I have dealt at length with our adventures at Fifth Avenue auction
houses when we were amassing the furnishings for our Italian rooms and
our Italian hallway. But I forgot to make mention of the many friends we
encountered at the salesrooms--people who always before had seemed to us
entirely normal, but now were plainly to be recognized for devotees of
the same passion for bidding-in which had lain its insidious clutches
upon us. I recall one victim in particular, a young woman whom I shall
call Maude because that happens to be her name.
Theretofore this Maude lady had impressed mo as being one of the sanest,
most competent females of my entire acquaintance--good-looking, witty
and with a fine sense of proportion. Yet behold, here she was, balanced
on the edge of a folding chair in an overheated, overcrowded room, her
eyes feverish with a fanatical light, a printed catalogue clutched in
her left hand and her right ready to go up in signal to the hypnotic
gentleman on the auctioneer's block. At a glance we knew the symptoms
because in them we saw duplicated our own. We knew exactly what ailed
her: She was bidding on various articles, not because she particularly
wanted them, but because she feared unless she bought them some stranger
might.
After the sale had ended and her excitement--and ours--had abated we
exchanged confidences touching on our besetting mania.
“Just coming and buying something that I wish afterward I hadn't bought
isn't the worst of it,” she owned. “That is destructive only to my
spending allowance. My chief trouble is that I've gotten so I can't bear
to think of spending my afternoons anywhere except at this place or one
of the places like it. And if there happen to be two sales going the
same day at different shops I'm perfectly miserable. All the time I'm
sitting in one I'm distracted by the thought that possibly I'm missing
some perfectly wonderful bargain at the other. Sometimes I suspect that
my intellect is beginning to give way under the strain, and then again
I'm sure I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown. My husband has his own
diagnosis. He says I'm just plain nutty, as he vulgarly expresses it. He
has taken to calling me Nutchita, which he says is Spanish for a little
nut. You know since Scott came back from South America he just adores to
show off the Spanish he learned. He loves to tell how he went to a
bull fight down there and saw the gallant mandatory stab the charging
parabola to the heart with his shining bolero or whatever you call it.
“He says there is no hope of curing me and he appreciates the fact that
teams of horses couldn't drag me away from these auction rooms, but he
suggested that maybe we might be saved from spending our last days at
the almshouse if before I started out on my mad career each afternoon
I'd get somebody to muffle me and tie my arms fast so I couldn't bid on
anything. But even if I couldn't speak or gesticulate I could still
nod, so I suppose that wouldn't help. Besides, as I said to him, I would
probably attract a good deal of attention riding down Fifth Avenue with
my hands tied behind my back and a gag in my mouth. But he says he'd
much rather I were made conspicuous now than that I should be even
more conspicuous later on at a feeble-minded institute; he says they'd
probably keep me in a strait-jacket anyhow after I reached the violent
stage and that I might as well begin getting used to the feeling now.
“All joking aside, though, I really did have a frightful experience last
winter,” she continued. “There was a sale of desirable household effects
advertised to take place up at Blank's on West Forty-fifth Street and of
course I went. I've spent so much of my time at Blank's these last
few months I suppose people are beginning to think I live there. Well,
anyway, I was one of the first arrivals and just as I got settled the
auctioneer put up a basket; a huge, fiat, curious-looking, wickerwork
affair, it was. You never in all your life saw such a basket! It was
too big for a soiled-clothes hamper and besides wasn't the right shape.
And it was too flat to store things in and it didn't have any top on it
either. I suppose you would just call it a kind of a basket.
“Well, the man put it up and asked for bids on it, but nobody bid; and
then the auctioneer looked right at me in an appealing sort of way--I
feel that everybody connected with the shop is an old friend of mine by
now, and especially the auctioneer--so when he looked in my direction
with that yearning expression in his eye I bid a dollar just to start
it off for him. And what do you think? Before you could say scat he'd
knocked it down to me for a dollar. I just hate people who catch you
up suddenly that way! It discouraged me so that after that the sale was
practically spoiled for me. I didn't have the courage to bid on another
thing the whole afternoon.
“When the sale was over I went back to the packing room to get a good
look at what I'd bought. And, my dear, what do you suppose? I hadn't
bought a single basket--that would have been bad enough--but no. I'd
bought a job lot, comprising the original basket and its twin sister
that was exactly like it, only homelier if anything, and on top of that
an enormous square wooden box painted a bright green with a great lock
fastening the lid down. That wretch of an auctioneer had deliberately
taken a shameful advantage of me. How was I to know I was bidding in a
whole wagonload of trash? Obtaining money under false pretenses, that's
what I call it.
“Well, I stood aghast--or perhaps I should say I leaned aghast, because
the shock was so great I felt I had to prop myself up against something.
Why, the box alone must have weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. It
didn't seem to be the sort of box you could put anything in either. It
wouldn't do for a wood box or a coal box or a dog house or anything. It
was just as useless as the baskets were, and they were nothing more nor
less than two orders of willow-ware on the half shell. Even if they
had been of any earthly use, what could I do with them in the tiny
three-room apartment that we were occupying last winter? Isn't it
perfectly shameful the way these auction-room people impose on the
public? They don't make any exceptions either. Here was I, a regular
customer, and just see what they had done to me, all because I'm so
good-natured and sympathetic. I declare sometimes I'm ready to take a
solemn oath I'll never do another favor for anybody so long as I live.
It's the selfish ones who get along in this world!
“Well, when I realized what a scandalous trick had been played on me I
was seized with a wild desire to get away. I decided I would try to slip
out. But the manager had his eye on me. You know the rule they have:
'Claim all purchases and arrange for their removal before leaving
premises, otherwise goods will be stored at owner's risk and cost.' And
he called me back and told me my belongings were ready to be taken away
and would I kindly get them out of the house at once because they took
up so much room. Room? They took up all the room there was. You had to
step into one of the baskets to get into the place and climb over the
box to get out again.
“I asked him how I was going to get those things up to my address and
he suggested a taxi. I told him I would just run out and find a taxi,
meaning, of course, to forget to come back. But he told me not to bother
because there was a taxi at the door that had been ordered to come for
somebody else and then wasn't needed. And before I could think up any
other excuse to escape he'd called the taxi driver in. And the taxi
man took one look at my collection of junk and then he asked us if we
thought he was driving a moving van or a Noah's ark and laughed in a
low-bred way and went out.
“At that I had a faint ray of hope that maybe after all I might be
saved, because I had made up my mind to tell the manager I would just
step outside and arrange to hire a delivery wagon or something, and that
would give me a chance to escape; but I think he must have suspected
something from my manner because already he was calling in another taxi
driver from off the street, and there I was, trapped. And the driver
of the second taxi was more accommodating than the other one had been,
though goodness knows his goodness of heart was no treat to me. I should
have regarded it as a personal kindness on his part if he had behaved
as the first driver had done. But no, nothing would do but that he must
load that ghastly monstrosity of a box up alongside him on the rack
where they carry trunks, and two of the packing-room men tied it on with
ropes so it couldn't fall off and get lost. I suppose they thought by
that they were doing me a favor! And then I got in the cab feeling like
Marie Antoinette on her way to be beheaded, and they piled those two
baskets in on top of me and the end of one of them stuck out so far that
they couldn't get the door shut but had to leave it open. And then we
rode home, only I didn't feel like Marie Antoinette any more; I felt
like something that was being delivered in a crate and had come partly
undone on the way.
“And when we got up to Eighty-ninth Street that bare-faced robber of
a taxicab driver charged me two extra fares--just think of such things
being permitted to go on in a city where the police are supposed to
protect people! And then he unloaded all that mess on the sidewalk in
front of the apartment house and drove off and left me there standing
guard over it--probably the forlornest, most helpless object in all New
York at that moment.
“I got one of the hallboys to call the janitor up from the basement
and I asked him if he would be good enough to store my box and my two
baskets in the storeroom where the tenants keep their trunks. And he
said not on my life he wouldn't, because there wasn't any room to spare
in the trunk room and then he asked me what I was going to do with all
that truck anyway, and though it was none of his business I thought it
would be tactful to make a polite answer and I told him I hadn't exactly
decided yet and that I certainly would appreciate his kindness if he
could just tuck my things away in some odd corner somewhere until I had
fully made up my mind. While I was saying that I was giving him one of
my most winning smiles, though it hurt like the toothache to smile under
the circumstances and considering what I'd already been through.
“But all he said was: 'Huh, lady, you couldn't tuck them things away
at Times Square and Forty-third Street and that's the biggest corner I
knows of in this town.'
“The impudent scoundrel wouldn't relent a mite either, until I'd given
him a dollar for a tip, and then he did agree to keep the baskets in
the coal cellar for a couple of days but no longer. But he absolutely
refused to take the box along too, so I had to have it sent upstairs to
the apartment and put in the bedroom because it was too big to go in
the hall. And when the men got it in the bedroom I could hardly get in
myself to take off my hat. And after that I sat down and cried a little,
because really I was frightfully upset, and moreover I had a feeling
that when Scott came home he would be sure to try to be funny. You know
how husbands are, being one yourself!
“Sure enough, when he came in the first thing he saw was that box. He
couldn't very well help seeing it because he practically fell over it
as he stepped in the door. He said: 'What's this?' and I said: 'It's a
box'--just like that. And he said: 'What kind of a box?' And I didn't
like his tone and I said: 'A green box. I should think anybody would
know that much.' And he said: 'Ah, indeed,' several times in a most
aggravating way and walked round it. He couldn't walk all the way round
it on account of the wall being in the way; but as far round it as he
could walk without bumping into the wall. And he looked at it and felt
it with his hand and kicked it once or twice and then he sniffed and
said: 'And what's it for?' And I said: 'To put things in.' And he said:
'For instance, what?'
“Now I despise for people to be so technical round me, and besides,
of all the words in the English language I most abhor those words 'for
instance'; but I kept my temper even if I was boiling inside and I said:
'It's to put things in that you haven't any other place to put them
in.' Which was ungrammatical, I admit, but the best I could do under
the prevalent conditions. And then he looked at me until I could have
screamed, and he said: 'Maude, where did you get that damned thing?'
And I said it wasn't a damned thing but a perfectly good box made out of
wood and painted green and everything; and that I'd got it at an auction
sale for a dollar and that I considered it a real bargain. I didn't feel
called on to tell him about the two baskets down in the coal cellar just
yet. So I didn't mention them; and anyhow, heaven knows I was sick and
tired of the whole subject and ready to drop it, but he kept on looking
at it and sniffing and asking questions. Some people have no idea how
a great strong brute of a man can nag a weak defenseless woman to
desperation when he deliberately sets out to do it.
“Finally I said: 'Well, even if you don't like the box I think it's
a perfectly splendid box, and look what a good strong lock it has on
it--surely that's worth something.' And he said: 'Well, let's see about
that--where's the key?' And, my dear, then it dawned on me that I didn't
have any key!
“Well, a person can stand just so much and no more. I'm a patient
long-suffering woman and I've always been told that I had a wonderful
disposition, but there are limits. And when he burst out laughing and
wouldn't stop laughing but kept right on and laughed and laughed and
leaned up against something and laughed some more until you could have
heard him in the next block--why then, all of a sudden something seemed
to give way inside of me and I burst out crying--I couldn't hold in
another second--and I told him that I'd never speak to him again the
longest day he lived and that he could go to Halifax or some other place
beginning with the same initial and take the old box with him for all I
cared; and just as I burst out of the room I heard him say: 'No, madam,
when I married you I agreed to support you, but I didn't engage to take
care of any air-tight, burglar-proof, pea-green box the size of a circus
cage!' And I suppose he thought that was being funny, too. A perverted
sense of humor is an awful cross to bear--in a husband!
“So I went and lay down on the living-room couch with a raging,
splitting, sick headache and I didn't care whether I lived or died, but
on the whole rather preferred dying. After a little he came in, trying
to hold his face straight, and begged my pardon. And I told him I would
forgive him if he would do just two things. And he asked me what those
two things were and I told him one was to quit snickering like an idiot
every few moments and the other was never to mention boxes to me again
as long as he lived. And he promised on his solemn word of honor he
wouldn't, but he said I must bear with him if he smiled a little bit
once in a while as the evening wore on, because when he did that he
would be thinking about something very funny that had happened at the
office that day and not thinking about what I would probably think he
was thinking about at all. And then he said how about running down to
the Plaza for a nice little dinner and I said yes, and after dinner I
felt braced up and strong enough to break the news to him about the two
baskets.
“And he didn't laugh; in justice to him I must say that much for him.
He didn't laugh. Only he choked or something, and had a very severe
coughing spell. And then we went home and while he was undressing he
fell over the box and barked his shins on it, and though it must have
been a strain on him he behaved like a gentleman and swore only a
little.
“But, my dear, the worst was yet to come! The next day I had to arrange
to send the whole lot to storage because we simply couldn't go on living
with that box in the only bedroom we had; and the bill for cartage came
to two dollars and a quarter. After I had seen them off to the storage
warehouse I tried to forget all about them. As a matter of fact they
never crossed my mind again until we moved out to the country in April
and then I suddenly remembered about them--getting a bill for three
months' storage at two dollars a month may have had something to do with
bringing them forcibly to my memory--and I telephoned in and asked the
manager of the storage warehouse if he please wouldn't give them to
somebody and he said he didn't know anybody who would have all that junk
as a gift. So it seemed to me the best thing and the most economical
thing to do would be to pay the bill to date and bring them on out to
the place.
“But, as it turned out, that was a financial mistake, too. Because what
with sending the truck all the way into town, thirty-eight miles and
back again, and the wear and tear on the tires and the gasoline and the
man's time who drove the truck and what Scott calls the overhead--though
I don't see what he means by that because it is an open truck without
any top to it at all--we figure, or rather Scott does, that the cost of
getting them out to the country came to fourteen dollars.
“And we still have them, and if you should happen to know of anybody
or should meet anybody who'd like to have two very large roomy wicker
baskets and a very well-made wooden box painted in all-over design in
a very good shade of green and which may contain something valuable,
because I haven't been able to open it yet to find out what's inside,
and with a lock that goes with it, I wish you'd tell them that they can
send up to our place and get them any time that is convenient to them.
Or if they don't live too far away I'd be very glad to send the things
over to them. Only I'd like for them to decide as soon as possible
because the gardener, who is Swedish and awfully fussy, keeps coming in
every few days and complaining about them and asking why I don't have
them moved out of the greenhouse, which is where we are keeping them
for the present, and put some other place where they won't be forever
getting in his way. Only there doesn't seem to be any other suitable
place to keep them in unless we build a shed especially for that
purpose. Isn't it curious that sometimes on a hundred-acre farm there
should be so little spare room? I should hate to go to the added expense
of building that shed, and so, as I was saying just now, if you should
happen upon any one who could use those baskets and that box please
don't forget to tell them about my offer.”