“Not even to please mamma and me?” she questioned.
Again I gave the same answer, and without a word of parting she left me
and passed through the doorway. From that time she has treated me
coldly.
Another complication only tended to increase the coldness, as well as
to involve me with Mrs. Blodgett. In December, Mr. Blodgett came into
Mr. Whitely’s office and announced, “I’ve been taking a liberty with
your name, doctor.”
“For what kindness am I indebted now?” I inquired.
“I’m a member of the Philomathean,” he said,—“not because I’m an
author, or artist, or engineer, or scientist, but because I’m a big
frog in my own puddle, and they want samples of us, provided we are
good fellows, just to see what we’re like. I was talking with Professor
Eaton in September, and we agreed you ought to be one of us; so we
stuck your name up, and Saturday evening the club elected you.”
“I can’t afford it”—I began; but he interrupted with:—
“I knew you’d say that, and so didn’t tell you beforehand. I’ll bet you
your initiation fee and a year’s dues against a share of R. T. common
that you’ll make enough out of your membership to pay you five times
over.”
“How can I do that?”
“All the editors and publishers are members,” he replied, “and to meet
them over the rum punch we serve on meeting nights is worth money to
the most celebrated author living. Then you’ll have the best club
library in this country at your elbow for working purposes.”
“I don’t think I ought, Mr. Blodgett.”
He was about to protest, when Mr. Whitely broke in upon us, saying,
“Accept your membership, Dr. Hartzmann, and the paper shall pay your
initiation and dues.”
I do not know whether Mr. Blodgett or myself was the more surprised at
this unexpected and liberal offer. Our amazement was so obvious that
Mr. Whitely continued: “I think it’ll be an excellent idea for the
paper to have a member of its staff in the Philomathean, and so the
office shall pay for it.”
“Whitely,” observed Mr. Blodgett admiringly, “you’re a good business
man, whatever else you are!”
“I wish, Blodgett,” inquired Mr. Whitely, “you would tell me why I have
been kept waiting so long?”
“Many a name’s been up longer than yours,” replied Mr. Blodgett in a
comforting voice. “You don’t seem to realize that the Philomathean’s a
pretty stiff club to get into.”
“But I’ve been posted for over three years, while here Dr. Hartzmann is
elected within four months of his proposing.”
“Well, the doctor has the great advantage of being a sort of natural
Philomath, you see,” Mr. Blodgett explained genially. “He was born that
way, and so is ripe for membership without any closet mellowing.”
“But my reputation as a writer is greater than Dr.”—began Mr. Whitely;
but a laugh from Mr. Blodgett made him halt.
“Oh come, now, Whitely!”
“What’s the matter?” asked my employer.
“Once St. Peter and St. Paul stopped at a tavern to quench their
thirst,” said Mr. Blodgett, “and when the time came to pay, they tossed
dice for it. Paul threw double sixes, and smiled. Peter smiled back,
and threw double sevens. What do you suppose Paul said, Whitely?”
“What?”
“‘Oh, Peter, Peter! No miracles between friends.’”
“I don’t follow you,” rejoined Mr. Whitely.
Mr. Blodgett turned and said to me, “I’m going West for two months, and
while I’m gone the Twelfth-night revel at the Philomathean is to come
off. Will you see that the boss and Agnes get cards?” Then he faced
about and remarked, “Whitely, I’d give a big gold certificate to know
what nerve food you use!” and went out, laughing.
When I took the invitations to Mrs. Blodgett, I found you all with your
heads full of a benefit for the Guild, to be given at your home,—a
musical evening, with several well-known stars as magnets, and
admission by invitation as an additional attraction. Mrs. Blodgett said
to me in her decisive way, “Dr. Hartzmann, the invitations are five
dollars each, and you are to take one.”
I half suspected that it was only a device to get me within your doors,
though every society woman feels at liberty to whitemail her social
circle to an unlimited degree. But the fact that the entertainment was
to be in your home, even more than my poverty, compelled me to refuse
to be a victim of her charitable kindness or her charitable greed. I
merely shook my head.
“Oh, but you must,” she urged. “It will be a delightful evening, and
then it’s such a fine object.”
“Do not ask it of Dr. Hartzmann,” you protested, coming to my aid. “No
one”—
“I’m sure it’s very little to ask,” remarked Mrs. Blodgett, in a
disappointed way.
“Mrs. Blodgett,” I said, in desperation, “for years I have denied
myself every luxury and almost every comfort. I have lived at the
cheapest of boarding-houses; I have walked down-town, rain or shine, to
save ten cents a day; I have”—I stopped there, ashamed of my outbreak.
“I suppose, Dr. Hartzmann,” retorted Agnes, with no attempt to conceal
the irritation she felt toward me, “that the Philomathean is one of
your ten-cent economies?”
Before I could speak you changed the subject, and the matter was
dropped,—I hoped for all time. It was, however, to reappear, and to
make my position more difficult and painful than ever.
At Mrs. Blodgett’s request, made that very day, I sent you an
invitation to the Philomathean ladies’ day. It was with no hope of
being there myself, since my editorial duties covered the hours of the
exhibition; but good or bad fortune aided me, for Mr. Whitely asked me
for a ticket, and his absence from the office set me free. The crowd
was great, but, like most people who try for one thing only, I attained
my desire by quickly finding you, and we spent an enjoyable hour
together, studying the delicious jokes and pranks of our artist
members. The truly marvelous admixture of absurdity and cleverness
called out the real mirth of your nature, and our happiness and gayety
over the pictures strangely recalled to me our similar days spent in
Paris and elsewhere. You too, I think, remembered the same experience,
for when we had finished, and were ascending the stairs to the
dining-room, you remarked to me, “I never dreamed that one could be so
merry after one had ceased to be a child. For the last hour I have felt
as if teens were yet unventured lands.”
I confess I sought a secluded spot in an alcove, hoping still to keep
you to myself; but the project failed, for when I returned from getting
you an ice, I found that Mr. Whitely had joined you. The pictures, of
course, were the subject of discussion, and you asked him, “Are all the
other members as clever in their own professions as your artists have
shown themselves to be?”
“The Philomathean is made up of an able body of men,” replied Mr.
Whitely in a delightfully patronizing tone. “Some few of the very
ablest, perhaps, do not care to be members; but of the second rank, you
may say, broadly speaking, that it includes all men of prominence in
this city.”
“But why should the abler men not belong?”
“They are too occupied with more vital matters,” explained my employer.
“Yet surely they must need a club, and what one so appropriate as
this?”
“It is natural to reason so,” assented the would-be member. “But as an
actual fact, some of the most prominent men in this city are not
members,” and he mentioned three well-known names.
The inference was so unjust that I observed, “Should you not add, Mr.
Whitely, that they are not members either because they know it is
useless to apply, or because they have applied in vain; and that their
exclusion, though superficially a small affair, probably means to them,
by the implication it carries, one of the keenest mortifications of
their lives?”
“You mean that the Philomathean refuses to admit such men as Mr.
Whitely named?” you asked incredulously.
I smiled. “The worldly reputation and the professional reputation of
men occasionally differ very greatly, Miss Walton. We do not accept a
man here because his name appears often in the newspapers, but because
of what the men of his own calling know and think of him.”
“And of course they are always jealous of a man who has surpassed
them,” contended Mr. Whitely.
“There must be something more against a man than envy of his confrères
to exclude him,” I answered. “My loyalty to the Philomathean, Miss
Walton, is due to the influence it exerts in this very matter. Errors
are possible, but the intention is that no man shall be of our
brotherhood who is not honestly doing something worth the doing, for
other reasons than mere money-making. And for that very reason, we are
supposed, within these walls, to be friends, whether or not there is
acquaintance outside of them. We are the one club in New York which
dares to trust its membership list implicitly to that extent.
Charlatanry and dishonesty may succeed with the world, but here they
fail. Money will buy much, but the poorest man stands on a par here
with the wealthiest.”
“You make me envious of you both,” you sighed, just as Mrs. Blodgett
and Agnes joined us.
“What are you envying them?” asked Agnes, as she shook hands with
you,—“that they were monopolizing you? How selfish men are!”
“In monopolizing this club?”
“Was that what you envied them?” ejaculated Mrs. Blodgett. “I for one
am glad there’s a place to which I can’t go, where I can send my
husband when I want to be rid of him.” Then she turned to Mr. Whitely,
and with her usual directness remarked, “So they’ve let you in? Mr.
Blodgett told me you would surely be rejected.”
Mr. Whitely reddened and bit his lip, for which he is hardly to be
blamed. But he only bowed slightly in reply, leaving the inference in
your minds that he was a Philomath. How the man dares so often to—
The striking clock tells me it is later than I thought, and I must
stop.
Good-night, dear heart.