“Life is just one damn thing after another.”
--_A Nameless Philosopher._
Aughinbaugh closed the door behind him and paused, vastly diverted.
His entrance had passed unnoted, muffled by the jerky click-click of
the typewriter on which Jeff Bransford toiled with painful absorption.
On Jeff’s forehead little beads of sweat stood out, glistening in the
lamp-light. He scanned the last line, scowled ferociously, and snapped
the platen back. His uncertain fingers twitched solicitously above the
keys. Aughinbaugh chuckled offensively.
“‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.’”
he declaimed.
Jeff whirled around. “Hello, here you are! Any news from our
employer?” He rose with a sigh of relief and mopped his brow. “Gee!
I’ve got to work the Jim-fidgets out of my fingers.”
Ignoring the query, Aughinbaugh took a step forward, drew up his
slender frame, inflated his chest, spread one hand upon it, and threw
up his other hand with a flourish of limber fingers. “‘Now is the
time,’” he spouted forth at Bransford, mouthing the well-known words,
“‘for all good men and true to come to the aid of the party!’”
Jeff grinned sheepishly. “I’ll dream that cussed thing to-night. How
long did it take you to learn to play a tune on this fool contraption,
anyhow?”
“It took me three months--to play on it anyhow. But then I already knew
how to spell. I’ve been at it two years since and am still improving. I
should estimate that you would need about eight years. Better give it
up. Try a maul or a piledriver. More suited to your capabilities. Why,
Jeff, a really good stenographer can do first-class work in the dark.”
“Eight years? George, you’re an optimist. I’ve worked two solid hours
on this one ‘simple little sentence,’ as you call it, and I’ve never
got it right once. Sometimes I’ve come within one letter of it. Once
I made a mighty effort and got all the letters right, but I forgot to
space and ran the words together. And say--that simple little sentence
hasn’t got near all the letters in it. B, j, k, q, v, x and z are left
out.”
“Here, then--here’s one that contains every letter: ‘A quick move by
the enemy will jeopardize six fine gunboats.’”
Jeff pulled pad and pencil to him. “Give me that again and I’ll take
it down.” Repeating the alphabet slowly, he canceled each letter as he
went. “Right you are! Say, the fellow that got that up was on the job,
wasn’t he? Why didn’t you give me this one in the first place? Wonder
if it’s possible to get ’em all in another sentence as short?”
“I think not,” said Aughinbaugh. “It’s been tried. But I don’t share
your admiration for the last one. Besides reeking of militarism
abhorrent to my peaceful disposition, it is stiff, labored, artificial
and insincere. Compare it with the spontaneity, the beauty, the stately
cadences, the sonorous fire, the sweep and swing of the simple, natural
appeal: ‘_Now_ is the time for all good men and true to come to the aid
of the party!’”
If it has ever been your privilege to observe a wise old she-bear
watching her cubs at play and to note the expression of her face--half
patience, tolerance, resignation; the remainder pride and approval--you
will know exactly how Jeff looked. As for Aughinbaugh, he bore himself
grandly, chin up. His voice was vibrant, resonant, purposeful; his eyes
glowed with serious and lofty enthusiasm: no muscle quivered to a smile.
“Why, there is philosophy in it! The one unvarying factor of the
human mind,” he went on, “is the firm, unbiased conviction that I am
right, and all opposition necessarily, consciously and wilfully wrong.
This belief is the base and foundation of all human institutions, of
sectionalism, caste, creeds, parties, states, of patriotism itself. It
is the premise on which all wars are based. Mark, now, how human nature
speaks from its elemental depths in the calm, complacent, but entirely
sincere assumption that all good men and true will be unconditionally
with the party!”
He warmed to his subject; he strode back and forth; he smote open palm
with clenched fist in vehement gesture. Jeff snickered. George rebuked
him with a stern and withering glance.
“I grant you that b, j, k, q, v, x and z are omitted. But what are b,
j, k, q, v, x and z in comparison to the chaste perfection of this
immortal line? Let them fitly typify the bad men and false who do not
come to the aid of the party. Injustice is only what they deserve!”
Consigning b, j, k, q, v, x and z to outer darkness with scornful,
snapping fingers, he poured a glass of water, sipped it slowly, with
resolute suppression of his Adam’s apple, fixed Jeff with another
severe glance, paused impressively, rose to his tiptoes with both hands
outspread, and continued:
“Why, sir, this is the grandest line in literature! It should hang on
every wall, a text worked on a sampler by tender, loving hands! It is
a ready-made watchword, a rallying cry for any great cause! It might
be sung by marching thousands. When, in a great crisis, the mighty
statesman, the intellectual giant between whose puny legs we petty men
do creep and peer about, has proclaimed the Fla-ag in Danger; has led
us to stand at the parting of the ways; has shown that the nation must
make irrevocable choice of good or evil; when our hearts are thrilled
with the consciousness of our own virtue----” he sprang to a chair and
flaunted his handkerchief in rhythmical waves--“this, then, is his
crashing peroration: ‘Now is the time for all good men and true to come
to the aid of the party!’”
Bowing gracefully, he carefully parted imaginary coat-tails and seated
himself, beaming.
Jeff lolled contentedly back in his chair, puffing out clouds of smoke.
“That’s a fine line of talk you get out. You sure did a wise thing
when you quit the bank and took to studying law. You have all the
qualifications for a successful lawyer--or a barker for a sideshow.”
He tapped out his pipe and yawned lazily. “I infer from your slurring
remarks about solemn, silly twaddle that you are not permanently
tagged, classified, labeled and catalogued, politically?”
“I am a consistent and humble follower,” replied George, “of the wise
Democritus, who, as I will explain for the benefit of your benighted
ignorance, is known as the Laughing Philosopher. I laugh. Therefore I
can truthfully say, to paraphrase the words of a famous leader, ‘I am a
Democrit!’”
Jeff showed his teeth. “I guess I am, too--but I didn’t know what it
was till you told me. Now I have a party, at last--and now is the time
for all good men and true--and that reminds me, my young and exuberant
friend, that you have not yet told me when our esteemed and respected
employer intends to return.”
“I do not quite like the tone you adopt in speaking of Mr. Simon
Hibler,” said George icily. “It smacks of irreverence and presumption.
Still less do I relish your persistent reference to him as ‘our’
employer. It amounts to an assumption of a certain equality in our
respective positions that I cannot for an instant tolerate.” He
strutted to the hearthrug and turned his back to the fire; he fiddled
with his watch-chain; tone and manner were heavily pompous. “In a
way, of course, Mr. Hibler might be said to employ us both. But I
would have you realize that a vast gulf separates the social status
of a lowly cow-servant, stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox, from
that of an embryo Blackstone--like myself. I accept a position and
receive a salary. You take a job and draw wages. Moreover, a lawyer’s
clerk marries the youngest daughter and is taken into the firm. By
the way, Hibler has no daughter. I must remind him of this. ‘Hibler &
Aughinbaugh, Counselors at Law.’ That’ll look good in silver letters
on a sanded, dark-blue background, eh, Jefferson? But soft! methinks
my natural indignation has diverted me from your question. No, my good
fellow, I do not know when Mr. Hibler is returning to El Paso. Are you
already tired of urban delights, Mr. Bransford?”
“I was tired of urban delights,” remarked Mr. Bransford, “before you
were out of short dresses. However, I’ve waited this long and I’ll stay
right here in El Paso till he comes. I bore myself some, daytimes, but
we have bully good times of nights. You’re as good as a show--better.
Tune up your Julius Cæsar!”
“Your attitude--if you will overlook the involuntary rhyme,” said
George, “is one of base ingratitude. I endeavor to instruct and
uplift you. You might be absorbing sweetness and light at every pore,
acquiring a love for the true, the good and the beautiful--and you are
merely amused! It is disheartening. As for this golden volume, this
masterpiece of William Shakspere’s genius--‘which, pardon me, I do not
mean to read’----”
“Oh, go on! Of course you’re going to read it. We’ve got almost
through it. You left off just beyond ‘the-will-give-us-the-will,
we-will-have-the-will.’”
“Why, you lazy pup, why didn’t you read it yourself? You have nothing
to do. I have to work.”
“I did read it through to-day. And began at the first again. But,” said
Jeff admiringly, “I like to hear you read it. You have such a lovely
voice, Mr. Crow.”
Aughinbaugh bowed. “Thank you, Mr. Bransford, thank you! But I am proof
against even such subtle and insidious flattery as yours. Hereafter,
sir, I shall read no book through to you. I shall select works suited
to your parts and your station in life and read barely enough to
stimulate your sluggish mind. Then you can shell corn or be buried
alive. To-night, for instance, I shall read some salient extracts from
Carlyle’s ‘French Revolution.’ You will not in the least understand it,
but your interest and curiosity will be aroused. You will then finish
it, with such collateral reading as I shall direct.”
“Sure you got all those ‘shalls’ and ‘wills’ just right?” suggested
Jeff. “It’s mighty easy to get ’em tangled up.”
“That is the only proper way to study history,” George went on,
wisely ignoring the interruption. “Read history lightly, about some
period, then read the best works of poetry or fiction dealing with
the same events. Then come back to history again. The characters will
be real people to you and not mere names. You will eagerly extend
your researches to details about these familiar acquaintances and
friends, and learn particulars that you would else have shirked as
dull and laborious.” He took a book from the shelf. “I will now read
to you--after you replenish the fire--a few chapters here and there,
especially there, dealing with the taking of the Bastille.”
Without, a wild March wind shrilled and moaned at the trembling
casements; within, firelight’s cozy cheer, Aughinbaugh’s slim youth lit
by the glowing circle of the shaded lamp, the dusky corners beyond.
The flexible voice sank with pity or swelled with hot indignation.
And Bransford, as he listened to that stupendous, chaotic drama
of incoherent clangorous World Bedlam, saw, in the glowing coals,
tumultuous, dim-confused figures come and go, passionate, terrible
and grim; the young, the gay, the beautiful, the brave, the brave in
vain; fire-hearted, vehement, proud, swallowed up by delirium. Newer
shapes, wild, portentous, spluttering, flashing, whirling, leaping in
wild dervish dance. In the black shadows, in the eddying thick smoke,
lurked crowding shapes more terrible still, abominable, malignant,
demoniacal, imbecile--Proteus shapes that changed, dwindled, leaped
and roared to an indistinguishable sulphurous whirlpool, sport of all
the winds. Brief flashes of clearer light there were, as the smoke
billowed aside; faces gleamed a moment distinct, resolute, indomitable,
bright-sparkling; blazed high--and fell, trampled down by fresh
legion-changing apparitions. Sad visions, some monstrous, some heroic,
all pitiful; thronging innumerable, consuming and consumed.
* * * * *
“Likewise ashlar stones of the Bastille continue thundering through the
dusk; its paper archives shall fly white. Old secrets come to view; and
long buried despair finds voice. Read this portion of an old letter:
‘If for my consolation monseigneur would grant me, for the sake of
God and the most blessed Trinity, that I should have news of my dear
wife; were it only her name on a card to show that she is alive! It
were the greatest consolation I could receive; and I should forever
bless the greatness of monseigneur.’ Poor prisoner, who signest thyself
Quéret-Démery, and hast no other history, she is dead, that dear wife
of thine, and thou art dead! ’Tis fifty years since thy breaking heart
put this question; to be heard now first, and long heard, in the
hearts of men.”
* * * * *
A long silence. The fire was low. One dim, blurred form was there--an
old man, writing, in a stone cell.
Aughinbaugh closed the book. His eyes were moist. “One of the greatest
novels ever written, ‘The Tale of Two Cities,’ is based entirely upon
and turns upon this last paragraph. Read that to-morrow and then come
back to the ‘French Revolution.’ You’ll be around to-morrow night?”
Jeff rose, laughing. “You remind me of my roommate at school.”
“Your--what? Where?” said George in astonishment.
“Oh, yes, I’ve been to school, but not very long. When the boys used to
stay too late he’d yawn and say to me: ‘Jeff, perhaps we’d better go
to bed. These people may want to go home!’”
“Oh, well, it’s nearly twelve o’clock,” said George, unabashed. “And I
have to work if you don’t. Bless you, my children, bless you! Be happy
and you will be good! _Buenas noches!_”
“_Buenas noches!_”
* * * * *
A trolley car whirred by, with scintillation of blue-crackling sparks.
Jeff elected to walk, companied by his storied ghosts--their footsteps
sounded through the rustling leaves. The wind was dead; the night was
overcast, dark and chill. Aughinbaugh’s lodgings were in the outskirts
of the residence section; the streets at this hour were deserted. Jeff
had walked briskly for ten minutes when, as he neared a corner in a
quiet neighborhood, he saw a tall man in gray come from the farther
side of the intersecting street just ahead. The gray man paused
under the electric light to let a recklessly-driven cab overtake and
pass him, and then turned diagonally over toward Jeff, whistling as
he came. He was half-way across, and Jeff was within a yard of the
corner, when another man, short and squat, hurried from the street to
the left, brushing by so close that Jeff might have touched him. So
unexpected was his appearance--for his footsteps had been drowned by
the clattering cab--that Jeff was startled. He paused, midstep, for the
merest fraction of a second. The town clock boomed midnight.
Thereafter, events moved with all the breathless unreality of dream.
The second man turned across to meet the first. A revolver leaped up,
shining in the light; he fired point-blank. The gray man staggered
back. Yet, taken all unaware, so deadly swift he was that both men
fired now together.
Nor was Jeff imprudently idle. He was in the line of fire, directly
behind the short man. To the left, across the sidewalk, the hole of a
tree was just visible beyond the house corner. Jeff leaped for this
friendly shelter--and butted headlong into human ribs.
A one-hundred-and-sixty-pound projectile deals no light blow, and
Jeff’s initial velocity was the highest he could command at such slight
notice. The owner of the ribs reeled out into the street, beyond the
shadows. A huge man, breathless, gasping, with a revolver drawn; his
thumb was on the hammer. So much Jeff knew and closed on him, his left
hand clutched the gun, the hammer was through his finger. They wrenched
and tore at the gun; and had the bigger man grappled now he might have
crushed Jeff at once, broken him by main strength. But he was a man of
one idea--and he had a second gun. A violent jerk threw Jeff to his
knee, but he kept his desperate grip. The second gun flashed in the
giant’s left hand, rising and falling with the frontier firing motion;
but Jeff’s own gun was out, he struck up the falling death, the bullet
sang above him. He was on his feet, in trampling, unreal struggle;
again he struck the gun aside as it belched fire. Turning, whirling,
straining, Jeff was dizzily conscious that the men beneath the light
were down, both still shooting; the cab had stopped, men were running
toward him shouting. The giant’s dreadful strength was undirected,
heaving and thrusting purposeless; time for order and response would
be time for crashing death to find him; his one frantic thought was to
shoot first, to shoot fast. Shaken, tossed and thrown, Jeff kept his
feet, kept his head, kept close in; as the great man’s gun rose and
fell he parried with his own. Three shots, four--the others fired no
longer; five--one more--Six! It was warded, Jeff drew back, fired his
first shot from his hip; the giant dragged at him, heaved forward, and
struck out mightily, hammerwise. Jeff saw the blow gleaming down as
he fired again. Glint of myriad lights streamed sparkwise across an
infinite blackness; he knew no more.
The clock was still striking.