say. It was all so sudden, however, and, in spite of his misgivings, so
extremely unexpected, that his breath was taken away. He had neither
breath nor presence of mind enough left even to deny the allegation, and
when he did recover his breath he found himself walking dejectedly down
the stairs of the _Nursery Days_ building with his bundle of encomia in
his hands.
"I wonder how he caught on!" he groaned, as half an hour later he
entered his room and threw himself face downward on his couch.
Investigation after dinner gave him a clue.
Not one of the letters had been mailed from the town in which it had
been dated. The envelope containing the Washington letter bore the
Boston postmark. The Brooklyn missive had been sent from Chicago, that
from Norwich had been posted at Yonkers, and vice versa, and so on
through the whole list. Each and every one had, through some evil
chance, started wrong. In addition to this, Partington found that in a
forgetful moment he had appended to two of the communications an
editorial response promising more work from Mr. Smithers.
"I must have been muddled by my success with 'Tommy and the
Huckleberry-tree,'" he sighed, as he cast the documents into the fire.
"If that's the effect literary honors have on me I'd better quit the
profession, which leaves only two things to be done. I shall have to
commit one of two crimes--suicide or matrimony. The question now is,
which?"
He thought deeply for a moment, and then, putting on his hat and
over-coat, he turned off the gas and left the room.
"I'll call on Harris, borrow a cent from him, and let the toss decide,"
he said, as he passed out into the night.
Is it really any wonder that Mr. Smithers has given up literature?
THE BASE INGRATITUDE OF BARKIS, M.D.
The time has arrived when it is possibly proper that I should make a
note of the base ingratitude of Barkis, M.D. I have hesitated to do this
hitherto for several reasons, any one of which would prove a valid
excuse for my not doing so. To begin with, I have known Barkis ever
since he was a baby. I have tossed him in the air, to his own delight
and to the consternation of his mother, who feared lest I should fail to
catch him on his way down, or that I should underestimate the distance
between the top of his head and the ceiling on his way up. Later I have
held him on my knee and told him stories of an elevating nature--mostly
of my own composition--and have afterwards put these down upon paper and
sold them to syndicates at great profit. So that, in a sense, I am
beholden to Barkis for some measure of my prosperity. Then, when Barkis
grew older, I taught him the most approved methods of burning his
fingers on the Fourth of July, and when he went to college I am
convinced that he gained material aid from me in that I loaned him my
college scrap-books, which contained, among other things, a large number
of examination papers which I marvel greatly to-day that I was ever able
successfully to pass, and which gave to him some hint as to the ordeal
he was about to go through. In his younger professional days, also, I
have been Barkis's friend, and have called him up, to minister to a pain
I never had, at four o'clock in the morning, simply because I had reason
to believe that he needed four or five dollars to carry him through the
ensuing hours of the day.
Quotation books have told us that in love, as well as in war, all is
fair, and if this be true Barkis's ingratitude, the narration of which
cannot now give pain to any one, becomes, after all, nothing more than a
venial offence. I do not place much reliance upon the ethics of
quotation books generally, but when I remember my own young days, and
the things I did to discredit the other fellow in that little affair
which has brought so much happiness into my own life, I am inclined to
nail my flag to the masthead in defence of the principle that lovers can
do no wrong. It is no ordinary stake that a lover plays for, and if he
stacks the cards, and in other ways turns his back upon the guiding
principles of his life, blameworthy as he may be, I shall not blame him,
but shall incline rather towards applause.
On the other hand, something is due to the young ladies in the case, and
as much for their sake as for any other reason have I set upon paper
this narrative of the man's ingratitude, simply telling the story and
drawing no conclusions whatever.
Barkis was not endowed with much in the way of worldly possessions. His
father had died when the lad was very young, and had left the boy and
his mother to struggle on alone. But there was that in both of them
which enabled the mother to feel that the boy was worth struggling for,
and the boy at a very early age to realize the difficulties of the
struggle, and to like the difficulties because they afforded him an
opportunity to help his mother either by not giving her unnecessary
trouble or in bringing to her efforts in their mutual behalf aid of a
very positive kind.
Boys of this kind--and in saying this I cast no reflections whatsoever
upon that edifying race of living creatures whom I admire and respect
more than any other--are so rare that it did not take the neighbors of
the Barkis family many days to discover that the little chap was worth
watching, and if need be caring for in a way which should prove
substantial. There are so many ways, too, in which one may help a boy
without impairing his self-reliance that on the whole it was not very
difficult to assist Barkis. So when one of his neighbors employed him in
his office at a salary of eight dollars a week, when other boys received
only four for similar service, the lad, instead of feeling himself
favored, assumed an obligation and made himself worth five times as much
as the other boys, so that really his employer, and not he, belonged to
the debtor class.
Some said it was a pity that little Barkis wasted his talents in a real
estate office, but they were the people who didn't know him. He expended
his nervous energy in the real estate office, but his mind he managed to
keep free for the night school, and when it came to the ultimate it was
found that little Barkis had wasted nothing. He entered college when
several other boys--who had not served in a real estate office, who had
received diplomas from the high-school, and who had played while he had
studied--failed.
That his college days were a trial to his mother every one knew. She
wished him to keep his end up, and he did--and without spending all that
his mother sent him, either. The great trouble was that at the end of
his college course it was understood that Barkis intended studying
medicine. When that crept out the neighbors sighed. They deprecated the
resolve among themselves, but applauded the boy's intention to his face.
"Good for you, Jack!" said one. "You are just the man for a doctor, and
I'll give you all my business."
This man, of course, was a humorist.
Another said: "Jack, you are perfectly right. Real estate and coal are
not for you. Go in for medicine; when my leg is cut off you shall do the
cutting."
To avoid details, however, some of which would make a story in
themselves, Jack Barkis went through college, studied medicine, received
his diploma as a full-fledged M.D., and settled down at Dumfries Corners
for practice. And practice did not come! And income was not.
It was plainly visible to the community that Barkis was hard up, as the
saying is, and daily growing more so. To make matters worse, it was now
impossible to help him as the boy had been helped. He was no longer a
child, but a man; and the pleasing little subterfuges, which we had
employed to induce the boy to think he was making his way on his own
sturdy little legs, with the man were out of the question. His clothing
grew threadbare, and there were stories of insufficient nourishment. As
time went on the outward and visible signs of his poverty increased,
yet no one could devise any plan to help him.
And then came a solution, and inasmuch as it was brought about by the
S.F.M.E., an association of a dozen charming young women in the city
forming the Society for Mutual Encouragement, or Enjoyment, or
Endorsement, or something else beginning with E--I never could ascertain
definitely what the E stood for--it would seem as if the young ladies
should have received greater consideration than they did when prosperity
knocked at the Doctor's door.
It seems that the Doctor attended a dance one evening in a dress coat,
the quality and lack of quantity of which were a flagrant indication of
a sparse, not to say extremely needy, wardrobe. All his charm of manner,
his grace in the dance, his popularity, could not blind others to the
fact that he was ill-dressed, and the girls decided that something must
be done, and at once.
"We might give a lawn fete for his benefit," one of them suggested.
"He isn't a church or a Sunday-school," Miss Daisy Peters retorted.
"Besides, I know Jack Barkis well enough to know that he would never
accept charity from any one. We've got to help him professionally."
"We might boycott all the fellows at dances," suggested Miss Wilbur,
"unless they will patronize the Doctor. Decline to dance with them
unless they present a certificate from Jack proving that they are his
patients."
"Humph!" said Miss Peters. "That wouldn't do any good. They are all
healthy, and even if they did go to Jack for a prescription the chances
are they wouldn't pay him. They haven't much more money than he has."
"I am afraid that is true," assented Miss Wilbur. "Indeed, if they have
any at all, I can't say that they have given much sign of it this
winter. The Bachelors' Cotillon fell through for lack of interest, they
said, but I have my doubts on that score. It's my private opinion they
weren't willing or able to pay for it."
"Well, I'm sure I don't know what we can do to help Jack. If he had our
combined pocket-money he'd still be poor," sighed Miss Peters.
"He couldn't be induced to take it unless he earned it," said little
Betsy Barbett. "You all know that."
"Hurrah!" cried Miss Peters, clapping her hands ecstatically; "I have
it! I have it! I have it! We'll put him in the way of earning it."
And they all put their heads together, and the following was the result:
The next day Jack Barkis's telephone rang more often in an hour than it
had ever done before in a month, and every ring meant a call.
The first call was from Miss Daisy Peters, and he responded.
"I'm so sorry to send for you--er--Doctor," she said--she
had always called him Jack before, but now he had come
professionally--"for--for--Rover, but the poor dog is awfully
sick to-day, and Doctor Pruyn was out of town. Do you mind?"
"Certainly not, Daisy," he replied, a shade of disappointment on his
face. I am inclined to believe he had hoped to find old Mr. Peters at
death's door. "If the dog is sick I can help him. What are his
symptoms?"
And Miss Peters went on to say that her cherished Rover, she thought,
had malaria. He was tired and lazy, when usually he rivalled the cow
that jumped over the moon in activity. She neglected to say that she had
with her own fair hands given the poor beast a dose of sulphonal the
night before--not enough to hurt him, but sufficient to make him appear
tired and sleepy.
"I must see my patient," said the Doctor, cheerfully. "Will he come if I
whistle?"
Miss Peters was disinclined to accede to this demand. She was beginning
to grow fearful that Jack would see through her little subterfuge, and
that the efforts of the S.F.M.E. would prove fruitless.
"Oh," she demurred, "is that--er--necessary? Rover isn't a child, you
know. He won't stick out his tongue if you tell him to--and, er--I don't
think you could tell much from his pulse--and--"
"I'd better see him, though," observed Jack, quietly. "I certainly can't
prescribe unless I do."
So Rover was brought out, and it was indeed true that his old-time
activity had been superseded by a lethargy which made the wagging of
his tail a positive effort. Still, Doctor Barkis was equal to the
occasion, prescribed for the dog, and on his books that night wrote down
a modest item as against Mr. Billington Peters and to his own financial
credit. Furthermore, he had promised to call again the next day, which
meant more practice.
On his return home he found a hurry call awaiting him. Miss Betsy
Barbett had dislocated her wrist. So to the Barbett mansion sped Doctor
Barkis, and there, sure enough, was Miss Barbett apparently suffering
greatly.
"Oh, I am so glad you have come," she moaned. "It hurts dreadfully,
Jack--I mean Doctor."
"I'll fix that in a second," said he, and he did, although he thought it
odd that there were no signs of any inflammation. He was not aware that
one of the most cherished and fascinating accomplishments of Miss
Barbett during her childhood had been her ability to throw her wrist out
of joint. She could throw any of her joints out of place, but she
properly chose her wrist upon this occasion as being the better joint to
intrust to a young physician. If Jack had known that until his coming
her wrist had been all right, and that it had not become disjointed
until he rang the front door bell of the Barbett house, he might not
have been so pleased as he entered the item against Judge Barbett in his
book, nor would he have wondered at the lack of inflammation.
So it went. The Hicks's cook was suddenly taken ill--Mollie Hicks gave
her a dollar to do it--and Jack was summoned. The Tarletons' coachman
was kept out on a wet night for two hours by Janette Tarleton, and very
properly contracted a cold, for which the young woman made herself
responsible, and Doctor Barkis was called in. Then the society itself
discovered many a case among the worthy poor needing immediate medical
treatment from Barkis, M.D., and, although Jack wished to make no
charge, insisted that he should, and threatened to employ some one else
if he didn't.
By degrees a practice resulted from this conspiracy of the S.F.M.E., and
then a municipal election came along, and each candidate for the
Mayoralty was given quietly to understand by parties representing the
S.F.M.E., that unless Jack Barkis was made health officer of the city
he'd better look out for himself, and while both candidates vowed they
had made no pledges, each had sworn ten days before election-day by all
that was holy that Barkis should have this eighteen-hundred-dollar
office--and he got it! Young women may not vote, but they have influence
in small cities.
At the end of the second year of the S.F.M.E.'s resolve that Barkis must
be cared for he was in receipt of nearly twenty-eight hundred dollars a
year, could afford a gig, and so command a practice; and having obtained
his start, his own abilities took care of the rest.
And then what did Jack Barkis, M.D., do? When luxuries began to manifest
themselves in his home--indeed, when he found himself able to rent a
better one--whom did he ask to share its joys with him?
Miss Daisy Peters, who had dosed her dog that he might profit? No,
indeed!
Miss Betsy Barbett, who disfigured her fair wrist in his behalf? Alas,
no!
Miss Hicks, who had spent a dollar to bribe a cook that he might earn
two? No, the ungrateful wretch!
Any member of the S.F.M.E.? I regret to say not.
He went and married a girl from Los Angeles, whom he met on one of the
summer vacations the S.F.M.E. had put within his reach--a girl from whom
no portion of his measure of prosperity had come.
Such was the ingratitude of Barkis. They have never told me so, but I
think the S.F.M.E. feel it keenly. Barkis I believe to be unconscious of
it--but then he is in love with Mrs. Barkis, which is proper; and as I
have already indicated, when a man is in love there are a great many
things he does not see--in fact, there is only one thing he does see,
and that is Her Majesty, the Queen. I can't blame Barkis, and even
though I was aware of the conspiracy to make him prosperous, I did not
think of the ungrateful phase of it all until I spoke to Miss Peters
about his _fiancée_, who had visited Dumfries Corners.
"She's charming," said I. "Don't you think so?"
"Oh yes," said Miss Peters, dubiously. "But I don't see why Jack went
to Los Angeles for a wife."
"Ah?" said I. "Maybe it was the only place where he could find one."
"Thank you!" snapped Miss Peters. "For my part, I think the Dumfries
Corners girls are quite as attractive--ah--Betsy Barbett for
instance--or any other girl in Jack's circle."
"Like yourself?" I smiled.
"My!" she cried. "How can you say such a thing?"
And really I was sorry I had said it. It seemed so like twitting a
person on facts, when I came to think about it.
THE UTILITARIAN MR. CARRAWAY
The Christmas season was approaching, and Mr. Carraway, who had lately
become something of a philosopher, began to think about gifts for his
wife and children. The more he thought of them, the more firmly was he
convinced that there was something radically wrong with the system of
giving that had prevailed in past years. He conjured up visions of the
useless things he had given and received on previous occasions, and an
inventory of his personal receipts at the four celebrations leading up
to the present disclosed the fact that he was long on match-boxes,
cigar-cases, and smoking-jackets, the last every one of them too small,
with an appalling supply of knitted and crocheted objects, the gifts of
his children, in reserve. His boot-closet was a perfect revelation of
the misdirected Christmas energies of the young, disclosing, as it
always did upon occasions when he was in a great hurry, a half-dozen
pairs of worsted slippers, which he had received at Yuletide, some of
them adorned with stags of beads leaping over zephyr walls, and others
made in the image of cats of extraordinary color, with yellow glass eyes
set in directly over the toe whereon he kept his favorite corn. I am not
sure that it was not the stepping of an awkward visitor upon one of
these same glass eyes, while these slippers for the first time covered
his feet, that set Mr. Carraway to cogitating upon the hollowness of
"Christmas as She is Celebrated." Indeed, it is my impression that at
the very moment when that bit of adornment was pressed down upon Mr.
Carraway's corn he announced rather forcibly his disbelief in the
utility of any such infernal Christmas present as that. And as time went
on, and that offending, staring slipper slipped into his hand every time
he searched the closet in the dark for a left patent-leather pump, or
some other missing bit of foot-gear, the conviction grew upon him that
of the great reforms of which the world stood in crying need, the
reformation of the Christmas gift was possibly the most important.
The idea grew to be a mania with him, and he gradually developed into a
utilitarian of the most pronounced type. Nothing in the world so suited
him as an object, homely or otherwise, that could be used for something;
the things that were used for nothing had no attractions for him. After
this he developed further, and discovered new uses for old objects. Mrs.
Carraway's parlor vases were turned into receptacles for matches, or
papers, according to their size. The huge Satsuma vase became a more or
less satisfactory bill-file; and the cloisonné jar, by virtue of its
great durability, Mr. Carraway used as a receptacle for the family
golf-balls, much to the trepidation of his good wife, who considered
that the vase, like some women, had in its beauty a sufficient cause for
existence, and who would have preferred going without golf forever to
the destruction of her treasured bit of bric-à-brac.
Mrs. Carraway did her best to stay the steady advance in utilitarianism
of her husband. She could bide with him in most matters. In fact, until
it came to the use of the cloisonné jar for a golf-ball reservoir, she
considered the idea at least harmless, and was forced to admit that it
indeed held many good points.
"I think it is perfectly proper," she said, "to consider all things from
the point of view of their utility. I do not believe in sending a
ball-dress to a poor woman who is starving or suffering for want of
coal, but I must say, John, that you carry your theory too far when you
insist on using an object for some purpose for which it was manifestly
never intended."
"But who is to say what a thing is manifestly made for?" demanded
Carraway. "You don't know, or at least you can't say positively, what
one of many possible uses the designer and maker of any object had in
mind when he designed and made that especial object. This particular
vase was fashioned by a heathen. It is beautiful and graceful, but
beyond producing something beautiful and graceful, how can you say what
other notion that heathen had as to its possible usefulness? He may have
made it to hold flowers. He may have intended it for a water-jug. He may
have considered it a suitable receptacle in which its future favored
owner might keep his tobacco, or his opium, or any one of the thousand
and one things that you can put in a vase with a hope of getting it out
again."
"Well, we know he didn't intend it for golf-balls, anyhow," said Mrs.
Carraway. "For the very simple reason that the heathen don't play golf."
"They may play some kind of a game which is a heathen variation of
golf," observed Mr. Carraway, coldly.
"That couldn't be," persisted Mrs. Carraway. "judging from the effect of
Sunday golf-playing on church attendance, I don't think anything more
completely pagan than golf could be found. However--"
"But the fact remains, my dear," Carraway interrupted, "that while we
may surmise properly enough that the original maker of an object did not
intend it to be used for certain purposes, you cannot say positively,
because you don't know that your surmise is absolutely correct."
"But I think you can," said Mrs. Carraway. "In fact, _I_ will say
positively that the man who made our new frying-pan made it to fry
things in, and not to be used in connection with a tack-hammer as a
dinner-gong. I know that the hardware people who manufactured our
clothes-boiler, down in the laundry, did not design it as a toy
bass-drum for the children to bang on on the morning of the Fourth of
July. I would make a solemn affidavit to the fact that the maker of a
baby-carriage never dreamed of its possible use as an impromptu toboggan
for a couple of small boys to coast downhill on in midsummer. Yet these
things have been used for these various purposes in our own household
experience. A megaphone can be used as a beehive, and a hammock can be
turned into a fly-net for a horse, but you never think of doing so; and,
furthermore, you _can_ say positively that while the things may be used
for these purposes, the original maker never, never, never thought of
it."
"Nonsense," said Carraway, wilting a little. "Nonsense. You argue just
like a woman--"
"I think that was what I was designed for," laughed Mrs. Carraway. "Of
course I do."
"Oh! but what I mean is that you take utterly ridiculous and extreme
cases. The things never could happen. Who'd ever dream of making a
beehive out of a megaphone?"
"Oh, I think it might occur to the same ingenious mind that discovered
that a cloisonné vase would hold golf-balls," smiled Mrs. Carraway.
Carraway laughed. "There you go again," he said. "I wonder why women
can't argue without becoming ridiculous? It would be mighty poor economy
to pay $4 for a megaphone as a substitute for a $2 beehive."
"That is true," said Mrs. Carraway. "I never thought of that."
"Of course you didn't," retorted Carraway, triumphantly. "Of course you
didn't; and that's what I mean when I say you argue like a woman. You
get hold of what seems on the surface to be a regular solar-plexus
retort, and fail to see how it becomes a boomerang before you can say
Jack Robinson."
"I suppose if I hadn't been worried about the vase I would have thought
of it," said Mrs. Carraway, meekly. "It worries me to see a $150 vase
used for a purpose that a fifty-cent calico bag would serve quite as
well."
Carraway glanced searchingly at his wife.
"Well--ah--hem!" he said. "Quite right, my dear, quite right. I think,
on the whole, you would better get the calico bag."
For a few days after this little discussion Carraway was very reticent
about his utilitarian ideas. The more he thought of his wife's retort
the less secure he felt in his own position, and he was very sorry he
had spoken about boomerangs and solar-plexus retorts. But with time he
recovered his equanimity, and early in December returned to his old
ways.