AJAX: Hullo, Socrates, what are you doing patrolling the streets at
this late hour? Surely it would be more seemly to be at home?
SOCRATES: You speak sooth, Ajax, but I have no home to repair to.
AJAX: What do you mean by that?
SOCRATES: In the sense of a place of habitation, a dormitory, of
course I still have a home; but it is merely an abandoned shell, a
dark and silent place devoid of allure. I have sent my family to the
seashore, good Ajax, and the lonely apartment, with all the blinds
pulled down and nothing in the icebox, is a dismal haunt. That is
why I wander upon the highway.
AJAX: I, too, have known that condition, Socrates. Two years ago
Cassandra took the children to the mountains for July and August;
and upon my word I had a doleful time of it. What do you say, shall
we have recourse to a beaker of ginger ale and discuss this matter?
It is still only the shank of the evening.
SOCRATES: It is well thought of.
AJAX: As I was saying, the quaint part of it was that before my wife
left I had secretly thought that a period of bachelorhood would be
an interesting change. I rather liked the idea of strolling about in
the evenings, observing the pageant of human nature in my quiet way,
dropping in at the club or the library, and mingling with my fellow
men in a fashion that the husband and father does not often have
opportunity to do.
SOCRATES: And when Cassandra went away you found yourself desolate?
AJAX: Even so. Of course matters were rather different in those
days, before the archons had taken away certain stimulants, but the
principle is still the same. You know, the inconsistency of man is
rather entertaining. I had often complained about having to help put
the children to bed when I got home from the office. I grudged the
time it took to get them all safely bestowed. And then, when the
children were away, I found myself spending infinitely more time and
trouble in getting some of my bachelor friends to bed.
SOCRATES: As that merry cartoonist Briggs observes in some of his
frescoes, Oh Man!
AJAX: I wonder if your experience is the same as mine was? I found
that about six o'clock in the evening, the hour when I would
normally have been hastening home to wife and babes, was the most
poignant time. I was horribly homesick. If I did go back to my
forlorn apartment, the mere sight of little Priam's crib was enough
to reduce me to tears. I seriously thought of writing a poem about
it.
SOCRATES: What is needed is a Club of Abandoned Husbands, for the
consolation of those whose families are out of town.
AJAX: I have never found a club of much assistance at such a time.
It is always full of rather elderly men who talk a great deal and in
a manner both doleful and ill-informed.
SOCRATES: But this would be a club of quite a different sort. It
would be devised to offer a truly domestic atmosphere to those who
have sent their wives and juveniles to the country for the benefit
of the fresh air, and have to stay in the city themselves to earn
what is vulgarly known as kale.
AJAX: How would you work out the plan?
SOCRATES: It would not be difficult. In the first place, there would
be a large nursery, with a number of rented children of various
ages. Each member of the club, hastening thither from his office at
the conclusion of the day's work, would be privileged to pick out
some child as nearly as possible similar in age and sex to his own
absent offspring. He would then deal with this child according to
the necessities of its condition. If it were an extremely young
infant, a bottle properly prepared would be ready in the club
kitchen, and he could administer it. The club bathroom would be
filled with hilarious members on their knees beside small tubs,
bathing such urchins as needed it. Others would be playing games on
the floor, or tucking the children in bed. It ought to be quite
feasible to hire a number of children for this purpose. During the
day they would be cared for by a competent matron. Baby carriages
would be provided, and if any of the club members were compelled to
remain in town over the week-end they could take the children for an
airing in the park.
AJAX: This is a brave idea, Socrates. And then, when all the
children were bedded for the night, how would the domestic
atmosphere be simulated?
SOCRATES: Nothing simpler. After dinner such husbands as are
accustomed to washing the dishes would be allowed to do so in the
club kitchen. During the day it would be the function of the matron
to think up a number of odd jobs to be performed in the course of
the evening. Pictures would be hung, clocks wound, a number of tin
cans would be waiting to be opened with refractory can openers, and
there would always be several window blinds that had gone wrong. A
really resourceful matron could devise any number of ways of making
the club seem just like home. One night she would discern a smell of
gas, the next there might be a hole in the fly-screens, or a little
carpentering to do, or a caster broken under the piano. Husbands
with a turn for plumbing would find the club basement a perpetual
place of solace, with a fresh leak or a rumbling pipe every few
days.
AJAX: Admirable! And if the matron really wanted to make the members
feel at home she would take a turn through the building every now
and then, to issue a gentle rebuke for cigar ashes dropped on the
rugs or feet elevated on chairs.
SOCRATES: The really crowning touch, I think, would lie in the
ice-box raids. A large ice-box would be kept well stocked with
remainders of apple pie, macaroni, stewed prunes, and chocolate
pudding. Any husband, making a cautious inroad upon these about
midnight, would surely have the authentic emotion of being in his
own home.
AJAX: An occasional request to empty the ice-box pan would also be
an artful echo of domesticity.
SOCRATES: Of course the success of the scheme would depend greatly
on finding the right person for matron. If she were to strew a few
hairpins about and perhaps misplace a latch key now and then----
AJAX: Socrates, you have hit upon a great idea. But you ought to
extend the membership of the club to include young men not yet
married. Think what an admirable training school for husbands it
would make!
SOCRATES: My dear fellow, let us not discuss it any further. It
makes me too homesick. I am going back to my lonely apartment to
write a letter to dear Xanthippe.
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