I
For some weeks after the happy event which transformed the popular Mrs.
Smithers into the charming Mrs. John Pedagog all went well at that lady's
select home for single gentlemen. It was only proper that during the
honey-moon, at least, of the happy couple hostilities between the Idiot
and his fellow-boarders should cease. It was expecting too much of
mankind, however, to look for a continued armistice, and the morning
arrived when Nature once more reasserted herself, and trouble began. Just
what it was that prompted the remark no one knows, but it happened that
the Idiot did say that he thought that, after all, life on a canal-boat
had its advantages. Mr. Pedagog, who had come into the dining-room in a
slightly irritable frame of mind, induced perhaps by Mrs. Pedagog's
insistence that as he was now part proprietor of the house he should be
a little more prompt in making his contributions towards its maintenance,
chose to take the remark as implying a reflection upon the way things
were managed in the household.
"Humph!" he said. "I had hoped that your habit of airing your idiotic
views had been put aside for once and for all."
"Very absurd hope, my dear sir," observed the Idiot. "Views that are not
aired become musty. Why shouldn't I give them an atmospheric opportunity
once in a while?"
"Because they are the sort of views to which suffocation is the most
appropriate end," snapped the School-Master. "Any man who asserts, as you
have asserted, that life on a canal-boat has its advantages, ought to go
further, and prove his sincerity by living on one."
"I can't afford it," said the Idiot, meekly. "It isn't cheap by any
manner of means. In the first place, you can't live happily on a
canal-boat unless you can afford to keep horses. In fact, canal-boat life
is a combination of the most expensive luxuries, since it combines
yachting and driving with domesticity. Nevertheless, if you will put your
mind on it, you will find that with a canal-boat for your home you can do
a great many things that you can't do with a house."
"I decline to put my mind on a canal-boat," said Mr. Pedagog, sharply,
passing his coffee back to Mrs. Pedagog for another lump of sugar,
thereby contributing to that good lady's discomfiture, since before their
marriage the mere fact that the coffee had been poured by her fair hand
had given it all the sweetness it needed; or at least that was what the
School-Master had said, and more than once at that.
"You are under no obligation to do so," the Idiot returned. "Though if I
had a mind like yours I'd put it on a canal-boat and have it towed away
somewhere out of sight. These other gentlemen, however, I think, will
agree with me when I say that the mere fact that a canal-boat can be
moved about the country, and is in no sense a fixture anywhere, shows
that as a dwelling-place it is superior to a house. Take this house, for
instance. This neighborhood used to be the best in town. It is still far
from being the worst neighborhood in town, but it is, as it has been for
several years, deteriorating. The establishment of a Turkish bath on one
corner and a grocery-store on the other has taken away much of that air
of refinement which characterized it when the block was devoted to
residential purposes entirely. Now just suppose for a moment that this
street were a canal, and that this house were a canal-boat. The canal
could run down as much as it pleased, the neighborhood could deteriorate
eternally, but it could not affect the value of this house as the home of
refined people as long as it was possible to hitch up a team of horses to
the front stoop and tow it into a better locality. I'd like to wager
every man at this table that Mrs. Pedagog wouldn't take five minutes to
make up her mind to tow this house up to a spot near Central Park, if it
were a canal-boat and the streets were water instead of a mixture of
water, sand, and Belgian blocks."
"No takers," said the Bibliomaniac.
"Tutt-tutt-tutt," ejaculated Mr. Pedagog.
[Illustration: "THE NUISANCE OF HAVING TO PAY"]
"You seem to lose sight of another fact," said the Idiot, warming up to
his subject. "If man had had the sense in the beginning to adopt the
canal-boat system of life, and we were used to that sort of thing, it
would not be so hard upon us in summer-time, when we have to live in
hotels in order that we and our families may reap the benefits of a
period of country life. We could simply drive off to that section of the
country where we desired to be. Hotels would not be needed if a man could
take his house along with him into the fields, and one phase of life
which has more bad than good in it would be entirely obliterated. There
is nothing more disturbing to the serenity of a domestic man's mind than
the artificial manner of living that prevails in most summer hotels. The
nuisance of having to pay bills every Monday morning under the penalty of
losing one's luggage would be obviated, and all the comforts of home
would be directly within reach. The trouble incident upon getting the
trunks packed and the children ready for a long day's journey by rail,
and the fatigue arising from such a journey, would be reduced to a
minimum. The troubles attendant upon going into a far country, and
leaving one's house in the sole charge of a lot of servants for a month
or two every year, would be done away with entirely; and if at any time
it became necessary to discharge one of these servants, she could be put
off the boat in an instant, and then the boat could be pushed out into
the middle of the canal, so that the discharged domestic could not
possibly get aboard again and take her revenge by smashing your crockery
and fixtures. That is one of the worst features of living in a stationary
house. You are entirely at the mercy of vindictive servants. They know
precisely where you live, and you cannot escape them. They can come back
when there is no man around, and raise several varieties of Ned with your
wife and children. With a movable house, such as the canal-boat would be,
you could always go off and leave your family in perfect safety."
[Illustration: "SHE COULD NOT POSSIBLY GET ABOARD AGAIN"]
"How about safety in a storm?" asked the Bibliomaniac.
"Safety in a storm?" echoed the Idiot. "That seems an absurd sort of a
question to one who knows anything about canal-boats. I, for one, never
heard of a canal-boat being seriously damaged in a storm as long as it
was anchored in the canal proper. It certainly isn't any more dangerous
to be in a canal-boat in a storm than it is to be in a house that
offers resistance to the winds, and is shaken from roof to cellar at
every blast. More houses have been blown from their foundations than
canal-boats sunk, provided ordinary care has been taken to protect
them."
"And you think the canal-boat would be healthy?" asked the Doctor. "How
about dampness and all that?"
"That is a professional question," returned the Idiot, "which I think you
could answer better than I. I don't see why a canal-boat shouldn't be
healthy, however. The dampness would not amount to very much. It would be
outside of one's dwelling, and not within it, as is the case with so many
houses. A canal-boat having no cellar could not have a damp one, and if
by some untoward circumstance it should spring a leak, the water could
be pumped out at once and the leak plugged up. However this might be,
I'll offer another wager to this board on that point, and that is that
more people die in houses than on canal-boats."
"We'd rather give you our money right out," retorted the Doctor.
"Thank you," said the Idiot. "But I don't need money. I don't like money.
Money is responsible for more extravagance than any other commodity in
existence. Besides, it and I are not intimate enough to get along very
well together, and when I have any I immediately do my level best to rid
myself of it. But to return to our canal-boat, I note a look of
disapproval in Mr. Whitechoker's eyes. He doesn't seem to think any
more of my scheme than do the rest of you--which I regret, since I
believe that he would be the gainer if land edifices were supplanted by
the canal system as proposed by myself. Take church on a rainy morning,
for instance. A great many people stay at home from church on rainy
mornings just because they do not want to venture out in the wet. Suppose
we all lived in canal-boats? Would not people be deprived of this flimsy
pretext for staying at home if their homes could be towed up to the
church door? Or, better yet, granting that the churches followed out the
same plan, and were themselves constructed like canal-boats, how easy it
would be for the sexton to drive the church around the town and collect
the absentees. In the same manner it would be glorious for men like
ourselves, who have to go to their daily toil. For a consideration, Mrs.
Pedagog could have us driven to our various places of business every
morning, returning for us in the evening. Think how fine it would be for
me, for instance, instead of having to come home every night in an
overcrowded elevated train or on a cable-car, to have the office-boy come
and announce, 'Mrs. Pedagog's Select Home for Gentlemen is at the door,
Mr. Idiot.' I could step right out of my office into my charming little
bedroom up in the bow, and the time usually expended on the cars could be
devoted to dressing for tea. Then we could stop in at the court-house for
our legal friend; and as for Doctor Capsule, wouldn't he revel in driving
this boarding-house about town on his daily rounds among his patients?"
"What would become of my office hours?" asked the Doctor. "If this house
were whirling giddily all about the city from morning until night, I
don't know what would become of my office patients."
"They might die a little sooner or live a little longer, that is all,"
said the Idiot. "If they weren't able to find the house at all, however,
I think it would be better for us, for much as I admire you, Doctor, I
think your office hours are a nuisance to the rest of us. I had to elbow
my way out of the house this morning between a double line of sufferers
from mumps and influenza, and other pleasingly afflicted patients of
yours, and I didn't like it very much."
"I don't believe they liked it much either," returned the Doctor. "One
man with a sprained ankle told me about you. You shoved him in passing."
"Well, you can apologize to him in my behalf," returned the Idiot; "but
you might add that he must expect very much the same treatment whenever
he and a boy with mumps stand between me and the door. Sprained ankles
aren't contagious, and I preferred shoving him to the other alternative."
The Doctor was silent, and the Idiot rose to go. "Where will the house be
this evening about six-thirty, Mrs. Pedagog?" he asked, as he pushed his
chair back from the table.
"Where? Why, here, of course," returned the landlady.
"Why, yes--of course," observed the Idiot, with an impatient gesture.
"How foolish of me! I've really been so wrapped up in my canal-boat ideal
that I came to believe that it might possibly be real and not a dream,
after all. I almost believed that perhaps I should find that the house
had been towed somewhere up into Westchester County on my return, so that
we might all escape the city's tax on personal property, which I am told
is unusually high this year."
With which sally the Idiot kissed his hand to Mr. Pedagog and retired
from the scene.