It was Lady Mallowe who perceived the moment when he became the
fashion. The Duke of Stone called with the immense formality he had
described, and his visit was neither brief nor dull. A little later
Tembarom with his guests dined at Stone Hover, and the dinner was
further removed from dullness than any one of numerous past dinners
always noted for being the most agreeable the neighborhood afforded.
The duke managed his guests as an impresario might have managed
his tenor, though this was done with subtly concealed methods. He
had indeed a novelty to offer which had been discussed with much
uncertainty of point of view.
[Illustration]
“Nobody will be likely to see him as he is unless he is pointed out
to them,” was what he said to his daughters. “But being bored to
death,--we are all bored,--once adroitly assisted to suspect him of
being, alluring, most of them will spring upon him and clasp him to
their wearied breasts. I haven’t the least idea what will happen
afterward. I shall in fact await the result with interest.”
Following the dinner party at Stone Hover came many others. All the
well-known carriages began to roll up the avenue to Temple Barholm. The
Temple Barholm carriages also began to roll down the avenue and between
the stone griffins on their way to festive gatherings of varied order.
Burrill and the footmen ventured to reconsider their early plans for
giving warning. It was not so bad if the country was going to take him
up.
“Do you see what is happening?” Lady Mallowe said to Joan. “The man is
becoming actually popular.”
“He is popular as a turn at a music-hall is,” answered Joan. “He will
be dropped as he was taken up.”
“There’s something about him they like, and he represents what
everybody most wants. For God’s sake, Joan, don’t behave like a fool
this time! The case is more desperate. There is nothing else--nothing.”
“There never was,” said Joan, “and I know the desperateness of the
case. How long are you going to stay here?”
“I am going to stay for some time. They are not conventional people. It
can be managed very well. We are relatives.”
“Will you stay,” inquired Joan in a low voice, “until they ask you to
remove yourself?”
Lady Mallowe smiled an agreeably subtle smile. “Not quite that,” she
said. “Miss Alicia would never have the courage to suggest it. It takes
courage and sophistication to do that sort of thing. Mr. Temple Barholm
evidently wants us to remain. He will be willing to make as much of the
relationship as we choose to let him.”
“Do you choose to let him make as much of it as will establish us here
for weeks--or months?” Joan asked, her low voice shaking a little.
“That will depend entirely upon circumstances. It will, in fact, depend
entirely upon you,” said Lady Mallowe, her lips setting themselves into
a straight, thin line.
For an appreciable moment Joan was silent; but after it she lost her
head and whirled about.
“I shall go away,” she cried.
“Where?” asked Lady Mallowe.
“Back to London.”
“How much money have you?” asked her mother. She knew she had none. She
was always sufficiently shrewd to see that she had none.
“How much money have you?” she repeated quietly. This was the way in
which their unbearable scenes began.
Joan looked at her; this time it was for about five seconds. She
turned her back on her and walked out of the room. Shortly afterward
Lady Mallowe saw her walking down the avenue in the rain, which was
beginning to fall.
She had left the house because she dared not stay in it. Once out in
the park, she folded her long purple cloak about her and pulled her
soft purple felt hat down over her brows, walking swiftly under the big
trees without knowing where she intended to go before she returned.
No one could know so well as herself how desperate from her own point
of view the case was. She had long known that her mother would not
hesitate for a moment before any chance of a second marriage which
would totally exclude her daughter from her existence. Why should
she, after all, Joan thought? They had always been antagonists. The
moment of chance had been looming on the horizon for months. Sir Moses
Monaldini had hovered about fitfully and evidently doubtfully at first,
more certainly and frequently of late, but always with a clearly
objecting eye cast askance upon herself. He would have no penniless
daughters hanging about, scowling and sneering. None of that for him.
And the ripest apple upon the topmost bough in the highest wind would
not drop more readily to his feet than her mother would, Joan knew with
sharp and shamed burnings.
It made her sick to think of the perpetual visits they had made where
they were not wanted, of the times when they had been politely bundled
out of places, of the methods which had been used to induce shopkeepers
to let them run up bills. For years her mother and she had been walking
advertisements of smart shops because both were handsome, wore clothes
well, and carried them where they would be seen and talked about. Now
this would be all over, since it had been Lady Mallowe who had managed
all details. Thrown upon her own resources, Joan would have none of
them, even though she must walk in rags. If she had never met Jem! But
Jem had been the beginning and the end.
She bit her lips as she walked, and suddenly tears swept down her
cheeks.
“And he sits in Jem’s place! And every day that common, foolish stare
will follow me!” she said.
He sat, it was true, in the place Jem Temple Barholm would have
occupied if he had been a living man, and he looked at her a good deal.
Perhaps he sometimes unconsciously stared because she made him think
of many things. But if she had been in a state of mind admitting of
judicial fairness, she would have been obliged to own that it was not
quite a foolish stare. Absorbed, abstracted, perhaps, but it was not
foolish. Sometimes, on the contrary, it was searching and keen.
Of course he was doing his best to please her. Of all the “Ladies,” it
seemed evident that he was most attracted by her. He tried to talk to
her despite her unending rebuffs, he followed her about and endeavored
to interest her, he presented a hide-bound unsensitiveness when she did
her worst. Perhaps he did not even know that she was being icily rude.
He was plainly “making up to her” after the manner of his class.
She had reached the village when the rain changed its mind, and without
warning began to pour down as if the black cloud passing overhead had
suddenly opened. She was wondering if she would not turn in somewhere
for shelter until the worst was over, when a door opened and Tembarom
ran out with an umbrella.
“Come in to the Hibblethwaites’ cottage, Lady Joan,” he said. “This
will be over directly.”
He did not affectionately hustle her in by the arm as he would have
hustled in Miss Alicia, but he closely guarded her with the umbrella
until he guided her inside.
“Thank you,” she said.
The first object she became aware of was a thin face with pointed chin
and ferret eyes peering at her round the end of a sofa, then a sharp
voice.
“Tak’ off her cloak an’ shake the rain off it in the wash’us’,” it
said. “Mother an’ Aunt Susan’s out. Let him unbutton it fer thee.”
“I can unbutton it myself, thank you,” said Lady Joan. Tembarom took it
when she had unbuttoned it. He took it from her shoulders before she
had time to stop him. Then he walked into the tiny “wash’us’” and shook
it thoroughly. He came back and hung it on a chair before the fire.
Tummas was leaning back in his pillows and gazing at her.
“I know tha name,” he said. “He towd me,” with a jerk of the head
toward Tembarom.
“Did he?” replied Lady Joan, without interest.
A flaringly illustrated New York paper was spread out upon his sofa. He
pushed it aside and pulled the shabby atlas toward him. It fell open at
a map of North America as if through long habit.
“Sit thee down,” he ordered.
Tembarom had stood watching them both. “I guess you’d better not do
that,” he suggested to Tummas.
“Why not?” said the boy, sharply. “It’s the same as if he’d married
her. If she wur his widder, she’d want to talk about him. Widders allus
wants to talk. Why shouldn’t she? Women’s women. He’d ha’ wanted to
talk about her.”
“Who is ‘he’?” asked Joan, with stiff lips.
“The Temple Barholm as ’u’d be here if he was na.”
Joan turned to Tembarom.
“Do you come here to talk to this boy about _him_?” she said. “How dare
you!”
Tummas’s eyes snapped; his voice snapped also.
“He knew next to nowt about him till I towd him,” he said. “Then he
came to ax me things an’ foind out more. He knows as much as I do now.
Us sits here an’ talks him over.”
Lady Joan still addressed Tembarom.
“What interest can you have in the man who ought to be in your place?”
she asked. “What possible interest?”
“Well,” he answered awkwardly, “because he ought to be, I suppose.
Ain’t that reason enough?”
He had never had to deal with women who hated him and who were angry,
and he did not know exactly what to say. He had known very few women,
and he had always been good natured with them and won their liking in
some measure. Also, there was in his attitude toward this particular
woman a baffled feeling that he could not make her understand him. She
would always think of him as an enemy and believe he meant things he
did not mean. If he had been born and educated in her world, he could
have used her own language; but he could use only his own, and there
were so many things he must not say for a time at least.
“Do you not realize,” she said, “that--that you and this boy are taking
liberties?”
Tummas broke in wholly without compunction.
“I’ve takken liberties aw my loife,” he stated; “an’ I’m goin’ to
tak’ ’em till I dee. They’re the on’y things I con tak’, lyin’ here
crippled, an’ I’m goin’ to tak’ ’em.”
“Stop that, Tummas!” said Tembarom, with friendly authority. “She
doesn’t catch on, and you don’t catch on, either. You’re both of you
’way off. Stop it!”
“I thowt happen she could tell me things I did na know,” protested
Tummas, throwing himself back on his pillows. “If she conna, she conna,
an’ if she wun not, she wun not. Get out wi’ thee!” he said to Joan. “I
dunnot want thee about the place.”
“Say,” said Tembarom, “shut up!”
“I am going,” said Lady Joan, and, seizing her cloak, turned to open
the door.
The rain was descending in torrents, but she passed swiftly out into
its deluge, walking as rapidly as she could. She thought she cared
nothing about the rain, but it dashed in her face and eyes, taking her
breath away, and she had need of breath when her heart was beating with
such fierceness.
Even chance could not let her alone at one of her worst moments. She
walked faster and faster because she was afraid Tembarom would follow
her, and in a few minutes she heard him splashing behind her, and then
he was at her side, holding the umbrella over her head.
“You’re a good walker,” he said, “but I’m a sprinter. I trained running
after street-cars and catching the ‘L’ in New York.”
She had so restrained her miserable hysterical impulse to break down
and utterly humiliate herself under the unexpected blow of the episode
in the cottage that she had had no breath to spare when she left the
room, and her hurried effort to escape had left her so much less that
she did not speak.
“I’ll tell you something,” he went on. “He’s a little freak, but you
can’t blame him much. Don’t be mad at him. He’s never moved from that
corner since he was born, I guess, and he’s got nothing to do or to
think of but just hearing what’s happening outside. He’s sort of crazy
curious, and when he gets hold of a thing that suits him, he just holds
on to it till the last bell rings.”
She said nothing whatever, and he paused a moment because he wanted to
think over the best way to say the next thing.
“Mr. James Temple Barholm”--he ventured it with more delicacy of desire
not to seem to “take liberties” than she would have credited him
with--“saw his mother sitting with him in her arms at the cottage door
a week or so after he was born. He stopped at the gate and talked to
her about him, and he left him a sovereign. He’s got it now. It seems
a fortune to him. He’s made a sort of idol of him. That’s why he talks
like he does. I wouldn’t let it make me mad if I were you.”
He did not know that she could not have answered him if she would, that
she felt that if he did not stop she might fling herself down upon the
wet heather and wail aloud.
“You don’t like me,” he began after they had walked a few steps
farther. “You don’t like me.”
This was actually better. It choked back the sobs rising in her throat.
The stupid shock of it, his tasteless foolishness, helped her by its
very folly to a sort of defense against the disastrous wave of emotion
she might not have been able to control. She gathered herself together.
“It must be an unusual experience,” she answered.
“Well it is--sort of,” he said, but in a manner curiously free from
fatuous swagger. “I’ve had luck that way. I guess it’s been because I’d
_got_ to make friends so as I could earn a living. It seems sort of
queer to know that some one got a grouch against me that--that I can’t
get away with.”
She looked up the avenue to see how much farther they must walk
together, since she was not “a sprinter” and could not get away from
him. She thought she caught a glimpse through the trees of a dog-cart
driven by a groom, and hoped she was not mistaken and that it was
driving in their direction.
“It must, indeed,” she said, “though I am not sure I quite understand
what a grouch is.”
“When you’ve got a grouch against a fellow,” he explained impersonally,
“you want to get at him. You want to make him feel like a mutt; and a
mutt’s the worst kind of a fool. You’ve got one against me.
“I knew there was a lot against me when I came here,” he persisted. “I
should have been a fool if I hadn’t. I knew when you came that I was up
against a pretty hard proposition; but I thought perhaps if I got busy
and _showed_ you--you’ve got to _show_ a person--”
“Showed me what?” she asked contemptuously.
“Showed you--well--_me_,” he tried to explain.
“You!”
“And that I wanted to be friends,” he added candidly.
Was the man mad? Did he realize nothing? Was he too thick of skin even
to see?
“Friends! You and I?” The words ought to have scorched him, pachyderm
though he was.
“I thought you’d give me a chance--a sort of chance.”
She stopped short on the avenue.
“You did?”
She had not been mistaken. The dog-cart had rounded the far-off curve
and was coming toward them. And the man went on talking.
“You’ve felt every minute that I was in a place that didn’t belong to
me. You know that if the man that it did belong to was here, you’d be
here with him. You felt as if I’d robbed him of it--and I’d robbed
you. It was your home--yours. You hated me too much to think of
anything else. Suppose--suppose there was a way I could give it back to
you--make it your home again?”
His voice dropped and was rather unsteady. The fool, the gross, brutal,
vulgar, hopeless fool! He thought this was the way to approach her,
to lead her to listen to his proposal of marriage! Not for a second
did she guess that they were talking at cross-purposes. She did not
know that as he kept himself steady under her contemptuousness he was
thinking that Ann would have to own that he had been up against it hard
and plenty while the thing was going on.
“I’m always up against it when I’m talking to you,” he said. “You get
me rattled. There’s things I want to talk about and ask you. Suppose
you give me a chance, and let us start out by being sort of friends.”
“I am staying in your house,” she answered in a deadly voice, “and
I cannot go away because my mother will not let me. You can force
yourself upon me, if you choose, because I cannot help it but
understand once for all that I will _not_ give you your ridiculous
chance. And I will not utter one word to you when I can avoid it.”
He was silent for a moment and seemed to be thinking rather deeply. She
realized now that he saw the nearing dog-cart.
“You won’t. Then it’s up to me,” he said. Then with a change of tone he
added: “I’ll stop the cart and tell the man to drive you to the house.
I’m not going to force myself on you, as you call it. It ’u’d be no
use. Perhaps it’ll come all right in the end.”
He made a sign to the groom, who hastened his horse’s pace and drew up
when he reached them. Tembarom said:
“Take this lady back to the house.”
The groom, who was a new arrival, began to prepare to get down and give
up his place.
“You needn’t do that,” said Tembarom.
“Won’t you get up and take the reins, sir?” the man asked uncertainly.
“No; I can’t drive. You’ll have to do it. I’ll walk.”
And, to the groom’s amazement, they left him standing under the trees
looking after them.
“It’s up to me,” he was saying. “The whole durned thing’s up to _me_.”
(To be continued.)
TO A ROYAL MUMMY
BY ANNA GLEN STODDARD
Thou, Queen who wast,
Now gruesome shape,
Linen and dust,
At whom they gape,--
The multitude,
Ogling and rude,--
What is the message,
Warning, or presage,
Thy vast experience,
Our vast impertinence,
Bid thee impart to us,
Baring thy heart to us?
Blazoned the case
Of Egypt’s crown-jewel.
Proud was thy race,
Haughty and cruel;
Scribed here their history,
Glory, and mystery.
When life was ended,
Shrouded and splendid,
How they entombed thee!
No grave enwombed thee.
Walled in a pyramid,
Thy regal beauty hid.
Aye, thou wert queenly,
Majestic, inviolate,
Who now so meanly
Liest in state.
A Pharaoh sired thee;
Kings have desired thee:
Forgot now, despoiled.
Thy beauty assoiled,
What if thy wisdom taught
That out of all is naught?
What if thy secret be
That all is vanity?
[Illustration]
IN LIGHTER VEIN
GOING UP
OR, THE PERIL OF EXPOSURE AFTER BATHING
BY FREDERICK LEWIS ALLEN
A prophet is not without honor save in his bathing-suit. Bathing-suits
harmonize with the ocean, and are worn unblushingly by those who
stand with one foot in sea and one on land; but it is possible for a
bathing-suit to be out of place, as at a garden party or at the opera.
Bathing-suits are specialized goods. If one is inclined to doubt the
truth of these propositions, listen to the tale of Professor Jarvis.
The professor spent his summers on the sea-coast of Maine, where
he occupied his mornings in working on a history of the diplomatic
relations of Uruguay and Paraguay, or perhaps it was Costa Rica and
Honduras. His afternoons were spent in golfing and bathing. His house
stood about a hundred yards from the end of the sandy bathing-beach,
and since he possessed no bath-house, it was his habit, at the end
of his chilling swim, to pick his way gingerly home along a sandy,
root-ribbed, pine-needled path, to enter his house brazenly by the
front door, to flee dripping up the front stairs, and, in the privacy
of his bedroom, to transform himself from Proteus to Beau Brummell.
One cool September afternoon as he was returning from his plunge,
Professor Jarvis paused among the pines at a little distance from the
house. A large black automobile was drawn up before the front steps.
The spacious piazza, on which his wife was in the habit of serving
afternoon tea--a conveniently situated piazza which gave upon the sea,
and not upon Professor Jarvis--was unoccupied. The professor hesitated,
his teeth clashing against one another, and the goose-flesh creeping
out on his dripping arms. The conclusion was obvious: his wife was
receiving guests in the living-room. She had evidently decided that the
piazza would be a trifle too breezy for tea.
Now Professor Jarvis, even in a bathing-suit, was not an unbeautiful
figure. He had fallen into the vale of fifty years with more grace than
the average human being, thanks to golf and to bathing. He did not
display to any alarming extent the inevitable tendencies of age. He
was, in fact, rather proud of the restraint which his waist-line had
exercised. Now he did not hesitate long among the pines, but advanced
daintily over some sharp twigs to the front door. The chauffeur,
sprawling at ease in the black car and reading “Mutt and Jeff” in the
colored comic section of a Sunday supplement, smiled out of the leeward
side of his mouth. But the professor regarded him not, haughtily passed
him by, and boldly entered the house. His gray hair stood on end in
scant wisps, the goose-flesh adorned his limbs, the water dripped from
his Roman nose and trickled from his abbreviated trousers, and he left
several little wet footprints on the ivy-clad front porch.
[Illustration]
Once inside the house, the professor paused timidly in the hallway.
Before him stood two doors. One was the entrance to the dining-room;
the other led into the capacious living-room. The stairs were beyond,
at the extreme back of the hall. Through the open doors of the
living-room issued the sound of voices. Professor Jarvis recognized his
wife’s and Mrs. Heath’s and--no, he was not quite sure about the other
one. The conversation within continued.
The professor realized that it would be impossible to pass the
living-room door without exposing himself to the curious view of the
ladies within.
He could, however, reach and enter the dining-room unobserved. He stood
a while in thought.
“I find a plain brown stain gives the best wear,” said the doubtful
voice in very positive tones. “I find _nothing_ compares with it.”
The professor recognized the voice. It was Mrs. Bannerman’s. He was
afraid of Mrs. Bannerman. She was a very positive person, and it was
her manner to speak with such evident authority that whenever she
held forth the professor began to have his doubts even on Venezuelan
questions.
He shivered as he heard her now.
But his wife’s voice reassured him. “I’ve forgotten what our mixture
is,” she said. “The farmer always does our shellacking. But you’ll be
able to tell if you come out and look at the hall floor. It’s given us
splendid wear.”
There was a rustle of dresses. The professor started. It was impossible
to get up the distant stairs, with their delightful view of the
hall--his own plan. Noiselessly he darted into the dining-room,
leaving a tiny pool of water behind him. Mrs. Jarvis, Mrs. Heath, and
the formidable Mrs. Bannerman came out into the hall, and discussed
varnish, paint, and allied subjects for some minutes.
In the meantime Professor Jarvis considered methods of escape. The
dining-room was a large affair. There were windows on one of the
sides opposite him, but under them was a sheer drop of twelve feet
to a graveled avenue. The sideboard offered no hiding-place. The
center-table was not large enough for a professor of diplomacy to
curl up under in any fitting way. The “mission” chimney was no place
for a man in a bathing-suit. Only one avenue of escape was available,
and that was an open door that led invitingly into the pantry or
china-closet. Behind this door the professor stationed himself, and
prayed that the ladies might depart.
For a moment he had his hopes. There was some mention of good-bys.
Somebody went to get her things. The professor drew a long breath. He
was very, very chilly, and another little pool was rapidly forming
about his white and tender feet.
“Why should I be afraid to face these ladies?” he asked himself. “What
have I to be ashamed of? Is there anything wrong in going about my own
house in my own bathing-suit? I will go out and say, ‘Oh, I was looking
for a towel in the china-closet. I have had such a wonderful swim.’”
Nevertheless, the professor did _not_ move. Nor time nor place did then
adhere, while his bathing-suit did. He heard the voice of the terrible
Mrs. Bannerman, and remained behind the china-closet door, listening.
Suddenly fear smote into his heart.
“Mr. Jarvis planned this house himself,” he heard his wife say
proudly. “We had several ideas which we insisted on. For instance, the
dining-room here is an arrangement of our own.”
The professor moved on, into a recess of the china-closet. The voices
came nearer and uprose in voluble appreciation of the dining-room. Mrs.
Jarvis was holding forth with a proud delight on the architectural
disposition of doors, windows, etc. What was coming next the professor
guessed only too well. He looked about wildly. Cupboards, all too
small. Shelves, impossible. They all had glass fronts. He could hardly
expose himself under glass, like an exhibit in a museum. There was, to
be sure, a dumb-waiter that descended to the kitchen below.
It was a new and wonderful dumb-waiter. Wonderfully balanced, weighted,
and contrived. Professor Jarvis headed for it, and, as he heard the
voices relentlessly approaching the china-closet, climbed nimbly in
and, marveling at the beautiful balance of the thing, cautiously let
himself down a few yards into the black abyss that yawned between him
and the kitchen.
In absolute and overwhelming darkness he gathered himself about the
rope that controlled his wooden cage, and held his breath. Thank
heavens, it was a roomy dumb-waiter! As it was, he had to curl up
like a kitten or a dog, and a very damp one at that. “I should never
have supposed,” he said to himself, “that one could get into a
dumb-waiter.” And he pondered on the uses of adversity, and remembered
the bird in the gilded cage. Above, the voices were faintly audible;
they echoed as if through caverns.
“The dumb-waiter,” his wife explained, “is here.”
There were footsteps. The professor clutched the rope with an iron
grasp, and just in time. Some one was attempting to jerk it out of his
hands.
“It seems to be stuck,” said a voice above.
“Let _me_ try it,” said Mrs. Bannerman.
“Let us all try it,” said a chorus of voices.
The professor’s blood froze. He curled up tighter about the rope in his
damp little puddle. He feared the ladies and particularly he feared the
brawny might of the fearful Mrs. Bannerman.
He held fast, but it was of no use.
He was going up!
“As if I were a veal cutlet going up for supper,” he thought.
Blinking, he ascended into the cruel light of day.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Bannerman,” he said politely.
[Illustration: Drawn by May Wilson Preston
A BOY’S BEST FRIEND
~The Senior Wrangler~: “Never you mind _what_ she does, or how
she looks. You quit laughin’ at her, and, say, don’t you ever forget
what I’m going to tell you--drunk or sober, that lady is me mother!”]
[Illustration: At the recent exhibition in New York of the work of
American women sculptors no groups attracted more amused attention than
these plasteline groups by Ethel Myers, the wife of Jerome Myers, the
painter. The single figure is called “The Fifth Avenue Girl,” and the
group is entitled “A Bit of Gossip.”]
FRESH LIGHT ON WASHINGTON
The following is a literal transcript of a bona-fide debate by a boy
in a public school. As it throws a bright light on two important, and
apparently misunderstood, historical characters, it has been thought
worthy of a niche in “Lighter Vein.”
Dear teacher, kind schoolmates, honorable judges and chairman, seeing
that I am the speaker on the affirmative side I say that Washington was
a greater man than Napoleon.
Washington is the man that saved Our Country from the hands of the
British. Did Napoleon, of course not, And Washington never deserted his
wife and family like Napoleon did. No because Washington was more of a
man than to do that.
G. Washington was a man of good sense. He never got a divorce from his
wife like Napoleon did. Of course not because Washington knew better
than to do that.
When the British made their second attempt to conquer New York,
Washington was too sly for them, and by him the English were defeated,
and we won the battle. Did Napoleon do that, of course not.
Napoleon entered Berlin in Triumph October 27, 1806 and established
himself in the kings palace. He did not like the beutiful Queen Louise,
because he felt that she had inspired the soldiers by her presence
and urged her husband to make war. He was very unjust to her in his
bulletins and Josephine reproached him of speaking ill of women. Did
Washington do that of course not he knew better.
Napoleon never liked the festival of a saint, he said it was a day of
idleness. Did Washington like it. Of course becaus he used it right and
Napoleon didnt.
I both say and think there was never and never will be a man to take
the place of Our great American George Washington.
[Illustration: Drawn by Boardman Robinson
THE CHILD DE LUXE
~Old-fashioned Grandmother~: “Why! Muriel, where are your dolls
this morning? Why don’t you take them out in your doll’s carriage,
dear?”
~Muriel~ (slightly bored): “Oh! I leave all _that_ to their
nurse.”]
A TRIOLET
BY LEROY TITUS WEEKS
I took just a kiss,
But her lips would repeat.
What rapture! what bliss!
I took just a kiss.
You see, it’s like this:
“With what measure ye mete--!”
I took just a kiss,
But her lips _would_ repeat.
[Illustration]
WHAT IS A RYMBEL?
WITH FOUR REMARKABLE EXAMPLES BY OLIVER HERFORD, CHARLES HANSON TOWNE,
AND THEODOSIA GARRISON
The Rymbel is an interesting and newly discovered verse family. It
consists of either ten, twenty, or thirty lines, and is sometimes
spoken of, not as a rymbel, but as a “tent-twent-thirt.” The first
noteworthy example of it in our literature is Mr. Herford’s interesting
twent which, with its fine flux of cerebral invention, is printed below.
The Rymbel family is descended from many rhyming ancestors. Its father
was a Jingle, its mother a Rondel. The result of this marriage was a
feeble-minded daughter. Symbol by name, and four “wanting” sons, Ramble
(the eldest), Rondeau and Rhyme (the twins), and Jumble, the baby. They
only express themselves in verse, and are usually spoken of as “the
eccentric Rymbels.” Deafness is a Rymbel family characteristic.
Whenever the father (who is invariably the family pioneer in matters
poetical) is seized by an uncontrollable afflatus, he starts out
bravely enough, but usually attenuates at the fifth line of the first
stanza. Owing to the deafness of his wife and little ones he shouts
this last line in a frantic crescendo, at which point his voice and his
intellect give up the unequal contest, and his wife, seizing on the
last word as her cue, pursues the theme spontaneously--and in her own
misguided way.
The poetical relay proceeds in this manner until the tenth, twentieth,
or--in very rare cases--the thirtieth line has been reached. In
Mr. Herford’s splendid example of rymbelican verse, for instance,
the father’s brain ceased to “mote” after the fifth line, but the
crescendoed concept “fall” was bravely but disastrously propulsed into
the second stanza by Mrs. Rymbel, who, in turn, gave up the struggle
and abandoned the entire enterprise to the twins.
_R. Otway Prendergast._
Editor of Arch. Vulg. and Obs. Words in Prendergast’s “Rhyming
Rumbels” (Oxford Press--out of print), author of “Wild Verses I Have
Met” and “The Stanza in a Savage State.” Brentanos; each, $1.65 net.
THE GIRL AND THE RASPBERRY ICE
(THE FIRST RECORDED RYMBEL IN OUR TIME)
BY OLIVER HERFORD
One summer day in early spring--
How well I can recall
The falling snow--no, come to think,
It happened at the skating-rink:
It must have been the fall.
I never shall forget that fall,
When, spurning all advice,
I buckled on a pair of skates,
And, cutting fancy figure-eights,
Sat down upon the ice.
I think it was a lemon ice
Or some such sparkling fruit,
She smiled and said she would prefer
A raspberry cream--the kind you stir--
I quickly followed suit.
A simple suit of homespun tweed
That ended at the knees!
No wonder that my legs are chill.
Quick, nurse! another camphor pill!
I fear I’m going to sneeze.
~Mr. Charles Hanson Towne~, who has been spending a week-end
with the Rymbels, and who is distantly related to them through the
Jumbles (of Spring Street), overheard the following “thirt” and made
careful enough notes of it to preserve it for all time.
THE YELLOW VASE
BY CHARLES HANSON TOWNE
I gave the man a ten-cent fare
When I got on the train.
The sun was shining in the sky,
A great big drop fell in my eye--
It had begun to rain.
Oh, yes! It was a glorious reign,
The reign of good Queen Bess;
The people were quite happy then,
The women, children, and the men,
Each with a fine address.
I tried to find your old address,
But no, it was not there;
I looked down cellar for it, and
I thought I had it in my hand
When I came up the stair.
Good gracious! how the people stare,
When I am off my guard;
They watch my feet when I go out,
(I always push my feet about)
All three feet--in the yard.
I told the clerk I’d take a yard;
I don’t know what I’ll do,
As your clock says it’s now half-past,
And mine, although it’s somewhat fast,
Says it is half-past, too.
I walked a mile and then walked two,
Not knowing where to go;
Then I came home and ate some fish--
Some shad upon a shallow dish--
And went out for a roe.
Rymbels are not all of them necessarily humorous. Jocoseria is, of
course, frequently met with in them, but in the following tragical and
noteworthy rymbel Theodosia Garrison proves that drama, in its most
lean, Greek, intense, and pulsing form, may well find a place in them.
The tragedy, terrible as it is, is one that might befall any woman of
means.
TRAGEDY
OR, THE MISSES AND THE MASSEUSE
BY THEODOSIA GARRISON
The dame unto her masseuse spake,
With sad and downcast mien,
“Woe’s me that I have grown so stout,
Both up and down and all about:
I would be long and lean.”
“Dear Madam, on my guidance lean,
’T were mean to do you wrong;
Rely upon my means and taste,
And some day you shall have the waist,
The waist for which you long.”
She murmured “But it takes so long,
To get results--I mean.”
Oh, what a cruel waste is that
That makes a person short and fat
Who would be long and lean.
Just as we were going to press with this page we were fortunate enough
to discover another rymbel by Mr. Herford which, though it displays a
note almost of inconstancy in his nature, is gladly published below.
“ON REVIENT TOUJOURS À SON PREMIER AMOUR”
BY OLIVER HERFORD
O! Seraphine, my Seraphine!
When first I saw your face
Flash by me in your limousine,
Methought there ne’er before was seen
Such loveliness, such grace.
Dear Grace! her image glows as bright
Upon my heart to-day
As when, a vision of delight,
She first rejoiced my raptured sight,
One afternoon in May.
’Twas then I took fair May to be
My bride, and I was true,
Or nearly so. I fail to see,
Considering my constancy,
What grounds May had to sue.
“And what became of Sue?” you say.
Alas! I have not seen
Excepting, in a casual way,
A sign of Susan since the day
I first met Seraphine.
~Mr. Ellis Parker Butler~ recently submitted, in a spirit of adventure,
a story to the editors of ~The Century~. The function of an editor
being to criticize and find fault, it was suggested to Mr. Butler, as
tactfully and as humanely as the seriousness of his misdemeanors would
permit, that some changes in the story might possibly improve it.
Breathless, we print his reply--without comment.
E. P. BUTLER LITERATURE FACTORY
242 State St., Flushing, N. Y.
_Department of
Corrections and Repairs._
April 30, 1913.
The Century Magazine, New York.
_Dear Sir_--
Regarding your memo. of yesterday in regard to the 1913 model story
recently purchased by you from this company, would say we cannot
understand why you have found so many repairs necessary.
While we only guarantee our product for one year from date of
purchase, all goods are examined before shipment, and should reach
you in good condition, and stand any ordinary wear and tear for
twelve months. We cannot understand your complaint. Is it not
possible you have allowed sand to get in the gear-box of the story?
However, we are shipping you by this same mail material to replace
the unsatisfactory parts, Nos. 13 and 14, and trust that, with these
in place, the purchase will give you good satisfaction. In case of
any further trouble please address this department.
Yours very truly,
E. P. Butler Literature Factory,
_Per_ E. P. B.
E. P. B./E. P. B.
_In answering this communication
please refer to Correction No. 987564._
LIMERICKS
TEXT AND PICTURES BY OLIVER HERFORD
[Illustration]
THE ETERNAL FEMININE
Said the spider, in tones of distress:
“As a spinster I’m not a success.
Though I toil and I spin
And I work myself thin,
I never can have a new dress.”
[Illustration]
TRA-LA-LARCENY
A heathen named Min, passing by
A pie-shop, picked up a mince-pie.
If you think Min a thief,
Pray dismiss the belief:
The mince-pie that Min spied was Min’s pie.
THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW YORK