is more useless than a broken-down motor. There are some vehicles
of a box-like pattern that can be used as hen-houses when they have
outlived their initial usefulness, but who wants a hen-house on Fifth
Avenue, corner of Twenty-fifth Street, or any other place where a
motor vehicle gives out? The more I thought this over, the more I
felt that something was needed to make a disabled automobile of some
use, and I saw that the man who would supply that something could
make money hand over fist. So I devoted a great deal of time to the
subject, and at last I hit it. Horses.”
“Horses what?” said I.
[Illustration]
“Why, horses to supply the motive power. Horses are getting to be
a drug in the market, and can be bought dirt-cheap. That being the
case, I am going to interest capitalists in the scheme, and then we
will buy up a lot of horses and distribute them at different points
in the city. Then, when a man is out in his automobile and breaks
down, he will telephone to the nearest station and get a horse. This
can easily be hitched to the motor by a contrivance that I intend
to patent, and then the horse can drag the wagon to the nearest
power-house, where it can be restocked with electricity, or gas,
or naphtha, or whatever is wanted. Isn’t it a great scheme? Why,
sir, I can see in the future the plan enlarged so that people will
always take a horse along with them when they go a-motoring, and, if
anything happens, there they are with the good old horse handy. Talk
about the horseless age! Why, horses are just entering upon a new
sphere of usefulness.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he went on: “I tell you that if I can
get the holders of automobile stock to coöperate with me I’ll stop
eating at places like this.”
A look of such sweet content overspread his features that I told him
to put me down for ten shares as soon as his company was organized.
That was a month ago, and I haven’t gotten my stock yet. But motors
are becoming stalled every day.
XV
A CALCULATING BORE
My friend Bings is one of those habitual calculators--one of the
kind that says if all the teeth that have been extracted since the
first dentist began business were to be used for paving purposes in
Hades, the good-resolutions contractor would be out of a job for ten
thousand years. He thinks in numbers, and if he were a minister he
would get all his texts from the same source.
The other day he saw me first on a ferry-boat, and immediately
buttonholed me. Said he: “How sad it is to think that so much labor
goes for naught!”
I knew that I was in for one of his calculations; but I also knew
that it would be useless to try to head him off.
He stroked his beard, and said, with an imitation of thoughtfulness:
“Every day in this Empire State one million human beings go to bed
tired because you and I and the rest leave butter on our plates and
don’t eat our crusts.”
[Illustration]
I told him that I was astonished, but that he would have to elucidate.
“The farmers sow 8,000,000 bushels of useless grain,--grain that
eventually goes out to sea on the refuse-scows,--they milk 50,000
cows to no other purpose than to produce sour or spilled milk,
they allow their valuable hens to lay 1,654,800,001 eggs that will
serve no better purpose than to spatter some would-be Booth or lie
neglected in some out-of-the-way corner, while their wives are making
1,008,983 pounds of butter that will be left on the edges of plates
and thrown into the refuse-pail. If they didn’t sow the useless
grain, or fuss over the hens that lay the unused eggs, or draw the
milk that is destined to sour, or make the butter that is to ornament
the edges of the china disks, they would be able to go to bed merely
healthily tired instead of overworked, and fewer farmers would commit
suicide, and fewer farmers’ wives would go insane.”
His eyes gleamed, and I knew that, as he would put it, his pulse was
going so fast that if it were revolutions of a locomotive-wheel it
would take only so long to go somewhere.
“And what is your remedy for all this?” asked I, with becoming, if
mock, interest.
“Let us help ourselves to no more than we want at table, buy our eggs
a week earlier, drink our milk the day before, eat our bread before
it is too dry, and in six months’ time there will be a reduced State
death-rate, more vacancies in the insane asylums, 1,456,608 rosy
cheeks where to-day there are that many pale ones--”
Just then the ferry-boat’s gates were lifted, and as we went our
several ways, in the hurry that is characteristic of 7,098,111
Americans out of eight millions, I thought that, if all the brains of
all the arithmetical cranks were used in place of wood-pulp to make
into paper, we writers would get our pads for nothing.
XVI
AN URBAN GAME
A game that is much played in hot weather by persons who are addicted
to the department-store habit is called “Where can I find it?” It
is played by means of counters, and its duration is often a whole
morning in length. To the looker-on it is much like golf, it seems so
aimless; and it is aimless, but it has the advantages over golf that
it can be played in the city and does not necessitate the services of
a caddy. Over a score take a hand in it from first to last, but only
one is “it,” and she or he displays the only activity necessary to
the game. Only those who are of tough build should undertake to play
it on a hot day, as it is extremely debilitating.
To make the game long and interesting, you should enter the store and
ask for something a little unusual that you may have seen advertised
somewhere. For instance, you go to the glove counter and ask for a
preparation for making soup, called “Soupina.” I am not advertising
anything, as the name is fictitious, but it will serve to illustrate
my meaning. The particular embodiment of haughtiness at the glove
counter will think that you mean some kind of soap, and will frigidly
direct you to the perfumery department, “pillar No. 8.” You go there
simply because it is your move, and you repeat your inquiry, adding
that you think it’s put up in bottles.
“Bottled goods,” is the quick rejoinder, “fourth floor.”
The elevator bears you to the grocery department, and you ask for
“bottled goods.”
“Pillar 20.”
[Illustration]
At pillar No. 20 you are made to realize what a poor worm you are,
and you turn to pillar 10, as requested, that being the canned-goods
department. That clerk will undoubtedly misunderstand your order
and will direct you to the basement, “pillar 15.” You hurry down in
the elevator, and come face to face with the mouse-trap counter.
How you go from ladies’ underwear to carpets, to furniture, to the
telegraph-office, to the dental parlors, to the menagerie, to the
restaurant, to the lace goods, to every department known to a modern
city under one roof, you can best find out for yourself, but of one
thing you may be sure--you will never find “Soupina.”
At last, dazed and heated and leg-weary, you find yourself in the
oath-registering room. This is a little room that is in every
well-equipped department-store, and fills a long-felt want, for all
shoppers, at one time or another, wish to register an oath. Whether
you register or not, the game is now over, and you have lost; there
is no possibility of winning. And yet, so fascinating is the sport
that as soon as you have recovered the use of your muscles you will
be eager to play again.
XVII
“DE GUSTIBUS”
It was on one of the cannibal islands, and a family of cannibals
were discussing the pleasures of the table on their front piazza
while they waited for dinner to be announced. Their eldest daughter,
a slim, acidulous-looking girl, just home from boarding-school, and
full of fads and “isms,” had said that, for her part, she did not
care for human flesh at all, and was of the opinion that pigs or
lambs, or even cows, would make just as good eating as the tenderest
enemy ever captured or the juiciest missionary ever broiled.
“How disgusting!” said her brother, a lusty young cannibal who had
once eaten two Salvation Army lassies at a sitting. “Really, if you
get such unpleasant notions at school, it would be better for you to
stay at home. My gorge rises at the idea. Ugh!”
“Papa,” said dear little kinky-haired E. Taman, the peacemaker of the
family, changing the subject, “why are missionaries better eating
than our neighbors and enemies?”
“Probably because they are apt to be cereal-eaters,” said her father,
the cannibal chief; “although one of the most delicious missionaries
I ever tasted was a Boston lady who had been raised on beans. She was
a Unitarian. Your Unitarians generally make good eating. There’s a
good deal of the milk of human kindness in them, and that makes them
excellent roasters. Now, you take a hard-shell Baptist, and you might
as well eat a ‘shore dinner’ at once. They need a heap of steaming,
and they’re apt to be watery when all’s said and done. But it must be
confessed they have more taste than a wishy-washy agnostic.”
[Illustration]
“I think the most unsatisfactory of the lot,” said his wife, “is
your Presbyterian. He’s pretty sure to be dry and gnarly, and good
for nothing but fricasseeing. But I think that for all-round use,
although they haven’t the delicacy of the Unitarian, the Methodist is
what you might call the Plymouth Rock of missionaries. He’s generally
fat, and he hasn’t danced himself dry, and he’s good for a pot-roast
or any old thing. By the way, we’re going to have one to-day. I must
go and tell the cook to baste him well.”
The old grandfather, who had hitherto taken no part in the
conversation, said at this point: “Well, as you know, in my day I
have been something of an epicure, and I have tasted every variety
of dish known to cannibals. I don’t care for fresh-killed meat, no
matter of what denomination it is, and while I don’t wish to be
considered a sectarian, yet I do think that if you want a dish that
is capable of a good deal of trimming and fancy fixings’ get hold
of an Episcopal missionary; and, to me, the chief beauty of the
Episcopalian is that he’s apt to be a little high.”
XVIII
“BUFFUM’S BUSTLESS BUFFERS”
I was looking at a rather startling picture in the morning paper
of a man who had fallen from a seventh-story window and had been
instantly killed. The man in the seat next to me--we were on the
elevated--said: “I’ll do away with all those accidents soon.”
I turned and looked at him. He was a lean-faced, hollow-eyed man,
full of nervous starts, and quick of speech.
“What do you mean?” asked I, somewhat puzzled.
“Oh, nothing; oh, nothing at all,” he replied, as if sorry he had
spoken. “I do not wish to be laughed at. I am no Keely motor man to
be laughed at. I spoke without thought.”
I fancied there was a story in him, and so I drew him out, and he
said in short, quick sentences, but in so low a tone that I had to
strain my ears to hear him:
“I am Burgess Buffum, the inventor of Buffum’s Bustless Buffers.”
He paused with rhetorical effect, and nodded and blinked his eyes;
and I, duly impressed, asked him what the buffers were supposed to
buff.
[Illustration]
“Children at open windows. Painters on scaffolds. Panic-stricken
flyers from fires. Mountain-climbers. In fact, all persons whose
business or duty or pleasure carries them to unsafe heights. My
buffers are filled with air, and you can’t bust ’em. Child can fill
’em. Foot-pump, puff, puff, puff, and there you are. They are made of
rubber and weigh next to nothing. Painter at work on scaffold; hears
rope breaking; seizes one of my patent buffers; holds it carelessly
in his right hand until within five feet of the pavement; then
catches it with both hands, holds it in front of him as a shield,
and falls with it under him. Merely pleasant titillation. Up at once;
mends rope; resumes painting; undertaker foiled; no funeral; money
saved; put in bank, or invested in stock in my company--”
“But,” said I, interrupting him, “suppose the buffer isn’t handy?”
“Ah, that’s his lookout. It must be handy. No business to take
chances when safeguard is on scaffolding with him. Or child playing
on fire-escape; careful mother puts two of my buffers out there;
warns child not to fall without one; goes about her work care-free;
child feels that it is about to fall; clutches buffer; goes down like
painter; pleasant ride; child enjoys it; perfect confidence in my
buffer; holds it under him; arrives seated; no deleterious effect;
continues play in street. Object-lesson in favor of my invention.
Child takes orders for my buffers; gets commission from me. Sells
dozens--”
Just then the guard called out, “Forty-second Street!” and a man whom
I had not noticed before, but who wore an air of authority, and who
sat next to Buffum, rose and, touching him on the arm, said, “Come.”
And before I could get the inventor’s address he had left the train.
But I fancy that
BURGESS BUFFUM, ESQ.,
Bloomingdale,
will reach him.
AT THE LITERARY COUNTER
[Illustration]
XIX
“THE FATHER OF SANTA CLAUS”
The Successful Author dropped in at the club and looked around for
some one to whom he might talk shop. He spied the Timid Aspirant in
the corner, and asked him to sit down. The Timid Aspirant blushed all
over, and felt that better days were dawning for him, because the
Successful Author’s name was in every one’s mouth.
“Have much trouble to sell your stuff, my boy?”
“Oh, I suppose I oughtn’t to complain.”
“Never destroy a manuscript, my boy. You don’t, do you?”
“Sometimes, sir.”
“Ah, don’t. You never know when it will become valuable. Anything
written has its niche somewhere.”
Then the Successful Author sank back in his arm-chair and continued
reminiscently: “I’ll never forget how one of my articles fared. It
was the fourth or fifth thing that I had written, and it was called
‘The Father of Santa Claus.’ I liked it better than any editor has
ever liked anything of mine.”
The Timid Aspirant nodded sympathetically, and the Successful Author
continued: “I sent it to the ‘Prospect,’ and it came back promptly.
Did I destroy it? Not at all. I pigeonholed it, and next year I sent
it to them again. Again it came back, and once more I laid it to rest
for a twelvemonth, and then bombarded the ‘Prospect’ with it. This
sort of thing went on for several years, until at last, to save time,
the editor had a special form of rejection printed for it that ran
about as follows:
“DEAR SIR: The time of year has come once more when we reject your
story, ‘The Father of Santa Claus.’ It would not seem like the
sweet Christmas season if we did not have a chance to turn it down.
“Yours respectfully,
“EDITOR THE PROSPECT.”
“Let you down easy each year, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Well, in course of time my price went up. At the start I’d have
been tickled to death to get five dollars for the thing, but now I
knew that if the editor ever did change his mind I’d get at least
fifty, so I kept at it. Well, it was last year that my collection of
stories made such a hit, and since then I’ve been so busy filling
orders for short stories that I forgot to send my dear old mossback
out this year. But day before yesterday I received a note from the
editor of the ‘Prospect’ asking for a Christmas sketch. Now was my
opportunity. I wrote back:
“Sorry I haven’t anything new, but it struck me that you might
like to look at an old thing of mine called ‘The Father of Santa
Claus,’ and if you care to consider its publication I’ll let it go
for a couple of hundred, just for the sake of old times.
I inclosed the story, and just before coming here I received a check
for two hundred dollars.”
[Illustration]
“What moral do you deduce from this, sir?”
“Don’t ever sell anything until you’ve gotten a big reputation.”
“Do you mind talking a little more shop?” asked the Timid Aspirant.
Somehow he lost his timidity when talking to his renowned friend.
“Of course not. No one really does, though some affect to. Most talk
is shop talk. It may relate to plumbing, or to dry-goods, or to
painting, or to babies, but it is of the shop shoppy, as a rule, only
‘literary shop talk,’ as Ford calls it, is more interesting to an
outsider than the other kinds. What particular department of our shop
did you want me to handle?”
“I wanted to ask you if you believed in cutting a man’s work--in
other words, do you believe in blue-penciling?”
“Ah, my boy, I see that they have been coloring your manuscript with
the hateful crayon. No, I don’t believe in it. I dislike it now
because it mars my work, and I used to hate it because it took money
from my purse. Let me tell you a little incident.
“One time, years ago, I wrote an article, and after it was done I
figured on what I would get for it and with it. If I sold it to a
certain monthly I had in mind I should receive enough to buy a new
hat, a new suit, a pair of shoes, ditto of socks, and a necktie,
for all of which I stood in sore need. I hied me forth in all the
exuberance of youth and bore my manuscript to the editor. As he was
feeling pretty good, he said he’d read it while I waited. At last he
laid it down and said: ‘That’s a pretty good story.’ My heart leaped
like an athlete. ‘But’--my heart stopped leaping and listened--‘it
will need a little cutting, and I’ll do it now, if you wish.’”
“Poor fellow!” said the Timid Aspirant, sympathetically.
“Well, the first thing that editor did was to cut the socks off of
it; then he made a deep incision in the hat; then he slashed away
at the trousers and did some scattered cutting, and at last handed
the manuscript to me that I might see the havoc he had wrought in
my prospective wardrobe. Dear man, I had a vest and a necktie left,
and that was all. And it would have been the same if it had been a
dinner.”
The Timid Aspirant shuddered.
“Many a young author has seen the soup and the vegetables, and at
last the steak, fade away under the terrible obliterating power of
the indigo crayon, and lucky is he if a sandwich and a glass of water
remain after the editor’s fell work. Blessed is that editor who does
not care to work in pastel,--to whom the blue pencil is taboo,--for
he shall be held in honored remembrance of all writers, and his end
shall be peace.”
“Amen!” said the Timid Aspirant.
XX
THE DIALECT STORE
“I suppose I dreamed it; but if there isn’t such a store, there might
be, and it would help quill-drivers a lot,” said the newspaper man,
as he and his friend were waiting to give their order in a down-town
restaurant yesterday noon.
“What store are you talking about, and what dream? Don’t be so vague,
old man,” said his friend the magazine-writer.
“Why, a dialect store. Just the thing for you. I was walking down
Fifth Avenue, near Twenty-first Street, and I saw the sign, ‘Dialect
shop. All kinds of dialects sold by the yard, the piece, or in
quantities to suit.’ I thought that maybe I might be able to get some
Swedish dialect to help me out on a little story I want to write
about Wisconsin, so I walked in. The place looked a good deal like a
dry-goods store, with counters down each side, presided over by some
twenty or thirty clerks, men and women.
“The floor-walker stepped up to me and said, ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I want to buy some dialect,’ said I. ‘Oh, yes; what kind do you want
to look at? We have a very large assortment of all kinds. There’s
quite a run on Scotch just now; perhaps you’d like to look at some
of that.’ ‘No; Swedish is what I’m after,’ I replied. ‘Oh, yes; Miss
Jonson, show this gentleman some Swedish dialect.’
“I walked over to Miss Jonson’s department, and she turned and opened
a drawer that proved to be empty. ‘Are you all out of it?’ I asked.
‘Ja; but I skall have some to-morrer. A faller from St. Paul he baen
haer an’ bought seventy jards.’
“I was disappointed, but as long as I was there I thought I’d look
around; so I stepped to the next counter, behind which stood a man
who looked as if he had just stepped out of one of Barrie’s novels.
‘Have you Scotch?’ said I. ‘I hae joost that. What’ll ye hae? Hielan’
or lowlan’, reeleegious or profane? I’ve a lairge stock o’ gude auld
Scotch wi’ the smell o’ the heather on it; or if ye’re wantin’ some
a wee bit shop-worn, I’ll let ye hae that at a lower price. There’s
a quantity that Ian Maclaren left oot o’ his last buke.’ I expressed
surprise that he had let any escape him, and he said: ‘Hech, mon,
dinna ye ken there’s no end to the Scots?’ I felt like telling him
that I was sorry there had been a beginning, but I refrained, and he
went on: ‘We’re gettin’ airders fra the whole English-sp’akin’ warld
for the gude auld tongue. Our manager has airdered a fu’ line of a’
soorts in anticipation of a brisk business, now that McKinley--gude
Scotch name, that--is President.’
“I should have liked to stay and see a lot of the Scotch, as it
seemed to please the man to talk about his goods; but I wanted to
have a look at all the dialects, so I bade him good morning, and
stepped to the next department--the negro.
“Here an unctuous voice called out: ‘Fo’ de Lawd! Ah don’ b’lieve
you’ll pass me widout buyin’. Got ’em all hyah, boss--Sou’ Ca’lina
an’ Ten’see an’ Virginny. Tawmas Nelson Page buys a heap er stuff
right yer. Dat man sut’n’y got a great haid. He was de fustes’ one
ter see how much folks was dyin’ ter git a leetle di’lect er de ra’ht
sawt, an’ Ah reckon Ah sol’ him de fus’ yard he evah bo’t.’
“‘Do you sell it by the yard?’ I asked, just to bring him out.
‘Shuah!’ and pulling down a roll of black goods, he unrolled enough
dialect to color ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ But I said, ‘I don’t want to
buy, uncle; but I’m obliged to you for showing it to me.’ ‘Oh, dat’s
all right, boss. No trouble to show goods. Ah reckon yo’ nev’ saw
sech a heap er local col’in’ as dat. Hyah! hyah! hyah! We got de
goods, an’ any tahm you want to fix up a tale, an’ put in de Queen’s
English in black, come yer an’ as’ fer me. Good day, sah.’ And I
passed on to the next--Western dialect.
“Here I found that James Whitcomb Riley had just engaged the whole
output of the plant. The clerk had an assistant in his little son,--a
Hoosier boy,--and he piped up: ‘We got ’ist a littul bit er chile’s
di’lec’, an’ my popper says ’at ef Mist’ Riley don’t come an’ git it
soon ’at I can sell it all my own se’f. ’At ’d be the mostest fun!’
and his childish treble caused all the other clerks in the store to
look around and smile kindly at him.
“In the German department the clerk told me he was not taking orders
for dialect in bulk. ‘Zome off dose tayatree-kalers dey buy it,
aber I zell not de best to dem. I zell imitation kints “made in
Chairmany.” Aber I haf der best eef you vant it.’
“I told him I did not care to buy, and passed on to the
French-Canadian department. The clerk was just going out to lunch;
but although I told him I merely wished to look, and not to buy,
he said politely: ‘I try hall I can for get di’lect, but hup in
Mon’réal dat McLennan he use hall dere is; but bymby I speak for some
dat a frien’ have, an’ he sen’ me some. An’ ’e tell me I’ll get hit
las’ summer.’
“I expressed a polite wish that he might get his goods even sooner
than ‘las’ summer,’ and walked to the Jew-dialect counter, over which
I was nearly pulled by the Hebrew clerk. ‘You’re chust in time,’ he
said. ‘Say, veepin’ Rachel! but I sell you a parkain. Some goots on’y
been ust vun veek on der staich; unt so hellep me cracious! you look
so like mein prudder Imre dat I let dem go’--here he lowered his
voice to a whisper--‘I let dem go fer a qvarter uf a darler.’
[Illustration]
“I resisted him, and hurried to the Yankee department. There was tall
hustling going on there, and a perfect mob of buyers of all sorts
and conditions of writers; and it took half a dozen men, women, and
children, including three typical farmers, to wait on them; and they
were selling it by the inch and by the carload. ‘Wall, I’m plumb
tired. Wisht they’d let up so ’st I could git a snack er somep’n’
inside me,’ said one; and he looked so worn out that I passed on to
the Irish counter. A twinkling-eyed young Irishman, not long over, in
answer to my question, said: ‘Sure, there’s not much carl fer larrge
quantities av ut. Jane Barlow do be havin’ a good dale, an’ the funny
papers do be usin’ ut in smarl lots, but ’t is an aisy toime I have,
an’ that’s a good thing, fer toimes is harrd.’
“I paused a moment at the English-dialect counter, and the
rosy-cheeked clerk said: ‘Cawn’t I show you the very litest thing in
Coster?’ I told him no, and he offered me Lancashire and Yorkshire at
‘gritely reduced rites’; but I was proof against his pleading, and
having now visited all the departments but one, went to that.”
“What was it?” asked the writer for the magazines.
“The tough-dialect counter.”
“Tough is not a dialect,” said he.