"Good!" cried Mr. Brief. "You are mighty kind. I don't suppo_The Genial Idiot: His Views and Reviews

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THE GENIAL IDIOT

HIS VIEWS AND REVIEWS

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

MCMVIII

BOOKS BY

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

THE GENIAL IDIOT. 16mo $1.25

THREE WEEKS IN POLITICS. 32mo .50

COFFEE AND REPARTEE, AND THE IDIOT.

Illustrated. (In One Vol.) 16mo 1.25

COFFEE AND REPARTEE. 32mo .50

THE WATER GHOST. Illustrated. 16mo 1.25

MR. BONAPARTE OF CORSICA. Ill'd. 16mo 1.25

A REBELLIOUS HEROINE. Illustrated. 16mo 1.25

HOUSE-BOAT ON THE STYX. Ill'd. 16mo 1.25

THE BICYCLERS, A DRAMATIC EVENING, THE

FATAL MESSAGE, A PROPOSAL UNDER

DIFFICULTIES. (In One Vol.) 16mo 1.25

A PROPOSAL UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 16mo .50

PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT. Ill'd. 16mo 1.25

PASTE JEWELS. Illustrated. 16mo 1.00

GHOSTS I HAVE MET. Illustrated. 16mo 1.25

PEEPS AT PEOPLE. Illustrated. 16mo 1.25

THE DREAMERS. Illustrated. 16mo 1.25

ENCHANTED TYPE-WRITER. Ill'd. 16mo 1.25

BOOMING OF ACRE HILL. Illustrated. 16mo 1.25

COBWEBS FROM A LIBRARY CORNER. 16mo .50

THE IDIOT AT HOME. Illustrated. 16mo 1.25

OVER THE PLUM-PUDDING. Post 8vo, net 1.15

BIKEY THE SKICYCLE. Illustrated. Post 8vo 1.50

THE WORSTED MAN. Illustrated. 32mo .50

MRS. RAFFLES. Illustrated. 16mo 1.25

R. HOLMES & CO. Illustrated. Post 8vo 1.25

OLYMPIAN NIGHTS. Illustrated. 16mo 1.25

INVENTIONS OF THE IDIOT. 16mo 1.25

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.

_All rights reserved._

Published October, 1908.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. HE DISCUSSES MAXIMS AND PROVERBS 3

II. HE DISCUSSES THE IDEAL HUSBAND 14

III. THE IDIOT'S VALENTINE 27

IV. HE DISCUSSES FINANCE 39

V. HE SUGGESTS A COMIC OPERA 52

VI. HE DISCUSSES FAME 64

VII. ON THE DECADENCE OF APRIL-FOOL'S-DAY 77

VIII. SPRING AND ITS POETRY 88

IX. ON FLAT-HUNTING 100

X. THE HOUSEMAID'S UNION 112

XI. THE GENTLE ART OF BOOSTING 123

XII. HE MAKES A SUGGESTION TO THE POET 135

XIII. HE DISCUSSES THE MUSIC CURE 147

XIV. HE DEFENDS CAMPAIGN METHODS 159

XV. ON SHORT COURSES AT COLLEGE 170

XVI. THE HORSE-SHOW 182

XVII. SUGGESTION TO CHRISTMAS SHOPPERS 194

XVIII. FOR A HAPPY CHRISTMAS 205

THE GENIAL IDIOT

HE DISCUSSES MAXIMS AND PROVERBS

"Good!" cried the Idiot, from behind the voluminous folds of the

magazine section of his Sunday newspaper. "Here's a man after my own

heart. Professor Duff, of Glasgow University, has come out with a public

statement that the maxims and proverbs of our forefathers are largely

hocus-pocus and buncombe. I've always maintained that myself from the

moment I had my first copy-book lesson in which I had to scrawl the

line, 'It's a long lane that has no turning,' twenty-four times. And

then that other absurd statement, 'A stitch in the side is worth two in

the hand'--or something like it--I forget just how it goes--what

Tommy-rot that is."

"Well, I don't know about that, Mr. Idiot," said Mr. Whitechoker,

tapping his fingers together reflectively. "Certain great moral

principles are instilled into the minds of the young by the old proverbs

and maxims that remain with them forever, and become a potent influence

in the formation of character."

"I should like to agree with you, but I can't," said the Idiot. "I don't

believe anything that is noble in the way of character was ever fostered

by such a statement as that it's a long lane that has no turning. In the

first place, it isn't necessarily true. I know a lane on my

grandfather's farm that led from the hen-coop to the barn. There wasn't

a turn nor a twist in it, and I know by actual measurement that it

wasn't sixty feet long. You've got just as much right to say to a boy

that it's a long nose that has no twisting, or a long leg that has no

pulling, or a long courtship that has no kissing. There's infinitely

more truth in those last two than in the original model. The leg that's

never pulled doesn't go short in a stringent financial market, and a

courtship without a kiss, even if it lasted only five minutes, would be

too long for any self-respecting lover."

"I never thought of it in that way," said Mr. Whitechoker. "Perhaps,

after all, the idea is ill-expressed in the original."

"Perfectly correct," said the Idiot. "But even then, what? Suppose they

had put the thing right in the beginning and said 'it's a long lane that

has no ending.' What's the use of putting a thing like that in a

copy-book? A boy who didn't know that without being told ought to be

spanked and put to bed. Why not tell him it's a long well that has no

bottom, or a long dog that has no wagging, or a long railroad that has

no terminal facilities?"

"Oh, well," interposed the Bibliomaniac, "what's the use of being

captious? Out of a billion and a half wise saws you pick out one to jump

on. Because one is weak, all the rest must come down with a crash."

"There are plenty of others, and the way they refute one another is to

me a constant source of delight," said the Idiot. "There's

'Procrastination is the thief of time,' for instance. That's a clear

injunction to youth to get up and hustle, and he starts in with all the

impulsiveness of youth, and the first thing he knows--bang! he runs slap

into 'Look before you leap,' or 'Second thoughts are best.' That last is

what Samuel Johnson would have called a beaut. What superior claims the

second thought has over the first or the seventy-seventh thought, that

it should become axiomatic, I vow I can't see. If it's morality you're

after I am dead against the teachings of that proverb. The second

thought is the open door to duplicity when it comes to a question of

morals. You ask a small boy, who has been in swimming when he ought to

have been at Sunday-school, why his shirt is wet. His first thought is

naturally to reply along the line of fact and say, 'Why, because it fell

into the pond.' But second thought comes along with visions of hard

spanking and a supperless bed in store for him, and suggests the idea

that 'There was a leak in the Sunday-school roof right over the place

where I was sitting,' or, 'I sat down on the teacher's glass of water.'

That's the sort of thing second thought does in the matter of morals.

"I admit, of course, that there are times when second thoughts are

better than first ones--for instance, if your first thought is to name

the baby Jimmie and Jimmie turns out to be a girl, it is better to obey

your second thought and call her Gladys or Samantha--but it is not

always so, and I object to the nerve of the broad, general statement

that it _is_ so. Sometimes fifth thoughts are best. In science I guess

you'll find that the man who thinks the seven hundred and ninety-seventh

thought along certain lines has got the last and best end of it. And so

it goes--out of the infinitesimal number of numbers, every mother's son

of 'em may at the psychological moment have a claim to the supremacy,

but your self-sufficient old proverb-maker falls back behind the

impenetrable wall of his own conceit, and announces that because he has

nothing but second-hand thoughts, therefore the second thought is best,

and we, like a flock of sheep, follow this leader, and go blatting that

sentiment down through the ages as if it were proved beyond peradventure

by the sum total of human experience."

"Well, you needn't get mad about it," said the Lawyer. "I never said

it--so you can't blame me."

"Still, there are some proverbs," said Mr. Whitechoker, blandly, "that

we may not so summarily dismiss. Take, for instance, 'You never miss the

water till the well runs dry.'"

"One of the worst of the lot, Mr. Whitechoker," said the Idiot. "I've

missed the water lots of times when the well was full as ever. You miss

the water when the pipes freeze up, don't you? You--or rather I--I

sometimes miss the water like time at five o'clock in the morning after

a pleasant evening with some jovial friends, when there's no end of it

in the well, but not a drop within reach of my fevered hand, and I

haven't the energy to grope my way down-stairs to the ice-pitcher.

There's more water in that proverb than tangible assets. From the

standpoint of veracity that's one of the most immoral proverbs of the

lot--and if you came to apply it to the business world--oh, Lud! As a

rule, these days, you never _find_ the water till the well has been

pumped dry and put in the hands of a receiver for the benefit of the

bond-holders. Fact is, all these water proverbs are to be regarded with

suspicion."

"I don't recall any other," said Mr. Whitechoker.

"Well," said the Idiot, "there's one, and it's the nerviest of 'em

all--'Water never runs up hill.' Ask any man in Wall Street how high the

water has run up in the last five years and see what he tells you. And

then, 'You may drive a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink,'

is another choice specimen of the Waterbury School of Philosophy. I know

a lot of human horses who have been driven to water lately, and such

drinkers as they have become! It's really awful. If I knew the name of

that particular Maximilian who invented those water proverbs I'd do my

best to have him indicted for doing business without a license."

"It's very unfortunate," said Mr. Whitechoker, "that modern conditions

should so have upset the wisdom of the ancients."

"It is too bad," said the Idiot. "And I am just as sorry about it as you

are; but, after all, the wisdom of the ancients, wise and wisdomatic as

it was, should not be permitted to put at nought all modern thought. Why

not adapt the wisdom of the ancients to modern conditions? You can't

begin too soon, for new generations are constantly springing up, and I

know of no better outlet for reform than in these self-same Spencerian

proverbs which the poor kids have to copy, copy, copy, until they are

sick and tired of them. Now, in the writing-lessons, why not adapt your

means to your ends? Why make a beginner in penmanship write over and

over again, 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?'--which it

isn't, by-the-way, to a man who is a good shot--when you can bear in on

his mind that 'A dot on the I is worth two on the T'; or, for the

instruction of your school-teachers, why don't you get up a proverb like

'It's a long lesson that has no learning'? Or if you are interested in

having your boy brought up to the strenuous life, why don't you have him

make sixty copies of the aphorism, 'A punch in the solar is worth six on

the nose?' You tell your children never to whistle until they are out of

the woods. Now, where in the name of all that's lovely should a boy

whistle if not in the woods? That's where birds whistle. That's where

the wind whistles. If nature whistles anywhere, it is in the woods.

Woods were made for whistling, and any man who ever sat over a big

log-fire in camp or in library who has not noticed that the logs

themselves whistle constantly--well, he is a pachyderm."

"Well, as far as I can reach a conclusion from all that you have said,"

put in Mr. Whitechoker, "the point seems to be that the proverbs of the

ancients are not suited to modern conditions, and that you think they

should be revised."

"Exactly," said the Idiot.

"It's a splendid idea," said Mr. Brief. "But, after all, you've got to

have something to begin on. Possibly," he added, with a wink at the

Bibliomaniac, "you have a few concrete examples to show us what can be

done."

"Certainly," said the Idiot. "Here is a list of them."

And as he rose up to depart he handed Mr. Brief a paper on which he had

written as follows:

"You never find the water till the stock falls off twenty points."

"A stitch in time saves nothing at all at present tailors' rates."

"You look after the pennies. Somebody else will deposit the pounds."

"It's a long heiress that knows no yearning."

"Second thoughts are always second."

"Procrastination is the theme of gossips."

"Never put off to-day what you can put on day after to-morrow."

"Sufficient unto the day are the obligations of last month."

"One good swat deserves another."

* * * * *

"By Jove!" said Mr. Brief, as he read them off, "you can't go back on

any of 'em, can you?"

"No," said the Bibliomaniac; "that's the great trouble with the Idiot.

Even with all his idiocy he is not always a perfect idiot."

HE DISCUSSES THE IDEAL HUSBAND

"Well, I see the Ideal Husband has broken out again," said the Idiot,

after reading a short essay on that interesting but rare individual by

Gladys Waterbury Shrivelton of the Woman's Page of the Squehawkett

_Gazoo_. "I'd hoped they had him locked up for good, he's been so little

in evidence of late years."

"Why should you wish so estimable an individual to be locked up?"

demanded Mr. Pedagog, who, somehow or other, seemed to take the Idiot's

suggestion as personal.

"To keep his idealness from being shattered," said the Idiot. "Nothing

against the gentleman himself, I can assure you. It would be a pity, I

think, once you have really found an Ideal Husband, to subject him to

the coarse influences of the world; to let him go forth into the madding

crowd and have the sweet idyllic bloom rubbed off by the attritions of

the vulgar. I feel about the Ideal Husband just as I do about a

beautiful peachblow vase which is too fragile, too delicate to be

brought into contact with the ordinary earthen-ware of society. The

earthen-ware isn't harmed by bumping into the peachblow, but the

peachblow will inevitably turn up with a crack here and a nick there and

a hole somewhere else after such an encounter. If I were a woman and

suddenly discovered that I had an Ideal Husband, I think at my personal

sacrifice I'd present him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or immure

him in some other retreat where his perfection would remain forever

secure--say, up among the Egyptian mummies of the British Museum. We

cannot be too careful, Mr. Pedagog, of these rarely beautiful things

that are now and again vouchsafed to us."

"What is an Ideal Husband, anyhow?" asked Mr. Brief. "Has the recipe

for such an individual at last been discovered?"

"Yes," put in Mrs. Pedagog, before the Idiot had a chance to reply, and

here the dear old landlady fixed her eyes firmly and affectionately upon

her spouse, the school-master. "I can tell you the recipe for the Ideal

Husband. Years, sixty-three--"

"Sixty-two, my dear," smiled Mr. Pedagog, "and--er--a fraction--verging

on sixty-three."

"Years, verging on sixty-three," said Mrs. Pedagog, accepting the

correction. "Character developed by time and made secure. Eyes, blue;

disposition when vexed, vexatious; disposition when pleased, happy;

irritable from just cause; considerate always; calm exterior, heart of

gold; prompt in anger and quick in forgiveness; and only one old woman

in the world for him."

"A trifle bald-headed, but a true friend when needed, eh?" said the

Idiot.

"I try to be," said Mr. Pedagog, pleasantly complacent.

"Well, you succeed in both," said the Idiot.

"For your trifling baldness is evident when you remove your hat, which,

like a true gentleman, you never fail to do at the breakfast-table, and,

after a fifteen years' experience with you, I for one can say that I

have found you always the true friend when I needed you--I never told

how, without my solicitation and entirely upon your own initiative, you

once loaned me the money to pay Mrs. Pedagog's bill over which she was

becoming anxious."

"John," cried Mrs. Pedagog, severely, "did you ever do that?"

"Well, my dear--er--only once, you know, and you were so relieved--"

began Mr. Pedagog.

"You should have lent the money to me, John," said Mrs. Pedagog, "and

then I should not have been compelled to dun the Idiot."

"I know, my dear, but you see I knew the Idiot would pay me back, and

perhaps--well, only perhaps, my love--you might not have thought of it,"

explained the school-master, with a slight show of embarrassment.

"The Ideal Husband is ever truthful, too," said the landlady, with a

smile as broad as any.

"Well, it's too bad, I think," said the Lawyer, "that a man has to be

verging on sixty-three to be an Ideal Husband. I'm only forty-four, and

I should hate to think that if I should happen to get married within the

next two or three years my wife would have to wait at least fifteen

years before she could find me all that I ought to be. Moreover, I have

been told that I have black eyes."

"With the unerring precision of a trained legal mind," said the Idiot,

"you have unwittingly put your finger on the crux of the whole matter,

Mr. Brief. Mrs. Pedagog has been describing _her_ Ideal Husband, and I

am delighted to know that what I have always suspected to be the case is

in fact the truth: that _her_ husband in her eyes is an ideal one.

That's the way it ought to be, and that is why we have always found her

the sweetest of landladies, but because Mrs. Pedagog prefers Mr. Pedagog

in this race for supremacy in the domain of a woman's heart is no

reason why you who are only bald-headed in your temper, like most of us,

should not prove to be equally the ideal of some other woman--in fact,

of several others. Women are not all alike. As a matter of fact, a

gentleman named Balzac, who was the Marie Corelli of his age in France,

once committed himself to the inference that no two women ever were

alike, so that, if you grant the truth of old Balzac's inference, the

Ideal Husband will probably vary to the extent of the latest count of

the number of women in the world. So why give up hope because you are

only forty-nine?"

"Forty-four," corrected the Lawyer.

"Pardon me--forty-four," said the Idiot. "When you are in the roaring

forties, five or six years more or less do not really count. Lots of men

who are really only forty-two behave like sixty, and I know one old

duffer of forty-nine who has the manners of eighteen. The age question

does not really count."

"No--you are proof of that," said the Bibliomaniac. "You have been

twenty-four years old for the last fifteen years."

"Thank you, Mr. Bib," said the Idiot. "You are one of the few people in

the world who really understand me. I have tried to be twenty-four for

the past fifteen years, and if I have succeeded, so much the better for

me. It's a beautiful age. You feel that you know so much when you're

twenty-four. If it should turn out to be the answer to 'How old is Ann?'

the lady should be congratulated. But, as a matter of fact, you can be

an Ideal Husband at any old age."

"Humph! At seven, for instance?" drawled Mr. Brief.

"Seven is not any old age," retorted the Idiot. "It is a very certain

old youth. Nor does it depend upon the color of the eyes, so long as

they are neither green nor red. Nobody could ever make an Ideal Husband

out of a green-eyed man, or a chap given to the red eye, either--"

"It all depends upon the kind of a man you are, eh?" said the

Bibliomaniac.

"Not a bit of it," said the Idiot. "It depends on the kind of wife

you've got, and that's why I say that the Ideal Husband varies to the

extent of the latest count of the women in the world. Take the case of

Mr. Pedagog here. Mrs. Pedagog accuses him of being an Ideal Husband,

and he, without any attempt at evasion, acknowledges the corn, like the

honorable gentleman he is. But can you imagine Mr. Pedagog being an

Ideal Husband to some lady in the Four Hundred, with a taste for grand

opera that strikes only on the box; with a love for Paris gowns that are

worth a fortune; with the midnight supper and cotillion after habit

firmly intrenched in her character; with an ambition to shine all summer

at Newport, all autumn at Lenox, all winter at New York, with a dash to

England and France in the merry, merry springtime? Do you suppose our

friend John Pedagog here would be in it with Tommie Goldilocks Van

Varick as the Ideal Husband of such a woman? Not on your life. Well,

then, take Tommie Goldilocks Van Varick, who'd be the Ideal Spouse of

this brilliant social light Mrs. Van Varick. How would he suit Mrs.

Pedagog, rising at eleven-thirty every day and yelling like mad for the

little blue bottle which clears the head from the left-over cobwebs of

yesterday; eating his egg and drinking his coffee with a furrow in his

brow almost as deep as the pallor of his cheek, and now and then making

a most awful grimace because the interior of his mouth feels like a

bargain day at the fur-counter of a department store; spending his

afternoon sitting in the window of the Hunky Dory Club ogling the

passers-by and making bets on such important questions as whether more

hansoms pass up the Avenue than down, or whether the proportion of

red-haired girls to white horses is as great between three and four

P.M. as between five and six--"

"I don't see how a woman could stand a man like that," said Mrs.

Pedagog. "Indeed, I don't see where his ideal qualities come in, anyhow,

Mr. Idiot. I think you are wrong in putting him among the Ideal Husbands

even for Mrs. Van Varick."

"No, I am not wrong, for he is indeed the very essence of her ideal

because he doesn't make her stand him," said the Idiot. "He never

bothers Mrs. Van Varick at all. On the first of every month he sends her

a check for a good round sum with which she can pay her bills. He

presents her with a town house and a country house, and a Limousine car,

and all the furs she can possibly want; provides her with an opera-box,

and never fails, when he himself goes to the opera, to call upon her and

pay his respects like a gentleman. If she sustains heavy losses at

bridge, he makes them good, and when she gives a dinner to her set, or

to some distinguished social lion from other zoos, Van Varick is always

on hand to do the honors of his house, and what is supposed to be his

table. He and Mrs. Van Varick are on the most excellent terms; in fact,

he treats her with more respect than he does any other woman he knows,

never even suggesting the idea of a flirtation with her. In other words,

he does not interfere with her in any way, which is the only kind of

man in the world she could be happy with."

"It's perfectly awful!" cried Mrs. Pedagog. "If they never see each

other, what on earth did they ever get married for?"

"Protection," said the Idiot. "And it is perfectly splendid in its

results. Mrs. Van Varick, being married to so considerate an absentee,

is able to go about very much as she pleases backed with the influence

and affluence of the Van Varick name. This as plain little Miss Floyd

Poselthwaite she was unable to do. She has now an assured position, and

is protected against the chance of marrying a man who, unlike Van

Varick, would growl at her expenditures, object to her friends, and

insist upon coming home to dinner every night, and occasionally turn up

at breakfast."

"Sweet life," said the Bibliomaniac. "And what does the Willieboy

husband get out of it?"

"Pride, protection, and freedom," said the Idiot. "He's as proud as

Punch when he sees Mrs. Van V. swelling about town with her name kept

as standing matter in every society column in the country. His freedom

he enjoys, just as she enjoys hers. If he doesn't turn up for six weeks

she never asks any questions, and so Van Varick can live on easy terms

with the truth. If he sits up all night over a game of cards, there's

nobody to chide him for doing so, and--"

"But where does his protection come in? That's what I can't see," said

the Bibliomaniac.

"It's as plain as a pike-staff," said the Idiot. "With Mrs. Van Varick

on the _tapis_, Tommie is safe from designing ladies who might marry him

for his money."

"Well, he's a mighty poor ideal!" cried Mr. Pedagog.

"He certainly would not do for Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot. "But you

would yourself be no better for Mrs. Van Varick. The red Indian makes an

Ideal Husband for the squaw, but he'd never suit a daughter of the

British nobility any more than the Duke of Lacklands would make a good

husband for dusky little Minnehaha. So I say what's the use of

discussing the matter any further with the purpose of arbitrarily

settling on what it is that constitutes an Ideal Husband? We may all

hope to be considered such if we only find the girl that likes our

particular kind."

"Then," said Mr. Brief, with a smile, "your advice to me is not to

despair, eh?"

"That's it," said the Idiot. "I wouldn't give up, if I were you. There's

no telling when some one will come along to whom you appear to be the

perfect creature."

"Good!" cried Mr. Brief. "You are mighty kind. I don't suppose you can

give me a hint as to how soon I may expect to meet the lady?"

"Well--no, I can't," said the Idiot. "I don't believe even Edison could

tell you about when to look for arrivals from Mars."

III

THE IDIOT'S VALENTINE

"Well, old man," said the Poet, as the Idiot entered the breakfast-room

on the morning of Valentine's day, "how did old St. Valentine treat you?

Any results worth speaking of?"

"Oh, the usual lay-out," returned the Idiot, languidly. "Nine hundred

and forty-two passionate declarations of undying affection from unknown

lady friends in all parts of the civilized world; one thousand three

hundred and twenty-four highly colored but somewhat insulting

intimations that I had better go 'way back and sit down from hitherto

unsuspected gentlemen friends scattered from Maine to California; one

small can of salt marked 'St. Valentine to the Idiot,' with sundry

allusions to the proper medical treatment of the latter's freshness, and

a small box containing a rubber bottle-stopper labelled 'Cork up and

bust.' I can't complain."

"Well, you did come in for your share of it, didn't you?" said Mr.

Brief.

"Yes," said the Idiot, "I think I got all that was coming to me, and I

wouldn't have minded it if I hadn't had to pay three dollars over-due

postage on 'em. I don't bother much if some anonymous chap off in the

wilds of Kalikajoo takes the trouble to send me a funny picture of a

monkey grinding a hand-organ with 'the loving regards of your brother,'

or if somebody else who is afraid of becoming too fond of me sends me a

horse-chestnut with a line to the effect that here is one I haven't

printed, I don't feel like getting mad; but when I have to pay the

postage on the plaguey things it strikes me it is rubbing it in a little

too hard, and if I could find two or three of the senders I'd spend an

hour or two of my time banging their heads together."

"I got off pretty well," said the Bibliomaniac. "I only got one

valentine, and though it cast some doubt upon the quality of my love for

books, I found it quite amusing. I'll read it to you."

Here the Bibliomaniac took a small paper from his pocket and read the

following lines:

"THE HUNGRY BIBLIOMANIAC

"If only you would cut your books

As often as your butter,

When people ask you what's inside

You wouldn't sit and sputter.

The reading that hath made _you_ full,

The reading that doth chain you,

Is not from books, or woman's looks,

But fresh from off the menu."

"What do you think of that?" asked the Bibliomaniac, with a chuckle, as

he folded up his valentine and stowed it away in his pocket once more.

"I think I can spot the sender," said the Idiot, fixing his eyes

sternly upon the Poet. "It takes genius to get up a rhyme like 'menu'

and 'chain you,' and I know of only one man at this board or at any

other who is equal to the task."

"If you mean me," retorted the Poet, flushing, "you are mightily

mistaken. I wouldn't waste a rhyme like that on a personal valentine

when I could tack it on to the end of a sonnet and go out and sell it

for two-fifty."

"Then you didn't do it, eh?" demanded the Idiot.

"No. Did you?" asked the Poet, with his eyes twinkling.

"Sir," said the Idiot, "if I had done it, would I have had the

unblushing effrontery to say, as I just now did say, that its author was

a genius?"

"Well, we're square, anyhow," said the Poet. "You cast me under

suspicion, to begin with, and it was only fair that I should whack back.

I got a valentine myself, and I suspect it was from the same hand. It

runs like this:

"TO THE MINOR POET

"You do not pluck the fairy flowers

That bloom on high Parnassus,

Nor do you gather thistles like

Some of those mystic asses

Who browse about old Helicon

In hope to fill their tummies;

Yours rather are those dandy-lines--

Gilt-topped chrysanthemummies--

Quite pleasant stuff

That ends in fluff--

Yet when they are beholden

Make all the world look golden."

"Well," ejaculated the Idiot, "I don't see what there is in that to make

you angry. Seems to me there's some very nice compliments in that. For

instance, your stuff when 'tis

'beholden

Makes all the world look golden,'

according to your anonymous correspondent. If he'd been vicious he might

have said something like this:

'--withal so supercilious

They make the whole earth bilious.'"

The Poet grinned. "I'm not complaining about it. It's a mighty nice

little verse, I think, and my only regret is that I do not know who the

chap was who sent it. I'd like to thank him. I had an idea you might

help me," he said, with a searching glance.

"I will," said the Idiot. "If the man who sent you that ever reveals his

identity to me I will tell him you fell all over yourself with joy on

receiving his tribute of admiration. How did you come out, Doctor?"

"Oh, he remembered me, all right," said the Doctor. "Quite in the same

vein, too, only he's not so complimentary. He calls me 'The Humane

Surgeon,' and runs into rhyme after this fashion:

"O, Doctor Blank's a surgeon bold,

A surgeon most humane, sir;

And what he does is e'er devoid

Of ordinary pain, sir.

"If he were called to amputate

A leg hurt by a bullet,

He wouldn't take a knife and cut--

But with his bill he'd pull it."

"He must have had some experience with you, Doctor," said the Idiot. "In

fact, he knows you so well that I am inclined to think that the writer

of that valentine lives in this house, and it is just possible that the

culprit is seated at this table at this moment."

"I think it very likely," said the Doctor, dryly. "He's a fresh young

man, five feet ten inches in height--"

"Pooh--pooh!" said the Idiot. "That's the worst description of Mr. Brief

I ever heard. Mr. Brief, in the first place, is not a young man, and he

isn't fresh--"

"I didn't mean Mr. Brief," said the Doctor, significantly.

"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself to intimate that Mr.

Whitechoker, a clergyman, would stoop to the writing of such a rhyme as

that," cried the Idiot. "People nowadays seem to me to be utterly

lacking in that respect for the cloth to which it is entitled. Mr.

Brief, if you really wrote that thing you owe it to Mr. Whitechoker to

own up and thus relieve him of the suspicion the Doctor has so

unblushingly cast upon him."

"I can prove an alibi," said the Lawyer. "I could no more turn a rhyme

than I could play 'Parsifal' on a piano with one finger, and I wouldn't

if I could. I judge, from what I know of the market value of poems these

days, that that valentine of the Doctor's is worth about two dollars. It

would take me a century to write it, and inasmuch as my time is worth at

least five dollars a year it stands to reason that I would not put in

five hundred dollars' worth of effort on a two-dollar job. So that lets

me out. By-the-way, I got one of these trifles myself. Want to hear it?"

"I am just crazy to hear it," said the Idiot. "If any man has reduced

you to poetry, Mr. Brief, he's a great man. With all your many virtues,

you seem to me to fit into a poetical theme about as snugly as an

automobile with full power on in a china-shop. By all means let us have

it."

"This modern St. Valentine of ours has reduced the profession to verse

with a nicety that elicits my most profound admiration," said Mr. Brief.

"Just listen to this:

"The Lawyer is no wooer, yet

To sue us is his whim.

The Lawyer is no tailor, but

We get our suits from him.

The longest things in all the world--

They are the Lawyer's briefs,

And all the joys he gets in life

Are other people's griefs.

Yet spite of all the Lawyer's faults

He's one point rather nice:

He'll not remain lest you retain

And _never gives_ advice."

"The author of these valentines," said the Doctor, "is to be spotted,

the way I diagnose the case, by his desire that professional people

should be constantly giving away their services. He objects to the

Doctor's bill and he slaps sarcastically at the Lawyer because he

doesn't _give_ advice. That's why I suspect the Idiot. He's a

professional Idiot, and yet he gives his idiocy away."

"When did I ever give myself away?" demanded the Idiot. "You are talking

wildly, Doctor. The idea of your trying to drag me into this thing is

preposterous. Suppose you show down your valentine and see if it is in

my handwriting."

"Mine is typewritten," said the Doctor.

"So is mine," said the Bibliomaniac.

"Mine, too," said the Poet.

"Same here," said Mr. Brief.

"Well, then," said the Idiot, "I'm willing to write a page in my own

hand without any attempt to disguise it, and let any handwriting expert

decide as to whether there is the slightest resemblance between my

chirography and these typewritten sheets you hold in your hand."

"That's fair enough," said Mr. Whitechoker.

"Besides," persisted the Idiot, "I've received one of the things myself,

and it'll make your hair curl, if you've got any. Typewritten like the

rest of 'em. Shall I read it?"

By common consent the Idiot read the following:

"Idiot, zany, brain of hare,

Dolt and noodle past compare,

Buncombe, bosh, and verbal slosh,

Mind of nothing, full of josh,

Madman, donkey, dizzard-pate,

U. S. Zero Syndicate,

Dull, depressing, lack of wit,

Incarnation of the nit.

Minus, numskull, drivelling baby,

Greenhorn, dunce, and dotard Gaby;

All the queer and loony chorus

Found in old Roget's _Thesaurus_,

Flat and crazy through and through,

That, O Idiot--that is you.

Let me tell you, sir, in fine,

_I_ won't be your Valentine.

"What do you think of that?" asked the Idiot, when he had finished.

"Wouldn't that jar you?"

"I think it's perfectly horrid," said Mrs. Pedagog. "Mary, pass the

pancakes to the Idiot. Mr. Idiot, let me hand you a full cup of coffee.

John, hand the Idiot the syrup. Why, how a thing like that should be

allowed to go through the mails passes me!"

And the others all agreed that the landlady's indignation was justified,

because they were fond of the Idiot in spite of his faults. They would

not see him abused, at any rate.

* * * * *

"Say, old man," said the Poet, later, "I really thought you sent those