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IN THE SWEET DRY AND DRY
BY
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY AND BART HALEY
ILLUSTRATED BY GLUYAS WILLIAMS
DEDICATED TO G. K. CHESTERTON
MOST DELIGHTFUL OF MODERN DECANTERBURY PILGRIMS
FOREWORD
As far as this book is concerned, the public may Take It, or the public
may Let It Alone. But the authors feel it their duty to say that no
deductions as to their own private habits are to be made from the story
here offered. With its composition they have beguiled the moments of
the valley of the shadow.
Acknowledgement should be made to the Evening Public Ledger of
Philadelphia for permission to reprint the ditty included in Chapter VI.
The public will forgive this being only a brief preface, for at the
moment of writing the time is short. Wishing you a Merry Abstinence,
and looking forward to meeting you some day in Europe,
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, BART HALEY.
Philadelphia, Ten minutes before Midnight, June 30, 1919.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. MYSTERY OF THE UNEXPECTED JULEP
II. THE HOUSE ON CARAWAY STREET
III. INCIDENT OF THE GOOSEBERRY BOMBS
IV. THE GREAT WAR BEGINS
V. THE TREACHERY OF MISS CHUFF
VI. DEPARTED SPIRITS
VII. THE DECANTERBURY PILGRIMS
VIII. WITH BENEFIT OF CLERGY
IX. THE ELECTION
X. E PLURIBUS UNUM!
XI. IT'S A LONG WORM THAT HAS NO TURNING
IN THE SWEET DRY AND DRY
CHAPTER I
MYSTERY OF THE UNEXPECTED JULEP
Dunraven Bleak, the managing editor of The Evening Balloon, sat at his
desk in the center of the local-room, under a furious cone of electric
light. It was six o'clock of a warm summer afternoon: he was filling
his pipe and turning over the pages of the Final edition of the paper,
which had just come up from the press-room. After the turmoil of the
day the room had quieted, most of the reporters had left, and the
shaded lamps shone upon empty tables and a floor strewn ankle-deep with
papers. Nearby sat the city editor, checking over the list of
assignments for the next morning. From an adjoining kennel issued
occasional deep groans and a strong whiff of savage shag tobacco, blown
outward by the droning gust of an electric fan. These proved that the
cartoonist (a man whose sprightly drawings were born to an obbligato of
vehement blasphemy) was at work within.
Mr. Bleak was just beginning to recuperate from the incessant vigilance
of the day's work. There was an unconscious pathos in his lean,
desiccated figure as he rose and crossed the room to the green glass
drinking-fountain. After the custom of experienced newspapermen, he
rapidly twirled a makeshift cup out of a sheet of copy paper. He poured
himself a draught of clear but rather tepid water, and drank it without
noticeable relish. His lifted head betrayed only the automatic
thankfulness of the domestic fowl. There had been a time when six
o'clock meant something better than a paper goblet of lukewarm
filtration.
He sat down at his desk again. He had loaded his pipe sedulously with
an extra fine blend which he kept in his desk drawer for smoking during
rare moments of relaxation when he had leisure to savor it. As he
reached for a match he was meditating a genial remark to the city
editor, when he discovered that there was only one tandsticker in the
box. He struck it, and the blazing head flew off upon the cream-colored
thigh of his Palm Beach suit. His naturally placid temper, undermined
by thirty years of newspaper work and two years of prohibition, flamed
up also. With a loud scream of rage and a curse against Sweden, he
leaped to his feet and shook the glowing cinder from his person. Facing
him he found a stranger who had entered the room quietly and unobserved.
This was a huge man, clad in a sober uniform of gray cloth, with silver
buttons and silver braid. A Sam Browne belt of wide blue leather
marched across his extensive diagonal in a gentle curve. The band of
his vizored military cap showed the initials C.P.H. in silver
embroidery. His face, broad and clean-shaven, shone with a lustre which
was partly warmth and partly simple friendliness. Save for a certain
humility of bearing, he might have been taken for the liveried door-man
of a moving-picture theater or exclusive millinery shop.
In one hand he carried a very large black leather suit-case.
"Is this Mr. Bleak?" he asked politely.
"Yes," said the editor, in surprise. His secret surmise was that some
one had died and left him a legacy which would enable him to retire
from newspaper work. (This is the unacknowledged dream that haunts many
journalists.) Mr. Bleak was wondering whether this was the way in which
legacies were announced.
The man in the gray uniform set the bag down with great care on the
large flat desk. He drew out a key and unlocked it. Before opening it
he looked round the room. The city editor and three reporters were
watching curiously. A shy gayety twinkled in his clear blue eyes.
"Mr. Bleak," he said, "you and these other gentlemen present are men of
discretion--?"
Bleak made a gesture of reassurance.
The other leaned over the suit-case and lifted the lid.
The bag was divided into several compartments. In one, the startled
editor beheld a nest of tall glasses; in another, a number of
interesting flasks lying in a porcelain container among chipped ice. In
the lid was an array of straws, napkins, a flat tray labeled CLOVES,
and a bunch of what looked uncommonly like mint leaves. Mr. Bleak did
not speak, but his pulse was disorderly.
The man in gray drew out five tumblers and placed them on the desk.
Rapidly several bottles caught the light: there was a gesture of
pouring, a clink of ice, and beneath the spellbound gaze of the
watchers the glasses fumed and bubbled with a volatile potion. A glass
mixing rod tinkled in the thin crystal shells, and the man of mystery
deftly thrust a clump of foliage into each. A well known fragrance
exhaled upon the tobacco-thickened air.
"Shades of the Grail!" cried Bleak. "Mint julep!"
The visitor bowed and pushed the glasses forward. "With the compliments
of the Corporation," he said.
The city editor sprang to his feet. Sagely cynical, he suspected a ruse.
"It's a plant!" he exclaimed. "Don't touch it! It's a trick on the part
of the Department of Justice, trying to get us into trouble."
Bleak gazed angrily at the stranger. If this was indeed a federal
stratagem, what an intolerably cruel one! In front of him the glasses
sparkled alluringly: a delicate mist gathered on their ice-chilled
curves: a pungent sweetness wavered in his nostrils.
"See here!" he blurted with shrill excitement. "Are you a damned
government agent? If so, take your poison and get out."
The tall stranger in his impressive uniform stood erect and unabashed.
With affectionate care he gave the tumblers a final musical stir.
"O ye of little faith!" he said calmly. The sadness of the
misunderstood idealist grieved his features. "Have you forgotten the
miracle of Cana?" From his pocket he took a card and laid it on the
desk.
Bleak seized it. It said:
THE CORPORATION FOR THE PERPETUATION OF HAPPINESS
1316 Caraway Street
Virgil Quimbleton, Associate Director
He stared at the pasteboard, stupefied, and handed it to the city
editor.
Meanwhile the three reporters had drawn near. Light-hearted and
irresponsible souls, unoppressed by the embittered suspicion of their
superiors, they nosed the floating aroma with candid hilarity.
"The breath of Eden!" said one.
"It's a warm evening," remarked another, with seeming irrelevance.
The face of Virgil Quimbleton, the man in gray, relaxed again at these
marks of honest appreciation. He waved an encouraging arm over the
crystals. "With the compliments of the Corporation," he repeated.
Bleak and the city editor looked again at the card, and at each other.
They scanned the face of their mysterious benefactor. Bleak's hand went
out to the nearest glass. He raised it to his lips. An almost-forgotten
formula recurred to him. "Down the rat-hole!" he cried, and tilted his
arm. The others followed suit, and the associate director watched them
with a glow of perfect altruism.
The glasses were still in air when the cartoonist emerged from his
room. "Holy cat!" he cried in amazement. "What's going on?" He seized
one of the empty vessels and sniffed it.
"Treason!" he exclaimed. "Who's been robbing the mint?"
"Maybe you can have one too," said Bleak, and turned to where
Quimbleton had been standing. But the mysterious visitor had leff the
room.
"You're too late, Bill," said the city editor genially. "There was a
kind of Messiah here, but he's gone. Tough luck."
"Say, boss," suggested one of the reporters. "There's a story in this.
May I interview that guy?"
Bleak picked up the card and put it in his pocket. A heavenly warmth
pervaded his mental fabric. "A story?" he said. "Forget it! This is no
story. It's a legend of the dear dead past. I'll cover this assignment
myself."
He borrowed a match and lit his pipe. Then he put on his coat and hat
and left the office.
It was remarked by faithful readers of the Balloon that the next day's
cartoon was one of the least successful in the history of that
brilliant newspaper.