IV

The guests were assembled as usual. The oatmeal course had been eaten in

silence. In the Idiot's eye there was a cold glitter of expectancy--a

glitter that boded ill for the man who should challenge him to

controversial combat--and there seemed also to be, judging from sundry

winks passed over the table and kicks passed under it, an understanding

to which he and the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed were

parties.

As the School-master sampled his coffee the genial gentleman who

occasionally imbibed broke the silence.

"I missed you at the concert last night, Mr. Idiot," said he.

"Yes," said the Idiot, with a caressing movement of the hand over his

upper lip; "I was very sorry, but I couldn't get around last night. I

had an engagement with a number of friends at the athletic club. I

meant to have dropped you a line in the afternoon telling you about it,

but I forgot it until it was too late. Was the concert a success?"

"Very successful indeed. The best one, in fact, we have had this season,

which makes me regret all the more deeply your absence," returned the

genial gentleman, with a suggestion of a smile playing about his lips.

"Indeed," he added, "it was the finest one I've ever seen."

"The finest one you've what?" queried the School-master, startled at the

verb.

"The finest one I've ever seen," replied the genial gentleman. "There

were only ten performers, and really, in all my experience as an

attendant at concerts, I never saw such a magnificent rendering of

Beethoven as we had last night. I wish you could have been there. It was

a sight for the gods."

"I don't believe," said the Idiot, with a slight cough that may have

been intended to conceal a laugh--and that may also have been the result

of too many cigarettes--"I don't believe it could have been any more

interesting than a game of pool I heard at the club."

"It appears to me," said the Bibliomaniac to the School-master, "that

the popping sounds we heard late last night in the Idiot's room may have

some connection with the present mode of speech these two gentlemen

affect."

"Let's hear them out," returned the School-master, "and then we'll take

them into camp, as the Idiot would say."

"I don't know about that," replied the genial gentleman. "I've seen a

great many concerts, and I've heard a great many good games of pool, but

the concert last night was simply a ravishing spectacle. We had a Cuban

pianist there who played the orchestration of the first act of

_Parsifal_ with surprising agility. As far as I could see, he didn't

miss a note, though it was a little annoying to observe how he used the

pedals."

"Too forcibly, or how?" queried the Idiot.

"Not forcibly enough," returned the Imbiber. "He tried to work them both

with one foot. It was the only thing to mar an otherwise marvellous

performance. The idea of a man trying to display Wagner with two hands

and one foot is irritating to a musician with a trained eye."

[Illustration: "'WEREN'T YOUR EARS LONG ENOUGH?'"]

"I wish the Doctor would come down," said Mrs. Smithers, anxiously.

"Yes," put in the School-master; "there seems to be madness in our

midst."

"Well, what can you expect of a Cuban, anyhow?" queried the Idiot. "The

Cuban, like the Spaniard or the Italian or the African, hasn't the vigor

which is necessary for the proper comprehension and rendering of

Wagner's music. He is by nature slow and indolent. If it were easier for

a Spaniard to hop than to walk, he'd hop, and rest his other leg. I've

known Italians whose diet was entirely confined to liquids, because they

were too tired to masticate solids. It is the ease with which it can be

absorbed that makes macaroni the favorite dish of the Italians, and the

fondness of all Latin races for wines is entirely due, I think, to the

fact that wine can be swallowed without chewing. This indolence affects

also their language. The Italian and the Spaniard speak the language

that comes easy--that is soft and dreamy; while the Germans and

Russians, stronger, more energetic, indulge in a speech that even to

us, who are people of an average amount of energy, is sometimes

appalling in the severity of the strain it puts upon the tongue. So,

while I do not wonder that your Cuban pianist showed woful defects in

his use of the pedals, I do wonder that, even with his surprising

agility, he had sufficient energy to manipulate the keys to the

satisfaction of so competent a witness as yourself."

"It was too bad; but we made up for it later," asserted the other.

"There was a young girl there who gave us some of Mendelssohn's Songs

without Words. Her expression was simply perfect. I wouldn't have missed

it for all the world; and now that I think of it, in a few days I can

let you see for yourself how splendid it was. We persuaded her to encore

the songs in the dark, and we got a flash-light photograph of two of

them."

"Oh! then it was not on the piano-forte she gave them?" said the Idiot.

"Oh no; all labial," returned the genial gentleman.

Here Mr. Whitechoker began to look concerned, and whispered something to

the School-master, who replied that there were enough others present to

cope with the two parties to the conversation in case of a violent

outbreak.

"I'd be very glad to see the photographs," replied the Idiot. "Can't I

secure copies of them for my collection? You know I have the complete

rendering of 'Home, Sweet Home' in kodak views, as sung by Patti. They

are simply wonderful, and they prove what has repeatedly been said by

critics, that, in the matter of expression, the superior of Patti has

never been seen."

"I'll try to get them for you, though I doubt it can be done. The artist

is a very shy young girl, and does not care to have her efforts given

too great a publicity until she is ready to go into music a little more

deeply. She is going to read the 'Moonlight Sonata' to us at our next

concert. You'd better come. I'm told her gestures bring out the

composer's meaning in a manner never as yet equalled."

[Illustration: "'THE CORKS POPPED TO SOME PURPOSE LAST NIGHT'"]

"I'll be there; thank you," returned the Idiot. "And the next time those

fellows at the club are down for a pool tournament I want you to come up

and hear them play. It was extraordinary last night to hear the balls

dropping one by one--click, click, click--as regularly as a metronome,

into the pockets. One of the finest shots, I am sorry to say, I missed."

"How did it happen?" asked the Bibliomaniac. "Weren't your ears long

enough?"

"It was a kiss shot, and I couldn't hear it," returned the Idiot.

"I think you men are crazy," said the School-master, unable to contain

himself any longer.

"So?" observed the Idiot, calmly. "And how do we show our insanity?"

"Seeing concerts and hearing games of pool."

"I take exception to your ruling," returned the Imbiber. "As my friend

the Idiot has frequently remarked, you have the peculiarity of a great

many men in your profession, who think because they never happened to

see or do or hear things as other people do, they may not be seen, done,

or heard at all. I _saw_ the concert I attended last night. Our musical

club has rooms next to a hospital, and we have to give silent concerts

for fear of disturbing the patients; but we are all musicians of

sufficient education to understand by a glance of the eye what you would

fail to comprehend with fourteen ears and a microphone."

"Very well said," put in the Idiot, with a scornful glance at the

School-master. "And I literally heard the pool tournament. I was dining

in a room off the billiard-hall, and every shot that was made, with the

exception of the one I spoke of, was distinctly audible. You gentlemen,

who think you know it all, wouldn't be able to supply a bureau of

information at the rate of five minutes a day for an hour on a holiday.

Let's go up-stairs," he added, turning to the Imbiber, "where we may

discuss our last night's entertainment apart from this atmosphere of

rarefied learning. It makes me faint."

And the Imbiber, who was with difficulty keeping his lips in proper

form, was glad enough to accept the invitation. "The corks popped to

some purpose last night," he said, later on.

"Yes," said the Idiot; "for a conspiracy there's nothing so helpful as

popping corks."

V

"When you get through with the fire, Mr. Pedagog," observed the Idiot,

one winter's morning, noticing that the ample proportions of the

School-master served as a screen to shut off the heat from himself and

the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed, "I wish you would let us

have a little of it. Indeed, if you could conveniently spare so little

as one flame for my friend here and myself, we'd be much obliged."

"It won't hurt you to cool off a little, sir," returned the

School-master, without moving.

"No, I am not so much afraid of the injury that may be mine as I am

concerned for you. If that fire should melt our only refrigerating

material, I do not know what our good landlady would do. Is it true, as

the Bibliomaniac asserts, that Mrs. Smithers leaves all her milk and

butter in your room overnight, relying upon your coolness to keep them

fresh?"

"I never made any such assertion," said the Bibliomaniac, warmly.

"I am not used to having my word disputed," returned the Idiot, with a

wink at the genial old gentleman.

"But I never said it, and I defy you to prove that I said it," returned

the Bibliomaniac, hotly.

"You forget, sir," said the Idiot, coolly, "that you are the one who

disputes my assertion. That casts the burden of proof on your shoulders.

Of course if you can prove that you never said anything of the sort, I

withdraw; but if you cannot adduce proofs, you, having doubted my word,

and publicly at that, need not feel hurt if I decline to accept all that

you say as gospel."

"You show ridiculous heat," said the School-master.

"Thank you," returned the Idiot, gracefully. "And that brings us back to

the original proposition that you would do well to show a little

yourself."

"Good-morning, gentlemen," said Mrs. Smithers, entering the room at

this moment. "It's a bright, fresh morning."

"Like yourself," said the School-master, gallantly.

"Yes," added the Idiot, with a glance at the clock, which registered

8.45--forty-five minutes after the breakfast hour--"very like Mrs.

Smithers--rather advanced."

To this the landlady paid no attention; but the School-master could not

refrain from saying,

"Advanced, and therefore not backward, like some persons I might name."

"Very clever," retorted the Idiot, "and really worth rewarding. Mrs.

Smithers, you ought to give Mr. Pedagog a receipt in full for the past

six months."

"Mr. Pedagog," returned the landlady, severely, "is one of the gentlemen

who always have their receipts for the past six months."

"Which betrays a very saving disposition," accorded the Idiot. "I wish I

had all I'd received for six months. I'd be a rich man."

[Illustration: "'IF YOU COULD SPARE SO LITTLE AS ONE FLAME'"]

"Would you, now?" queried the Bibliomaniac. "That is interesting enough.

How men's ideas differ on the subject of wealth! Here is the Idiot

would consider himself rich with $150 in his pocket--"

"Do you think he gets as much as that?" put in the School-master,

viciously. "Five dollars a week is rather high pay for one of his--"

"Very high indeed," agreed the Idiot. "I wish I got that much. I might

be able to hire a two-legged encyclopædia to tell me everything, and

have over $4.75 a week left to spend on opera, dress, and the poor but

honest board Mrs. Smithers provides, if my salary was up to the $5 mark;

but the trouble is men do not make the fabulous fortunes nowadays with

the ease with which you, Mr. Pedagog, made yours. There are, no doubt,

more and greater opportunities to-day than there were in the olden time,

but there are also more men trying to take advantage of them. Labor in

the business world is badly watered. The colleges are turning out more

men in a week nowadays than the whole country turned out in a year forty

years ago, and the quality is so poor that there has been a general

reduction of wages all along the line. Where does the struggler for

existence come in when he has to compete with the college-bred youth

who, for fear of not getting employment anywhere, is willing to work for

nothing? People are not willing to pay for what they can get for

nothing."

"I am glad to hear from your lips so complete an admission," said the

School-master, "that education is downing ignorance."

"I am glad to know of your gladness," returned the Idiot. "I didn't

quite say that education was downing ignorance. I plead guilty to the

charge of holding the belief that unskilled omniscience interferes very

materially with skilled sciolism in skilled sciolism's efforts to make a

living."

"Then you admit your own superficiality?" asked the School-master,

somewhat surprised by the Idiot's command of syllables.

"I admit that I do not know it all," returned the Idiot. "I prefer to go

through life feeling that there is yet something for me to learn. It

seems to me far better to admit this voluntarily than to have it forced

home upon me by circumstances, as happened in the case of a college

graduate I know, who speculated on Wall Street, and lost the hundred

dollars that were subsequently put to a good use by the uneducated me."

"From which you deduce that ignorance is better than education?" queried

the School-master, scornfully.

"For an omniscient," returned the Idiot, "you are singularly

near-sighted. I have made no such deduction. I arrive at the conclusion,

however, that in the chase for the gilded shekel the education of

experience is better than the coddling of Alma Mater. In the

satisfaction--the personal satisfaction--one derives from a liberal

education, I admit that the sons of Alma Mater are the better off. I

never could hope to be so self-satisfied, for instance, as you are."

[Illustration: THE SCHOOL-MASTER AS A COOLER]

"No," observed the School-master, "you cannot raise grapes on a thistle

farm. Any unbiassed observer looking around this table," he added, "and

noting Mr. Whitechoker, a graduate of Yale; the Bibliomaniac, a son of

dear old Harvard; the Doctor, an honor man of Williams; our legal friend

here, a graduate of Columbia--to say nothing of myself, who was

graduated with honors at Amherst--any unbiassed observer seeing these, I

say, and then seeing you, wouldn't take very long to make up his mind as

to whether a man is better off or not for having had a collegiate

training."

"There I must again dispute your assertion," returned the Idiot. "The

unbiassed person of whom you speak would say, 'Here is this gray-haired

Amherst man, this book-loving Cambridge boy of fifty-seven years of age,

the reverend graduate of Yale, class of '55, and the other two learned

gentlemen of forty-nine summers each, and this poor ignoramus of an

Idiot, whose only virtue is his modesty, all in the same box.' And then

he would ask himself, 'In what way have these sons of Amherst, Yale,

Harvard, and so forth, the better of the unassuming Idiot?'"

"The same box?" said the Bibliomaniac. "What do you mean by that?"

"Just what I say," returned the Idiot. "The same box. All boarding, all

eschewing luxuries of necessity, all paying their bills with difficulty,

all sparsely clothed; in reality, all keeping Lent the year through.

'Verily,' he would say, 'the Idiot has the best of it, for he is

young.'"

And leaving them chewing the cud of reflection, the Idiot departed.

"I thought they were going to land you that time," said the genial

gentleman who occasionally imbibed, later; "but when I heard you use the

word 'sciolism,' I knew you were all right. Where did you get it?"

"My chief got it off on me at the office the other day. I happened in a

mad moment to try to unload some of my original observations on him

apropos of my getting to the office two hours late, in which it was my

endeavor to prove to him that the truly safe and conservative man was

always slow, and so apt to turn up late on occasions. He hopped about

the office for a minute or two, and then he informed me that I was an

18-karat sciolist. I didn't know what he meant, and so I looked it up."

"And what did he mean?"

"He meant that I took the cake for superficiality, and I guess he was

right," replied the Idiot, with a smile that was not altogether

mirthful.