There was a line of men, mostly paunchy, waiting to be assigned dressing
rooms when Mr. Braddy entered the Turkish bath, egged sternly on by his
new philosophy. He did not shuffle meekly into the lowest place and wait
the fulfillment of the biblical promise that some one would say,
"Friend, go up higher." Not he. "I can and I will," he remarked to the
man at the end of the line, and, forthwith, with a majestic, if rolling,
gait, advanced to the window where a rabbit of a man, with nose glasses
chained to his head, was sleepily dealing out keys and taking in
valuables. The other men in line were too surprised to protest. Mr.
Braddy took off his huge derby hat and rapped briskly on the counter.
"Service, here. Li'l' service!"
The Rabbit with the nose glasses blinked mildly.
"Wotja want?" he inquired.
"Want t' be made fresh as a li'l' daisy," said Mr. Braddy.
"Awright," said the Rabbit, yawning. "Here's a key for locker number
thirty-six. Got any valuables? One dollar, please."
Mr. Braddy, after some fumbling, produced the dollar, a dog-eared
wallet, a tin watch, a patent cigar cutter, a pocket piece from a pickle
exhibit at the World's Fair in Chicago, and some cigar coupons.
The Rabbit handed him a large key on a rubber band.
"Put it on your ankle. Next," he yawned.
And then Mr. Braddy stepped through the white door that, to him, led
into the land of adventure and achievement.
He found himself in a brightly lighted corridor pervaded by an aroma not
unlike the sort a Chinese hand laundry has. There were rows of little,
white doors, with numbers painted on them. Mr. Braddy began at once a
search for his own dressing room, No. 36; but after investigating the
main street and numerous side alleys, in a somewhat confused but
resolute frame of mind, he discovered that he was lost in a rabbit
warren of white woodwork. He found Nos. 96, 66, 46, and 6, but he could
not find No. 36. He tried entering one of the booths at random, but was
greeted with a not-too-cordial, "Hey, bo; wrong stall. Back out!" from
an ample gentleman made up as grandpa in the advertisements of Non-Skid
underwear. He tried bawling, "Service, li'l' service," and rapping on
the woodwork with his derby, but nothing happened, so he replaced his
hat on his head and resumed his search. He came to a door with no number
on it, pushed it open, and stepped boldly into the next room.
Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat--it was the shower bath
on Mr. Braddy's hat.
"'Srainin'," he remarked affably.
An attendant, clad in short, white running pants, spied him and came
bounding through the spray.
"Hey, mister, why don't you take your clothes off?"
"Can't find it," replied Mr. Braddy.
"Can't find what?" the attendant demanded.
"Thirry-sizz."
"Thirry sizz?"
"Yep, thirry-sizz."
"Aw, he means room number thoity-six," said a voice from under one of
the showers.
The attendant conducted Mr. Braddy up and down the white rabbit warren,
across an avenue, through a lane, and paused at last before No. 36. Mr.
Braddy went in, and the attendant followed.
"Undress you, mister?"
The Mr. Braddy of yesterday would have been too weak-willed to protest,
but the new Mr. Braddy was the master of his fate, the captain of his
soul, and he replied with some heat:
"Say, wadda you take me for? Can undress m'self." He did so, muttering
the while: "Undress me? Wadda they take me for? Wadda they take me for?"
Then he strode, a bit uncertainly, out into the corridor, pink,
enormous, his key dangling from his ankle like a ball and chain. The man
in the white running pants piloted Mr. Braddy into the hot room. Mr.
Braddy was delighted, intrigued by it. On steamer chairs reclined other
large men, stripped to their diamond rings, which glittered faintly in
the dim-lit room. They made guttural noises, as little rivulets glided
down the salmon-pink mounds of flesh, and every now and then they drank
water from large tin cups. Mr. Braddy seated himself in the hot room,
and tried to read a very damp copy of an evening paper, which he decided
was in a foreign language, until he discovered he was holding it upside
down.
An attendant approached and offered him a cup of water. The temptation
was to do the easy thing--to take the proffered cup; but Mr. Braddy
didn't want a drink of anything just then, so he waved it away,
remarking lightly, "Never drink water," and was rewarded by a battery of
bass titters from the pink mountains about him, who, it developed from
their conversation, were all very important persons, indeed, in the
world of finance. But in time Mr. Braddy began to feel unhappy. The heat
was making him ooze slowly away. Hell, he thought, must be like this. He
must act. He stood up.
"I doan like this," he bellowed. An attendant came in response to the
roar.
"What, you still in the hot room? Say, mister, it's a wonder you ain't
been melted to a puddle of gravy. Here, come with me. I'll send you
through the steam room to Gawge, and Gawge will give you a good rub."
He led Mr. Braddy to the door of the steam room, full of dense, white
steam.
"Hey, Gawge," he shouted.
"Hello, Al, wotja want?" came a voice faintly from the room beyond the
steam room.
"Oh, Gawge, catch thoity-six when he comes through," shouted Al.
He gave Mr. Braddy a little push and closed the door. Mr. Braddy found
himself surrounded by steam which seemed to be boiling and scalding his
very soul. He attempted to cry "Help," and got a mouthful of rich steam
that made him splutter. He started to make a dash in the direction of
Gawge's door, and ran full tilt into another mountain of avoirdupois,
which cried indignantly, "Hey, watch where you're going, will you? You
ain't back at dear old Yale, playing football." Mr. Braddy had a touch
of panic. This was serious. To be lost in a labyrinth of dressing rooms
was distressing enough, but here he was slowly but certainly being
steamed to death, with Gawge and safety waiting for him but a few feet
away. An idea! Firemen, trapped in burning buildings, he had read in the
newspapers, always crawl on their hands and knees, because the lower air
is purer. Laboriously he lowered himself to his hands and knees, and,
like a flabby pink bear, with all sense of direction gone, he started
through the steam.
"Hey!"
"Lay off me, guy!"
"Ouch, me ankle!"
"Wot's the big idea? This ain't no circus."
"Leggo me shin."
"Ouf!"
The "ouf" came from Mr. Braddy, who had been soundly kicked in the
mid-riff by an angry dweller in the steam room, whose ankle he had
grabbed as he careered madly but futilely around the room. Then,
success! The door! He opened it.
"Where's Gawge?" he demanded faintly.
"Well, I'll be damned! It's thoity-six back again!"
It was Al's voice; not Gawge. Mr. Braddy had come back to the same door
he started from!
He was unceremoniously thrust by Al back into the steaming hell from
which he had just escaped, and once more Al shouted across, "Hey, Gawge,
catch thoity-six when he comes through."
Mr. Braddy, on his hands and knees, steered as straight a course as he
could for the door that opened to Gawge and fresh air, but the
bewildering steam once again closed round him, and he butted the tumid
calves of one of the Moes and was roundly cursed. Veering to the left,
he bumped into the legs of another Moe so hard that this Moe went down
as if he had been submarined, a tangle of plump legs, arms, and
profanity. Mr. Braddy, in the confusion, reached the door and pushed it
open.
"Holy jumpin' mackerel! Thoity-six again! Say, you ain't supposed to
come back here. You're supposed to keep going straight across the steam
room to Gawge." It was Al, enraged.
Once more Mr. Braddy was launched into the steam room. How many times he
tried to traverse it--bear fashion--he never could remember, but it must
have been at least six times that he reappeared at the long-suffering
Al's door, and was returned, too steamed, now, to protest. Mr. Braddy's
new-found persistence was not to be denied, however, and ultimately he
reached the right door, to find waiting for him a large, genial soul who
was none other than Gawge, and who asked, with untimely facetiousness,
Mr. Braddy thought:
"Didja enjoy the trip?"
Gawge placed Mr. Braddy on a marble slab and scrubbed him with a large
and very rough brush, which made Mr. Braddy scream with laughter,
particularly when the rough bristles titillated the soles of his feet.
"Wot's the joke?" inquired Gawge.
"You ticker me," gasped Mr. Braddy.
He was rather enjoying himself now. It made him feel important to have
so much attention. But he groaned and gurgled a little when Gawge
attacked him with cupped hands and beat a tattoo up and down his spine
and all over his palpitating body. Wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop,
wop wop went Gawge's hands.
Then he rolled Mr. Braddy from the slab, like jelly from a mold. Mr.
Braddy jelled properly and was stood in a corner.
"All over?" he asked. Zizzzzzz! A stream of icy water struck him between
his shoulder blades.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" he cried. The stream, as if in response to his
outcries, immediately became boiling hot. First one, then the other
played on him. Then they stopped. An attendant appeared and dried Mr.
Braddy vigorously with a great, shaggy towel, and then led him to a
dormitory, where, on white cots, rows of Moes puffed and wheezed and
snored and dreamed dreams of great profits.
Mr. Braddy tumbled happily into his cot, boiled but triumphant. He had
taken a Turkish bath! The world was at his feet! He had made a decision!
He had acted on it! He had met the demon Timidity in fair fight and
downed him. He had been drunk, indubitably drunk, for the first and
last time. He assured himself that he never wanted to taste the stuff
again. But he couldn't help but feel that his one jamboree had made a
new man of him, opening new lands of adventure, showing him that "he
could if he would." As he buried his head in the pillow, he rehearsed
the speech he would make to Mr. Berger, the manager, in the morning.
Should he begin, "Mr. Berger, if you think I'm worth it, will you please
raise my pay five dollars a week?" No, by Heaven, a thousand noes! He
was worth it, and he would say so. Should he begin, "See here, Mr.
Berger, the time has come for you to raise my salary ten dollars?" No,
he'd better ask for twenty dollars while he was about it, and compromise
on ten dollars as a favor to his employers. But then, again, why stop at
twenty dollars? His sales in the rugs warranted much more. "I can have
thirty dollars, and I will," he said a number of times to the pillow.
Carefully he rehearsed his speech: "Now, see here, Berger----" and then
he was whirled away into a dream in which he saw a great hand take down
the big sign from the front of the Great Store, and put up in its place
a still larger sign, reading:
BRADDY'S GREATER STORE
Dry Goods and Turkish Baths
Hugh Braddy, Sole Prop.