Roger Raids the Ice-Box
Roger had just put Carlyle's Cromwell back in its proper place in the
History alcove when Helen and Titania returned from the movies. Bock,
who had been dozing under his master's chair, rose politely and wagged
a deferential tail.
"I do think Bock has the darlingest manners," said Titania.
"Yes," said Helen, "it's really a marvel that his wagging muscles
aren't all worn out, he has abused them so."
"Well," said Roger, "did you have a good time?"
"An adorable time!" cried Titania, with a face and voice so sparkling
that two musty habitues of the shop popped their heads out of the
alcoves marked ESSAYS and THEOLOGY and peered in amazement. One of
these even went so far as to purchase the copy of Leigh Hunt's Wishing
Cap Papers he had been munching through, in order to have an excuse to
approach the group and satisfy his bewildered eyes. When Miss Chapman
took the book and wrapped it up for him, his astonishment was made
complete.
Unconscious that she was actually creating business, Titania resumed.
"We met your friend Mr. Gilbert on the street," she said, "and he went
to the movies with us. He says he's coming in on Monday to fix the
furnace while you're away."
"Well," said Roger, "these advertising agencies are certainly
enterprising, aren't they? Think of sending a man over to attend to my
furnace, just on the slim chance of getting my advertising account."
"Did you have a quiet evening?" said Helen.
"I spent most of the time writing to Andrew," said Roger. "One amusing
thing happened, though. I actually sold that copy of Philip Dru."
"No!" cried Helen.
"A fact," said Roger. "A man was looking at it, and I told him it was
supposed to be written by Colonel House. He insisted on buying it.
But what a sell when he tries to read it!"
"Did Colonel House really write it?" asked Titania.
"I don't know," said Roger. "I hope not, because I find in myself a
secret tendency to believe that Mr. House is an able man. If he did
write it, I devoutly hope none of the foreign statesmen in Paris will
learn of that fact."
While Helen and Titania took off their wraps, Roger was busy closing up
the shop. He went down to the corner with Bock to mail his letter, and
when he returned to the den Helen had prepared a large jug of cocoa.
They sat down by the fire to enjoy it.
"Chesterton has written a very savage poem against cocoa," said Roger,
"which you will find in The Flying Inn; but for my part I find it the
ideal evening drink. It lets the mind down gently, and paves the way
for slumber. I have often noticed that the most terrific philosophical
agonies can be allayed by three cups of Mrs. Mifflin's cocoa. A man
can safely read Schopenhauer all evening if he has a tablespoonful of
cocoa and a tin of condensed milk available. Of course it should be
made with condensed milk, which is the only way."
"I had no idea anything could be so good," said Titania. "Of course,
Daddy makes condensed milk in one of his factories, but I never dreamed
of trying it. I thought it was only used by explorers, people at the
North Pole, you know."
"How stupid of me!" exclaimed Roger. "I quite forgot to tell you!
Your father called up just after you had gone out this evening, and
wanted to know how you were getting on."
"Oh, dear," said Titania. "He must have been delighted to hear I was
at the movies, on the second day of my first job! He probably said it
was just like me."
"I explained that I had insisted on your going with Mrs. Mifflin,
because I felt she needed the change."
"I do hope," said Titania, "you won't let Daddy poison your mind about
me. He thinks I'm dreadfully frivolous, just because I LOOK frivolous.
But I'm so keen to make good in this job. I've been practicing doing
up parcels all afternoon, so as to learn how to tie the string nicely
and not cut it until after the knot's tied. I found that when you cut
it beforehand either you get it too short and it won't go round, or
else too long and you waste some. Also I've learned how to make
wrapping paper cuffs to keep my sleeves clean."
"Well, I haven't finished yet," continued Roger. "Your father wants us
all to spend to-morrow out at your home. He wants to show us some
books he has just bought, and besides he thinks maybe you're feeling
homesick."
"What, with all these lovely books to read? Nonsense! I don't want to
go home for six months!"
"He wouldn't take No for an answer. He's going to send Edwards round
with the car the first thing to-morrow morning."
"What fun!" said Helen. "It'll be delightful."
"Goodness," said Titania. "Imagine leaving this adorable bookshop to
spend Sunday in Larchmont. Well, I'll be able to get that georgette
blouse I forgot."
"What time will the car be here?" asked Helen.
"Mr. Chapman said about nine o'clock. He begs us to get out there as
early as possible, as he wants to spend the day showing us his books."
As they sat round the fading bed of coals, Roger began hunting along
his private shelves. "Have you ever read any Gissing?" he said.
Titania made a pathetic gesture to Mrs. Mifflin. "It's awfully
embarrassing to be asked these things! No, I never heard of him."
"Well, as the street we live on is named after him, I think you ought
to," he said. He pulled down his copy of The House of Cobwebs. "I'm
going to read you one of the most delightful short stories I know.
It's called 'A Charming Family.'"
"No, Roger," said Mrs. Mifflin firmly. "Not to-night. It's eleven
o'clock, and I can see Titania's tired. Even Bock has left us and gone
in to his kennel. He's got more sense than you have."
"All right," said the bookseller amiably. "Miss Chapman, you take the
book up with you and read it in bed if you want to. Are you a
librocubicularist?"
Titania looked a little scandalized.
"It's all right, my dear," said Helen. "He only means are you fond of
reading in bed. I've been waiting to hear him work that word into the
conversation. He made it up, and he's immensely proud of it."
"Reading in bed?" said Titania. "What a quaint idea! Does any one do
it? It never occurred to me. I'm sure when I go to bed I'm far too
sleepy to think of such a thing."
"Run along then, both of you," said Roger. "Get your beauty sleep. I
shan't be very late."
He meant it when he said it, but returning to his desk at the back of
the shop his eye fell upon his private shelf of books which he kept
there "to rectify perturbations" as Burton puts it. On this shelf
there stood Pilgrim's Progress, Shakespeare, The Anatomy of Melancholy,
The Home Book of Verse, George Herbert's Poems, The Notebooks of Samuel
Butler, and Leaves of Grass. He took down The Anatomy of Melancholy,
that most delightful of all books for midnight browsing. Turning to
one of his favourite passages--"A Consolatory Digression, Containing
the Remedies of All Manner of Discontents"--he was happily lost to all
ticking of the clock, retaining only such bodily consciousness as was
needful to dump, fill, and relight his pipe from time to time.
Solitude is a dear jewel for men whose days are spent in the tedious
this-and-that of trade. Roger was a glutton for his midnight musings.
To such tried companions as Robert Burton and George Herbert he was
wont to exonerate his spirit. It used to amuse him to think of Burton,
the lonely Oxford scholar, writing that vast book to "rectify" his own
melancholy.
By and by, turning over the musty old pages, he came to the following,
on Sleep--
The fittest time is two or three hours after supper, whenas the meat is
now settled at the bottom of the stomach, and 'tis good to lie on the
right side first, because at that site the liver doth rest under the
stomach, not molesting any way, but heating him as a fire doth a
kettle, that is put to it. After the first sleep 'tis not amiss to lie
on the left side, that the meat may the better descend, and sometimes
again on the belly, but never on the back. Seven or eight hours is a
competent time for a melancholy man to rest----
In that case, thought Roger, it's time for me to be turning in. He
looked at his watch, and found it was half-past twelve. He switched
off his light and went back to the kitchen quarters to tend the furnace.
I hesitate to touch upon a topic of domestic bitterness, but candor
compels me to say that Roger's evening vigils invariably ended at the
ice-box. There are two theories as to this subject of ice-box
plundering, one of the husband and the other of the wife. Husbands are
prone to think (in their simplicity) that if they take a little of
everything palatable they find in the refrigerator, but thus
distributing their forage over the viands the general effect of the
depradation will be almost unnoticeable. Whereas wives say (and Mrs.
Mifflin had often explained to Roger) that it is far better to take all
of any one dish than a little of each; for the latter course is likely
to diminish each item below the bulk at which it is still useful as a
left-over. Roger, however, had the obstinate viciousness of all good
husbands, and he knew the delights of cold provender by heart. Many a
stewed prune, many a mess of string beans or naked cold boiled potato,
many a chicken leg, half apple pie, or sector of rice pudding, had
perished in these midnight festivals. He made it a point of honour
never to eat quite all of the dish in question, but would pass with
unabated zest from one to another. This habit he had sternly repressed
during the War, but Mrs. Mifflin had noticed that since the armistice
he had resumed it with hearty violence. This is a custom which causes
the housewife to be confronted the next morning with a tragical vista
of pathetic scraps. Two slices of beet in a little earthenware cup, a
sliver of apple pie one inch wide, three prunes lowly nestling in a
mere trickle of their own syrup, and a tablespoonful of stewed rhubarb
where had been one of those yellow basins nearly full--what can the
most resourceful kitcheneer do with these oddments? This atrocious
practice cannot be too bitterly condemned.
But we are what we are, and Roger was even more so. The Anatomy of
Melancholy always made him hungry, and he dipped discreetly into
various vessels of refreshment, sharing a few scraps with Bock whose
pleading brown eye at these secret suppers always showed a comical
realization of their shameful and furtive nature. Bock knew very well
that Roger had no business at the ice-box, for the larger outlines of
social law upon which every home depends are clearly understood by
dogs. But Bock's face always showed his tremulous eagerness to
participate in the sin, and rather than have him stand by as a silent
and damning critic, Roger used to give him most of the cold potato.
The censure of a dog is something no man can stand. But I rove, as
Burton would say.
After the ice-box, the cellar. Like all true householders, Roger was
fond of his cellar. It was something mouldy of smell, but it harboured
a well-stocked little bin of liquors, and the florid glow of the
furnace mouth upon the concrete floor was a great pleasure to the
bookseller. He loved to peer in at the dancing flicker of small blue
flames that played above the ruddy mound of coals in the
firebox--tenuous, airy little flames that were as blue as violets and
hovered up and down in the ascending gases. Before blackening the fire
with a stoking of coal he pulled up a wooden Bushmills box, turned off
the electric bulb overhead, and sat there for a final pipe, watching
the rosy shine of the grate. The tobacco smoke, drawn inward by the
hot inhaling fire, seemed dry and gray in the golden brightness. Bock,
who had pattered down the steps after him, nosed and snooped about the
cellar. Roger was thinking of Burton's words on the immortal weed--
Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond
all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign
remedy to all diseases. . . . a virtuous herb, if it be well qualified,
opportunely taken, and medicinally used; but as it is commonly abused
by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a
mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish,
and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul----
Bock was standing on his hind legs, looking up at the front wall of the
cellar, in which two small iron-grated windows opened onto the sunken
area by the front door of the shop. He gave a low growl, and seemed
uneasy.
"What is it, Bock?" said Roger placidly, finishing his pipe.
Bock gave a short, sharp bark, with a curious note of protest in it.
But Roger's mind was still with Burton.
"Rats?" he said. "Aye, very likely! This is Ratisbon, old man, but
don't bark about it. Incident of the French Camp: 'Smiling, the rat
fell dead.'"
Bock paid no heed to this persiflage, but prowled the front end of the
cellar, looking upward in curious agitation. He growled again, softly.
"Shhh," said Roger gently. "Never mind the rats, Bock. Come on, we'll
stoke up the fire and go to bed. Lord, it's one o'clock."