_My Dear Father_:
Permit me to say, most respectfully of course, that you are overdoing
the emotional business as to my mistake in mailing a note of invitation
to the theatre to Jim Donnelly in place of a letter denying his claim of
shortage on hams, and denouncing him as a double-distilled prevaricator
for venturing the same. As a matter of fact, it was a great stroke, and
I've ordered the cashier in your name to put a two-dollar ell on my
financial structure. Donnelly came in to-day and gave us a
thousand-dollar order for short ribs; said he was devilish glad to find
a bit of humanity and sentiment in the house of Graham, and that if you
had more blood and less lard in your veins, Chicago would be a better
place to live in. He's fond of the old burgh, at that, for he licked a
Boston drummer last week for claiming that the Boston Symphony Orchestra
was better than Theodore Thomas'. You see Jim has just become engaged
and my little break struck him in a tender spot.
I note with pain, dear dad, that you make a great hullabaloo over my
robbing you of your time by writing that note. Theoretically you may be
right, but practically your kick is so small that a respectable
jack-rabbit would be ashamed of it. Let's see; I
work--theoretically--from 8 to 6, one hour out for lunch. Under your
munificent system of payment I get about 15 cents an hour, or a quarter
of a cent a minute. It took me two minutes to write the note. Ergo, I
owe you half a cent, whereas you owe me the profit on the
thousand-dollar order of short ribs, which Donnelly says must be
something immense. Let's square up on that basis.
But even had results been worse, absent-mindedness is a fault, not a
crime. Literature is full of well-authenticated instances of that
perversity of wit which makes one do the wrong thing instead of the much
easier right one. The poet Cowper's feat of boiling his watch while he
timed it by an egg is really a very commonplace illustration of the
vagaries of the human mind.
It was surpassed by Dean Stanley and Dr. Jowett, who were both extremely
absent-minded and very fond of tea. One morning they breakfasted
together and in their chat each of them drank seven or eight cups of
tea. As the session broke up, Dr. Jowett happened to glance at the
table. "Good gracious!" he exclaimed, "I forgot to put in the tea."
Neither had noticed it.
Even this, I think, is excelled by the case of a remarkably
absent-minded man in the western part of Massachusetts, whose freaks of
memory made him the sport of the country for miles around. He once went
for days without sleeping because he was very busy in his library and
didn't leave it, so did not see his bed as a reminder. He capped the
climax, however, when he came home one night and hanged himself to the
bed-post by his suspenders. As he was wealthy and cheerful, with much to
live for, it is generally believed that he mistook himself for his own
pants. At all events absent-mindedness, like bad penmanship, is a sign
of genius, and, as a loving father, you should be glad that I have one
of the symptoms.
I must frankly admit that the addressing of envelopes is not the most
fascinating of pursuits. If I must write in order to earn my salary from
the house, I should much prefer to do it across the bottom of checks. I
would then feel that the business was more dependent upon me and also
that it might mean more to me. It has got so that the sight of a U. S.
stamp after business hours gives me a bilious attack. Let me at least
fill out the checks if I don't sign 'em. Then I'll be better able to
imagine that I'm the real thing around here, even if my salary's
attenuation continues to eat a big hole in my sainted mother's pin
money. The next best thing to owning an auto, you know, is to wear an
auto coat.
Of course Milligan made a noisy, braying, Hibernian ass of himself when
he came around to take your cussing of him out on me. He swore and
danced and waved his arms, and got still madder when I asked him what he
was Donnybrooking around in Chicago for. He didn't seem to like it a bit
when I told him that one little finger of the girl I wrote to, was worth
a thousand times as much as himself and the hogs he associated with,
put together. He allowed that I was an impudent young jackass and the
dead copy of my father; went on to say that if he hadn't started the
firm and kept his weather-eye on it ever since, you would have been in
the bankruptcy court or jail years ago. When I got mad and told him that
I'd have him bounced, he said you didn't dare to fire him because he
knew the secret of--but really I don't think it safe to entrust it to
paper.
Milligan is a dirty beast who belongs to the Shy-of-Water tribe and
smokes a horror of a clay pipe. To think that I, who have mingled with
gentlemen for the past four years, should be compelled to breathe his
air is too much. I won't work under a man who habitually insults my
honored father. If you haven't pride enough to rebel, I have. He is
vulgar enough to call you the "ould man," and I am morally certain he is
a pretty liberal toucher of that private stock you keep in your inner
office. For heaven's sake, throw him out and purify the place.
Jim Donnelly seems to have taken quite a shine to me, and last night he
invited me to his club for dinner. This was a great relief for yours
truly, for between you and me, Ma has got pretty stingy with the table
since you left, and is trying to use up a box of our products she found
down cellar. (By the way, I notice from a slip Milligan gave me to file
to-day, that you crossed off all the Graham foods the steward of your
private car had picked out for your trip--wise old dad!) So Jim's invite
was like an early cocktail to Col. R. E. Morse. After dinner we hied
ourselves to a vaudeville show, which I simply mention in a business
way. I see you've an "ad" on the drop curtain at the Hyperion, and if
you won't kill the poet who wrote those verses, I must. Such awful rot
as:
"We corrall the choicest hogs,
Stab 'em, scald 'em, flay 'em;
Then you get the superfine
Sausage made by Graham,"
may appeal to you as A1 inspiration, but trust an humble member of your
family when he says that you simply nauseate the public by such tomfool
stuff. You're rich enough to hire Howells if you like, so there's no
excuse for this.
Wish I was with you on the car instead of being compelled to hear
Milligan blart about "our house" like an Irish Silas Wegg. They say
around the office that the car is bully well stocked with things and
things, and they even hint that you have been taking to it pretty
regular of late to change climates with Ma. I don't encourage such idle
talk.
I've worried a lot since you went away. The business seems to have got
on my nerves. Of course I realize that all I have to do is to lick
stamps and try to look as if I enjoyed it, but as the family heir I
can't help worrying about the firm. Several matters have come to my
attention, in the way of business, that make me fearful that perhaps you
made a mistake in going away without leaving one of the family at the
helm here. The Celtic gentleman who signs himself "Supt." and whom the
boys call "Soup," does not take kindly to my advice. When I told him
yesterday that I feared that a carload of lard that was shipped to
Indiana was not first chop and would be returned, he looked me over
curiously for a minute and said:
"Don't let that worry ye, me bye; the toime to fret is when they sind it
back."
And then, in a very loud voice, so that everybody in the office could
hear, he told me a story.
"Your anticipation av trouble reminds me," he said, "av an ould maid up
in York state twinty years ago. She was so plaguey homely that if she'd
been the lasht woman on earth the lasht man wud a jumped off it whin he
met her. Arethusa Prudence Smylie--I've niver forgot the name, how cud
I?--was as full av imagination as a Welsh rarebit is av nightmare, and
ye niver cud tell phwat her nixt break wud be. She was sittin' in the
kitchen one winter's day, radin' po'try and toastin' her fate in the
open oven door, while her good ould slob av a mother was rollin' out pie
crust, whin all av a suddint she burst out cryin'. This startled her
mother so that she dropped her rollin' pin and rushed to her daughter's
side. She thought she'd had a warnin' or cramps or somethin'. It was a
long toime before she cud squeeze a worrd out edgewise bechune the
wapes.
"'Phwat is the matter?' she cried, agin and agin. Finally, wid the tears
a streamin' down her chakes an' the sobs wrestlin wid her breath,
Arethusa tuk her mother into her confidence. 'I was sittin' here,
radin',' she said, 'whin the po'try suggisted somethin' to me an' thin I
got to thinkin',' and here her gab trolley was trun off by sobs.
"'Thinkin' of phwat, darlint?' cried her mother.
"'Oh, mother, I was thinkin', as I sot here wid my feet in the open oven
door, that if I should get married and a little baby should come
and--and--' Agin she stopped to put on brakes wid her handkerchief, and
thin wint on rapidly, 'I was thinkin' how terrible it would be if I
should git married and should leave the baby here in the kitchin' and go
out and--and it should crawl into the oven an' you should shut it up wid
the pies and--and--boo-hoo, hoo!'"
The point of this yarn appeared clear enough to the boys in the office,
for they laughed like hyenas and looked at me as if I were the latest
thing in tailor-mades. Strange how everybody knows when to laugh when
the boss makes a joke! This morning one of the boys had the nerve to
call me Arethusa. When I got through with him, in the vacant lot back of
the hog pens, he couldn't have said "Arethusa" to save his life. You
will commend this, I know, for the dignity of the family name must be
upheld. I found long ago that in order to maintain the respect of the
world it is sometimes necessary to give it a few drop kicks.
I am disappointed in Milligan. Until recently I thought he really felt
an interest in me. For instance, a day or two ago he expressed surprise
that you had not established me in the real estate business, and said
that it struck him that I was better suited for it than for the coarse
details of pork-packing. After that I went round like a pouter pigeon.
But I have since learned that he followed his remark about the real
estate business with a side speech to one of the clerks: "He certainly
knows more about the real estate business than he is likely to ever
learn of this. He _can_ tell the difference between a house and lot."
Milligan is so full of jokes that it's safe betting that if he had the
shaking up I'd like to give him he'd shed comic operas, end-men's gags
and "side-walk conversation" enough to keep the show business running
for years to come. Do you wonder that I have written you several
letters demanding his resignation or acceptance of my own? You will not
receive any of those letters, however, for home, although humble, is a
place of shelter. I must say, though, that Milligan's _penchant_ for
presenting the naked truth without even the traditional fig leaf is
annoying.
Your chafing son,
PIERREPONT.
P.S. I have just learned that Milligan is at home, sick. I wish him
well, of course, but if he should find a change of climate necessary I
will gladly hunt up the timetables for him.
LETTER No. VII.
_Pierrepont writes of "independent work for the house" and its results;
of the methods of "guide-books-to-success" philosophers, and of divers
other topics._