CHAPTER IV

Madame Vasselitch took Serge by the hand.

"Come," she said, "you shall speak to my sons," and she

led him down the stairs towards the room of Halfoff and

Kwitoff.

"They are my sons," she said. "Olga is their sister. They

are working to save her."

Then she opened the door. Halfoff and Kwitoff were working

as Serge had seen them before, beside the crucible with

the blue flame on their faces.

They had not slept.

Madame Vasselitch spoke.

"He has seen Olga," she said. "It is to-day."

"We are too late," said Halfoff, and he groaned.

"Courage, brother," said Kwitoff. "She will not die till

sunrise. It is twilight now. We have still an hour. Let

us to work."

Serge looked at the brothers.

"Tell me," he said. "I do not understand."

Halfoff turned a moment from his work and looked at Serge.

"Brother," he said, "will you give your life?"

"Is it for Olga?" asked Serge.

"It is for her."

"I give it gladly," said Serge.

"Listen then," said Halfoff. "Our sister is condemned

for the killing of Popoff, inspector of police. She is

in the prison of the condemned, the house of the dead,

across the street. Her cell is there beside us. There is

only a wall between. Look--"

Halfoff as he spoke threw aside a curtain that hung across

the end of the room. Serge looked into blackness. It was

a tunnel.

"It leads to the wall of her cell," said Halfoff. "We

are close against the wall but we cannot shatter it. We

are working to make a bomb. No bomb that we can make is

hard enough. We can only try once. If it fails the noise

would ruin us. There is no second chance. We try our

bombs in the crucible. They crumble. They have no strength.

We are ignorant. We are only learning. We studied it in

the books, the forbidden books. It took a month to learn

to set the wires to fire the bomb. The tunnel was there.

We did not have to dig it. It was for my father, Vangorod

Vasselitch. He would not let them use it. He tapped a

message through the wall, 'Keep it for a greater need.'

Now it is his daughter that is there."

Halfoff paused. He was panting and his chest heaved.

There was perspiration on his face and his black hair

was wet.

"Courage, little brother," said Kwitoff. "She shall not

die."

"Listen," went on Halfoff. "The bomb is made. It is there

beside the crucible. It has power in it to shatter the

prison. But the wires are wrong. They do not work. There

is no current in them. Something is wrong. We cannot

explode the bomb."

"Courage, courage," said Kwitoff, and his hands were busy

among the wires before him. "I am working still."

Serge looked at the brothers.

"Is that the bomb?" he said, pointing at a great ball of

metal that lay beside the crucible.

"It is," said Halfoff.

"And the little fuse that is in the side of it fires it?

And the current from the wires lights the fuse?"

"Yes," said Halfoff.

The two brothers looked at Serge, for there was a meaning

in his voice and a strange look upon his face.

"If the bomb is placed against the wall and if the fuse

is lighted it would explode."

"Yes," said Halfoff despairingly, "but how? The fuse is

instantaneous. Without the wires we cannot light it. It

would be death."

Serge took the bomb in his hand. His face was pale.

"Let it be so!" he said. "I will give my life for hers."

He lifted the bomb in his hand. "I will go through the

tunnel and hold the bomb against the wall and fire it,"

he said. "Halfoff, light me the candle in the flame. Be

ready when the wall falls."

"No, no," said Halfoff, grasping Serge by the arm. "You

must not die!"

"My brother," said Kwitoff quietly, "let it be as he

says. It is for Russia!"

But as Halfoff turned to light the candle in the flame

there came a great knocking at the door above and the

sound of many voices in the street.

All paused.

Madame Vasselitch laid her hand upon her lips.

Then there came the sound as of grounded muskets on the

pavement of the street and a sharp word of command.

"Soldiers!" said Madame Vasselitch.

Kwitoff turned to his brother.

"This is the end," he said. "Explode the bomb here and

let us die together."

Suddenly Madame Vasselitch gave a cry.

"It is Olga's voice!" she said.

She ran to the door and opened it, and a glad voice was

heard crying.

"It is I, Olga, and I am free!"

"Free," exclaimed the brothers.

All hastened up the stairs.

Olga was standing before them in the hall and beside her

were the officers of the police, and in the street were

the soldiers. The students from above had crowded down

the stairs and with them were Itch, the serving man, and

Yump, the cook.

"I am free," cried Olga, "liberated by the bounty of the

Czar--Russia has declared war to fight for the freedom

of the world and all the political prisoners are free."

"Rah, rah!" cried the students. "War, war, war!"

"She is set free," said the officer who stood beside

Olga. "The charge of killing Popoff is withdrawn. No one

will be punished for it now."

"I never killed him," said Olga. "I swear it," and she

raised her hand.

"You never killed him!" exclaimed Serge with joy in his

heart. "You did not kill Popoff? But who did?"

"Defend us," said Yump, the cook. "Since there is to be

no punishment for it, I killed him myself."

"You!" they cried.

"It is so," said Yump. "I killed him beside the river.

It was to defend my honour."

"It was to defend her honour," cried the brothers. "She

has done well."

They clasped her hand.

"You destroyed him with a bomb?" they said.

"No," said Yump, "I sat down on him."

"Rah, rah, rah," said the students.

There was silence for a moment. Then Kwitoff spoke.

"Friends," he said, "the new day is coming. The dawn is

breaking. The moon is rising. The stars are setting. It

is the birth of freedom. See! we need it not!"--and as

he spoke he grasped in his hands the bomb with its still

unlighted fuse--"Russia is free. We are all brothers

now. Let us cast it at our enemies. Forward! To the

frontier! Live the Czar."

Movies and Motors, Men and Women

IV. Madeline of the Movies: A Photoplay done

back into Words

EXPLANATORY NOTE.

In writing this I ought to explain that I am a tottering

old man of forty-six. I was born too soon to understand

moving pictures. They go too fast. I can't keep up. In

my young days we used a magic lantern. It showed Robinson

Crusoe in six scenes. It took all evening to show them.

When it was done the hall was filled full with black

smoke and the audience quite unstrung with excitement.

What I set down here represents my thoughts as I sit in

front of a moving picture photoplay and interpret it as

best I can.

Flick, flick, flick! I guess it must be going to begin

now, but it's queer the people don't stop talking: how

can they expect to hear the pictures if they go on talking?

Now it's off. PASSED BY THE BOARD OF--. Ah, this looks

interesting--passed by the board of--wait till I adjust

my spectacles and read what it--

It's gone. Never mind, here's something else, let me

see--CAST OF CHARACTERS--Oh, yes--let's see who they

are--MADELINE MEADOWLARK, a young something--EDWARD

DANGERFIELD, a--a what? Ah, yes, a roo--at least, it's

spelt r-o-u-e, that must be roo all right--but wait till

I see what that is that's written across the top--MADELINE

MEADOWLARK; OR, ALONE IN A GREAT CITY. I see, that's the

title of it. I wonder which of the characters is alone.

I guess not Madeline: she'd hardly be alone in a place

like that. I imagine it's more likely Edward Dangerous

the Roo. A roo would probably be alone a great deal, I

should think. Let's see what the other characters are--JOHN

HOLDFAST, a something. FARMER MEADOWLARK, MRS. MEADOWLARK,

his Something--

Pshaw, I missed the others, but never mind; flick, flick,

it's beginning--What's this? A bedroom, eh? Looks like

a girl's bedroom--pretty poor sort of place. I wish the

picture would keep still a minute--in Robinson Crusoe it

all stayed still and one could sit and look at it, the

blue sea and the green palm trees and the black footprints

in the yellow sand--but this blamed thing keeps rippling

and flickering all the time--Ha! there's the girl

herself--come into her bedroom. My! I hope she doesn't

start to undress in it--that would be fearfully

uncomfortable with all these people here. No, she's not

undressing--she's gone and opened the cupboard. What's

that she's doing--taking out a milk jug and a glass--empty,

eh? I guess it must be, because she seemed to hold it

upside down. Now she's picked up a sugar bowl--empty,

too, eh?--and a cake tin, and that's empty--What on

earth does she take them all out for if they're empty?

Why can't she speak? I think--hullo--who's this coming

in? Pretty hard-looking sort of woman--what's she got in

her hand?--some sort of paper, I guess--she looks like

a landlady, I shouldn't wonder if--

Flick, flick! Say! Look there on the screen:

"YOU OWE ME

THREE WEEKS' RENT."

Oh, I catch on! that's what the landlady says, eh? Say!

That's a mighty smart way to indicate it isn't it? I was

on to that in a minute--flick, flick--hullo, the landlady's

vanished--what's the girl doing now--say, she's praying!

Look at her face! Doesn't she look religious, eh?

Flick, flick!

Oh, look, they've put her face, all by itself, on the

screen. My! what a big face she's got when you see it

like that.

She's in her room again--she's taking off her jacket--by

Gee! She _is_ going to bed! Here, stop the machine; it

doesn't seem--Flick, flick!

Well, look at that! She's in bed, all in one flick, and

fast asleep! Something must have broken in the machine

and missed out a chunk. There! she's asleep all right--looks

as if she was dreaming. Now it's sort of fading. I wonder

how they make it do that? I guess they turn the wick of

the lamp down low: that was the way in Robinson

Crusoe--Flick, flick!

Hullo! where on earth is this--farmhouse, I guess--must

be away upstate somewhere--who on earth are these people?

Old man--white whiskers--old lady at a spinning-wheel--see

it go, eh? Just like real! And a young man--that must be

John Holdfast--and a girl with her hand in his. Why!

Say! it's the girl, the same girl, Madeline--only what's

she doing away off here at this farm--how did she get

clean back from the bedroom to this farm? Flick, flick!

what's this?

"NO, JOHN, I CANNOT MARRY YOU.

I MUST DEVOTE MY LIFE

TO MY MUSIC."

Who says that? What music? Here, stop--

It's all gone. What's this new place? Flick, flick, looks

like a street. Say! see the street car coming along--well!

say! isn't that great? A street car! And here's Madeline!

How on earth did she get back from the old farm all in

a second? Got her street things on--that must be music

under her arm--I wonder where--hullo--who's this man in

a silk hat and swell coat? Gee! he's well dressed. See

him roll his eyes at Madeline! He's lifting his hat--I

guess he must be Edward Something, the Roo--only a roo

would dress as well as he does--he's going to speak to

her--

"SIR, I DO NOT KNOW YOU.

LET ME PASS."

Oh, I see! The Roo mistook her; he thought she was somebody

that he knew! And she wasn't! I catch on! It gets easy

to understand these pictures once you're on.

Flick, flick--Oh, say, stop! I missed a piece--where is

she? Outside a street door--she's pausing a moment

outside--that was lucky her pausing like that--it just

gave me time to read EMPLOYMENT BUREAU on the door. Gee!

I read it quick.

Flick, flick! Where is it now?--oh, I see, she's gone

in--she's in there--this must be the Bureau, eh? There's

Madeline going up to the desk.

"NO, WE HAVE TOLD YOU BEFORE,

WE HAVE NOTHING ..."

Pshaw! I read too slow--she's on the street again. Flick,

flick!

No, she isn't--she's back in her room--cupboard still

empty--no milk--no sugar--Flick, flick!

Kneeling down to pray--my! but she's religious--flick,

flick--now she's on the street--got a letter in her

hand--what's the address--Flick, flick!

Mr. Meadowlark

Meadow Farm

Meadow County

New York

Gee! They've put it right on the screen! The whole letter!

Flick, flick--here's Madeline again on the street with

the letter still in her hand--she's gone to a letter-box

with it--why doesn't she post it? What's stopping her?

"I CANNOT TELL THEM

OF MY FAILURE.

IT WOULD BREAK THEIR ..."

Break their what? They slide these things along altogether

too quick--anyway, she won't post it--I see--she's torn

it up--Flick, flick!

Where is it now? Another street--seems like everything

--that's a restaurant, I guess--say, it looks a swell

place--see the people getting out of the motor and going

in--and another lot right after them--there's Madeline

--she's stopped outside the window--she's looking in--it's

starting to snow! Hullo! here's a man coming along! Why,

it's the Roo; he's stopping to talk to her, and pointing

in at the restaurant--Flick, flick!

"LET ME TAKE YOU IN HERE

TO DINNER."

Oh, I see! The Roo says that! My! I'm getting on to the

scheme of these things--the Roo is going to buy her some

dinner! That's decent of him. He must have heard about

her being hungry up in her room--say, I'm glad he came

along. Look, there's a waiter come out to the door to

show them in--what! she won't go! Say! I don't understand!

Didn't it say he offered to take her in? Flick, flick!

"I WOULD RATHER DIE

THAN EAT IT."

Gee! Why's that? What are all the audience applauding

for? I must have missed something! Flick, flick!

Oh, blazes! I'm getting lost! Where is she now? Back in

her room--flick, flick--praying--flick, flick! She's out

on the street!--flick, flick!--in the employment bureau

--flick, flick!--out of it--flick--darn the thing! It

changes too much--where is it all? What is it all--?

Flick, flick!

Now it's back at the old farm--I understand that all

right, anyway! Same kitchen--same old man--same old

woman--she's crying--who's this?--man in a sort of

uniform--oh, I see, rural postal delivery--oh, yes, he

brings them their letters--I see--

"NO, MR. MEADOWLARK,

I AM SORRY,

I HAVE STILL NO LETTER

FOR YOU..."

Flick! It's gone! Flick, flick--it's Madeline's room

again--what's she doing?--writing a letter?--no, she's

quit writing--she's tearing it up--

"I CANNOT WRITE.

IT WOULD BREAK THEIR ..."

Flick--missed it again! Break their something or other

--Flick, flick!

Now it's the farm again--oh, yes, that's the young man

John Holdfast--he's got a valise in his hand--he must be

going away--they're shaking hands with him--he's saying

something--

"I WILL FIND HER FOR YOU

IF I HAVE TO SEARCH

ALL NEW YORK."

He's off--there he goes through the gate--they're waving

good-bye--flick--it's a railway depot--flick--it's New

York--say! That's the Grand Central Depot! See the people

buying tickets! My! isn't it lifelike?--and there's

John--he's got here all right--I hope he finds her room--

The picture changed--where is it now? Oh, yes, I see

--Madeline and the Roo--outside a street entrance to some

place--he's trying to get her to come in--what's that

on the door? Oh, yes, DANCE HALL--Flick, flick!

Well, say, that must be the inside of the dance hall

--they're dancing--see, look, look, there's one of the

girls going to get up and dance on the table.

Flick! Darn it!--they've cut it off--it's outside again

--it's Madeline and the Roo--she's saying something to

him--my! doesn't she look proud--?

"I WILL DIE RATHER THAN DANCE."

Isn't she splendid! Hear the audience applaud! Flick--it's

changed--it's Madeline's room again--that's the landlady

--doesn't she look hard, eh? What's this--Flick!

"IF YOU CANNOT PAY, YOU MUST

LEAVE TO-NIGHT."

Flick, flick--it's Madeline--she's out in the street--it's

snowing--she's sat down on a doorstep--say, see her

face, isn't it pathetic? There! They've put her face all

by itself on the screen. See her eyes move! Flick, flick!

Who's this? Where is it? Oh, yes, I get it--it's John--at

a police station--he's questioning them--how grave they

look, eh? Flick, flick!

"HAVE YOU SEEN A GIRL

IN NEW YORK?"

I guess that's what he asks them, eh? Flick, flick--

"NO, WE HAVE NOT."

Too bad--flick--it's changed again--it's Madeline on the

doorstep--she's fallen asleep--oh, say, look at that man

coming near to her on tiptoes, and peeking at her--why,

it's Edward, it's the Roo--but he doesn't waken her--what

does it mean? What's he after? Flick, flick--

Hullo--what's this?--it's night--what's this huge dark

thing all steel, with great ropes against the sky--it's

Brooklyn Bridge--at midnight--there's a woman on it!

It's Madeline--see! see! She's going to jump--stop her!

Stop her! Flick, flick--

Hullo! she didn't jump after all--there she is again on

the doorstep--asleep--how could she jump over Brooklyn

Bridge and still be asleep? I don't catch on--or, oh,

yes, I do--she _dreamed_ it--I see now, that's a great

scheme, eh?--shows her _dream_--

The picture's changed--what's this place--a saloon, I

guess--yes, there's the bartender, mixing drinks--men

talking at little tables--aren't they a tough-looking

lot?--see, that one's got a revolver--why, it's Edward

the Roo--talking with two men--he's giving them

money--what's this?--

"GIVE US A HUNDRED APIECE

AND WE'LL DO IT."

It's in the street again--Edward and one of the two toughs

--they've got little black masks on--they're sneaking

up to Madeline where she sleeps--they've got a big motor

drawn up beside them--look, they've grabbed hold of

Madeline--they're lifting her into the motor--help!

Stop! Aren't there any police?--yes, yes, there's a man

who sees it--by Gee! It's John, John Holdfast--grab

them, John--pshaw! they've jumped into the motor, they're

off!

Where is it now?--oh, yes--it's the police station again

--that's John, he's telling them about it--he's all out

of breath--look, that head man, the big fellow, he's

giving orders--

"INSPECTOR FORDYCE, TAKE YOUR

BIGGEST CAR AND TEN MEN.

IF YOU OVERTAKE THEM,

SHOOT AND SHOOT

TO KILL."

Hoorah! Isn't it great--hurry! don't lose a minute--see

them all buckling on revolvers--get at it, boys, get at

it! Don't lose a second--

Look, look--it's a motor--full speed down the street--look

at the houses fly past--it's the motor with the thugs--there

it goes round the corner--it's getting smaller, it's

getting smaller, but look, here comes another--my! it's

just flying--it's full of police--there's John in

front--Flick!

Now it's the first motor--it's going over a bridge--it's

heading for the country--say, isn't that car just flying

--Flick, flick!

It's the second motor--it's crossing the bridge too--hurry,

boys, make it go!--Flick, flick!

Out in the country--a country road--early daylight--see

the wind in the trees! Notice the branches waving? Isn't

it natural?--whiz! Biff! There goes the motor--biff!

There goes the other one--right after it--hoorah!

The open road again--the first motor flying along! Hullo,

what's wrong? It's slackened, it stops--hoorah! it's

broken down--there's Madeline inside--there's Edward the

Roo! Say! isn't he pale and desperate!

Hoorah! the police! the police! all ten of them in their

big car--see them jumping out--see them pile into the

thugs! Down with them! paste their heads off! Shoot them!

Kill them! isn't it great--isn't it educative--that's

the Roo--Edward--with John at his throat! Choke him,

John! Throttle him! Hullo, it's changed--they're in the

big motor--that's the Roo with the handcuffs on him.

That's Madeline--she's unbound and she's talking; say,

isn't she just real pretty when she smiles?

"YES, JOHN, I HAVE LEARNED THAT

I WAS WRONG TO PUT MY ART

BEFORE YOUR LOVE. I WILL

MARRY YOU AS SOON AS

YOU LIKE."

Flick, flick!

What pretty music! Ding! Dong! Ding! Dong! Isn't it soft

and sweet!--like wedding bells. Oh, I see, the man in

the orchestra's doing it with a little triangle and a

stick--it's a little church up in the country--see all

the people lined up--oh! there's Madeline! in a long

white veil--isn't she just sweet!--and John--

Flick, flack, flick, flack.

"BULGARIAN TROOPS ON THE

MARCH."

What! Isn't it over? Do they all go to Bulgaria? I don't

seem to understand. Anyway, I guess it's all right to go

now. Other people are going.

V. The Call of the Carburettor, or,

Mr. Blinks and his Friends

"First get a motor in your own eye and then you will

overlook more easily the motor in your brother's

eye."--Somewhere in the Bible.

"By all means let's have a reception," said Mrs. Blinks.

"It's the quickest and nicest way to meet our old friends

again after all these years. And goodness knows this

house is big enough for it"--she gave a glance as she

spoke round the big reception-room of the Blinkses'

residence--"and these servants seem to understand things

so perfectly it's no trouble to us to give anything.

Only don't let's ask a whole lot of chattering young

people that we don't know; let's have the older people,

the ones that can talk about something really worth

while."

"That's just what I say," answered Mr. Blinks--he was a

small man with insignificance written all over him--"let

me listen to people talk; that's what _I_ like. I'm not

much on the social side myself, but I do enjoy hearing

good talk. That's what I liked so much over in England.

All them--all those people that we used to meet talked

so well. And in France those ladies that run saloons on

Sunday afternoons--"

"Sallongs," corrected Mrs. Blinks. "It's sounded like it

was a G." She picked up a pencil and paper. "Well, then,"

she said, as she began to write down names, "we'll ask

Judge Ponderus--"

"Sure!" assented Mr. Blinks, rubbing his hands. "He's a

fine talker, if he'll come!"

"They'll all come," said his wife, "to a house as big as

this; and we'll ask the Rev. Dr. Domb and his wife--or,

no, he's Archdeacon Domb now, I hear--and he'll invite

Bishop Sollem, so they can talk together."

"That'll be good," said Mr. Blinks. "I remember years

and years ago hearing them two--those two, talking about

religion, all about the soul and the body. Man! It was

deep. It was clean beyond me. That's what I like to listen

to."

"And Professor Potofax from the college," went on Mrs.

Blinks. "You remember, the big stout one."

"I know," said her husband.

"And his daughter, she's musical, and Mrs. Buncomtalk,

she's a great light on woman suffrage, and Miss Scragg

and Mr. Underdone--they both write poetry, so they can

talk about that."

"It'll be a great treat to listen to them all," said Mr.

Blinks.

A week later, on the day of the Blinkses' reception,

there was a string of motors three deep along a line of

a hundred yards in front of the house.

Inside the reception rooms were filled.

Mr. Blinks, insignificant even in his own house, moved

to and fro among his guests.

Archdeacon Domb and Dean Sollem were standing side by

side with their heads gravely lowered, as they talked,

over the cups of tea that they held in their hands.

Mr. Blinks edged towards them.

"This'll be something pretty good," he murmured to himself

as he got within reach of their conversation.

"What do you do about your body?" the Archdeacon was

asking in his deep, solemn tones.

"Practically nothing," said the Bishop. "A little rub of

shellac now and then, but practically nothing."

"You wash it, of course?" asked Dr. Domb.

"Only now and again, but far less than you would think.

I really take very little thought for my body."

"Ah," said Dr. Domb reflectively, "I went all over mine

last summer with linseed oil."

"But didn't you find," said the Bishop, "that it got into

your pipes and choked your feed?"

"It did," said Dr. Domb, munching a bit of toast as he

spoke. "In fact, I have had a lot of trouble with my

feed ever since."

"Try flushing your pipes out with hot steam," said the

Bishop. Mr. Blinks had listened in something like dismay.

"Motor-cars!" he murmured. "Who'd have thought it?"

But at this moment a genial, hearty-looking person came

pushing towards him with a cheery greeting.

"I'm afraid I'm rather late, Blinks," he said.

"Delayed in court, eh, Judge?" said Blinks as he shook

hands.

"No, blew out a plug!" said the Judge. "Stalled me right

up."

"Blew out a plug!" exclaimed Dr. Domb and the Bishop,

deeply interested at once.

"A cracked insulator, I think," said the Judge.

"Possibly," said the Archdeacon very gravely, "the terminal

nuts of your dry battery were loose."

Mr. Blinks moved slowly away.

"Dear me!" he mused, "how changed they are."

It was a relief to him to edge his way quietly into

another group of guests where he felt certain that the

talk would be of quite another kind.

Professor Potofax and Miss Scragg and a number of others

were evidently talking about books.

"A beautiful book," the professor was saying. "One of

the best things, to my mind at any rate, that has appeared

for years. There's a chapter on the silencing of exhaust

gas which is simply marvellous."

"Is it illustrated?" questioned one of the ladies.

"Splendidly," said the professor. "Among other things

there are sectional views of check valves and flexible

roller bearings--"

"Ah, do tell me about the flexible bearings," murmured

Miss Scragg.

Mr. Blinks moved on.

Wherever he went among his guests, they all seemed stricken

with the same mania. He caught their conversation in

little scraps.

"I ran her up to forty with the greatest of ease, then

threw in my high speed and got seventy out of her without

any trouble."--"No, I simply used a socket wrench, it

answers perfectly."--"Yes, a solution of calcium chloride

is very good, but of course the hydrochloric acid in it

has a powerful effect on the metal."

"Dear me," mused Mr. Blinks, "are they all mad?"

Meantime, around his wife, who stood receiving in state

at one end of the room, the guests surged to and fro.

"So charmed to see you again," exclaimed one. "You've

been in Europe a long time, haven't you? Oh, mostly in

the south of England? Are the roads good? Last year my

husband and I went all through Shakespeare's country.

It's just delightful. They sprinkle it so thoroughly.

And Stratford-on-Avon itself is just a treat. It's all

oiled, every bit of it, except the little road by

Shakespeare's house; but we didn't go along that. Then

later we went up to the lake district: but it's not so

good: they don't oil it."

She floated away, to give place to another lady.

"In France every summer?" she exclaimed. "Oh, how perfectly

lovely. Don't you think the French cars simply divine?

My husband thinks the French body is far better modelled

than ours. He saw ever so many of them. He thought of

bringing one over with him, but it costs such a lot to

keep them in good order."

"The theatres?" said another lady. "How you must have

enjoyed them. I just love the theatres. Last week my

husband and I were at the _Palatial_--it's moving

pictures--where they have that film with the motor

collision running. It's just wonderful. You see the

motors going at full speed, and then smash right into

one another--and all the people killed--it's really fine."

"Have they all gone insane?" said Mr. Blinks to his wife

after the guests had gone.

"Dreadful, isn't it?" she assented. "I never was so bored

in my life."

"Why, they talk of nothing else but their motor-cars!"

said Blinks. "We've got to get a car, I suppose, living

at this distance from the town, but I'm hanged if I intend

to go clean crazy over it like these people."

And the guests as they went home talked of the Blinkses.

"I fear," said Dr. Domb to Judge Ponderus, "that Blinks

has hardly profited by his time in Europe as much as he

ought to have. He seems to have observed _nothing_. I

was asking him about the new Italian touring car that

they are using so much in Rome. He said he had never

noticed it. And he was there a month!"

"Is it possible?" said the Judge. "Where were his eyes?"

All of which showed that Mr. and Mrs. Blinks were in

danger of losing their friends for ever.

But it so happened that about three weeks later Blinks

came home to his residence in an obvious state of

excitement. His face was flushed and he had on a silly

little round cap with a glazed peak.

"Why, Clarence," cried his wife, "whatever is the matter?"

"Matter!" he exclaimed. "There isn't anything the matter!

I bought a car this morning, that's all. Say, it's a

beauty, a regular peach, four thousand with ten off. I

ran it clean round the shed alone first time. The chauffeur

says he never saw anybody get on to the hang of it so

quick. Get on your hat and come right down to the garage.

I've got a man waiting there to teach you to run it.

Hurry up!"

Within a week or two after that one might see the Blinkses

any morning, in fact every morning, out in their car!

"Good morning, Judge!" calls Blinks gaily as he passes,

"how's that carburettor acting?--Good morning. Archdeacon,

is that plug trouble of yours all right again?--Hullo,

Professor, let me pick you up and ride you up to the

college; oh, it's no trouble. What do you think of the

bearings of this car? Aren't they just dandy?"

And so Mr. Blinks has got all his friends back again.

After all, the great thing about being crazy is to be

all crazy together.

VI. The Two Sexes in Fives or Sixes.

A Dinner-party Study

"But, surely," exclaimed the Hostess, looking defiantly

and searchingly through the cut flowers of the centre-piece,

so that her eye could intimidate in turn all the five

men at the table, "one must admit that women are men's

equals in every way?"

The Lady-with-the-Bust tossed her head a little and

echoed, "Oh, surely!"

The Debutante lifted her big blue eyes a little towards

the ceiling, with the upward glance that stands for

innocence. She said nothing, waiting for a cue as to what

to appear to be.

Meantime the Chief Lady Guest, known to be in suffrage

work, was pinching up her lips and getting her phrases

ready, like a harpooner waiting to strike. She knew that

the Hostess meant this as an opening for her.

But the Soft Lady Whom Men Like toyed with a bit of bread

on the tablecloth (she had a beautiful hand) and smiled

gently. The other women would have called it a simper.

To the men it stood for profound intelligence.

The five men that sat amongst and between the ladies

received the challenge of the Hostess's speech and answered

it each in his own way.

From the Heavy Host at the head of the table there came

a kind of deep grunt, nothing more. He had heard this

same talk at each of his dinners that season.

There was a similar grunt from the Heavy Business Friend

of the Host, almost as broad and thick as the Host himself.

He knew too what was coming. He proposed to stand by his

friend, man for man. He could sympathise. The

Lady-with-the-Bust was his wife.

But the Half Man with the Moon Face, who was known to

work side by side with women on committees and who called

them "Comrades," echoed:

"Oh, surely!" with deep emphasis.

The Smooth Gentleman, there for business reasons, exclaimed

with great alacrity, "Women equal! Oh, rather!"

Last of all the Interesting Man with Long Hair, known to

write for the magazines--all of them--began at once:

"I remember once saying to Mrs. Pankhurst--" but was

overwhelmed in the general conversation before he could

say what it was he remembered saying to Mrs. Pankhurst.

In other words, the dinner-party, at about course number

seven, had reached the inevitable moment of the discussion

of the two sexes.

It had begun as dinner-parties do.

Everybody had talked gloomily to his neighbour, over the

oysters, on one drink of white wine; more or less brightly

to two people, over the fish, on two drinks; quite

brilliantly to three people on three drinks; and then

the conversation had become general and the European war

had been fought through three courses with champagne.

Everybody had taken an extremely broad point of view.

The Heavy Business Friend had declared himself absolutely

impartial and had at once got wet with rage over cotton.

The Chief Lady Guest had explained that she herself was

half English on her mother's side, and the Lady-with-

the-Bust had told how a lady friend of hers had a cousin

who had travelled in Hungary. She admitted that it was

some years ago. Things might have changed since. Then

the Interesting Man, having got the table where he wanted

it, had said: "I remember when I was last in Sofia--by

the way it is pronounced Say-ah-fee-ah--talking with

Radovitch--or Radee-ah-vitch, as it should be sounded--the

foreign secretary, on what the Sobranje--it is pronounced

Soophrangee--would be likely to do"--and by the time he

had done with the Sobranje no one dared speak of the war

any more.

But the Hostess had got out of it the opening she wanted,

and she said:

"At any rate, it is wonderful what women have done in

the war--"

"And are doing," echoed the Half Man with the Moon Face.

And then it was that the Hostess had said that surely

every one must admit women are equal to men and the topic

of the sexes was started. All the women had been waiting

for it, anyway. It is the only topic that women care

about. Even men can stand it provided that fifty per cent

or more of the women present are handsome enough to

justify it.

"I hardly see how, after all that has happened, any

rational person could deny for a moment," continued the

Hostess, looking straight at her husband and his Heavy

Business Friend, "that women are equal and even superior

to men. Surely our brains are just as good?" and she gave

an almost bitter laugh.

"Don't you think perhaps--?" began the Smooth Gentleman.

"No, I don't," said the Hostess. "You're going to say

that we are inferior in things like mathematics or in

logical reasoning. We are not. But, after all, the only

reason why we are is because of training. Think of the

thousands of years that men have been trained. Answer me

that?"

"Well, might it not be--?" began the Smooth Gentleman.

"I don't think so for a moment," said the Hostess. "I

think if we'd only been trained as men have for the last

two or three thousand years our brains would be just as

well trained for the things they were trained for as they

would have been now for the things we have been trained

for and in that case wouldn't have. Don't you agree with

me," she said, turning to the Chief Lady Guest, whom she

suddenly remembered, "that, after all, we think more

clearly?"

Here the Interesting Man, who had been silent longer than

an Interesting Man can, without apoplexy, began:

"I remember once saying in London to Sir Charles Doosey--"

But the Chief Lady Guest refused to be checked.

"We've been gathering some rather interesting statistics,"

she said, speaking very firmly, syllable by syllable,

"on that point at our Settlement. We have measured the

heads of five hundred factory girls, making a chart of

them, you know, and the feet of five hundred domestic

servants--"

"And don't you find--" began the Smooth Gentleman.

"No," said the Chief Lady Guest firmly, "we do not. But

I was going to say that when we take our measurements

and reduce them to a scale of a hundred--I think you

understand me--"

"Ah, but come, now," interrupted the Interesting man,

"there's nothing really more deceitful than anthropometric

measures. I remember once saying (in London) to Sir Robert

Bittell--_the_ Sir Robert Bittell, you know--"

Here everybody murmured, "Oh, yes," except the Heavy Host

and his Heavy Friend, who with all their sins were honest

men.

"I said, 'Sir Robert, I want your frank opinion, your

very frank opinion--'"

But here there was a slight interruption. The Soft Lady

accidentally dropped a bangle from her wrist on to the

floor. Now all through the dinner she had hardly said

anything, but she had listened for twenty minutes (from

the grapefruit to the fish) while the Interesting Man

had told her about his life in Honduras (it is pronounced

Hondooras), and for another twenty while the Smooth

Gentleman, who was a barrister, had discussed himself as

a pleader. And when each of the men had begun to speak

in the general conversation, she had looked deep into

their faces as if hanging on to their words. So when she

dropped her bangle two of the men leaped from their chairs

to get it, and the other three made a sort of struggle

as they sat. By the time it was recovered and replaced

upon her arm (a very beautiful arm), the Interesting Man

was side-tracked and the Chief Lady Guest, who had gone

on talking during the bangle hunt, was heard saying:

"Entirely so. That seems to me the greatest difficulty

before us. So few men are willing to deal with the question

with perfect sincerity."

She laid emphasis on the word and the Half Man with the

Moon Face took his cue from it and threw a pose of almost

painful sincerity.

"Why is it," continued the Chief Lady Guest, "that men

always insist on dealing with us just as if we were

playthings, just so many dressed-up dolls?"

Here the Debutante immediately did a doll.

"If a woman is attractive and beautiful," the lady went

on, "so much the better." (She had no intention of letting

go of the doll business entirely.) "But surely you men

ought to value us as something more than mere dolls?"

She might have pursued the topic, but at this moment the

Smooth Gentleman, who made a rule of standing in all

round, and had broken into a side conversation with the

Silent Host, was overheard to say something about women's

sense of humour.

The table was in a turmoil in a moment, three of the

ladies speaking at once. To deny a woman's sense of humour

is the last form of social insult.

"I entirely disagree with you," said the Chief Lady Guest,

speaking very severely. "I know it from my own case, from

my own sense of humour and from observation. Last week,

for example, we measured no less than seventy-five factory

girls--"

"Well, I'm sure," said the Lady-with-the-Bust, "I don't

know what men mean by our not having a sense of humour.

I'm sure I have. I know I went last week to a vaudeville,

and I just laughed all through. Of course I can't read

Mark Twain, or anything like that, but then I don't call

that funny, do you?" she concluded, turning to the Hostess.

But the Hostess, feeling somehow that the ground was

dangerous, had already risen, and in a moment more the

ladies had floated out of the room and upstairs to the

drawing-room, where they spread themselves about in easy

chairs in billows of pretty coloured silk.

"How charming it is," the Chief Lady Guest began, "to

find men coming so entirely to our point of view! Do you

know it was so delightful to-night: I hardly heard a word

of dissent or contradiction."

Thus they talked; except the Soft Lady, who had slipped

into a seat by herself with an album over her knees, and

with an empty chair on either side of her. There she

waited.

Meantime, down below, the men had shifted into chairs to

one end of the table and the Heavy Host was shoving cigars

at them, thick as ropes, and passing the port wine, with

his big fist round the neck of the decanter. But for his

success in life he could have had a place as a bar tender

anywhere.

None of them spoke till the cigars were well alight.

Then the Host said very deliberately, taking each word

at his leisure, with smoke in between:

"Of course--this--suffrage business--"

"Tommyrot!" exclaimed the Smooth Gentleman, with great

alacrity, his mask entirely laid aside.

"Damn foolishness," gurgled the Heavy Business Friend,

sipping his port.

"Of course you can't really discuss it with women,"

murmured the Host.

"Oh, no," assented all the others. Even the Half Man

sipped his wine and turned traitor, there being no one

to see.

"You see," said the Host, "if my wife likes to go to

meetings and be on committees, why, I don't stop her."

"Neither do I mine," said the Heavy Friend. "It amuses

her, so I let her do it." His wife, the Lady-with-the-Bust,

was safely out of hearing.

"I remember once," began the Interesting Man, "saying

to"--he paused a moment, for the others were looking at

him--"another man that if women did get the vote they'd

never use it, anyway. All they like is being talked about

for not getting it."

After which, having exhausted the Woman Question, the

five men turned to such bigger subjects as the fall in

sterling exchange and the President's seventeenth note

to Germany.

Then presently they went upstairs. And when they reached

the door of the drawing-room a keen observer, or, indeed,

any kind of observer, might have seen that all five of

them made an obvious advance towards the two empty seats

beside the Soft Lady.

VII. The Grass Bachelor's Guide.

With sincere Apologies to the Ladies' Periodicals

There are periods in the life of every married man when

he is turned for the time being into a grass bachelor.

This happens, for instance, in the summer time when his

wife is summering by the sea, and he himself is simmering

in the city. It happens also in the autumn when his wife

is in Virginia playing golf in order to restore her

shattered nerves after the fatigues of the seaside. It

occurs again in November when his wife is in the Adirondacks

to get the benefit of the altitude, and later on through

the winter when she is down in Florida to get the benefit

of the latitude. The breaking up of the winter being,

notoriously, a trying time on the system, any reasonable

man is apt to consent to his wife's going to California.

In the later spring, the season of the bursting flowers

and the young buds, every woman likes to be with her

mother in the country. It is not fair to stop her.

It thus happens that at various times of the year a great

number of men, unable to leave their business, are left

to their own resources as housekeepers in their deserted

houses and apartments. It is for their benefit that I

have put together these hints on housekeeping for men.

It may be that in composing them I owe something to the

current number of the leading women's magazines. If so,

I need not apologise. I am sure that in these days We

Men all feel that We Men and We Women are so much alike,

or at least those of us who call ourselves so, that we

need feel no jealousy when We Men and We Women are striving

each, or both, in the same direction if in opposite ways.

I hope that I make myself clear. I am sure I do.

So I feel that if We Men, who are left alone in our houses

and apartments in the summer-time, would only set ourselves

to it, we could make life not only a little brighter for

ourselves but also a little less bright for those about

us.

Nothing contributes to this end so much as good

housekeeping. The first thing for the housekeeper to

realise is that it is impossible for him to attend to

his housekeeping in the stiff and unbecoming garments of

his business hours. When he begins his day he must

therefore carefully consider--

WHAT TO WEAR BEFORE DRESSING

The simplest and best thing will be found to be a plain

sacque or kimono, cut very full so as to allow of the

freest movement, and buttoned either down the front or

back or both. If the sleeve is cut short at the elbow

and ruffled above the bare arm, the effect is both

serviceable and becoming. It will be better, especially

for such work as lighting the gas range and boiling water,

to girdle the kimono with a simple yet effective rope or

tasselled silk, which may be drawn in or let out according

to the amount of water one wishes to boil. A simple kimono

of this sort can be bought almost anywhere for $2.50, or

can be supplied by Messrs. Einstein & Fickelbrot (see

advertising pages) for twenty-five dollars.

Having a kimono such as this, our housekeeper can either

button himself into it with a button-hook (very good ones

are supplied by Messrs. Einstein & Fickelbrot [see ad.]

at a very reasonable price or even higher), or better

still, he can summon the janitor of the apartment, who

can button him up quite securely in a few minutes' time

--a quarter of an hour at the most. We Men cannot impress

upon ourselves too strongly that, for efficient housekeeping,

time is everything, and that much depends on quiet,

effective movement from place to place, or from any one

place to any number of other places. We are now ready to

consider the all-important question--

WHAT TO SELECT FOR BREAKFAST

Our housekeeper will naturally desire something that is

simple and easily cooked, yet at the same time sustaining

and invigorating and containing a maximum of food value

with a minimum of cost. If he is wise he will realise

that the food ought to contain a proper quantity of both

proteids and amygdaloids, and, while avoiding a nitrogenous

breakfast, should see to it that he obtains sufficient

of what is albuminous and exogamous to prevent his

breakfast from becoming monotonous. Careful thought must

therefore be given to the breakfast menu.

For the purpose of thinking, a simple but very effective

costume may be devised by throwing over the kimono itself

a thin lace shawl, with a fichu carried high above the

waistline and terminating in a plain insertion. A bit of

old lace thrown over the housekeeper's head is at once

serviceable and becoming and will help to keep the dust

out of his brain while thinking what to eat for breakfast.

Very naturally our housekeeper's first choice will be

some kind of cereal. The simplest and most economical

breakfast of this kind can be secured by selecting some

cereal or grain food--such as oats, flax, split peas

that have been carefully strained in the colander, or

beans that have been fired off in a gun. Any of these

cereals may be bought for ten cents a pound at a

grocer's--or obtained from Messrs. Einstein & Fickelbrot

for a dollar a pound, or more. Supposing then that we

have decided upon a pound of split peas as our breakfast,

the next task that devolves upon our housekeeper is to--

GO OUT AND BUY IT

Here our advice is simple but positive. Shopping should

never be done over the telephone or by telegraph. The

good housekeeper instead of telegraphing for his food

will insist on seeing his food himself, and will eat

nothing that he does not first see before eating. This

is a cardinal rule. For the moment, then, the range must

be turned low while our housekeeper sallies forth to

devote himself to his breakfast shopping. The best costume

for shopping is a simple but effective suit, cut in plain

lines, either square or crosswise, and buttoned wherever

there are button-holes. A simple hat of some dark material

may be worn together with plain boots drawn up well over

the socks and either laced or left unlaced. No harm is

done if a touch of colour is added by carrying a geranium

in the hand. We are now ready for the street.

TEST OF EFFECTIVE SHOPPING

Here we may say at once that the crucial test is that we

must know what we want, why we want it, where we want

it, and what it is. Time, as We Men are only too apt to

forget, is everything, and since our aim is now a pound

of split peas we must, as we sally forth, think of a

pound of split peas and only a pound. A cheery salutation

may be exchanged with other morning shoppers as we pass

along, but only exchanged. Split peas being for the moment

our prime business, we must, as rapidly and unobtrusively

as possible, visit those shops and only those shops where

split peas are to be had.

Having found the split peas, our housekeeper's next task

is to _pay_ for them. This he does with money that may

be either carried in the hand or, better, tucked into a

simple _etui_, or _dodu_, that can be carried at the

wrist or tied to the ankle. The order duly given, our

housekeeper gives his address for the delivery of the

peas, and then, as quietly and harmlessly as possible,

returns to his apartment. His next office, and a most

important one it is, is now ready to be performed. This

new but necessary duty is--

WAITING FOR THE DELIVERY VAN

A good costume for waiting for the delivery van in, is

a simple brown suit, slashed with yellow and purple, and

sliced or gored from the hip to the feet. As time is

everything, the housekeeper, after having put on his

slashed costume for waiting for the delivery van, may

set himself to the performance of a number of light

household tasks, at the same time looking occasionally

from the window so as to detect the arrival of the van

as soon as possible after it has arrived. Among other

things, he may now feed his canary by opening its mouth

with a button-hook and dropping in coffee beans till the

little songster shows by its gratified air that it is

full. A little time may be well spent among the flowers

and bulbs of the apartment, clipping here a leaf and here

a stem, and removing the young buds and bugs. For work

among the flowers, a light pair of rather long scissors,

say a foot long, can be carried at the girdle, or attached

to the _etui_ and passed over the shoulder with a looped

cord so as to fall in an easy and graceful fold across

the back. The moment is now approaching when we may

expect--

THE ARRIVAL OF THE VAN

The housekeeper will presently discover the van, drawn

up in the front of the apartment, and its driver curled

up on the seat. Now is the moment of activity. Hastily

throwing on a _peignoir_, the housekeeper descends and,

receiving his parcel, reascends to his apartment. The

whole descent and reascent is made quickly, quietly, and,

if possible, only once.

PUTTING THE PEAS TO SOAK

Remember that unsoaked peas are hard, forcible, and

surcharged with a nitrogenous amygdaloid that is in

reality what chemical science calls putrate of lead. On

the other hand, peas that are soaked become large, voluble,

textile, and, while extremely palatable, are none the

less rich in glycerine, starch, and other lacteroids and

bactifera. To contain the required elements of nutrition

split peas must be soaked for two hours in fresh water

and afterwards boiled for an hour and a quarter

(eighty-five minutes).

It is now but the work of a moment to lift the saucepan

of peas from the fire, strain them through a colander,

pass them thence into a net or bag, rinse them in cold

water and then spread the whole appetising mass on a

platter and carry it on a fireshovel to the dining-room.

As it is now about six o'clock in the evening, our

housekeeper can either--

TELEPHONE TO HIS CLUB

AND ORDER A THIN SOUP

WITH A BITE OF FISH,

TWO LAMB CHOPS WITH ASPARAGUS,

AND SEND WORD ALSO

FOR A PINT OF MOSELLE

TO BE LAID ON ICE

_Or he can sit down and eat those d--n peas_.

WE KNOW WHICH HE WILL DO

VIII. Every Man and his Friends. Mr. Crunch's

Portrait Gallery (as Edited from his Private Thoughts)

(I) HIS VIEWS ON HIS EMPLOYER

A mean man. I say it, of course, without any prejudice,

and without the slightest malice. But the man is mean.

Small, I think, is the word. I am not thinking, of course,

of my own salary. It is not a matter that I would care

to refer to; though, as a matter of fact, one would think

that after fifteen years of work an application for an

increase of five hundred dollars is the kind of thing

that any man ought to be glad to meet half-way. Not that

I bear the man any malice for it. None. If he died

to-morrow, no one would regret his death as genuinely as

I would: if he fell into the river and got drowned, or

if he fell into a sewer and suffocated, or if he got

burned to death in a gas explosion (there are a lot of

things that might happen to him), I should feel genuinely

sorry to see him cut off.

But what strikes me more than the man's smallness is his

incompetence. The man is absolutely no good. It's not a

thing that I would say outside: as a matter of fact I

deny it every time I hear it, though every man in town

knows it. How that man ever got the position he has is

more than I can tell. And, as for holding it, he couldn't

hold it half a day if it weren't that the rest of us in

the office do practically everything for him.

Why, I've seen him send out letters (I wouldn't say this

to anyone outside, of course, and I wouldn't like to have

it repeated)--letters with, actually, mistakes in English.

Think of it, in English! Ask his stenographer.

I often wonder why I go on working for him. There are

dozens of other companies that would give anything to

get me. Only the other day--it's not ten years ago--I

had an offer, or practically an offer, to go to Japan

selling Bibles. I often wish now I had taken it. I believe

I'd like the Japanese. They're gentlemen, the Japanese.

They wouldn't turn a man down after slaving away for

fifteen years.

I often think I'll quit him. I say to my wife that that

man had better not provoke me too far; or some day I'll

just step into his office and tell him exactly what I

think of him. I'd like to. I often say it over to myself

in the street car coming home.

He'd better be careful, that's all.

(II) THE MINISTER WHOSE CHURCH HE ATTENDS

A dull man. Dull is the only word I can think of that

exactly describes him--dull and prosy. I don't say that

he is not a good man. He may be. I don't say that he is

not. I have never seen any sign of it, if he is. But I

make it a rule never to say anything to take away a man's

character.

And his sermons! Really that sermon he gave last Sunday

on Esau seemed to me the absolute limit. I wish you could

have heard it. I mean to say--drivel. I said to my wife

and some friends, as we walked away from the church, that

a sermon like that seemed to me to come from the dregs

of the human intellect. Mind you, I don't believe in

criticising a sermon. I always feel it a sacred obligation

never to offer a word of criticism. When I say that the

sermon was _punk_, I don't say it as criticism. I merely

state it as a fact. And to think that we pay that man

eighteen hundred dollars a year! And he's in debt all

the time at that. What does he do with it? He can't spend

it. It's not as if he had a large family (they've only

four children). It's just a case of sheer extravagance.

He runs about all the time. Last year it was a trip to

a Synod Meeting at New York--away four whole days; and

two years before that, dashing off to a Scripture Conference

at Boston, and away nearly a whole week, and his wife

with him!

What I say is that if a man's going to spend his time

gadding about the country like that--here to-day and

there to-morrow--how on earth can he attend to his

parochial duties?

I'm a religious man. At least I trust I am. I believe

--and more and more as I get older--in eternal punishment.

I see the need of it when I look about me. As I say, I

trust I am a religious man, but when it comes to subscribing

fifty dollars as they want us to, to get the man out of

debt, I say "No."

True religion, as I see it, is not connected with money.

(III) HIS PARTNER AT BRIDGE

The man is a complete ass. How a man like that has the

nerve to sit down at a bridge table, I don't know. I

wouldn't mind if the man had any idea--even the faintest

idea--of how to play. But he hasn't any. Three times I

signalled to him to throw the lead into my hand and he

wouldn't: I knew that our only ghost of a chance was to

let me do all the playing. But the ass couldn't see it.

He even had the supreme nerve to ask me what I meant by

leading diamonds when he had signalled that he had none.

I couldn't help asking him, as politely as I could, why

he had disregarded my signal for spades. He had the gall

to ask in reply why I had overlooked his signal for clubs

in the second hand round; the very time, mind you, when

I had led a three spot as a sign to him to let me play

the whole game. I couldn't help saying to him, at the

end of the evening, in a tone of such evident satire that

anyone but an ass would have recognised it, that I had

seldom had as keen an evening at cards.

But he didn't see it. The irony of it was lost on him.

The jackass merely said--quite amiably and unconsciously

--that he thought I'd play a good game presently. Me!

Play a good game presently!

I gave him a look, just one look as I went out! But I

don't think he saw it. He was talking to some one else.

(IV) HIS HOSTESS AT DINNER

On what principle that woman makes up her dinner parties

is more than human brain can devise. Mind you, I like

going out to dinner. To my mind it's the very best form

of social entertainment. But I like to find myself among

people that can talk, not among a pack of numbskulls.

What I like is good general conversation, about things

worth talking about. But among a crowd of idiots like

that what can you expect? You'd think that even society

people would be interested, or pretend to be, in real

things. But not a bit. I had hardly started to talk about

the rate of exchange on the German mark in relation to

the fall of sterling bills--a thing that you would think

a whole table full of people would be glad to listen

to--when first thing I knew the whole lot of them had

ceased paying any attention and were listening to an

insufferable ass of an Englishman--I forget his name.

You'd hardly suppose that just because a man has been in

Flanders and has his arm in a sling and has to have his

food cut up by the butler, that's any reason for having

a whole table full of people listening to him. And

especially the women: they have a way of listening to a

fool like that with their elbows on the table that is

positively sickening.

I felt that the whole thing was out of taste and tried

in vain, in one of the pauses, to give a lead to my

hostess by referring to the prospect of a shipping subsidy

bill going through to offset the register of alien ships.

But she was too utterly dense to take it up. She never

even turned her head. All through dinner that ass talked

--he and that silly young actor they're always asking

there that is perpetually doing imitations of the vaudeville

people. That kind of thing may be all right, for those

who care for it--I frankly don't--outside a theatre. But

to my mind the idea of trying to throw people into fits

of laughter at a dinner-table is simply execrable taste.

I cannot see the sense of people shrieking with laughter

at dinner. I have, I suppose, a better sense of humour

than most people. But to my mind a humourous story should

be told quietly and slowly in a way to bring out the

point of the humour and to make it quite clear by preparing

for it with proper explanations. But with people like

that I find I no sooner get well started with a story

than some fool or other breaks in. I had a most amusing

experience the other day--that is, about fifteen years

ago--at a summer hotel in the Adirondacks, that one would

think would have amused even a shallow lot of people like

those, but I had no sooner started to tell it--or had

hardly done more than to describe the Adirondacks in a

general way--than, first thing I know, my hostess, stupid

woman, had risen and all the ladies were trooping out.

As to getting in a word edgeways with the men over the

cigars--perfectly impossible! They're worse than the

women. They were all buzzing round the infernal Englishman

with questions about Flanders and the army at the front.

I tried in vain to get their attention for a minute to

give them my impressions of the Belgian peasantry (during

my visit there in 1885), but my host simply turned to me

for a second and said, "Have some more port?" and was

back again listening to the asinine Englishman.

And when we went upstairs to the drawing-room I found

myself, to my disgust, side-tracked in a corner of the

room with that supreme old jackass of a professor--their

uncle, I think, or something of the sort. In all my life

I never met a prosier man. He bored me blue with long

accounts of his visit to Serbia and his impressions of

the Serbian peasantry in 1875.

I should have left early, but it would have been too

noticeable.

The trouble with a woman like that is that she asks the

wrong people to her parties.

BUT,

(V) HIS LITTLE SON

You haven't seen him? Why, that's incredible. You must

have. He goes past your house every day on his way to

his kindergarten. You must have seen him a thousand

times. And he's a boy you couldn't help noticing. You'd

pick that boy out among a hundred, right away. "There's

a remarkable boy," you'd say. I notice people always turn

and look at him on the street. He's just the image of

me. Everybody notices it at once.

How old? He's twelve. Twelve and two weeks yesterday.

But he's so bright you'd think he was fifteen. And the

things he says! You'd laugh! I've written a lot of them

down in a book for fear of losing them. Some day when

you come up to the house I'll read them to you. Come some

evening. Come early so that we'll have lots of time. He

said to me one day, "Dad" (he always calls me Dad), "what

makes the sky blue?" Pretty thoughtful, eh, for a little

fellow of twelve? He's always asking questions like that.

I wish I could remember half of them.

And I'm bringing him up right, I tell you. I got him a

little savings box a while ago, and have got him taught

to put all his money in it, and not give any of it away,

so that when he grows up he'll be all right.

On his last birthday I put a five dollar gold piece into

it for him and explained to him what five dollars meant,

and what a lot you could do with it if you hung on to

it. You ought to have seen him listen.

"Dad," he says, "I guess you're the kindest man in the

world, aren't you?"

Come up some time and see him.

IX. More than Twice-told Tales; or,

Every Man his Own Hero

(I)

The familiar story told about himself by the Commercial

Traveller who sold goods to the man who was regarded as

impossible.

"What," they said, "you're getting off at Midgeville?

You're going to give the Jones Hardware Company a try,

eh?"--and then they all started laughing and giving me

the merry ha! ha! Well, I just got my grip packed and

didn't say a thing and when the train slowed up for

Midgeville, out I slid. "Give my love to old man Jones,"

one of the boys called after me, "and get yourself a

couple of porous plasters and a pair of splints before

you tackle him!"--and then they all gave me the ha! ha!

again, out of the window as the train pulled out.

Well, I walked uptown from the station to the Jones

Hardware Company. "Is Mr. Jones in the office?" I asked

of one of the young fellers behind the counter. "He's in

the office," he says, "all right, but I guess you can't

see him," he says--and he looked at my grip. "What name

shall I say?" says he. "Don't say any name at all," I

says. "Just open the door and let me in."

Well, there was old man Jones sitting scowling over his

desk, biting his pen in that way he has. He looked up

when I came in. "See here, young man," he says, "you

can't sell me any hardware," he says. "Mr. Jones," I

says, "I don't _want_ to sell you any hardware. I'm not

_here_ to sell you any hardware. I know," I says, "as

well as you do," I says, "that I couldn't sell any hardware

if I tried to. But," I says, "I guess it don't do any

harm to open up this sample case, and show you some

hardware," I says. "Young man," says he, "if you start

opening up that sample case in here, you'll lose your

time, that's all"--and he turned off sort of sideways

and began looking over some letters.

"That's _all right_, Mr. Jones," I says. "That's _all

right_. I'm _here_ to lose my time. But I'm not going

out of this room till you take a look anyway at some of

this new cutlery I'm carrying."

So open I throws my sample case right across the end of

his desk. "Look at that knife," I says, "Mr. Jones. Just

look at it: clear Sheffield at three-thirty the dozen

and they're a knife that will last till you wear the haft

off it." "Oh, pshaw," he growled, "I don't want no knives;

there's nothing in knives--"

Well I _knew_ he didn't want knives, see? I _knew_ it.

But the way I opened up the sample case it showed up,

just by accident so to speak, a box of those new electric

burners--adjustable, you know--they'll take heat off any

size of socket you like and use it for any mortal thing

in the house. I saw old Jones had his eyes on them in a

minute. "What's those things you got there?" he growls,

"those in the box?" "Oh," I said, "that's just a new

line," I said, "the boss wanted me to take along: some

sort of electric rig for heating," I said, "but I don't

think there's anything to it. But here, now, Mr. Jones,

is a spoon I've got on this trip--it's the new Delphide

--you can't tell that, sir, from silver. No, sir," I

says, "I defy any man, money down, to tell that there

Delphide from genuine refined silver, and they're a spoon

that'll last--"

"Let me see one of those burners," says old man Jones,

breaking in.

Well, sir, in about two minutes more, I had one of the

burners fixed on to the light socket, and old Jones, with

his coat off, boiling water in a tin cup (out of the

store) and timing it with his watch.

The next day I pulled into Toledo and went and joined

the other boys up to the Jefferson House. "Well," they

says, "have you got that plaster on?" and started in to

give me the ha! ha! again. "Oh, I don't know," I says.

"I guess _this_ is some plaster, isn't it?" and I took

out of my pocket an order from old man Jones for two

thousand adjustable burners, at four-twenty with two off.

"Some plaster, eh?" I says.

Well, sir, the boys looked sick.

Old man Jones gets all his stuff from our house now. Oh,

he ain't bad at all when you get to know him.

(II)

The well-known story told by the man who has once had a

strange psychic experience.

...What you say about presentiments reminds me of a strange

experience that I had myself.

I was sitting by myself one night very late, reading. I

don't remember just what it was that I was reading. I

think it was--or no, I don't remember _what_ it was.

Well, anyway, I was sitting up late reading quietly till

it got pretty late on in the night. I don't remember

just how late it was--half-past two, I think, or perhaps

three--or, no, I don't remember. But, anyway, I was

sitting up by myself very late reading. As I say, it was

late, and, after all the noises in the street had stopped,

the house somehow seemed to get awfully still and quiet.

Well, all of a sudden I became aware of a sort of strange

feeling--I hardly know how to describe it--I seemed to

become aware of something, as if something were near me.

I put down my book and looked around, but could see

nothing. I started to read again, but I hadn't read more

than a page, or say a page and a half--or no, not more

than a page, when again all of a sudden I felt an

overwhelming sense of--something. I can't explain just

what the feeling was, but a queer sense as if there was

something somewhere.

Well, I'm not of a timorous disposition naturally--at

least I don't think I am--but absolutely I felt as if I

couldn't stay in the room. I got up out of my chair and

walked down the stairs, in the dark, to the dining-room.

I felt all the way as if some one were following me. Do

you know, I was absolutely trembling when I got into the

dining-room and got the lights turned on. I walked over

to the sideboard and poured myself out a drink of whisky

and soda. As you know, I never take anything as a rule

--or, at any rate, only when I am sitting round talking

as we are now--but I always like to keep a decanter of

whisky in the house, and a little soda, in case of my

wife or one of the children being taken ill in the night.

Well, I took a drink and then I said to myself, I said,

"See here, I'm going to see this thing through." So I

turned back and walked straight upstairs again to my

room. I fully expected something queer was going to happen

and was prepared for it. But do you know when I walked

into the room again the feeling, or presentiment, or

whatever it was I had had, was absolutely gone. There

was my book lying just where I had left it and the reading

lamp still burning on the table, just as it had been,

and my chair just where I had pushed it back. But I felt

nothing, absolutely nothing. I sat and waited awhile,

but I still felt _nothing_.

I went downstairs again to put out the lights in the

dining-room. I noticed as I passed the sideboard that

I was still shaking a little. So I took a small drink of

whisky--though as a rule I never care to take more than

one drink--unless when I am sitting talking as we are

here.

Well, I had hardly taken it when I felt an odd sort of

psychic feeling--a sort of drowsiness. I remember, in a

dim way, going to bed, and then I remember nothing till

I woke up next morning.

And here's the strange part of it. I had hardly got down

to the office after breakfast when I got a wire to tell

me that my mother-in-law had broken her arm in Cincinnati.

Strange, wasn't it? No, _not_ at half-past two during

that night--that's the inexplicable part of it. She had

broken it at half-past eleven the morning before. But

you notice it was _half-past_ in each case. That's the

queer way these things go.

Of course, I don't pretend to _explain it_. I suppose it

simply means that I am telepathic--that's all. I imagine

that, if I wanted to, I could talk with the dead and all

that kind of thing. But I feel somehow that I don't want

to.

Eh? Thank you, I will--though I seldom take more than--

thanks, thanks, that's plenty of soda in it.

(III)

The familiar narrative in which the Successful Business

Man recounts the early struggles by which he made good.

...No, sir, I had no early advantages whatever. I was brought

up plain and hard--try one of these cigars; they cost me

fifty cents each. In fact, I practically had no schooling

at all. When I left school I didn't know how to read,

not to read good. It's only since I've been in business

that I've learned to write English, that is so as to use

it right. But I'll guarantee to say there isn't a man in

the shoe business to-day can write a better letter than

I can. But all that I know is what I've learned myself.

Why, I can't do fractions even now. I don't see that a

man need. And I never learned no geography, except what

I got for myself off railroad folders. I don't believe

a man _needs_ more than that anyway. I've got my boy at

Harvard now. His mother was set on it. But I don't see

that he learns anything, or nothing that will help him

any in business. They say they learn them character and

manners in the colleges, but, as I see it, a man can get

all that just as well in business--is that wine all right?

If not, tell me and I'll give the head waiter hell; they

charge enough for it; what you're drinking costs me

four-fifty a bottle.

But I was starting to tell you about my early start in

business. I had it good and hard all right. Why when I

struck New York--I was sixteen then--I had just eighty

cents to my name. I lived on it for nearly a week while

I was walking round hunting for a job. I used to get soup

for three cents, and roast beef with potatoes, all you

could eat, for eight cents, that tasted better than anything

I can ever get in this damn club. It was down somewhere

on Sixth Avenue, but I've forgotten the way to it.

Well, about the sixth day I got a job, down in a shoe

factory, working on a machine. I guess you've never seen

shoe-machinery, have you? No, you wouldn't likely. It's

complicated. Even in those days there were thirty-five

machines went to the making of a shoe, and now we use as

many as fifty-four. I'd never seen the machines before,

but the foreman took me on. "You look strong," he said

"I'll give you a try anyway."

So I started in. I didn't know anything. But I made good

from the first day. I got four a week at the start, and

after two months I got a raise to four-twenty-five.

Well, after I'd worked there about three months, I went

up to the floor manager of the flat I worked on, and I

said, "Say, Mr. Jones, do you want to save ten dollars

a week on expenses?" "How?" says he. "Why," I said, "that

foreman I'm working under on the machine, I've watched

him, and I can do his job; dismiss him and I'll take over

his work at half what you pay him." "Can you do the work?"

he says. "Try me out," I said. "Fire him and give me a

chance." "Well," he said, "I like your spirit anyway;

you've got the right sort of stuff in you."

So he fired the foreman and I took over the job and held

it down. It was hard at first, but I worked twelve hours

a day, and studied up a book on factory machinery at

night. Well, after I'd been on that work for about a

year, I went in one day to the general manager downstairs,

and I said, "Mr. Thompson, do you want to save about a

hundred dollars a month on your overhead costs?" "How

can I do that?" says he. "Sit down." "Why," I said, "you

dismiss Mr. Jones and give me his place as manager of

the floor, and I'll undertake to do his work, and mine

with it, at a hundred less than you're paying now." He

turned and went into the inner office, and I could hear

him talking to Mr. Evans, the managing director. "The

young fellow certainly has character," I heard him say.

Then he came out and he said, "Well, we're going to give

you a try anyway: we like to help out our employes all

we can, you know; and you've got the sort of stuff in

you that we're looking for."

So they dismissed Jones next day and I took over his job

and did it easy. It was nothing anyway. The higher up

you get in business, the easier it is if you know how.

I held that job two years, and I saved all my salary

except twenty-five dollars a month, and I lived on that.

I never spent any money anyway. I went once to see Irving

do this Macbeth for twenty-five cents, and once I went

to a concert and saw a man play the violin for fifteen

cents in the gallery. But I don't believe you get much

out of the theatre anyway; as I see it, there's nothing

to it.

Well, after a while I went one day to Mr. Evans's office

and I said, "Mr. Evans, I want you to dismiss Mr. Thompson,

the general manager." "Why, what's he done?" he says.

"Nothing," I said, "but I can take over his job on top

of mine and you can pay me the salary you give him and

save what you're paying me now." "Sounds good to me," he

says.

So they let Thompson go and I took his place. That, of

course, is where I got my real start, because, you see,

I could control the output and run the costs up and down

just where I liked. I suppose you don't know anything

about costs and all that--they don't teach that sort of

thing in colleges--but even you would understand something

about dividends and would see that an energetic man with

lots of character and business in him, If he's general

manager can just do what he likes with the costs, especially

the overhead, and the shareholders have just got to take

what he gives them and be glad to. You see they can't

fire him--not when he's got it all in his own hands--for

fear it will all go to pieces.

Why would I want to run it that way for? Well, I'll tell

you. I had a notion by that time that the business was

getting so big that Mr. Evans, the managing director,

and most of the board had pretty well lost track of the

details and didn't understand it. There's an awful lot,

you know, in the shoe business. It's not like ordinary

things. It's complicated. And so I'd got an idea that I

would shove them clean out of it--or most of them.

So I went one night to see the president, old Guggenbaum,

up at his residence. He didn't only have this business,

but he was in a lot of other things as well, and he was

a mighty hard man to see. He wouldn't let any man see

him unless he knew first what he was going to say. But

I went up to his residence at night, and I saw him there.

I talked first with his daughter, and I said I just had

to see him. I said it so she didn't dare refuse. There's

a way in talking to women that they won't say no.

So I showed Mr. Guggenbaum what I could do with the stock.

"I can put that dividend," I says, "clean down to zero--and

they'll none of them know why. You can buy the lot of

them out at your own price, and after that I'll put the

dividend back to fifteen, or twenty, in two years."

"And where do _you_ come in?" says the old man, with a

sort of hard look. He had a fine business head, the old

man, at least in those days.

So I explained to him where I came in. "All right," he

said. "Go ahead. But I'll put nothing in writing." "Mr.

Guggenbaum, you don't need to," I said. "You're as fair

and square as I am and that's enough for me."

His daughter let me out of the house door when I went.

I guess she'd been pretty scared that she'd done wrong

about letting me in. But I said to her it was all right,

and after that when I wanted to see the old man I'd always

ask for her and she'd see that I got in all right.

Got them squeezed out? Oh, yes, easy. There wasn't any

trouble about that. You see the old man worked up a sort

of jolt in wholesale leather on one side, and I fixed up

a strike of the hands on the other. We passed the dividend

two quarters running, and within a year we had them all

scared out and the bulk of the little shareholders, of

course, trooped out after them. They always do. The old

man picked up the stock when they dropped it, and one-half

of it he handed over to me.

That's what put me where I am now, do you see, with the

whole control of the industry in two states and more than

that now, because we have the Amalgamated Tanneries in

with us, so it's practically all one concern.

Guggenbaum? Did I squeeze him out? No, I didn't because,

you see, I didn't have to. The way it was--well, I tell

you--I used to go up to the house, see, to arrange things

with him--and the way it was--why, you see, I married

his daughter, see, so I didn't exactly _need_ to squeeze

him out. He lives up with us now, but he's pretty old

and past business. In fact, I do it all for him now, and

pretty well everything he has is signed over to my wife.

She has no head for it, and she's sort of timid anyway

--always was--so I manage it all. Of course, if anything

happens to the old man, then we get it all. I don't think

he'll last long. I notice him each day, how weak he's

getting.

My son in the business? Well, I'd like him to be. But he

don't seem to take to it somehow--I'm afraid he takes

more after his mother; or else it's the college that's

doing it. Somehow, I don't think the colleges bring out

business character, do you?

X. A Study in Still Life--My Tailor

He always stands there--and has stood these thirty

years--in the back part of his shop, his tape woven about

his neck, a smile of welcome on his face, waiting to

greet me.

"Something in a serge," he says, "or perhaps in a tweed?"

There are only these two choices open to us. We have had

no others for thirty years. It is too late to alter now.

"A serge, yes," continues my tailor, "something in a dark

blue, perhaps." He says it with all the gusto of a new

idea, as if the thought of dark blue had sprung up as an

inspiration. "Mr. Jennings" (this is his assistant),

"kindly take down some of those dark blues.

"Ah," he exclaims, "now here is an excellent thing." His

manner as he says this is such as to suggest that by

sheer good fortune and blind chance he has stumbled upon

a thing among a million.

He lifts one knee and drapes the cloth over it, standing

upon one leg. He knows that in this attitude it is hard

to resist him. Cloth to be appreciated as cloth must be

viewed over the bended knee of a tailor with one leg in

the air.

My tailor can stand in this way indefinitely, on one leg

in a sort of ecstasy, a kind of local paralysis.

"Would that make up well?" I ask him.

"Admirably," he answers.

I have no real reason to doubt it. I have never seen any

reason why cloth should not make up well. But I always

ask the question as I know that he expects it and it

pleases him. There ought to be a fair give and take in

such things.

"You don't think it at all loud?" I say. He always likes

to be asked this.

"Oh, no, very quiet indeed. In fact we always recommend

serge as extremely quiet."

I have never had a wild suit in my life. But it is well

to ask.

Then he measures me--round the chest, nowhere else. All

the other measures were taken years ago. Even the chest

measure is only done--and I know it--to please me. I do

not really grow.

"A _little_ fuller in the chest," my tailor muses. Then

he turns to his assistant. "Mr. Jennings, a little fuller

in the chest--half an inch on to the chest, please."

It is a kind fiction. Growth around the chest is flattering

even to the humblest of us.

"Yes," my tailor goes on--he uses "yes" without any

special meaning--"and shall we say a week from Tuesday?

Mr. Jennings, a week from Tuesday, please."

"And will you please," I say, "send the bill to--?" but

my tailor waves this aside. He does not care to talk

about the bill. It would only give pain to both of us

to speak of it.

The bill is a matter we deal with solely by correspondence,

and that only in a decorous and refined style never

calculated to hurt.

I am sure from the tone of my tailor's letters that he

would never send the bill, or ask for the amount, were

it not that from time to time he is himself, unfortunately,

"pressed" owing to "large consignments from Europe." But

for these heavy consignments, I am sure I should never

need to pay him. It is true that I have sometimes thought

to observe that these consignments are apt to arrive when

I pass the limit of owing for two suits and order a third.

But this can only be a mere coincidence.

Yet the bill, as I say, is a thing that we never speak

of. Instead of it my tailor passes to the weather. Ordinary

people always begin with this topic. Tailors, I notice,

end with it. It is only broached after the suit is ordered,

never before.

"Pleasant weather we are having," he says. It is never

other, so I notice, with him. Perhaps the order of a suit

itself is a little beam of sunshine.

Then we move together towards the front of the store on

the way to the outer door.

"Nothing to-day, I suppose," says my tailor, "in shirtings?"

"No, thank you."

This is again a mere form. In thirty years I have never

bought any shirtings from him. Yet he asks the question

with the same winsomeness as he did thirty years ago.

"And nothing, I suppose, in collaring or in hosiery?"

This is again futile. Collars I buy elsewhere and hosiery

I have never worn.

Thus we walk to the door, in friendly colloquy. Somehow

if he failed to speak of shirtings and hosiery, I should

feel as if a familiar cord had broken;

At the door we part.

"Good afternoon," he says. "A week from Tuesday--yes

--good afternoon."

Such is--or was--our calm unsullied intercourse, unvaried

or at least broken only by consignments from Europe.

I say it _was_, that is until just the other day.

And then, coming to the familiar door, for my customary

summer suit, I found that he was there no more. There

were people in the store, unloading shelves and piling

cloth and taking stock. And they told me that he was

dead. It came to me with a strange shock. I had not

thought it possible. He seemed--he should have been

--immortal.

They said the worry of his business had helped to kill

him. I could not have believed it. It always seemed so

still and tranquil--weaving his tape about his neck and

marking measures and holding cloth against his leg beside

the sunlight of the window in the back part of the shop.

Can a man die of that? Yet he had been "going behind,"

they said (however that is done), for years. His wife,

they told me, would be left badly off. I had never

conceived him as having a wife. But it seemed that he

had, and a daughter, too, at a conservatory of music

--yet he never spoke of her--and that he himself was

musical and played the flute, and was the sidesman of a

church--yet he never referred to it to me. In fact, in

thirty years we never spoke of religion. It was hard to

connect him with the idea of it.

As I went out I seemed to hear his voice still saying,

"And nothing to-day in shirtings?"

I was sorry I had never bought any.

There is, I am certain, a deep moral in this. But I will

not try to draw it. It might appear too obvious.

Peace, War, and Politics

XI. Germany from Within Out

The adventure which I here narrate resulted out of a

strange psychological experience of a kind that (outside

of Germany) would pass the bounds of comprehension.

To begin with, I had fallen asleep.

Of the reason for my falling asleep I have no doubt. I

had remained awake nearly the whole of the preceding

night, absorbed in the perusal of a number of recent

magazine articles and books dealing with Germany as seen

from within. I had read from cover to cover that charming

book, just written by Lady de Washaway, under the title

_Ten Years as a Toady, or The Per-Hapsburgs as I Didn't

Know Them_. Her account of the life of the Imperial Family

of Austria, simple, unaffected, home-like; her picture

of the good old Emperor, dining quietly off a cold potato

and sitting after dinner playing softly to himself on

the flute, while his attendants gently withdrew one by

one from his presence; her description of merry, boisterous,

large-hearted Prince Stefan Karl, who kept the whole

court in a perpetual roar all the time by asking such

riddles as "When is a sailor not a sailor?" (the answer

being, of course, when he is a German Prince)--in fact,

the whole book had thrilled me to the verge of spiritual

exhaustion.

From Lady de Washaway's work I turned to peruse Hugo von

Halbwitz's admirable book, _Easy Marks, or How the German

Government Borrows its Funds_; and after that I had read

Karl von Wiggleround's _Despatches_ and Barnstuff's

_Confidential Letters to Criminals_.

As a consequence I fell asleep as if poisoned.

But the amazing thing is that, whenever it was or was

not that I fell asleep, I woke up to find myself in

Germany.

I cannot offer any explanation as to how this came about.

I merely state the fact.

There I was, seated on the grassy bank of a country road.

I knew it was Germany at once. There was no mistaking

it. The whole landscape had an orderliness, a method

about it that is, alas, never seen in British countries.

The trees stood in neat lines, with the name of each

nailed to it on a board. The birds sat in regular rows,

four to a branch, and sang in harmony, very simply, but

with the true German feeling.

There were two peasants working beside the road. One was

picking up fallen leaves, and putting them into neat

packets of fifty. The other was cutting off the tops of

the late thistles that still stood unwithered in the

chill winter air, and arranging them according to size

and colour. In Germany nothing is lost; nothing is wasted.

It is perhaps not generally known that from the top of

the thistle the Germans obtain picrate of ammonia, the

most deadly explosive known to modern chemistry, while

from the bulb below, butter, crude rubber and sweet cider

are extracted in large quantities.

The two peasants paused in their work a moment as they

saw me glance towards them, and each, with the simple

gentility of the German working man, quietly stood on

his head until I had finished looking at him.

I felt quite certain, of course, that it must only be a

matter of a short time before I would inevitably be

arrested.

I felt doubly certain of it when I saw a motor speeding

towards me with a stout man, in military uniform and a

Prussian helmet, seated behind the chauffeur.

The motor stopped, but to my surprise the military man,

whom I perceived to be wearing the uniform of a general,

jumped out and advanced towards me with a genial cry of:

"Well, Herr Professor!"

I looked at him again.

"Why, Fritz!" I cried.

"You recognize me?" he said.

"Certainly," I answered, "you used to be one of the six

German waiters at McCluskey's restaurant in Toronto."

The General laughed.

"You really took us for waiters!" he said. "Well, well.

My dear professor! How odd! We were all generals in the

German army. My own name is not Fritz Schmidt, as you

knew it, but Count von Boobenstein. The Boobs of

Boobenstein," he added proudly, "are connected with the

Hohenzollerns. When I am commanded to dine with the

Emperor, I have the hereditary right to eat anything that

he leaves."

"But I don't understand!" I said. "Why were you in

Toronto?"

"Perfectly simple. Special military service. We were

there to make a report. Each day we kept a record of the

velocity and direction of the wind, the humidity of the

air, the distance across King Street and the height of

the C.P.R. Building. All this we wired to Germany every

day."

"For what purpose?" I asked.

"Pardon me!" said the General, and then, turning the

subject with exquisite tact: "Do you remember Max?" he

said.

"Do you mean the tall melancholy looking waiter, who used

to eat the spare oysters and drink up what was left in

the glasses, behind the screen?"

"Ha!" exclaimed my friend. "But _why_ did he drink them?

_Why?_ Do you know that that man--his real name is not

Max but Ernst Niedelfein--is one of the greatest chemists

in Germany? Do you realise that he was making a report

to our War Office on the percentage of alcohol obtainable

in Toronto after closing time?"

"And Karl?" I asked.

"Karl was a topographist in the service of his High

Serenity the King Regnant of Bavaria"--here my friend

saluted himself with both hands and blinked his eyes four

times--"He made maps of all the breweries of Canada. We

know now to a bottle how many German soldiers could be

used in invading Canada without danger of death from

drought."

"How many was it?" I asked.

Boobenstein shook his head.

"Very disappointing," he said. "In fact your country is

not yet ripe for German occupation. Our experts say that

the invasion of Canada is an impossibility unless we use

Milwaukee as a base--But step into my motor," said the

Count, interrupting himself, "and come along with me.

Stop, you are cold. This morning air is very keen. Take

this," he added, picking off the fur cap from the

chauffeur's head. "It will be better than that hat you

are wearing--or, here, wait a moment--"

As he spoke, the Count unwound a woollen muffler from

the chauffeur's neck, and placed it round mine.

"Now then," he added, "this sheepskin coat--"

"My dear Count," I protested.

"Not a bit, not a bit," he cried, as he pulled off the

chauffeur's coat and shoved me into it. His face beamed

with true German generosity.

"Now," he said as we settled back into the motor and

started along the road, "I am entirely at your service.

Try one of these cigars! Got it alight? Right! You notice,

no doubt, the exquisite flavour. It is a _Tannhauser_.

Our chemists are making these cigars now out of the refuse

of the tanneries and glue factories."

I sighed involuntarily. Imagine trying to "blockade" a

people who could make cigars out of refuse; imagine trying

to get near them at all!

"Strong, aren't they?" said von Boobenstein, blowing a

big puff of smoke. "In fact, it is these cigars that have

given rise to the legend (a pure fiction, I need hardly

say) that our armies are using asphyxiating gas. The

truth is they are merely smoking German-made tobacco in

their trenches."

"But come now," he continued, "your meeting me is most

fortunate. Let me explain. I am at present on the

Intelligence Branch of the General Staff. My particular

employment is dealing with foreign visitors--the branch

of our service called, for short, the Eingewanderte

Fremden Verfullungs Bureau. How would you call that?"

"It sounds," I said, "like the Bureau for Stuffing Up

Incidental Foreigners."

"Precisely," said the Count, "though your language lacks

the music of ours. It is my business to escort visitors

round Germany and help them with their despatches. I took

the Ford party through--in a closed cattle-car, with the

lights out. They were greatly impressed. They said that,

though they saw nothing, they got an excellent idea of

the atmosphere of Germany. It was I who introduced Lady

de Washaway to the Court of Franz Joseph. I write the

despatches from Karl von Wiggleround, and send the

necessary material to Ambassador von Barnstuff. In fact

I can take you everywhere, show you everything, and"

--here my companion's military manner suddenly seemed

to change into something obsequiously and strangely

familiar--"it won't cost you a cent; not a cent, unless

you care--"

I understood.

I handed him ten cents.

"Thank you, sir," he said. Then with an abrupt change

back to his military manner, "Now, then, what would you

like to see? The army? The breweries? The Royal court?

Berlin? What shall it be? My time is limited, but I shall

be delighted to put myself at your service for the rest

of the day."

"I think," I said, "I should like more than anything to

see Berlin, if it is possible."

"Possible?" answered my companion. "Nothing easier."

The motor flew ahead and in a few moments later we were

making our arrangements with a local station-master for

a special train to Berlin.

I got here my first glimpse of the wonderful perfection

of the German railway system.

"I am afraid," said the station-master, with deep apologies,

"that I must ask you to wait half an hour. I am moving

a quarter of a million troops from the east to the west

front, and this always holds up the traffic for fifteen

or twenty minutes."

I stood on the platform watching the troops trains go by

and admiring the marvellous ingenuity of the German

system.

As each train went past at full speed, a postal train

(Feld-Post-Eisenbahn-Zug) moved on the other track in

the opposite direction, from which a shower of letters

were thrown in to the soldiers through the window.

Immediately after the postal train, a soup train (Soup-Zug)

was drawn along, from the windows of which soup was

squirted out of a hose.

Following this there came at full speed a beer train

(Bier-Zug) from which beer bombs were exploded in all

directions.

I watched till all had passed.

"Now," said the station-master, "your train is ready.

Here you are."

Away we sped through the meadows and fields, hills and

valleys, forests and plains.

And nowhere--I am forced, like all other travellers, to

admit it--did we see any signs of the existence of war.

Everything was quiet, orderly, usual. We saw peasants

digging--in an orderly way--for acorns in the frozen

ground. We saw little groups of soldiers drilling in the

open squares of villages--in their quiet German fashion

--each man chained by the leg to the man next to him;

here and there great Zeppelins sailed overhead dropping

bombs, for practice, on the less important towns; at

times in the village squares we saw clusters of haggard

women (quite quiet and orderly) waving little red flags

and calling: "Bread, bread!"

But nowhere any signs of war. Certainly not.

We reached Berlin just at nightfall. I had expected to

find it changed. To my surprise it appeared just as usual.

The streets were brilliantly lighted. Music burst in

waves from the restaurants. From the theatre signs I

saw, to my surprise, that they were playing _Hamlet_,

_East Lynne_ and _Potash and Perlmutter_. Everywhere

was brightness, gaiety and light-heartedness.

Here and there a merry-looking fellow, with a brush and

a pail of paste and a roll of papers over his arm, would

swab up a casualty list of two or three thousand names,

amid roars of good-natured laughter.

What perplexed me most was the sight of thousands of men,

not in uniform, but in ordinary civilian dress.

"Boobenstein," I said, as we walked down the Linden

Avenue, "I don't understand it."

"The men?" he answered. "It's a perfectly simple matter.

I see you don't understand our army statistics. At the

beginning of the war we had an army of three million.

Very good. Of these, one million were in the reserve. We

called them to the colours, that made four million. Then

of these all who wished were allowed to volunteer for

special services. Half a million did so. That made four

and a half million. In the first year of the war we

suffered two million casualties, but of these seventy-five

per cent, or one and a half million, returned later on

to the colours, bringing our grand total up to six million.

This six million we use on each of six fronts, giving a

grand total of thirty six million.

"I see," I said. "In fact, I have seen these figures

before. In other words, your men are inexhaustible."

"Precisely," said the Count, "and mark you, behind these

we still have the Landsturm, made up of men between

fifty-five and sixty, and the Landslide, reputed to be

the most terrible of all the German levies, made up by

withdrawing the men from the breweries. That is the last

final act of national fury. But come," he said, "you must

be hungry. Is it not so?"

"I am," I admitted, "but I had hesitated to acknowledge

it. I feared that the food supply--"

Boobenstein broke into hearty laughter.

"Food supply!" he roared. "My dear fellow, you must have

been reading the English newspapers! Food supply! My dear

professor! Have you not heard? We have got over that

difficulty entirely and for ever. But come, here is a

restaurant. In with you and eat to your heart's content."

We entered the restaurant. It was filled to overflowing

with a laughing crowd of diners and merry-makers. Thick

clouds of blue cigar smoke filled the air. Waiters ran

to and fro with tall steins of foaming beer, and great

bundles of bread tickets, soup tickets, meat cards and

butter coupons.

These were handed around to the guests, who sat quietly

chewing the corners of them as they sipped their beer.

"Now-then," said my host, looking over the printed menu

in front of him, "what shall it be? What do you say to

a ham certificate with a cabbage ticket on the side? Or

how would you like lobster-coupon with a receipt for

asparagus?"

"Yes," I answered, "or perhaps, as our journey has made

me hungry, one of these beef certificates with an affidavit

for Yorkshire pudding."

"Done!" said Boobenstein.

A few moments later we were comfortably drinking our tall

glasses of beer and smoking _Tannhauser_ cigars, with an

appetising pile of coloured tickets and certificates in

front of us.

"Admit," said von Boobenstein good-naturedly, "that we

have overcome the food difficulty for ever."

"You have," I said.

"It was a pure matter of science and efficiency," he went

on. "It has long been observed that if one sat down in

a restaurant and drank beer and smoked cigars (especially

such a brand as these _Tannhausers_) during the time it

took for the food to be brought (by a German waiter),

all appetite was gone. It remained for the German scientists

to organise this into system. Have you finished? Or

would you like to take another look at your beef

certificate?"

We rose. Von Boobenstein paid the bill by writing I.O.U.

on the back of one of the cards--not forgetting the

waiter, for whom he wrote on a piece of paper, "God bless

you"--and we left.

"Count," I said, as we took our seat on a bench in the

Sieges-Allee, or Alley of Victory, and listened to the

music of the military band, and watched the crowd, "I

begin to see that Germany is unconquerable."

"Absolutely so," he answered.

"In the first place, your men are inexhaustible. If we

kill one class you call out another; and anyway one-half

of those we kill get well again, and the net result is

that you have more than ever."

"Precisely," said the Count.

"As to food," I continued, "you are absolutely invulnerable.

What with acorns, thistles, tanbark, glue, tickets,

coupons, and certificates, you can go on for ever."

"We can," he said.

"Then for money you use I.O.U.'s. Anybody with a lead

pencil can command all the funds he wants. Moreover, your

soldiers at the front are getting dug in deeper and

deeper: last spring they were fifty feet under ground:

by 1918 they will be nearly 200 feet down. Short of mining

for them, we shall never get them out."

"Never," said von Boobenstein with great firmness.

"But there is one thing that I don't quite understand.

Your navy, your ships. There, surely, we have you: sooner

or later that whole proud fleet in the Kiel Canal will

come out under fire of our guns and be sunk to the bottom

of the sea. There, at least, we conquer."

Von Boobenstein broke into loud laughter.

"The fleet!" he roared, and his voice was almost hysterical

and overstrung, as if high living on lobster-coupons and

over-smoking of _Tannhausers_ was undermining his nerves.

"The fleet! Is it possible you do not know? Why all

Germany knows it. Capture our fleet! Ha! Ha! It now lies

fifty miles inland. _We have filled in the canal_--pushed

in the banks. The canal is solid land again, and the

fleet is high and dry. The ships are boarded over and

painted to look like German inns and breweries. Prinz

Adelbert is disguised as a brewer, Admiral von Tirpitz

is made up as a head waiter, Prince Heinrich is a bar

tender, the sailors are dressed up as chambermaids. And

some day when Jellicoe and his men are coaxed ashore,

they will drop in to drink a glass of beer, and then--pouf!

we will explode them all with a single torpedo! Such is

the naval strategy of our scientists! Are we not a nation

of sailors?"

Von Boobenstein's manner had grown still wilder and more

hysterical. There was a queer glitter in his eyes.

I thought it better to soothe him.

"I see," I said, "the Allies are beaten. One might as

well spin a coin for heads or tails to see whether we

abandon England now or wait till you come and take it."

As I spoke, I took from my pocket an English sovereign

that I carry as a lucky-piece, and prepared to spin it

in the air.

Von Boobenstein, as he saw it, broke into a sort of hoarse

shriek.

"Gold! gold!" he cried. "Give it to me!"

"What?" I exclaimed.

"A piece of gold," he panted. "Give it to me, give it to

me, quick. I know a place where we can buy bread with it.

Real bread--not tickets--food--give me the gold--gold--for

bread--we can get-bread. I am starving--gold--bread."

And as he spoke his hoarse voice seemed to grow louder

and louder in my ears; the sounds of the street were

hushed; a sudden darkness fell; and a wind swept among

the trees of the _Alley of Victory_--moaning--and a

thousand, a myriad voices seemed to my ear to take up

the cry:

"Gold! Bread! We are starving."

Then I woke up.

XII. Abdul Aziz has His:

An Adventure in the Yildiz Kiosk

"Come, come, Abdul," I said, putting my hand, not unkindly,

on his shoulder, "tell me all about it."

But he only broke out into renewed sobbing.

"There, there," I continued soothingly. "Don't cry, Abdul.

Look! Here's a lovely narghileh for you to smoke, with

a gold mouthpiece. See! Wouldn't you like a little latakia,

eh? And here's a little toy Armenian--look! See his head

come off--snick! There, it's on again, snick! now it's

off! look, Abdul!"

But still he sobbed.

His fez had fallen over his ears and his face was all

smudged with tears.

It seemed impossible to stop him.

I looked about in vain from the little alcove of the hall

of the Yildiz Kiosk where we were sitting on a Persian

bench under a lemon-tree. There was no one in sight. I

hardly knew what to do.

In the Yildiz Kiosk--I think that was the name of the

place--I scarcely as yet knew my way about. In fact, I

had only been in it a few hours. I had come there--as I

should have explained in commencing--in order to try to

pick up information as to the exact condition of things

in Turkey. For this purpose I had assumed the character

and disguise of an English governess. I had long since

remarked that an English governess is able to go anywhere,

see everything, penetrate the interior of any royal palace

and move to and fro as she pleases without hindrance and

without insult. No barrier can stop her. Every royal

court, however splendid or however exclusive, is glad to

get her. She dines with the King or the Emperor as a

matter of course. All state secrets are freely confided

to her and all military plans are submitted to her

judgment. Then, after a few weeks' residence, she leaves

the court and writes a book of disclosures.

This was now my plan.

And, up to the moment of which I speak, it had worked

perfectly.

I had found my way through Turkey to the royal capital

without difficulty. The poke bonnet, the spectacles and

the long black dress which I had assumed had proved an

ample protection. None of the rude Turkish soldiers

among whom I had passed had offered to lay a hand on me.

This tribute I am compelled to pay to the splendid morality

of the Turks. They wouldn't touch me.

Access to the Yildiz Kiosk and to the Sultan had proved

equally easy. I had merely to obtain an interview with

Codfish Pasha, the Secretary of War, whom I found a

charming man of great intelligence, a master of three or

four languages (as he himself informed me), and able to

count up to seventeen.

"You wish," he said, "to be appointed as English, or

rather Canadian governess to the Sultan?"

"Yes," I answered.

"And your object?"

"I propose to write a book of disclosures."

"Excellent," said Codfish.

An hour later I found myself, as I have said, in a

flag-stoned hall of the Yildiz Kiosk, with the task of

amusing and entertaining the Sultan.

Of the difficulty of this task I had formed no conception.

Here I was at the outset, with the unhappy Abdul bent

and broken with sobs which I found no power to check or

control.

Naturally, therefore, I found myself at a loss. The little

man as he sat on his cushions, in his queer costume and

his long slippers with his fez fallen over his

lemon-coloured face, presented such a pathetic object

that I could not find the heart to be stern with him.

"Come, now, Abdul," I said, "be good!"

He paused a moment in his crying--

"Why do you call me Abdul?" he asked. "That isn't my

name."

"Isn't it?" I said. "I thought all you Sultans were called

Abdul. Isn't the Sultan's name always Abdul?"

"Mine isn't," he whimpered, "but it doesn't matter," and

his face began to crinkle up with renewed weeping. "Call

me anything you like. It doesn't matter. Anyway I'd rather

be called Abdul than be called a W-W-War Lord and a

G-G-General when they won't let me have any say at all--"

And with that the little Sultan burst into unrestrained

crying.

"Abdul," I said firmly, "if you don't stop crying, I'll

go and fetch one of the Bashi-Bazouks to take you away."

The little Sultan found his voice again.

"There aren't any Bub-Bub-Bashi-Bazouks left," he sobbed.

"None left?" I exclaimed. "Where are they gone?"

"They've t-t-taken them all aw-w-way--"

"Who have?"

"The G-G-G-Germans," sobbed Abdul. "And they've sent them

all to P-P-P-Poland."

"Come, come, Abdul," I said, straightening him up a little

as he sat. "Brace up! Be a Turk! Be a Mohammedan! Don't

act like a Christian."

This seemed to touch his pride. He made a great effort

to be calm. I could hear him muttering to himself, "Allah,

Illallah, Mohammed rasoul Allah!" He said this over a

good many times, while I took advantage of the pause to

get his fez a little straighter and wipe his face.

"How many times have I said it?" he asked presently.

"Twenty."

"Twenty? That ought to be enough, shouldn't it?" said

the Sultan, regaining himself a little. "Isn't prayer

helpful, eh? Give me a smoke?"

I filled his narghileh for him, and he began to suck blue

smoke out of it with a certain contentment, while the

rose water bubbled in the bowl below.

"Now, Abdul," I said, as I straightened up his cushions

and made him a little more comfortable, "what is it? What

is the matter?"

"Why," he answered, "they've all g-g-gone--"

"Now, don't cry! Tell me properly."

"They've all gone b-b-back on me! Boo-hoo!"

"Who have? Who've gone back on you?"

"Why, everybody. The English and the French and everybody--"

"What _do_ you mean?" I asked with increasing interest.

"Tell me exactly what you mean. Whatever you say I will

hold sacred, of course."

I saw my part already to a volume of interesting

disclosures.

"They used to treat me so differently," Abdul went on,

and his sobbing ceased as he continued, "They used to

call me the Bully Boy of the Bosphorus. They said I was

the Guardian of the Golden Gate. They used to let me kill

all the Armenians I liked and nobody was allowed to

collect debts from me, and every now and then they used

to send me the nicest ultimatums--Oh, you don't know,"

he broke off, "how nice it used to be here in the Yildiz

in the old days! We used all to sit round here, in this

very hall, me and the diplomats, and play games, such as

'Ultimatum, ultimatum, who's got the ultimatum.' Oh, say,

it was so nice and peaceful! And we used to have big

dinners and conferences, especially after the military

manoeuvres and the autumn massacres--me and the diplomats,

all with stars and orders, and me in my white fez with

a copper tassel--and hold discussions about how to reform

Macedonia."

"But you spoilt it all, Abdul," I protested.

"I didn't, I didn't!" he exclaimed almost angrily. "I'd

have gone on for ever. It was all so nice. They used to

present me--the diplomats did--with what they called

their Minimum, and then we (I mean Codfish Pasha and me)

had to draft in return our Maximum--see?--and then we

all had to get together again and frame a _status quo_."

"But that couldn't go on for ever," I urged.

"Why not?" said Abdul. "It was a great system. We invented

it, but everybody was beginning to copy it. In fact, we

were leading the world, before all this trouble came.

Didn't you have anything of our system in your country

--what do you call it--in Canada?"

"Yes," I admitted. "Now that I come to think of it, we

were getting into it. But the war has changed it all--"

"Exactly," said Abdul. "There you are! All changed! The

good old days gone for ever!"

"But surely," I said, "you still have friends--the

Bulgarians."

The Sultan's little black eyes flashed with anger as he

withdrew his pipe for a moment from his mouth.

"The low scoundrels!" he said between his teeth. "The

traitors!"

"Why, they're your Allies!"

"Yes, Allah destroy them! They are. They've come over to

_our_ side. After centuries of fighting they refuse to

play fair any longer. They're on _our_ side! Who ever

heard of such a thing? Bah! But, of course," he added

more quietly, "we shall massacre them just the same. We

shall insist, in the terms of peace, on retaining our

rights of massacre. But then, no doubt, all the nations

will."

"But you have the Germans--" I began.

"Hush, hush," said Abdul, laying his hand on my arm.

"Some one might hear."

"You have the Germans," I repeated.

"The Germans," said Abdul, and his voice sounded in a

queer sing-song like that of a child repeating a lesson,

"are my noble friends, the Germans are my powerful allies,

the Kaiser is my good brother, the Reichstag is my

foster-sister. I love the Germans. I hate the English.

I love the Kaiser. The Kaiser loves me--"

"Stop, stop, Abdul," I said, "who taught you all that?"

Abdul looked cautiously around.

"_They_ did," he said in a whisper. "There's a lot more

of it. Would you like me to recite some more? Or, no,

no, what's the good? I've no heart for reciting any

longer." And at this Abdul fell to weeping again.

"But, Abdul," I said, "I don't understand. Why are you

so distressed just now? All this has been going on for

over two years. Why are you so worried just now?"