Oh, glory! that'll have to be gone through with all over again!"
Discouraged and shivering, he leaned against the side of the doorway. In
so doing, his eye fell upon a collection of objects that had been
deposited in front of the sill--the morning newspaper, a bottle of
milk, one of cream, and a bag containing a long loaf of bread. He
stooped over and gathered them up carefully one by one. Just as he had
stowed away the newspaper under one arm and gripped the bag with his
left hand and the two bottles with his right, the chilliness in him
culminated in a sneeze, and everything fell.
Both bottles smashed. Landing just on the sill, they distributed their
contents impartially outside and inside.
Finding that the proportion of the flood that the bread and the
newspaper were able to sop up was small, though they did what they
could, Mr. Brush hastily procured a bucket and rag from the kitchen,
where the ice was indulging in a flood of its own, and set to work
mopping. As he sprawled out into the hallway, gingerly squeezing out
ragfuls of cream and broken glass, the door opposite was opened and a
handsome woman appeared, attired in fashionable street dress. She looked
him straight in the eye.
Mr. Brush clasped his bath-robe to him, made a frenzied recoil, slammed
the door, and collapsed into the pool of milk.
"Henry dear, is breakfast nearly ready?" called his loving wife.
Enraged and dripping, he leaped up with sudden strength, and started for
the bedroom, spluttering incoherent expostulations as he went.
At that moment there was heard the sound of a latch-key, and a grinning
black face appeared.
"Good mawnin', sah. Somefin' seems to be spilt heah."
Fetching a large cloth, she set to work with easy dexterity.
Mr. Brush, fascinated, watched the lake disappear.
"You bes' get dress', sah. Ah'll have yo' breakfas' ready in a couple o'
minutes."
"Thank Heaven you're here, Maria!" he said fervently. "I was almost
afraid you weren't coming."
THE MAN OPPOSITE
Mildred congratulated herself on having conquered her timidity. She had
come all the way down-town by herself, had looked through several stores
until she found just the curtains she wanted; and now, ready to return
home, she got on the 'bus as calmly as though she had been a New Yorker
and a married woman all her life.
It being the rush hour of the afternoon, the conveyance was quite
crowded. Mildred thought at first that she would have to sit on the
backward-facing bench up front, which she disliked; but luckily she
found a place on one of the seats opposite it. A moment later even the
less-desirable bench was occupied.
The person who took the place on it directly facing her was a tall, dark
man of about forty, with piercing black eyes and an aquiline nose.
Mildred kept encountering his glance. There was something about it that
disturbed her. She flushed a little.
His face seemed vaguely, uncomfortably familiar. Where had she seen him
before? She was sure he wasn't anyone who had waited on her in a shop,
nor any of the tradesmen who came to the door of her apartment: he
looked too much the man of the world for that. Neither was he one of the
few friends of her husband whom she had had a chance to meet. She could
not place him. Happiness, and the absorption that goes with it, had made
her oblivious of outside things.
Whoever he was, his glances rendered her more and more ill at ease. She
looked out of the window, she looked up at the advertisements, she
looked down at her lap. No use: she could _feel_ his gaze.
In vain did she reason with herself that he was not staring at her
intentionally, but was merely directing his eyes straight ahead of him,
as anyone might do. No; not even the protecting presence of the other
passengers could reassure her. She felt almost as though she and the
hawk-like stranger were alone in the conveyance.
Several times she thought of getting out and taking another 'bus. But
the evening was growing dark, and she might have to wait a long while in
a part of town she knew nothing about. And suppose he should get off
after her!
The blocks seemed hours apart, the halts at corners interminable.
Passengers got out in twos and threes. _He_ stayed.
Looking down at her hands, which nervously fingered the chain of her
reticule, Mildred hoped and prayed he would go. But he did not.
The people who had shared the bench with him had moved to forward-facing
seats as soon as any were vacant. He remained where he was.
It seemed she had seen that face somewhere--behind her, following her.
This recollection threw her into such a fit of trembling that she let
fall her handkerchief. Before she could recover it, he bent forward with
a quick swooping motion, seized it in his long fingers, and held it out
to her. She took it trembling, hardly able to murmur, "Thank you."
He appeared about to speak.
Mildred rose in terror and retreated hastily to a place several seats
back, across the aisle.
What would he do? Would he follow her? Were his eyes still fixed upon
her? She dared not look; but a reflection in the window pane increased
her fears.
Street after street went by. The last other passenger got off. Still he
stayed. Mildred's furtive observations via the reflecting window pane
never found him looking out to ascertain what part of town it was.
Gradually she was forced to the sickening conviction that he was
watching, not for any particular street, but to see where she would get
off.
As her corner approached, she rang the bell. He rose. She moved quickly
to the door. He followed her, smiling presumingly.
As she stepped down from the platform, her knees were so weak that she
almost fell. Her heart pounded. Instead of running, as her terror
prompted her to, she could with difficulty maintain a panting walk.
The man followed--not hurrying, but relentlessly, like an animal that is
sure of its prey.
When she entered the doorway of the apartment house, he was barely ten
yards behind her. She knew he would turn in also. He did.
If only she could get into the elevator and escape before he arrived!
The car was at one of the upper floors. She rang desperately until it
appeared. The instant the iron door slid back, she flung herself in,
gasping:
"Quick! Take me up quickly!"
"Yes, miss," replied the startled but drowsy elevator boy--as a tall
form passed in after her. Mildred shrank into a corner, quivering.
"Fou'th flo'," announced the boy.
She sprang out. As she staggered totteringly down the dim corridor, she
heard the man step out of the car.
Her latch key! Her latch key! She fumbled frantically in her handbag;
then groped for the lock.
The man drew nearer.
She was helpless, cornered at the end of a dark hallway. Almost
hysterical she let the key fall and closed her eyes.
At that moment the door opposite was unlocked briskly, and a lusty young
voice inside yelled: "Hello, Pappa!"
LUCY THE LITERARY AGENT
[Illustration]
"I know you will agree with me," said Lucy, "that these stories by Perth
Dewar are quite remarkable, quite the most distinctive things of the
kind that have been done in years, and that your readers will like them
immensely."
Ethridge the Editor said nothing. It was unwise to contradict her; for
of all the personal-touch literary agents, Lucy was the
personal-touchiest. So he let her run on and on, trusting that
eventually she would run down. Also she wasn't bad looking--in her
aggressive way.
"You've read them?" she queried suddenly.
"Why, certainly," he lied, glancing with studied casualness at the
Reader's Report slip attached to the blue manuscript cover.
Ethridge never read anything he could possibly avoid reading. He was one
of those successful editors who edit by belonging to the best clubs and
attending the right teas. Mere perusal of manuscripts was not
particularly in his line.
The Report slip said: "Costume stories of Holland in the 17th Century.
Only moderately well done. Not suitable for this magazine."
"Who is this Dewar person, anyhow?" asked Ethridge defensively.
"You mean to say you haven't heard of him? Why, my dear Mr. Ethridge!
Dewar is a man of independent means--lives on his estate down in
Maryland and writes stories between fox hunts. Enormously gifted."
She failed to add, however, that Dewar had offered to let her keep any
money she received for the stories--provided she could get them
printed.
Resting her white elbows on Ethridge's desk and eyeing him with
calculating coyness, Lucy knew that he had not read the stories. She
would make him wonder if she knew he hadn't.
"What do you yourself honestly think of them, Mr. Ethridge? Candidly,
now. You're always so delightfully frank with me, Mr. Ethridge. That's
why it's such a pleasure to deal with you. How did they strike you?"
"Really, Miss Leech, I don't see how in our magazine we could
possibly--"
"Now, Mr. Ethridge!" She held up a reproving finger, laughing roguishly.
"But what's the use of our trying to discuss imaginative literature here
in your busy office with the telephone ringing every moment--or
threatening to ring--and your discouragingly pretty blonde
secretary--the minx!--popping in continually to see if we're behaving!"
Ethridge smiled complacently. Why be an ogre?
"I tell you what. Let's have supper at my studio this evening,"
continued Lucy. "It'll be so much more satisfactory to discuss things
sensibly, without interruption."
So he did, and they did.
At breakfast it was finally decided that the series by Perth Dewar
should consist of ten stories, including four still to be written.
Ethridge salved his conscience by resolving secretly that they should
all be published in the back of the book.
In due course of time the first story appeared. It contained a mean
reference to the Knights of Pythias, or Mormonism, or a former
Vice-President of the United States, or something; for which reason the
issue containing it was suppressed.
Whereupon the buried issue became a Living Issue. The intelligentsia
rushed to the rescue with highbrow hue and cry. Round robins were
circulated. Newspaper columnists got sarcastic. Liberal cliques
chittered. Perth Dewar became suddenly significant.
The issue containing the second story was sold out the day it appeared.
By the time the third one was out, Professor Lion Whelps, of Yale,
proved in an article in the Sunday _Times_, that Dewar's attitude toward
women was like Turgeniev's, and Professor Brando Methuseleh, of
Columbia, discovered he had cadences. Sinclair Lewis inserted a mention
of him in the forty-ninth edition of "Babbitt." Nine British novelists
hurried over to lecture on him.
And Ethridge?
He was made. In acknowledgement of his peerless editorial acumen that
could discern true genius at a glance, the directors of the magazine
doubled his salary and gave him a bonus to keep him from being coaxed
away by the "Saturday Evening Pictorial."
And Lucy?
Ethridge married her to keep her quiet.
THE CREEPING FINGERS
[Illustration: Decorative letter "M"]
Mrs. Whoffin's figure resembled that of the punch-bowl behind which she
was standing: it was broad and squat, with a slight tapering at the
base. And her mind was like the punch: sweetish and characterless, with
scrappy rinds of things floating about in it. Each guest who presented a
cup received the same dipperful and the same set of remarks.
"Good evening. I'm _so_ glad you could come! I just love hearing
ghost-stories, don't you? See that log over there?" She pointed to a
huge gray hulk that lay at the side of the open fireplace. "That's _real
driftwood_, and it ought to give just the right kind of light. I found
it myself on the beach, and had the gardener bring it home in a
wheelbarrow. Look, it's all honeycombed with age."
A tall, serious-looking young man stepped forward and extended his
glass. He knew that that was the way to please her, and she was the
woman who he hoped and feared would be his mother-in-law.
She beamed.
"Do have another, Mr. Carson."
He did; for he was in a desperate mood. He was to leave for the city on
the early morning train, and this evening would be his last chance to
propose to Polly for several months. Somehow, despite his best efforts,
the psychological moment had never arrived.
Just then Polly sailed into the room, fresh and rosy, in a flutter of
white muslin. He put down the glass and hurried over to her.
"Good evening, Polly," he said in an ardent undertone. "Couldn't you
slip away from this crowd and take a stroll on the beach?"
"No, George; I'm hostess tonight." She shook her head, including some
airy little curls, which seemed to make light of her refusal. "We are
all to gather around the hearth and listen to the stories." Then she
added teasingly, "Besides, it is in your honor that mother is giving
this party."
"Yes; she's very kind, I'm sure," he said awkwardly.
"Think of all the trouble she has taken over that log!"
Carson faced her with squared jaw.
"Listen to me, Polly. There is something serious I want to talk to you
about. Before I leave you, I--"
"Polly," called Mrs. Whoffin, "isn't it time to begin?"
"Perhaps it is," she answered innocently. "What do you think, George?"
"I think the story-telling might as well begin at once," he said
stiffly.
A few minutes later all lights were turned out. The score of young
people had settled themselves about the room in comfortable attitudes,
some on chairs and sofas, some on cushions on the floor, while in the
midst of them sat the narrator, a girl of eighteen, who affected a deep
morbidity. Gazing into the fire, she began her tale as though she were
in a trance.
Carson sulkily picked his way after Polly toward a seat beside the
hearth. Just as he was reaching it, he tripped over something bulky.
"Why, that's my log!" exclaimed Mrs. Whoffin, from the back of the room.
"Dear! dear! Why hasn't anyone put it on the fire?" The story waited
while Mrs. Whoffin scurried forward and personally supervised the
placing of the log upon the andirons, and then sat down beside the
hearth opposite Polly.
"Do go on!" cried several voices. "You stopped in the most exciting
part."
The narrator, looking daggers at Mrs. Whoffin, paused long enough to
show that she didn't _have_ to go on unless she wanted to, and then
resumed her tale:
"Suddenly, as he lay there in the haunted room, on the very bed where
the old man had been murdered, he felt an invisible hand on the
bedclothes."
Mrs. Whoffin shuddered, and a large black ant peered out of a hole in
the log to see what was going on.
"Then he felt a second hand more terrifying than the first."
Beholding his home in flames, the ant rushed back indoors to spread the
alarm. Along the highways of the interior he sped, a second Paul Revere,
rousing the sleeping insects, of which there were many.
"Oh!" groaned Mrs. Whoffin.
The exodus of Paul's friends proceeded in orderly fashion. "Larvæ and
eggs first," was their order. Carrying their infants upon their backs,
they filed out of the subway openings in steady processions.
"The hands clutched the covers just above his feet. Fear paralyzed him
so that he could neither move nor cry out."
A party of refugees applied to Mrs. Whoffin for shelter. She was so
absorbed in the story that she did not see them.
"Then the fingers began to creep up and up, up and up. His flesh tingled
with horror."
Mrs. Whoffin quivered like an aspen leaf. She breathed hard, her eyes
nearly popping. Other people began to feel creepy.
"They clutched his knee, and--"
Mrs. Whoffin uttered a piercing shriek, and clasped her knee with both
hands. She was invaded. Then Polly screamed, and Carson began to slap
himself on various parts of the anatomy. There was a general panic.
Girls squealed and, clambering frantically upon chairs, shook out their
lifted skirts; young men stamped about wildly, mashing ants and people's
toes in equal numbers. Mrs. Whoffin, tormented from head to foot,
galloped in circles, moaning, "Oh mercy! Oh mercy!"
"Save me, George!" cried Polly, clinging to his arm.
"Yes, darling!" he answered fervently. If the ants had been raging
bulls, he would have saved her from them; but they were ants, and their
ways were devious. He hesitated, slapping himself thoughtfully.
"Turn on the lights!" yelled some one.
"No! Don't!" screamed half a dozen shrill voices.
"Save me!" repeated Polly, distractedly. "I can't stand this any longer!
I'll perish!"
Struck with a swift inspiration, he caught her up in his arms and
started for the door. She made no resistance. Out of the room he
carried her, then through the front hall, and down the front steps.
Half-way down the walk she asked:
"Where are you taking me?"
"To the ocean."
"Why, you clever boy!"
People sitting on the verandas of neighboring cottages saw in he
moonlight a sight that electrified them with horror. A powerful looking
maniac, with a helpless woman in his arms, strode across the beach and
began to wade out into the water. Hoping to save her, they ran to the
shore and put out in boats and canoes.
"Oh," sighed the victim, blissfully, as Carson let her down into the
water, "it feels so cool--and _quiet_!"
"Polly!"
"George!"
"Row harder, Doctor!" cried the steersman of the nearest boat. "He's
trying to strangle her!"
THE MAN WITH THE HOSE
A feeling of elation is like a feeling of alcohol. Under its stimulus a
person may do the most brilliant things--and also the most grotesque.
It was just this feeling that took hold of Jack Carrington when the
senior member of the firm invited him to dine at his apartment on the
following evening and meet "Mrs. Stockbridge and my daughter." During
all the rest of the day the young
college-man-learning-how-to-work-in-an-office fairly walked on air, and
that night, in his hall bedroom, he went through a sort of
dress-rehearsal of the rôle he hoped to play on the great occasion,
resuscitating and donning his evening clothes to make sure that they
looked as well as they did when he led the commencement prom six months
before, and marshaling all the bons mots he could recollect, in order
that his supply of "extempore" witticisms might be adequate.