DECEMBER
The proverbial church-mouse was no worse off than Mr. Bingle at the end
of the fifth month of his reduction. Indeed, it is more than probable
that the church-mouse would be conceded a distinct advantage in many
particulars. A very small nest will accommodate a very large family of
growing mice; the tighter they are packed in the nest the better off
they are in zero weather. Moreover, in a pinch, the parental
church-mouse may stave off famine by resorting to a cannibalistic plan
of economy, thereby saving its young the trouble of growing up to
become proverbial church-mice. It may devour its young when it becomes
painfully hungry, and not be held accountable to the law. With
commendable frugality, the church-mouse first eats off the tail of its
offspring. Then, if luck continues to be bad, the remainder may be
despatched with due and honest respect for the laws of nature.
Now, with Mr. Bingle, it was quite out of the question for him to
devour even so small a morsel as Napoleon without getting into serious
trouble with the law, and it was equally impossible to obtain the same
degree of comfort for his young by packing them into a four room flat.
And then the church-mouse doesn't have to think about shoes and
stockings and mittens and ear-muffs, to say nothing of frocks and
knickerbockers. So he who speaks of another as being "as poor as a
church-mouse" does a grave injustice to a really prosperous creature,
despite the fact that it lives in a church and is employed in the
rather dubious occupation of supporting a figure of speech. Look
carefully into the present law of economics, if you please, and then
grant the church-mouse the benefit of the doubt.
Mr. Bingle's flat could be found by traversing a very mean street in
the lower east side not far removed from the Third Avenue Elevated
tracks. Discovery required the mounting of four flights of stairs by
foot, and two turns to the right in following the course of the narrow,
dark hallway which led in a round-about sort of way to a fire escape
that invited a quicker and less painful death than destruction by
flames in case one had to choose between the two means of perishing.
Four rooms and a kitchen was all that Mr. Bingle's flat amounted to.
The four rooms contained beds; in the kitchen there was a collapsible
cot. In one of the rooms (ordinarily it would have been the parlour),
there was a somewhat futile sheet-iron stove in which soft coal or wood
could be used provided the wind was in the right direction. This was,
in fact, the parlour. The bed, by day, assumed the dignity of a broad
but saggy lounge, exceedingly comfortable if one was careful to sit far
enough forward to avoid slipping into its cavernous depths from which
there was no escape without assistance. Besides being the parlour, it
was also the library, the study-room, the dining-room and reception
hall. By night, it was the bed-chamber of Mr. Bingle.
At the beginning of the cold snap that arrived quite early in December,
it also became the sleeping place of Rutherford, Rosemary and Harold,
the tiniest of the children, who piled in with the uncomplaining
occupant and kept him awake three-fourths of the night trying to
determine whose legs were uncovered and whose were not. With six
exceedingly active little legs wriggling in as many different
directions in pitch darkness, it was no easy matter, you may be sure,
to decide whether any two belonged to the same individual, and when it
came to pass that three of them were exposed at the same time the
puzzle was indeed a difficult one.
Napoleon's crib also made its way into the parlour when the cold
weather came; and while Napoleon's legs stayed under cover pretty well
his voice, like Chanticleer's, arose before the sun. Frederick,
Wilberforce and Reginald slept in one room, Marie Louise, Henrietta and
Guinevere in another. In pleasant weather, Rosemary joined her sisters,
while Harold and Rutherford fell in with the other boys. There never
was a time, however, when Mr. Bingle did not have a bed-fellow in the
shape of one or the other of the two small boys.
The fourth room was occupied by the maid-of-all-work, and as it was
primarily intended to be the servant's bedroom it is not necessary to
state that there was space for but one full grown person inside its
four walls. The collapsible cot in the kitchen represented the
foundation of an emergency guest chamber. Up to the present it had not
been called into use, but it was always there in readiness for the
expected and unexpected.
It will be observed that no account is taken of Mrs. Bingle. The
explanation is quite simple. She went to live with her mother and
sister at Peekskill on the advice of Dr. Fiddler almost immediately
after the Supreme Court's opinion was handed down. Later on, she came
down to the city with her mother, who now received a small but
sufficient income through the death and will of a fairly well-to-do
bachelor brother. The old lady took a house in the Bronx and once a
week Mr. Bingle journeyed northward by subway and surface lines to
visit his wife. A smart little doctor from Dr. Fiddler's staff made
occasional visits to the Bronx and looked the part of a wiseacre when
Mr. Bingle appealed to him for encouragement. He smiled knowingly and
refused to commit himself beyond a more or less reassuring squint, a
pursing of the lips, and the usual statement that if nothing happened
she would be as fit as ever in the course of time.
The cot in the kitchen was for Mr. Bingle in case Mrs. Bingle decided
to come back to him in health as well as in person. He consoled himself
with the daily hope that she would come dashing in upon him, as well as
ever and in perfect sympathy with his decision to protect the helpless
children they had gathered about them in their years of affluence.
He had stood out resolutely against all contention that the children
should be cast upon the world once more. Harsh words were used at times
by interested friends in their efforts to bring him to his senses. They
urged him to let them find homes or asylums for the rapacious
youngsters; they described them as so many Sindbads; they spoke of them
as millstones about the neck of a man who could never get his head
above water unless he cut loose from them; they argued long and
insistently about his mistaken ideas of justice, responsibility,
affection. He came back at them always with the patient declaration
that he would stand by the bargain made by himself and his wife so long
as God saw fit to give him the strength to earn a living for their
charges.
"Why, confound you, Bingle," said Mr. Force to him one day at the bank,
"one would think that you still regard yourself as a millionaire, the
way you hang onto those kids. Cut them adrift, old fellow. Or if you
won't do that, at least let some of us help you in a pecuniary way.
Don't be so infernally proud and self-satisfied. It wouldn't be
charity. It would be justice. Now, see here, I've argued this thing
with you for three months or more and I'm getting tired of your
everlasting serenity. I know you are hard put to find enough money to
clothe and feed these kids, besides buying what your wife may need. You
are beginning to look shabby and you certainly are thinner and greyer.
What you ought to do, Bingle, is to turn those kids over to a Home of
some sort and settle down to a normal way of living. Winter is coming
on. You will have a devil of a time providing for ten small children
and a sick wife on the salary you are getting here. Now, for heaven's
sake, old fellow, take my advice. Get rid of 'em. You owe it to your
wife, Bingle. She ought--"
"I owe it to my wife to take care of them alone, now that she is unable
to do her part," said Mr. Bingle simply. "We took them as partners, so
to speak. She is unable to manage her share of the liability. Well,
I'll do her part for her, Mr. Force, so long as I'm able. The time may
come when I shall have to appeal for help, or give up the struggle
altogether, but it isn't here yet. I can manage for a while, thank you.
Besides," and his face brightened, "we may have a very mild winter, and
the new tariff is just as likely as not to reduce the cost of living,
no matter what you croakers say to the contrary. I've talked it over
with Mrs. Bingle. She says she can't come home until she is very much
better, and I'll admit that the children would be a dreadful strain
upon her nerves at present. But she says I'm to do just as I think best
in regard to them. She thinks I'm foolish--in fact, she says so--but I
think I understand her better than any one else. Down in her heart she
knows I'm doing the right thing. We'll wait, like old Micawber, for
something to turn up. If it doesn't turn up in a reasonable length of
time, then I'll consider what is best to do with the children."
"Are you considering your own health, Bingle?" demanded Force bluntly.
"No," said Mr. Bingle simply. "I've lived a decent, sensible life, so
what's the use worrying over something that can't be helped?" His smile
was cheerful, the twinkle in his eyes was as bright as though it had
never known a dim moment.
"You should accept the standing offer of the Hooper heirs," said Force.
"They are disposed to be fair and square, Bingle. Three thousand a year
isn't to be sneezed at."
"The Hooper heirs are sneezing at it, so why shouldn't I?" said Mr.
Bingle cheerily.
"I suppose you'll read that ridiculous Christmas Carol on Christmas
Eve," said Force sarcastically.
"Certainly," said Mr. Bingle. "That reminds me; I wish you'd let
Kathleen come down to see us on Christmas Eve. I think she'd enjoy the
reading."
"I'll do it, Bingle," said Force after a moment. "Since she has been
allowed to go down to see you and those kids of yours, her whole view
of life has changed. You were right, old fellow. I believe she likes me
better as time goes on. At any rate, she is quite gay and happy, and
she doesn't look at me with scared eyes any longer. She kissed me as if
she really meant it the other day when I told her she could have Freddy
up to tea. I'd like to suggest, however, that you see to it that the
flat is thoroughly aired and all the germs blown out before she comes
down again to--"
"You needn't worry, Mr. Force," said Bingle without a sign of
resentment in his manner. "We can't help airing the flat. Our greatest
problem is to keep from airing it. There isn't a minute of the day that
it isn't being aired."
Besides Mr. Force, who was a friend by circumstance and not from
choice, Bingle possessed two loyal and devoted friends in Diggs and
Watson, proprietors of the Covent Garden Consolidated Fruit Company of
Columbus Avenue, Manhattan. They would have supplied him with
vegetables and cured meats without charge if the thing could have been
accomplished without his knowledge. They came often to see him, Watson
bringing his wife, the former Miss Stokes, and many a night was made
cheerful for the little man by these good sprites from another world.
Mr. Diggs resignedly awaited the day when Mr. Bingle's maid-of-all-work
could see her way clear to become Mrs. Diggs, and the equal of Mrs.
Watson, if not her superior by virtue of the position of her husband's
name on the firm's business cards. But if Diggs was devotedly loyal to
Melissa, Melissa was equally loyal to Mr. Bingle. Fifteen years of
kindness had not been wasted on this extraordinary servant. She was as
true as she was unique in this age of abominations.
The older children went to a public school not far away, and Melissa
looked after the young ones through the long, slow days, relieved only
from her self-imposed duties when Mr. Bingle came home from the bank.
Neither Melissa nor Mr. Bingle had had a full day off in all these
months, and neither complained. When Sunday came, he always urged her
to spend it with friends, leaving him to attend to the midday meal and
dinner, but she firmly, even arrogantly, refused to permit any one to
meddle with her kitchen. She forced him to go to the Bronx every Sunday
afternoon, whether he would or no, and demanded a staggering decrease
in wages.
"Why, Mr. Bingle," she said, "you can't expect me to work for the same
pay I was getting out at Seawood. Don't be silly, sir; wasn't I getting
more out there than the butler got? And didn't I save nearly every cent
of it for eight years and more? I was getting twenty-five dollars a
week out there, wasn't I? And Mr. Diggs was getting only a hundred
dollars a month, wasn't he? Well, how much could you afford to pay a
butler now if you had one, sir? Two dollars a week at the outside, find
himself. Well, I still feel I'm worth more to you than any butler you
could get, so I'll have to insist on three dollars a week when
convenient. I put away about eight thousand dollars while I was working
for you at Seawood. It's in the savings banks now, every nickel of it,
drawing three and a half and four per cent., or about twenty-five
dollars a month, sir. Twelve and twenty-five makes thirty-seven a
month, don't it? That's more than most girls are getting, and it's
certainly more than any of 'em is worth, judging from what I've seen.
So if you'll just consider that I'm getting thirty-seven a month out of
you, Mr. Bingle, we won't argue any longer."
"But, my dear Melissa, we must consider poor Diggs. It isn't fair to
keep him waiting. I fear I shall have to discharge you. It seems to be
the only way to make you and Diggs happy. I shall discharge you without
a recommendation, too. We can't have Diggs dying of old age while we
are discussing what is to become of him. It is your duty to marry Diggs
at once. You must remember that I do not want you in my employ. You
must not forget that I told you so six months ago and that I even tried
to lock you out. Now, you certainly do not care to work for a man who
despises you, who doesn't want you around, who is doing his level best
to get rid of you, who--"
"Oh, shucks, Mr. Bingle!" cried Melissa, with her comely grin. "Sit
down and have your breakfast now. Don't worry about Mr. Diggs. He is
having the time of his life courting me. At least, he acts as if he is.
It won't hurt him to be engaged for a couple of years."
"But see how happy Watson is."
"I see all right," she said shrewdly; "and it won't hurt Mr. Diggs to
see how happy he is, either."
"You are the most selfish girl I've ever known, Melissa," said he
quaintly. "You won't let anybody else have a thing to say about it,
will you?"
"No, sir," said Melissa. "I'm a perfect brute."
Mr. Epps was a regular visitor. He came once a month and never later
than the first. The rent was twenty-two dollars a month. Mr. Epps was
always expecting that it wouldn't be paid. He never failed to make a
point of telling Mr. Bingle that he was what you might call a
soft-hearted lummix and for that reason it always went hard with him to
evict a tenant for not paying his rent on the minute. He talked a great
deal about the people he had chucked out into the street and how
unhappy the life of a renting agent could be at times. Once he gave Mr.
Bingle a cigar.
"Sure I'm not robbing you?" said Mr. Bingle.
"No," said Mr. Epps. "I don't smoke."
There was one Broadway theatre in which it was impossible to obtain
seats unless they were applied for weeks in advance. The leading lady
in the company playing there was not so important a personage that she
could deny herself the pleasant sensation of being a real woman, and
the author of the play was not so high and mighty that one had to use a
ten-foot pole in touching him.
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Sheridan Flanders paid frequent visits to the home
of Mr. Bingle. The beautiful and popular Miss Colgate, the sensation of
the early season and a certain candidate for stellar honours, never
came to see the young Bingles without betraying a spirit of generosity
which sometimes caused Mr. Bingle to sit up half the night treating
stomach-aches of all ages and degrees. She brought candy and cakes and
fruit for the children, and flowers for Mr. Bingle. She would have come
laden with more substantial and less pernicious presents but for the
gentle objections of her old friend and benefactor. In the face of his
kindly protests, she abandoned certain well-meant, even cherished
ideas, and was often sore at heart.
Dick Flanders had found a producer after all. His hopes, considerably
dashed by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, were at a
low ebb when a practically unknown manager from the Far West concluded
that there was more to his play than the wise men of the East were able
to discern at a glance. With more sense than intelligence, the
Westerner leaped into the heart of New York with a new play by a new
author and scored a success from the opening night. Amy Colgate, an
unknown actress, became famous in a night, so to speak. After the
holidays, there would be a company playing the piece in Chicago, and
another doing the "big stands" throughout the length and breadth of the
land. So much for Mr. Flanders' play and Miss Amy Colgate.
Mr. Bingle never ceased congratulating himself and his two successful
friends on the fact that he had not invested a cent of the Hooper
fortune in the production. For, said he, if he had put a penny into it,
the Hooper heirs would now be dividing the profits with Flanders.
"Luck was with us for once, Dick," he was prone to repeat. "A week
later and we would have been desperately involved. I would have put up
the initial ten thousand dollars for the production and you would have
been saddled with Geoffrey and his sisters, perhaps for life--and I
can't imagine anything more unnecessary than that. Yes, sir, the smash
came just in the nick o' time. What at first appeared to you to be a
calamity turned out to be a God-send, my boy. The Supreme Court behaved
handsomely by you."
This always brought out a vigorous protest from Mr. and Mrs. Flanders.
They stoutly maintained that Mr. Bingle was an original partner in the
enterprise, and, when it came right down to tacks, had put quite as
much capital into the business as either of them. They contended that
he should have a share in the royalties, if not in the profits.
"As a matter of fact, Mr. Bingle, you made so many valuable suggestions
in respect to the play--dialogues, construction and so forth--that you
really ought to take some of the consequences," said Flanders. "It
isn't fair to put all the blame upon me. For instance, who was
responsible for cutting out that scene in the second act?"
"Mrs. Bingle," said the other promptly. "She thought it was too
suggestive."
"Well, it certainly was you, sir, who advised me to make more of the
scene between Deborah and the old gentleman in the last act. As you
know, it is now the great scene in the play. You will not pretend to
deny--"
"Advice is one thing, Dick, and following it is quite another. No, you
can't make me believe that I did anything toward writing that play. A
man who didn't know the difference between a cue line and a back drop
can't very well be indicted for complicity. To tell you the truth, Mrs.
Flanders, I don't know to this day what those initials, 'L. U. E.'
stand for, and a lot of other initials as well. Pride kept me from
inquiring. I didn't want to expose my ignorance about a thing that you
and Dick talked about so glibly. What does 'L. U. E.' mean?"
"'Left Upper Entrance,' Mr. Bingle," said she with a laugh.
"Well, I'm glad the mystery is revealed at last. I've laid awake nights
trying to conjure up words to fit those letters. 'R. U. E.' means
'right,' I suppose. Dear me, how simple it seems, after all."
"Now, see here, Mr. Bingle," Flanders would say, "you went into
partnership with me last winter, that's the long and short of it. It
wasn't your fault that you couldn't put up the money according to our
agreement, but I want to say to you that if it hadn't been for your
encouragement and advice I never would have finished the play and I
certainly could not have scraped up the courage to get married when I
did. Amy and I have always looked upon you as a partner in our success.
Now, I'll tell you precisely what we've decided upon as a fair division
of the royalties that I am receiving. You are to take the author's
royalty from the number three company--the one that is to play the
'road' for this season and next. It is to be a three cornered
arrangement. Amy helped to develop the play, so she is to have the
royalty from the Chicago company, while I shall receive all that comes
out of the New York run. This arrangement will hold good for two
seasons. After that, we'll make a new arrangement, taking in the stock
rights, moving pictures and--"
But Mr. Bingle would listen to no more. Always when Flanders got just
so far in his well-meant, earnest propositions, the object of his
concern would stop him in such a gentle, dignified manner that the
young playwright would flush with the consciousness that he had given
offence to an honest soul.
Mr. Bingle defeated every enterprise on the part of his few friends
that had the appearance of charity. He accepted their good intentions,
he delighted in their thoughtfulness and esteem, but he never permitted
them to go beyond a certain well-defined line. The argument that he had
been generous, even philanthropic, in his days of prosperity was
invariably met by the quaint contention that while the Good Book
teaches charity, the dictionary makes a point of defining it, and "you
can't spell charity, my friend, with the letters that are allotted to
generosity. So don't quote the Bible to me."
He put a stop to the cunning schemes of Diggs and Watson, who, with
Melissa's connivance, began a regular and systematic attempt to smuggle
bacon, eggs, butter and potatoes into the kitchen. This project of
theirs at first comprehended vegetables of every description and fruits
as well, but the sagacious house-maid vetoed anything so wholesale as
all that. She agreed that the accidental delivery of a side of bacon,
or a mistake in the counting of a dozen eggs, or the overweighing and
undercharging of a pound of butter, or the perfectly natural error of
sending a peck and a half of potatoes when only a peck was ordered,
might escape the keen observation of Mr. Bingle, but that anything more
noticeable would cause the good gentleman to take his trade elsewhere.
As she said to the distressed Diggs one evening, after carefully
observing that the kitchen door was closed: "When I order a half ton of
coal from you for the parlour stove, there's no sense in you weighing
it out by ounces. Guess at it, and then after you've guessed as near
right as you know how, double the amount. Mr. Bingle isn't going to
weigh the coal, you know. And when it comes to rice and hominy and
cooking apples and all such things, just let your imagination do the
measuring. If a pound of coffee happens to look like a pound and a half
to you, don't forget the extra cups you used to have every afternoon at
Seawood. And if I should happen to send for the cheapest tea you've got
in stock, don't overlook the fact that there is an expensive kind. Once
in a while you might make ME a present of a couple of dozen oranges,
some bananas and nuts, and you might sometimes ask Mr. Bingle to sample
a new brand of smoking tobacco you're thinking of carrying."
"But we sha'n't carry tobaccos," said Mr. Diggs, who aside from being a
good soul was also British.
"All the more reason why you should be THINKING of carrying 'em, isn't
it, you stupid?"
Mr. Bingle saw the opening performance of the Flanders play and went
behind the scenes afterward. He did this, he explained, so that he
could describe his sensations to Mrs. Bingle. He was introduced to all
of the players and they were so uniformly polite that he fell into a
fine fury the next morning on reading the newspaper review in which
they were described as "unintentionally adequate."
He knew as well as every one else that it would be impossible for him
to keep the children on the salary he was receiving at the bank. He
knew that the day was not far off when he would have to give them up.
His fellow bookkeepers harangued him from morning till night. They made
themselves obnoxious with their everlasting talk about being unable to
support families one-fourth the size of his; and one or two slyly
inquired whether he hadn't "salted away" a part of the Hooper money for
a perpetual spell of rainy weather. In justice to the children
themselves it would be necessary for him, before long, to set about
finding suitable, respectable homes for them. It was this unhappy sense
of realisation that put the new furrows in his brow and took the colour
out of his cheek, the lustre from his eyes.
One day he was approached by Rouquin, volatile and cheery as in the
days of old. The sprightly Frenchman was beaming with friendliness and
good spirits. He conveyed a startling bit of personal news to Mr.
Bingle without the slighest trace of shame or embarrassment.
"Well, Mr. Bingle, I have married her," he said shrugging his shoulders
in a manner that might have signified either extreme satisfaction with
himself or lamentation over the inevitable. "The day before yesterday.
I am now a proud and happy father, old friend."
"Father?" murmured Mr. Bingle, bewildered. "You--mean bridegroom,
Rouquin."
"So I do," cried Rouquin amiably. "But you forget Napoleon--little
Napoleon," he went on gaily.
"You have married Napoleon's mother?"
"Le diable! But who else, M'sieur? The charming, adorable Mademoiselle
Vallemont. Ah, my good friend, I am so happy. I am--"
"Vallemont? But Madame Rousseau--you seem to forget that she is the
mother of Napoleon. You--"
"Nevertheless," said Rouquin, with a gay sweep of his hand before
laying it tenderly upon his heart, "I have married the mother of
Napoleon. Alas, my good friend, Madame Rousseau is no more. She died
when she was but one day old. And her excellent husband, the splendid
Jean, he also is a thing of the past. Now there is no one left but
Madame Rouquin and me and that adorable Napoleon. Vive l'Emperor! Come,
M'sieur, congratulate me. See! This cablegram provides Napoleon with a
father. But for what this little bit of paper says, the poor enfant
might have gone fatherless to his grave. See! It says here that my wife
has died. Read for yourself, M'sieur. It is in French, but what matter?
I shall translate. 'Raoul Rouquin: Blanche died to-day. Good luck.'
See, it is signed 'Pierre.' Pierre he is my brother. He lives in Paris.
Ah, so long have I waited! You may never know my despair--never,
M'sieur. But my wife she has died, so all is well. The day before
yesterday I was married. I take--"
"For heaven's sake, Rouquin," gasped Mr. Bingle; "not so fast! I don't
know what you are talking about."
"Ah, it is so simple," sighed Rouquin, looking upon Mr. Bingle with
pity in his eyes. "Can you not see? So long as my wife was alive I
could not be married. Is that not plain to you? Then she dies. Quick!
Instantly I am married. Voila! It is so simple."
Mr. Bingle comprehended at last. "I see. You have had a wife in Paris
all these years, eh?"
"Mon Dieu! Yes, all these years," groaned Rouquin, rolling his eyes.
"See! See what my brother Pierre says: 'Blanche died to-day. Good
luck.' Good luck! Mon Dieu, M'sieur, is it possible that you do not
know what 'good luck' means?"
"And you have married Madame Rous--or whatever her name is?"
"So quick as that!" cried Rouquin, snapping his fingers. "And now,
M'sieur, when may I come to take little Napoleon home to his mother?"
Thus it came about that Napoleon was the first to go. Amid great pomp
and ceremony, he departed from the home of the many Bingles on a
bright, clear day in December, shortly after banking hours, attended by
his own mother and father.