Mr. Wimple achieved pathos... almost tragedy. To a trivial mind,
however, the effect might have been somewhat spoiled by the fact that
in his fervour he gesticulated wildly with the wooden paddle in one
hand and an undergarment belonging to Ronald in the other. The truly
sensitive soul would have seen these things as emphasizing his pathos.
Mrs. Wimple, when Mr. Wimple became lyric in his utterance, often had
the perverse impulse to answer him in a slangy vernacular which, if
not actually coarse, was not, on the other hand, the dialect of the
aesthete. For some months now, she had noticed, whenever Ferdinand took
out his soul and petted it verbally, she had had the desire to lacerate
it with uncouth parts of speech. Ordinarily she frowned on slang; but
when Ferdinand's soul leaped into the arena she found slang a weapon
strangely facile to her clutch.
“Coming down to brass tacks on this money thing, Ferdy,” said Mrs.
Wimple, “you're not the downy peach you picture in the ads. I'll tell
the world you're not! You kid yourself, Ferdy. Some of your bloom has
been removed, Ferdy. Don't go so far upstage when you speak to me about
the dross the world calls gold. The reason we can't afford a maid now
is because you got swell-headed and kicked over that perfectly good
magazine job you used to have. You thought you were going to get more
limelight and more money on the lecture platform. But you've been a
flivver in the big time. Your message sounds better to a flock of women
in somebody's sitting room full of shaded candles and samovars, with
firelight on the antique junk, than it does in Carnegie Hall. You've got
the voice for the big spaces all right, but the multitude doesn't
get any loaves and fishes from you. Punk sticks and _nuances_
--the _intime_ stuff--that's your speed, Ferdy. I don't want to put any
useless dents into your bean, but that message of yours has been hinted
at by other messengers. 1 stick around home here and take care of the
kids, and I've never let out a yell before. And you trot around to your
soul fights and tea fests and feed your message to a bunch of dolled-up
dames that don't even know you have a wife. I'm not jealous... you
couldn't drag me into one of those perfumed literary dives by the hair
... I got fed up with that stuff years ago. But as long as we're without
a maid because you won't stick to a steady job, you'll do your share of
the rough stuff around the house. I'll say you will! You used to be a
good sport about that sort of thing, Ferdy, but it looks to me as if
you were getting spoiled rotten. You've had a rush of soul to the mouth,
Ferdy. Those talcum-powder seances of yours have gone to your head. You
take those orgies of refinement too seriously. You begin to look to me
like you had a streak of yellow in you, Ferdy... and if I ever see
it so plain I'm sure of it, I'll leave you flat. I'll quit you, Ferdy,
twins and all.”
“Quit, then!” cried Mr. Wimple.
And then the harplike voice burst into song again, an offering rich with
rage:
“Woman!
So help me all the gods,
I'm through!
Twins or no twins,
Elinor Wimple,
I'm through!
By all the gods,
I'll never wash another dish,
Nor yet another set of underwear!”
And Mr. Wimple, in his heat, brought down the wooden paddle upon the
pile of dishes in the sink, in front of his wife. The crash of the
broken china seemed to augment his rage, rather than relieve it, and he
raised the paddle for a second blow.
“Ferd!” cried his wife, and caught at the stick.
Mr. Wimple, the aesthete, grabbed her by the arm and strove to loosen
her grasp upon the paddle.
“You're bruising my arm!” she cried. But she did not release the stick.
Neither did Ferdinand release her wrist. Perhaps he twisted it all the
harder because she struggled, and was not conscious that he was doing
so... perhaps he twisted it harder quite consciously. At any rate, she
suddenly swung upon him, with her free hand, and slapped him across the
face with her wet dishcloth.
At that they started apart, both more than a little appalled to realize
that they had been engaged in something resembling a fight.
Without another word the bird of song withdrew to smooth his ruffled
plumage. He dressed himself carefully, and left the apartment without
speaking to his wife again. He felt that he had not had altogether the
best of the argument. There was no taste of soap in his mouth, for
he had washed his lips and even brushed his teeth... and yet,
psychically, as he might have said himself, he still tasted that
dishcloth.
But he had not walked far before some of his complacence returned. He
removed his hat and ran his fingers through his interesting hair, and
began to murmur lyrically:
“By Jove!