generations back, and the carter's prospects in the future life. Binks
is not exactly a cussing man, but he gave a very fair imitation of
one--it would do till a real cusser came around.
We heard him, but we heeded not. We just lay there and smiled blandly
at the Milky Way. We had reached the point where we didn't care a darn
if the race of carters became utterly extinct, and we were extinguished
with them. All we wanted was to be left alone.
Binks, however, was indomitable. That man's energy was positively
terrifying. He got us on our feet, put our coat on us in spite of our
feeble resistance, stuck one end of that fatal saw in our hand, and
dragged us two miles or more through the bush and the darkness to the
street-car. With the help of the conductor he lifted us on and propped
us up in the end of a seat. We remember that we moaned when they took
the handle of the saw away from us. We had grown attached to it.
We don't recall much about the trip on the car, except hearing the
conductor tell Binks that people who couldn't carry liquor any better
than we seemed able to do shouldn't be allowed to have any. He said
that sort of thing was what started Prohibition movements. And Binks
agreed with him!
When we got to Bink's house, the dinner had long since been burned to a
crisp, and Mrs. Binks registered about six hundred pounds pressure on
her temper-gauge. It was a terrible meal. We don't remember what we
ate, or whether we ate at all. All we know is that when it was over, we
stumbled right over to our hat and then back to Mrs. Binks.
"Goo' night--lovely time," we said. "Hope you're the same!"
Binks saw us to the door. As a matter of fact, we had started to walk
into the fire-place. He seemed to feel the need of some explanation.
"Sorry, old man, about that infernal carter," he said, "but tell you
what we'll do. Some day next week we'll stroll out to the lot and have
the fun of loading up, and then...."
We are not quite clear what it was that we said to Binks, but we must
have said something fairly significant, for neither Binks nor his wife
has spoken to us since.
Of course, we are sorry that Binks and his wife feel that way about it.
But after all the first law of life is self-preservation, and we can't
afford to run that sort of risk again. We didn't heal up for a week or
more after that dreadful grapple with the cross-cut saw. In fact, we
had some notion of going to a surgeon and having the bites cauterized.
Even this was nothing to the soreness in our legs and arms and the
famous "back-muscles" that Binks brought into play. We spent all our
evenings for the next fortnight rubbing arnica into them--also a
wonderful liniment which our landlady gave us. It must have been a fine
liniment for it smelled so strong that people turned around and looked
after us on the street, as if they thought we ought to be quarantined
and were in two minds about calling a policeman. And we didn't dare
visit our friends. But then what's the use of going to see a lady if
you moan in pain every time you try to put your arm around--well, around
the back of the chair?
[Illustration: REFRESHMENTS AT FIVE]
*Refreshments at Five*
Five o'clock appears to be a very critical time in the day. On the
manner in which the next three-quarters of an hour are spent may depend
one's well-being and good temper for the rest of the day and the evening
and possibly the first couple of hours of the morrow.
Some people--low persons who need the money or whose bosses will not
permit them to leave the office--make a habit of working through till
six, or whatever time it is that they punch the clock and go home in a
street-car strap. Naturally such persons have no place in an article of
this character.
To sensitive and cultured people who have spent the afternoon playing
bridge or in the cellar brewing the family liquor--that, we believe, is
the intellectual pastime of the moment--or in mahogany-furnished offices
persuading innocent folk with money to buy Nicaragua banana-lands or
bunk stocks on punk margins, five o'clock is the blessed hour of
surcease and repose. It is balm in Gilead, cool rains after the heat of
the day, a friendly hotel after walking across a "dry" county, divorce
after--oh, g'wan and make your own metaphors!
Personally we are an ardent and determined five-o'clocker. We have
played it every way there is--straight, for place, for show, and across
the board. There is no kind of five-o'clock performance--in accordance,
that is, with the purity and piety of our character and upbringing--that
we have not done or witnessed. We have attended teas of every
description and shade of color, pink, yellow, mauve, and with dashes of
cerise. We have gone to the tango kind, and to those discreet teas in
sequestered corners of tea-rooms to which one conducts fair students of
the drama after the matinee.
In older and perhaps happier--certainly freer--days, we were a frequent
guest and occasional host at little informal five-o'clock functions,
where one inquired of the rest of the company what they were having and
requested the attendant to "fill 'em up again, Jawn!" We attended such
functions in clubs, cafes, and those democratic places of resort which
were entered by swinging doors--up to eleven on ordinary nights and
seven on Saturdays. And we did this as part of that systematic study of
humanity--including the things they eat and the drinks they drink--which
is recommended so earnestly by the philosophers.
All this is by way of letting the reader see how thoroughly qualified we
are by nature and training to write on this important subject of
five-o'clock refreshments. We say "important" advisedly and with no
ironic intent. We have devoted to the question of how best to spend the
time between five and a quarter to six much time, energy, and serious
thought--not without considerable difficulty and several vigorous rows
with persons we have at various times consented to work for. And, as a
result of our studies, we are convinced that rest and refreshment at
five are a human necessity, whether you take it with two lumps or with
soda, and whether you eat out of the "curate" or off the free-lunch
counter.
Of course, this whole institution of five-o'clock refreshment is an
intensely modern and hyper-civilized development--at least, here in
Canada. It represents a reaction from the nerve-stresses of up-to-date
urban existence. Our sturdy forefathers knew it not, and verily there
are still many places where people do not practice it. Farmers as a
class, for instance, have still maintained their ancient prejudice
against eating and drinking till it is too dark or the weather is too
bad to do anything else.
Naturally there would have been something absurdly incongruous in our
great-grandfathers stopping in the midst of shooting bears or Indians or
burning out a clearing, in order to tramp back to the log-cabin for a
pimento sandwich or a cup or two of oolong. But, even at that, we would
hate to believe that the old boys didn't occasionally knock off for a
few minutes about five, and drag the old cider-jug from its place of
concealment in a hollow stump, and have a pull or two at the juice that
cheers and eke inebriates--if it is "hard" enough.
Five-o'clock refreshments, however, as we know them, are a peculiarly
modern institution. We got the habit from England, where we get our
spats and our knighthoods, our green hats and our Governors-General. In
England they all do it, and it won't be long before we are all doing it,
too. Talk about the effects of the War on our soldiers!--if you could
see the splendid fellows now pouring their own in the tea-rooms, you
would fear the worst.
A friend of ours who occasionally--and even oftener if things are slow
at home--takes a run over to London to refresh his accent and to study
life in its more dignified and also its lighter phases, has told us of a
visit he paid to a great English factory. As he was being shown over
the plant by the owner--jolly old dog, too, egad!--a gong sounded
suddenly. Everybody instantly dropped their tools and climbed down from
their machines; a gang of waiters burst upon the scene carrying huge
trays of steaming cups with two little crackers on the side of each
saucer; and everybody had tea. Even the boss, just to show what a
democratic old cuss he was, had a cup with the rest--the clawsses
drinking with the mawsses, so to speak.
Once in our journalistic youth--we felt about a hundred and eighty in
experience of life--we had occasion (meaning we were sent by a profane
and peremptory city editor) to interview the heads of a great business
corporation regarding the financial situation. It was a time of panic,
and this particular concern was reported to be in a bad way. A heavy
sense of responsibility weighed upon us as we loosed our pencil in its
patent sheath, and entered the office of the two brothers who directed
the destinies of the company.
They were at tea! A fat, perspiring waiter--why do waiters always
perspire?--had just carried in from a neighboring cafe a large tray
bearing a tea-pot, a jug of hot water, plate of sandwiches, ditto of
cute little cakes, and all the various accessories of tea-making and
drinking. Our heart sank. We felt that this particular company was
doomed. It wouldn't have been a greater shock to us if we had
discovered them playing marbles--in fact, we would have been more likely
to regard marbles as an amiable eccentricity.
They hospitably insisted that we should join them, but we declined with
decision. We felt as if we had been invited to take out our sewing and
while away a pleasant hour with the rest of the girls doing embroidery
and eating marshmallows. But our contempt for these particular gentlemen
was slightly modified by their producing cigarettes--very good
cigarettes, too--after tea and lighting up. Naturally we joined in
that. And our feelings were changed to something like genuine respect
when we discovered what rattling good "copy" they could talk. Oh, they
weathered the financial gale all right, in spite of the tea. And the
experience made us more tolerant of the vice.
As for the ordinary sort of pink tea--you know the kind of thing where
the dear boys in morning-coats pass the vittles to the dear girls in
feathers and a string of beads--we are a hardened and weary veteran. We
used to be one of the best young amateur waiters you ever saw, and could
juggle a "curate" with a grace and efficiency that would have been the
despair of Beau Brummel, if he had survived to witness it. But never
again!
Incidentally, why are those three-storey arrangements called "curates?"
Is it because they are always planted among the girls? Or because
social events are not really respectable without one around? Or is it
simply because they can hold so much cake?
Whatever the reason for the name, we became an out-and-out expert at
wielding the things. Handing cups of tea with the right hand, and with
the left dealing from the top or bottom deck of the "curate" with equal
ease, we must have been a genteelly inspiring sight. But we have no joy
of the recollection. Think of a healthy man spending his time like
that!
Of course, we still go to teas occasionally--even the most fertile and
mendacious excuser is sometimes caught without an alibi. Not that these
social evasions are lies exactly, but you know the way one says: "Next
Thursday did you say, my dear? So good of you, and I would just love
to, but I'm all filled up for next Thursday," etc., etc. And being "all
filled up," naturally one cannot be expected to fill up any more. But
sometimes it is not so easy to get out of it, and we are occasionally
caught by a sudden flank attack. But we are never a willing prisoner--we
go down fighting desperately to the last.
As a matter of fact, teas long ago ceased to hold any delight for us.
Like Martha we chose the worser part; but this was back in the wicked
days before Prohibition descended on us all like a bomb from a Zeppelin.
Every now and then--not every day, for we were not unabashed in our
delinquency--a friend or two would drop in about five. We would discuss
the weather in a dispassionate and scientific manner, as well as the
Mexican situation--it was the only war on at the time--and the prospects
for the baseball or hockey championship, according to the time of year.
We talked of many things, but all in the same cool and detached way, as
of men whose minds were elsewhere and busy with more vital matters.
Then suddenly we would all rise up as one man and go silently away to a
place we wotted of, where the clerk knew us by name, and asked us if we
were having "the same old poison." Or better still, he would nod in a
friendly way and without waiting to ask would set out the materials on
the ba--no, no, counter!--with calm assurance bred of an intimate
knowledge of our preferences.
It is a curious trait in human nature but the average man used to take
much joy and pride out of having a refreshment-clerk--and when we say
"refreshment" we use the word in its most dynamic significance--call him
by name and hand him out his favorite brand without asking. It did him
more good than if the president of the bank he made his over-draughts on
had picked him up in the presidential limousine as he was walking down
to the office of a morning.
Perhaps we should not speak about these things now that they are over
and done with and everyone is reformed and uncomfortable; but how is the
coming generation to know anything about the habits of us their
ancestors, unless someone tells them the thirsty truth? As a matter of
fact, it is more than likely that the reader of fifty years from now,
coming on this book among some empty bottles in a dark corner of the
attic, won't know what the dickens we are talking about. Poor old John
Barleycorn may have ceased to be even a memory, and--but then again
perhaps he won't. Very hardy old chap, John!
We do not wish, however, to close this veracious and useful disquisition
on what might be called the Bacchic note--though Bacchic in the most
gentlemanly and respectable sense, of course. Besides, all this talk of
teas has reminded us of one which we like best--though it is a wistful
pleasure--to remember. You see, it was quite a long time ago, and--but
let us get on with the story.
To begin with, we had telephoned to the house--Heaven only knows about
what! Any old excuse was a good excuse in those days. And she said,
after a certain amount of persiflage and badinage--you know the sort of
thing people talk over the 'phone in the spring--she said to come up and
have a cup of tea with her.
It was right in office hours and we had a lot of work to do. But did we
go? Yes, Friend Reader, we did. We rushed out clutching our hat in our
hand, nearly broke a leg catching a car, and every time it stopped to
let anyone on or off, we indulged in a line of mental profanity which
must have created a faint blue aureole around our head like a mediaeval
saint.
They were all out--the family, that is--even to the servant-girl. But
we didn't mind. In fact, our relief was such that we realized at once
it would be unseemly to show it. Our recollection is that we expressed
a certain mild regret for their absence--Lord, what a liar a man can
make of himself at times! Then having behaved like a really nice boy,
we had an apron tied on us, for we had to help make the sandwiches. A
pair of very pretty arms reached round us from behind and hung a silly
little arrangement of linen and frills upon our manly waist, after a
great deal of tugging and squeezing, which was rather complicated by our
irresistible inclination to twist around and watch the strings being
tied in the middle of our back--obviously a difficult feat of an
acrobatic nature.
The sandwiches were finally made--we remember we were told we had spread
the butter too thick. Then we carried the tray in beside a grate-fire,
just an ordinary gas-grate, but if it had been the fires of the eternal
dawn it couldn't have seemed any more cheering. Sunlight streamed in
through the window on a big bowl of daffodils, themselves like a great
splash of sunshine. Outside in the street youngsters were at play. We
never even yet eat a certain kind of sandwich that we don't remember....
But, oh, pshaw, what's the use? What's the use? Besides, think how
much freer and more solvent we are in our present celibate condition.
But there are times and moods, mere trifles like a glimpse of flowers in
the spring or a robin's song or the odor of wet lawns, which bring her
back to us again and make us wince once more as we recall that her name
is now Mrs. Spoffkins.
[Illustration: MANNERS FOR THE MASSES]
*Manners for the Masses*
"Manners Makyth Man."
How often in our eager youth was that hoary old maxim quoted to us with
stern insistence, what time we had seized the last piece of cake on the
plate, or were absorbing our soup with a noise like that of a punctured
vacuum cleaner. Manners makyth man, perhaps; but in those days manners
made us tired.
Now that we have attained manhood's estate, however, and grey hair and a
nice discrimination in Scotch, when there is any to practice on, we
realize the need of more manners--manners for the masses. People in
general are not so polite as they used to be and ought to be.
Street-car conductors, for instance, do not treat us at all times with
the consideration we feel to be our due.
We do not object so bitterly to being told to "step lively there," or
having the conductor jab the end of the fare-box into our diaphragm.
Such little crudities of manner are perhaps inseparable from his rather
trying profession. But the other day we handed a conductor by mistake a
quarter of suspicious antecedents--metallurgically speaking, of course.
Money we can't pass is the only sort of tainted money we recognize. We
fear this particular coin contained more than the usual amount of alloy.
As a matter of fact, we hadn't intended giving it to him at all. We had
laid it aside for a church collection, or a tag-day, or the first pretty
Salvation Army lass we should see with a "self-denial-week" box at a
street corner. But it got into the wrong pocket.
We handed it to the conductor and said, "Blue, please!"--alluding to the
cerulean hue of the tickets. He turned it over two or three times in
his hand, glared at us, walked down to the rear platform to see it in
the better light there, asked two or three men what they thought of it,
and then carried it back to us between the thumb and index finger of the
right hand as though he were holding something dead by the tail. The
whole car watched him drop it with a thud into our grey-suede palm.
"The Company don't let us take nothin' but silver quarters," he remarked
in a loud voice and with quite undue emphasis on the "silver."
We had to hunt through our pockets for a five-cent piece to put in the
box. It was a very painful moment, and naturally the only nickle we
owned hid itself amid a mass of coppers--we had enough of them to bust
our suspenders. And while we hunted, the conductor stood there and
shook the box belligerently under our nose.
Therefore, we repeat, let us by all means have more manners--manners for
street-car conductors and plumbers and elevator-men and the masses
generally. Not even bank-clerks are altogether above reproach in this
respect. We have had several rather regrettable experiences with
bank-clerks--usually in connection with slight over-draughts. And yet
bank-clerks are generally regarded as the budding Chesterfields of the
financial world.
Talking of Chesterfield reminds us of that period in our development at
which his "Letters" burst upon us as a brilliant and a guiding star. We
were about sixteen, and our voice still oscillated between a squeaking
treble and a booming bass. We were also having considerable difficulty
in keeping our extremities decently within the compass of our clothes.
Our manners at that time were those of a breezy but well-intentioned
caveman. No effete conventions for us!--no, sir, nothing but the
simple, unaffected utterance of the heart. It was our aim to be a rough
diamond, a fellow whose shaggy exterior concealed a beautiful soul, and
whom people would come to understand and love after a long time--maybe,
after we were dead. We could see ourself smiling peacefully in our
padded coffin, while the family wept all over the oxidized-silver plate
bearing our name and two dates--n-n-nothing m-m-more!
Perhaps this shaggy-breast-and-heart-of-gold business was not "getting
across" as successfully as we had hoped. Perhaps we had grown weary of
doing little acts of kindness and of love in a rude, untutored way. Or
perhaps the time was merely ripe for a new phase of our social
development. Anyhow, we one day picked up Lord Chesterfield's "Letters
to My Son," and at a bound became a suave and graceful man of the world,
concealing under a smile of wistful charm a cynical and disillusioned
heart. Whatever might be the bitterness of our regrets, as befitted a
man who had known life and women and had suffered, no shadow disturbed
the serenity of our brow. We continued to smile and bow with the old
nonchalant grace, as though it were roses, roses all the way. This was
the impression we tried to convey, at any rate.
The family received our change of heart and manner in a spirit of levity
against which our new ideals were not always proof--but you know the
gentle way of families. Instead of teaching the young idea how to
shoot, they are apt to suggest that it ought to go out and shoot itself.
Naturally we suffered, and not unresentfully. In fact, we so far forgot
ourself as to try to lick our younger brother--a very un-Chesterfieldian
endeavor, and not entirely successful. He had a rushing style of
fighting which--but there are bygones which had best be has-beens.
Of course, we have long since realized that it isn't wise to carry even
so good a thing as manners to an over-elaborate extreme. Not long ago
we had an instance of this--which brings us back to a street-car again.
Wonderful how much one can learn in those humble but interesting
conveyances! It was a crowded car, and we got up when a statuesque
young woman in a very tight skirt stood right in front of us. We got up
as gracefully as the movement of the car would permit, and hanging on a
strap with the skill of long practice we adroitly removed our hat and
bowed. We wanted to let her know that our action was the expression of
a distant but chivalrous respect.
The statuesque young woman never quivered a hair of her expensive
willow-plume, but stared penetratingly at a male collar-ad just over her
head. Perhaps she had not seen us in her reverie. Perhaps the face of
the young gentleman in the dreadfully conspicuous collar reminded her of
someone she knew or loved or both--though we have never known any human
being to look like those faces, and certainly would not think of loving
him if he did.
Whatever the reason she certainly did not see us. We waited for a block
or two, and then we made bold to touch her arm just above the chain of
her beaded bag--it looked like something the Shah of Persia would wear.
"Madam," we said in our most mellow and flute-like tone, "won't you take
this seat?"
She flashed on us a pair of large, dark pupils--belladonna, we
presume--and said in a voice like the drip of an icicle in a cemetery,
"I don't care to sit down."
That was all--no "Thank you" or "Much obliged" or any other of the ready
phrases of casual courtesy. Just, "I don't care to sit down."
It was an unfortunate and deucedly embarrassing experience. We didn't
like to sit down again--in our confusion we would probably have sat in
someone else's lap. And yet it seemed frightfully silly for the two of
us to go on standing there in front of that empty seat. So we stopped
the car and got off half a mile from home.
Now, why did she do that? Was she afraid that if she sat down and said,
"Thank you," we might presume on her graciousness to make a few timely
remarks about the weather, and after a brief survey of the Russian
situation or the newest thing in "movies," should end up by offering her
some gum? Or, on the other hand was she a suffragette who refused to be
put on a basis of inequality and treated as a member of a weaker sex?
Did she see in our action the gloating superiority of man the master?