There are few Caliphesses. Women are Scheherazades by birth,
predilection, instinct, and arrangement of the vocal cords. The
thousand and one stories are being told every day by hundreds of
thousands of viziers' daughters to their respective sultans. But
the bowstring will get some of 'em yet if they don't watch out.
I heard a story, though, of one lady Caliph. It isn't precisely
an Arabian Nights story, because it brings in Cinderella, who
flourished her dishrag in another epoch and country. So, if you
don't mind the mixed dates (which seem to give it an Eastern
flavour, after all), we'll get along.
In New York there is an old, old hotel. You have seen woodcuts of
it in the magazines. It was built--let's see--at a time when there
was nothing above Fourteenth Street except the old Indian trail
to Boston and Hammerstein's office. Soon the old hostelry will be
torn down. And, as the stout walls are riven apart and the bricks
go roaring down the chutes, crowds of citizens will gather at
the nearest corners and weep over the destruction of a dear old
landmark. Civic pride is strongest in New Bagdad; and the wettest
weeper and the loudest howler against the iconoclasts will be the
man (originally from Terre Haute) whose fond memories of the old
hotel are limited to his having been kicked out from its free-lunch
counter in 1873.
At this hotel always stopped Mrs. Maggie Brown. Mrs. Brown was a
bony woman of sixty, dressed in the rustiest black, and carrying a
handbag made, apparently, from the hide of the original animal that
Adam decided to call an alligator. She always occupied a small
parlour and bedroom at the top of the hotel at a rental of two
dollars per day. And always, while she was there, each day came
hurrying to see her many men, sharp-faced, anxious-looking, with
only seconds to spare. For Maggie Brown was said to be the third
richest woman in the world; and these solicitous gentlemen were only
the city's wealthiest brokers and business men seeking trifling
loans of half a dozen millions or so from the dingy old lady with
the prehistoric handbag.
The stenographer and typewriter of the Acropolis Hotel (there! I've
let the name of it out!) was Miss Ida Bates. She was a hold-over
from the Greek classics. There wasn't a flaw in her looks. Some
old-timer paying his regards to a lady said: "To have loved her was
a liberal education." Well, even to have looked over the black hair
and neat white shirtwaist of Miss Bates was equal to a full course
in any correspondence school in the country. She sometimes did a
little typewriting for me, and, as she refused to take the money
in advance, she came to look upon me as something of a friend and
protégé. She had unfailing kindliness and a good nature; and not
even a white-lead drummer or a fur importer had ever dared to cross
the dead line of good behaviour in her presence. The entire force of
the Acropolis, from the owner, who lived in Vienna, down to the head
porter, who had been bedridden for sixteen years, would have sprung
to her defence in a moment.
One day I walked past Miss Bates's little sanctum Remingtorium,
and saw in her place a black-haired unit--unmistakably a
person--pounding with each of her forefingers upon the keys. Musing
on the mutability of temporal affairs, I passed on. The next day I
went on a two weeks' vacation. Returning, I strolled through the
lobby of the Acropolis, and saw, with a little warm glow of auld
lang syne, Miss Bates, as Grecian and kind and flawless as ever,
just putting the cover on her machine. The hour for closing had
come; but she asked me in to sit for a few minutes in the dictation
chair. Miss Bates explained her absence from and return to the
Acropolis Hotel in words identical with or similar to these
following:
"Well, Man, how are the stories coming?"
"Pretty regularly," said I. "About equal to their going."
"I'm sorry," said she. "Good typewriting is the main thing in a
story. You've missed me, haven't you?"
"No one," said I, "whom I have ever known knows as well as you do
how to space properly belt buckles, semi-colons, hotel guests,
and hairpins. But you've been away, too. I saw a package of
peppermint-pepsin in your place the other day."
"I was going to tell you all about it," said Miss Bates, "if you
hadn't interrupted me.
"Of course, you know about Maggie Brown, who stops here. Well, she's
worth $40,000,000. She lives in Jersey in a ten-dollar flat. She's
always got more cash on hand than half a dozen business candidates
for vice-president. I don't know whether she carries it in her
stocking or not, but I know she's mighty popular down in the part of
town where they worship the golden calf.
"Well, about two weeks ago, Mrs. Brown stops at the door and rubbers
at me for ten minutes. I'm sitting with my side to her, striking off
some manifold copies of a copper-mine proposition for a nice old man
from Tonopah. But I always see everything all around me. When I'm
hard at work I can see things through my side-combs; and I can leave
one button unbuttoned in the back of my shirtwaist and see who's
behind me. I didn't look around, because I make from eighteen to
twenty dollars a week, and I didn't have to.
"That evening at knocking-off time she sends for me to come up to
her apartment. I expected to have to typewrite about two thousand
words of notes-of-hand, liens, and contracts, with a ten-cent tip in
sight; but I went. Well, Man, I was certainly surprised. Old Maggie
Brown had turned human.
"'Child,' says she, 'you're the most beautiful creature I ever saw
in my life. I want you to quit your work and come and live with me.
I've no kith or kin,' says she, 'except a husband and a son or two,
and I hold no communication with any of 'em. They're extravagant
burdens on a hard-working woman. I want you to be a daughter to me.
They say I'm stingy and mean, and the papers print lies about my
doing my own cooking and washing. It's a lie,' she goes on. 'I
put my washing out, except the handkerchiefs and stockings and
petticoats and collars, and light stuff like that. I've got forty
million dollars in cash and stocks and bonds that are as negotiable
as Standard Oil, preferred, at a church fair. I'm a lonely old woman
and I need companionship. You're the most beautiful human being I
ever saw,' says she. 'Will you come and live with me? I'll show 'em
whether I can spend money or not,' she says.
"Well, Man, what would you have done? Of course, I fell to it. And,
to tell you the truth, I began to like old Maggie. It wasn't all on
account of the forty millions and what she could do for me. I was
kind of lonesome in the world too. Everybody's got to have somebody
they can explain to about the pain in their left shoulder and how
fast patent-leather shoes wear out when they begin to crack. And
you can't talk about such things to men you meet in hotels--they're
looking for just such openings.
"So I gave up my job in the hotel and went with Mrs. Brown. I
certainly seemed to have a mash on her. She'd look at me for half
an hour at a time when I was sitting, reading, or looking at the
magazines.
"One time I says to her: 'Do I remind you of some deceased relative
or friend of your childhood, Mrs. Brown? I've noticed you give me a
pretty good optical inspection from time to time.'
"'You have a face,' she says, 'exactly like a dear friend of
mine--the best friend I ever had. But I like you for yourself,
child, too,' she says.
"And say, Man, what do you suppose she did? Loosened up like a
Marcel wave in the surf at Coney. She took me to a swell dressmaker
and gave her _a la carte_ to fit me out--money no object. They were
rush orders, and madame locked the front door and put the whole
force to work.
"Then we moved to--where do you think?--no; guess again--that's
right--the Hotel Bonton. We had a six-room apartment; and it cost
$100 a day. I saw the bill. I began to love that old lady.
"And then, Man, when my dresses began to come in--oh, I won't tell
you about 'em! you couldn't understand. And I began to call her
Aunt Maggie. You've read about Cinderella, of course. Well, what
Cinderella said when the prince fitted that 3½ A on her foot was a
hard-luck story compared to the things I told myself.
"Then Aunt Maggie says she is going to give me a coming-out banquet
in the Bonton that'll make moving Vans of all the old Dutch families
on Fifth Avenue.
"'I've been out before, Aunt Maggie,' says I. 'But I'll come out
again. But you know,' says I, 'that this is one of the swellest
hotels in the city. And you know--pardon me--that it's hard to get
a bunch of notables together unless you've trained for it.'
"'Don't fret about that, child,' says Aunt Maggie. 'I don't send
out invitations--I issue orders. I'll have fifty guests here that
couldn't be brought together again at any reception unless it were
given by King Edward or William Travers Jerome. They are men, of
course, and all of 'em either owe me money or intend to. Some of
their wives won't come, but a good many will.'
"Well, I wish you could have been at that banquet. The dinner
service was all gold and cut glass. There were about forty men and
eight ladies present besides Aunt Maggie and I. You'd never have
known the third richest woman in the world. She had on a new black
silk dress with so much passementerie on it that it sounded exactly
like a hailstorm I heard once when I was staying all night with a
girl that lived in a top-floor studio.
"And my dress!--say, Man, I can't waste the words on you. It was all
hand-made lace--where there was any of it at all--and it cost $300.
I saw the bill. The men were all bald-headed or white-whiskered, and
they kept up a running fire of light repartee about 3-per cents. and
Bryan and the cotton crop.
"On the left of me was something that talked like a banker, and on
my right was a young fellow who said he was a newspaper artist. He
was the only--well, I was going to tell you.
"After the dinner was over Mrs. Brown and I went up to the
apartment. We had to squeeze our way through a mob of reporters all
the way through the halls. That's one of the things money does for
you. Say, do you happen to know a newspaper artist named Lathrop--a
tall man with nice eyes and an easy way of talking? No, I don't
remember what paper he works on. Well, all right.
"When we got upstairs Mrs. Brown telephones for the bill right away.
It came, and it was $600. I saw the bill. Aunt Maggie fainted. I got
her on a lounge and opened the bead-work.
"'Child,' says she, when she got back to the world, 'what was it? A
raise of rent or an income-tax?'
"'Just a little dinner,' says I. 'Nothing to worry about--hardly a
drop in the bucket-shop. Sit up and take notice--a dispossess
notice, if there's no other kind.'
"But say, Man, do you know what Aunt Maggie did? She got cold feet!
She hustled me out of that Hotel Bonton at nine the next morning. We
went to a rooming-house on the lower West Side. She rented one room
that had water on the floor below and light on the floor above.
After we got moved all you could see in the room was about $1,500
worth of new swell dresses and a one-burner gas-stove.
"Aunt Maggie had had a sudden attack of the hedges. I guess
everybody has got to go on a spree once in their life. A man spends
his on highballs, and a woman gets woozy on clothes. But with forty
million dollars--say, I'd like to have a picture of--but, speaking
of pictures, did you ever run across a newspaper artist named
Lathrop--a tall--oh, I asked you that before, didn't I? He was
mighty nice to me at the dinner. His voice just suited me. I guess
he must have thought I was to inherit some of Aunt Maggie's money.
"Well, Mr. Man, three days of that light-housekeeping was plenty
for me. Aunt Maggie was affectionate as ever. She'd hardly let me
get out of her sight. But let me tell you. She was a hedger from
Hedgersville, Hedger County. Seventy-five cents a day was the limit
she set. We cooked our own meals in the room. There I was, with
a thousand dollars' worth of the latest things in clothes, doing
stunts over a one-burner gas-stove.
"As I say, on the third day I flew the coop. I couldn't stand for
throwing together a fifteen-cent kidney stew while wearing, at the
same time, a $150 house-dress, with Valenciennes lace insertion. So
I goes into the closet and puts on the cheapest dress Mrs. Brown had
bought for me--it's the one I've got on now--not so bad for $75, is
it? I'd left all my own clothes in my sister's flat in Brooklyn.
"'Mrs. Brown, formerly "Aunt Maggie,"' says I to her, 'I'm going to
extend my feet alternately, one after the other, in such a manner
and direction that this tenement will recede from me in the quickest
possible time. I am no worshipper of money,' says I, 'but there are
some things I can't stand. I can stand the fabulous monster that
I've read about that blows hot birds and cold bottles with the same
breath. But I can't stand a quitter,' says I. 'They say you've got
forty million dollars--well, you'll never have any less. And I was
beginning to like you, too,' says I.
"Well, the late Aunt Maggie kicks till the tears flow. She offers to
move into a swell room with a two-burner stove and running water.
"'I've spent an awful lot of money, child,' says she. 'We'll have
to economize for a while. You're the most beautiful creature I ever
laid eyes on,' she says, 'and I don't want you to leave me.'
"Well, you see me, don't you? I walked straight to the Acropolis and
asked for my job back, and I got it. How did you say your writings
were getting along? I know you've lost out some by not having me to
type 'em. Do you ever have 'em illustrated? And, by the way, did you
ever happen to know a newspaper artist--oh, shut up! I know I asked
you before. I wonder what paper he works on? It's funny, but I
couldn't help thinking that he wasn't thinking about the money he
might have been thinking I was thinking I'd get from old Maggie
Brown. If I only knew some of the newspaper editors I'd--"
The sound of an easy footstep came from the doorway. Ida Bates saw
who it was with her back-hair comb. I saw her turn pink, perfect
statue that she was--a miracle that I share with Pygmalion only.
"Am I excusable?" she said to me--adorable petitioner that she
became. "It's--it's Mr. Lathrop. I wonder if it really wasn't the
money--I wonder, if after all, he--"
Of course, I was invited to the wedding. After the ceremony I
dragged Lathrop aside.
"You are an artist," said I, "and haven't figured out why Maggie
Brown conceived such a strong liking for Miss Bates--that was? Let
me show you."
The bride wore a simple white dress as beautifully draped as the
costumes of the ancient Greeks. I took some leaves from one of the
decorative wreaths in the little parlour, and made a chaplet of
them, and placed them on née Bates' shining chestnut hair, and made
her turn her profile to her husband.
"By jingo!" said he. "Isn't Ida's a dead ringer for the lady's head
on the silver dollar?"
V
"NEXT TO READING MATTER"
He compelled my interest as he stepped from the ferry at Desbrosses
Street. He had the air of being familiar with hemispheres and
worlds, and of entering New York as the lord of a demesne who
revisited it in after years of absence. But I thought that, with all
his air, he had never before set foot on the slippery cobblestones
of the City of Too Many Caliphs.
He wore loose clothes of a strange bluish drab colour, and a
conservative, round Panama hat without the cock-a-loop indentations
and cants with which Northern fanciers disfigure the tropic
head-gear. Moreover, he was the homeliest man I have ever seen. His
ugliness was less repellent than startling--arising from a sort of
Lincolnian ruggedness and irregularity of feature that spellbound
you with wonder and dismay. So may have looked afrites or the
shapes metamorphosed from the vapour of the fisherman's vase. As he
afterward told me, his name was Judson Tate; and he may as well be
called so at once. He wore his green silk tie through a topaz ring;
and he carried a cane made of the vertebræ of a shark.
Judson Tate accosted me with some large and casual inquiries about
the city's streets and hotels, in the manner of one who had but
for the moment forgotten the trifling details. I could think of no
reason for disparaging my own quiet hotel in the downtown district;
so the mid-morning of the night found us already victualed and
drinked (at my expense), and ready to be chaired and tobaccoed in a
quiet corner of the lobby.
There was something on Judson Tate's mind, and, such as it was, he
tried to convey it to me. Already he had accepted me as his friend;
and when I looked at his great, snuff-brown first-mate's hand, with
which he brought emphasis to his periods, within six inches of my
nose, I wondered if, by any chance, he was as sudden in conceiving
enmity against strangers.
When this man began to talk I perceived in him a certain power.
His voice was a persuasive instrument, upon which he played with
a somewhat specious but effective art. He did not try to make you
forget his ugliness; he flaunted it in your face and made it part of
the charm of his speech. Shutting your eyes, you would have trailed
after this rat-catcher's pipes at least to the walls of Hamelin.
Beyond that you would have had to be more childish to follow. But
let him play his own tune to the words set down, so that if all is
too dull, the art of music may bear the blame.
"Women," said Judson Tate, "are mysterious creatures."
My spirits sank. I was not there to listen to such a world-old
hypothesis--to such a time-worn, long-ago-refuted, bald, feeble,
illogical, vicious, patent sophistry--to an ancient, baseless,
wearisome, ragged, unfounded, insidious, falsehood originated by
women themselves, and by them insinuated, foisted, thrust, spread,
and ingeniously promulgated into the ears of mankind by underhanded,
secret and deceptive methods, for the purpose of augmenting,
furthering, and reinforcing their own charms and designs.
"Oh, I don't know!" said I, vernacularly.
"Have you ever heard of Oratama?" he asked.
"Possibly," I answered. "I seem to recall a toe dancer--or a
suburban addition--or was it a perfume?--of some such name."
"It is a town," said Judson Tate, "on the coast of a foreign
country of which you know nothing and could understand less. It is
a country governed by a dictator and controlled by revolutions and
insubordination. It was there that a great life-drama was played,
with Judson Tate, the homeliest man in America, and Fergus McMahan,
the handsomest adventurer in history or fiction, and Señorita
Anabela Zamora, the beautiful daughter of the alcalde of Oratama, as
chief actors. And, another thing--nowhere else on the globe except
in the department of Trienta y tres in Uruguay does the _chuchula_
plant grow. The products of the country I speak of are valuable
woods, dyestuffs, gold, rubber, ivory, and cocoa."
"I was not aware," said I, "that South America produced any ivory."
"There you are twice mistaken," said Judson Tate, distributing the
words over at least an octave of his wonderful voice. "I did not say
that the country I spoke of was in South America--I must be careful,
my dear man; I have been in politics there, you know. But, even
so--I have played chess against its president with a set carved
from the nasal bones of the tapir--one of our native specimens
of the order of _perissodactyle ungulates_ inhabiting the
Cordilleras--which was as pretty ivory as you would care to see.
"But is was of romance and adventure and the ways of women that was
I going to tell you, and not of zoölogical animals.
"For fifteen years I was the ruling power behind old Sancho
Benavides, the Royal High Thumbscrew of the republic. You've seen
his picture in the papers--a mushy black man with whiskers like the
notes on a Swiss music-box cylinder, and a scroll in his right hand
like the ones they write births on in the family Bible. Well, that
chocolate potentate used to be the biggest item of interest anywhere
between the colour line and the parallels of latitude. It was three
throws, horses, whether he was to wind up in the Hall of Fame or the
Bureau of Combustibles. He'd have been sure called the Roosevelt of
the Southern Continent if it hadn't been that Grover Cleveland was
President at the time. He'd hold office a couple of terms, then he'd
sit out for a hand--always after appointing his own successor for
the interims.
"But it was not Benavides, the Liberator, who was making all this
fame for himself. Not him. It was Judson Tate. Benavides was only
the chip over the bug. I gave him the tip when to declare war and
increase import duties and wear his state trousers. But that wasn't
what I wanted to tell you. How did I get to be It? I'll tell you.
Because I'm the most gifted talker that ever made vocal sounds since
Adam first opened his eyes, pushed aside the smelling-salts, and
asked: 'Where am I?'
"As you observe, I am about the ugliest man you ever saw outside
the gallery of photographs of the New England early Christian
Scientists. So, at an early age, I perceived that what I lacked
in looks I must make up in eloquence. That I've done. I get what I
go after. As the back-stop and still small voice of old Benavides
I made all the great historical powers-behind-the-throne, such
as Talleyrand, Mrs. de Pompadour, and Loeb, look as small as the
minority report of a Duma. I could talk nations into or out of debt,
harangue armies to sleep on the battlefield, reduce insurrections,
inflammations, taxes, appropriations or surpluses with a few words,
and call up the dogs of war or the dove of peace with the same
bird-like whistle. Beauty and epaulettes and curly moustaches and
Grecian profiles in other men were never in my way. When people
first look at me they shudder. Unless they are in the last stages
of _angina pectoris_ they are mine in ten minutes after I begin to
talk. Women and men--I win 'em as they come. Now, you wouldn't think
women would fancy a man with a face like mine, would you?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Tate," said I. "History is bright and fiction dull
with homely men who have charmed women. There seems--"
"Pardon me," interrupted Judson Tate, "but you don't quite
understand. You have yet to hear my story.
"Fergus McMahan was a friend of mine in the capital. For a handsome
man I'll admit he was the duty-free merchandise. He had blond curls
and laughing blue eyes and was featured regular. They said he was a
ringer for the statue they call Herr Mees, the god of speech and
eloquence resting in some museum at Rome. Some German anarchist, I
suppose. They are always resting and talking.
"But Fergus was no talker. He was brought up with the idea that
to be beautiful was to make good. His conversation was about as
edifying as listening to a leak dropping in a tin dish-pan at the
head of the bed when you want to go to sleep. But he and me got
to be friends--maybe because we was so opposite, don't you think?
Looking at the Hallowe'en mask that I call my face when I'm shaving
seemed to give Fergus pleasure; and I'm sure that whenever I heard
the feeble output of throat noises that he called conversation I
felt contented to be a gargoyle with a silver tongue.
"One time I found it necessary to go down to this coast town of
Oratama to straighten out a lot of political unrest and chop off a
few heads in the customs and military departments. Fergus, who owned
the ice and sulphur-match concessions of the republic, says he'll
keep me company.
"So, in a jangle of mule-train bells, we gallops into Oratama, and
the town belonged to us as much as Long Island Sound doesn't belong
to Japan when T. R. is at Oyster Bay. I say us; but I mean me.
Everybody for four nations, two oceans, one bay and isthmus, and
five archipelagoes around had heard of Judson Tate. Gentleman
adventurer, they called me. I had been written up in five columns of
the yellow journals, 40,000 words (with marginal decorations) in a
monthly magazine, and a stickful on the twelfth page of the New York
_Times_. If the beauty of Fergus McMahan gained any part of our
reception in Oratama, I'll eat the price-tag in my Panama. It was me
that they hung out paper flowers and palm branches for. I am not a
jealous man; I am stating facts. The people were Nebuchadnezzars;
they bit the grass before me; there was no dust in the town for them
to bite. They bowed down to Judson Tate. They knew that I was the
power behind Sancho Benavides. A word from me was more to them than
a whole deckle-edged library from East Aurora in sectional bookcases
was from anybody else. And yet there are people who spend hours
fixing their faces--rubbing in cold cream and massaging the muscles
(always toward the eyes) and taking in the slack with tincture of
benzoin and electrolyzing moles--to what end? Looking handsome.
Oh, what a mistake! It's the larynx that the beauty doctors ought
to work on. It's words more than warts, talk more than talcum,
palaver more than powder, blarney more than bloom that counts--the
phonograph instead of the photograph. But I was going to tell you.
"The local Astors put me and Fergus up at the Centipede Club, a
frame building built on posts sunk in the surf. The tide's only nine
inches. The Little Big High Low Jack-in-the-game of the town came
around and kowtowed. Oh, it wasn't to Herr Mees. They had heard
about Judson Tate.
"One afternoon me and Fergus McMahan was sitting on the seaward
gallery of the Centipede, drinking iced rum and talking.
"'Judson,' says Fergus, 'there's an angel in Oratama.'
"'So long,' says I, 'as it ain't Gabriel, why talk as if you had
heard a trump blow?'
"'It's the Señorita Anabela Zamora,' says Fergus.
'She's--she's--she's as lovely as--as hell!'
"'Bravo!' says I, laughing heartily. 'You have a true lover's
eloquence to paint the beauties of your inamorata. You remind me,'
says I, 'of Faust's wooing of Marguerite--that is, if he wooed her
after he went down the trap-door of the stage.'
"'Judson,' says Fergus, 'you know you are as beautiless as a
rhinoceros. You can't have any interest in women. I'm awfully gone
in Miss Anabela. And that's why I'm telling you.'
"'Oh, _seguramente_,' says I. 'I know I have a front elevation like
an Aztec god that guards a buried treasure that never did exist
in Jefferson County, Yucatan. But there are compensations. For
instance, I am It in this country as far as the eye can reach, and
then a few perches and poles. And again,' says I, 'when I engage
people in a set-to of oral, vocal, and laryngeal utterances, I do
not usually confine my side of the argument to what may be likened
to a cheap phonographic reproduction of the ravings of a jellyfish.'
"'Oh, I know,' says Fergus, amiable, 'that I'm not handy at small
talk. Or large, either. That's why I'm telling you. I want you to
help me.'
"'How can I do it?' I asked.
"'I have subsidized,' says Fergus, 'the services of Señorita
Anabela's duenna, whose name is Francesca. You have a reputation
in this country, Judson,' says Fergus, 'of being a great man and a
hero.'
"'I have,' says I. 'And I deserve it.'
"'And I,' says Fergus, 'am the best-looking man between the arctic
circle and antarctic ice pack.'
"'With limitations,' says I, 'as to physiognomy and geography, I
freely concede you to be.'
"'Between the two of us,' says Fergus, 'we ought to land the
Señorita Anabela Zamora. The lady, as you know, is of an old Spanish
family, and further than looking at her driving in the family
_carruaje_ of afternoons around the plaza, or catching a glimpse of
her through a barred window of evenings, she is as unapproachable as
a star.'
"'Land her for which one of us?' says I.
"'For me, of course,' says Fergus. 'You've never seen her. Now, I've
had Francesca point me out to her as being you on several occasions.
When she sees me on the plaza, she thinks she's looking at Don
Judson Tate, the greatest hero, statesman, and romantic figure in
the country. With your reputation and my looks combined in one
man, how can she resist him? She's heard all about your thrilling
history, of course. And she's seen me. Can any woman want more?'
asks Fergus McMahan.
"'Can she do with less?' I ask. 'How can we separate our mutual
attractions, and how shall we apportion the proceeds?'
"Then Fergus tells me his scheme.
"The house of the alcalde, Don Luis Zamora, he says, has a _patio_,
of course--a kind of inner courtyard opening from the street. In an
angle of it is his daughter's window--as dark a place as you could
find. And what do you think he wants me to do? Why, knowing my
freedom, charm, and skilfulness of tongue, he proposes that I go
into the _patio_ at midnight, when the hobgoblin face of me cannot
be seen, and make love to her for him--for the pretty man that she
has seen on the plaza, thinking him to be Don Judson Tate.
"Why shouldn't I do it for him--for my friend, Fergus McMahan?
For him to ask me was a compliment--an acknowledgment of his own
shortcomings.
"'You little, lily white, fine-haired, highly polished piece of dumb
sculpture,' says I, 'I'll help you. Make your arrangements and get
me in the dark outside her window and my stream of conversation
opened up with the moonlight tremolo stop turned on, and she's
yours.'
"'Keep your face hid, Jud,' says Fergus. 'For heaven's sake, keep
your face hid. I'm a friend of yours in all kinds of sentiment, but
this is a business deal. If I could talk I wouldn't ask you. But
seeing me and listening to you I don't see why she can't be landed.'
"'By you?' says I.
"'By me,' says Fergus.
"Well, Fergus and the duenna, Francesca, attended to the details.
And one night they fetched me a long black cloak with a high collar,
and led me to the house at midnight. I stood by the window in the
_patio_ until I heard a voice as soft and sweet as an angel's
whisper on the other side of the bars. I could see only a faint,
white clad shape inside; and, true to Fergus, I pulled the collar of
my cloak high up, for it was July in the wet seasons, and the nights
were chilly. And, smothering a laugh as I thought of the tongue-tied
Fergus, I began to talk.
"Well, sir, I talked an hour at the Señorita Anabela. I say 'at'
because it was not 'with.' Now and then she would say: 'Oh, Señor,'
or 'Now, ain't you foolin'?' or 'I know you don't mean that,' and
such things as women will when they are being rightly courted. Both
of us knew English and Spanish; so in two languages I tried to win
the heart of the lady for my friend Fergus. But for the bars to
the window I could have done it in one. At the end of the hour she
dismissed me and gave me a big, red rose. I handed it over to Fergus
when I got home.
"For three weeks every third or fourth night I impersonated my
friend in the _patio_ at the window of Señorita Anabela. At last she
admitted that her heart was mine, and spoke of having seen me every
afternoon when she drove in the plaza. It was Fergus she had seen,
of course. But it was my talk that won her. Suppose Fergus had gone
there, and tried to make a hit in the dark with his beauty all
invisible, and not a word to say for himself!
"On the last night she promised to be mine--that is, Fergus's. And
she put her hand between the bars for me to kiss. I bestowed the
kiss and took the news to Fergus.
"'You might have left that for me to do,' says he.
"'That'll be your job hereafter,' says I. 'Keep on doing that and
don't try to talk. Maybe after she thinks she's in love she won't
notice the difference between real conversation and the inarticulate
sort of droning that you give forth.'
"Now, I had never seen Señorita Anabela. So, the next day Fergus
asks me to walk with him through the plaza and view the daily
promenade and exhibition of Oratama society, a sight that had no
interest for me. But I went; and children and dogs took to the
banana groves and mangrove swamps as soon as they had a look at my
face.
"'Here she comes,' said Fergus, twirling his moustache--'the one
in white, in the open carriage with the black horse.'
"I looked and felt the ground rock under my feet. For Señorita
Anabela Zamora was the most beautiful woman in the world, and the
only one from that moment on, so far as Judson Tate was concerned. I
saw at a glance that I must be hers and she mine forever. I thought
of my face and nearly fainted; and then I thought of my other
talents and stood upright again. And I had been wooing her for three
weeks for another man!
"As Señorita Anabela's carriage rolled slowly past, she gave Fergus
a long, soft glance from the corners of her night-black eyes,
a glance that would have sent Judson Tate up into heaven in a
rubber-tired chariot. But she never looked at me. And that handsome
man only ruffles his curls and smirks and prances like a lady-killer
at my side.
"'What do you think of her, Judson?' asks Fergus, with an air.
"'This much,' says I. 'She is to be Mrs. Judson Tate. I am no man to
play tricks on a friend. So take your warning.'
"I thought Fergus would die laughing.
"'Well, well, well,' said he, 'you old doughface! Struck too, are
you? That's great! But you're too late. Francesca tells me that
Anabela talks of nothing but me, day and night. Of course, I'm
awfully obliged to you for making that chin-music to her of
evenings. But, do you know, I've an idea that I could have done it
as well myself.'
"'Mrs. Judson Tate,' says I. 'Don't forget the name. You've had the
use of my tongue to go with your good looks, my boy. You can't lend
me your looks; but hereafter my tongue is my own. Keep your mind on
the name that's to be on the visiting cards two inches by three and
a half--"Mrs. Judson Tate." That's all.'
"'All right,' says Fergus, laughing again. 'I've talked with her
father, the alcalde, and he's willing. He's to give a _baile_
to-morrow evening in his new warehouse. If you were a dancing man,
Jud, I'd expect you around to meet the future Mrs. McMahan.'
"But on the next evening, when the music was playing loudest at
the Alcade Zamora's _baile_, into the room steps Judson Tate in
new white linen clothes as if he were the biggest man in the whole
nation, which he was.
"Some of the musicians jumped off the key when they saw my face, and
one or two of the timidest señoritas let out a screech or two. But
up prances the alcalde and almost wipes the dust off my shoes with
his forehead. No mere good looks could have won me that sensational
entrance.
"'I hear much, Señor Zamora,' says I, 'of the charm of your
daughter. It would give me great pleasure to be presented to her.'
"There were about six dozen willow rocking-chairs, with pink tidies
tied on to them, arranged against the walls. In one of them sat
Señorita Anabela in white Swiss and red slippers, with pearls and
fireflies in her hair. Fergus was at the other end of the room
trying to break away from two maroons and a claybank girl.
"The alcalde leads me up to Anabela and presents me. When she took
the first look at my face she dropped her fan and nearly turned her
chair over from the shock. But I'm used to that.
"I sat down by her, and began to talk. When she heard me speak she
jumped, and her eyes got as big as alligator pears. She couldn't
strike a balance between the tones of my voice and face I carried.
But I kept on talking in the key of C, which is the ladies' key; and
presently she sat still in her chair and a dreamy look came into her
eyes. She was coming my way. She knew of Judson Tate, and what a
big man he was, and the big things he had done; and that was in my
favour. But, of course, it was some shock to her to find out that I
was not the pretty man that had been pointed out to her as the great
Judson. And then I took the Spanish language, which is better than
English for certain purposes, and played on it like a harp of a
thousand strings. I ranged from the second G below the staff up to
F-sharp above it. I set my voice to poetry, art, romance, flowers,
and moonlight. I repeated some of the verses that I had murmured to
her in the dark at her window; and I knew from a sudden soft sparkle
in her eye that she recognized in my voice the tones of her midnight
mysterious wooer.
"Anyhow, I had Fergus McMahan going. Oh, the vocal is the true
art--no doubt about that. Handsome is as handsome palavers. That's
the renovated proverb.
"I took Señorita Anabela for a walk in the lemon grove while Fergus,
disfiguring himself with an ugly frown, was waltzing with the
claybank girl. Before we returned I had permission to come to her
window in the _patio_ the next evening at midnight and talk some
more.
"Oh, it was easy enough. In two weeks Anabela was engaged to me, and
Fergus was out. He took it calm, for a handsome man, and told me he
wasn't going to give in.
"'Talk may be all right in its place, Judson,' he says to me,
'although I've never thought it worth cultivating. But,' says he,
'to expect mere words to back up successfully a face like yours in a
lady's good graces is like expecting a man to make a square meal on
the ringing of a dinner-bell.'
"But I haven't begun on the story I was going to tell you yet.
"One day I took a long ride in the hot sunshine, and then took a
bath in the cold waters of a lagoon on the edge of the town before
I'd cooled off.
"That evening after dark I called at the alcalde's to see Anabela. I
was calling regular every evening then, and we were to be married in
a month. She was looking like a bulbul, a gazelle, and a tea-rose,
and her eyes were as soft and bright as two quarts of cream skimmed
off from the Milky Way. She looked at my rugged features without
any expression of fear or repugnance. Indeed, I fancied that I saw
a look of deep admiration and affection, such as she had cast at
Fergus on the plaza.
"I sat down, and opened my mouth to tell Anabela what she loved
to hear--that she was a trust, monopolizing all the loveliness of
earth. I opened my mouth, and instead of the usual vibrating words
of love and compliment, there came forth a faint wheeze such as
a baby with croup might emit. Not a word--not a syllable--not an
intelligible sound. I had caught cold in my laryngeal regions when
I took my injudicious bath.
"For two hours I sat trying to entertain Anabela. She talked a
certain amount, but it was perfunctory and diluted. The nearest
approach I made to speech was to formulate a sound like a clam
trying to sing 'A Life on the Ocean Wave' at low tide. It seemed
that Anabela's eyes did not rest upon me as often as usual. I had
nothing with which to charm her ears. We looked at pictures and she
played the guitar occasionally, very badly. When I left, her parting
manner seemed cool--or at least thoughtful.
"This happened for five evenings consecutively.
"On the sixth day she ran away with Fergus McMahan.
"It was known that they fled in a sailing yacht bound for Belize. I
was only eight hours behind them in a small steam launch belonging
to the Revenue Department.
"Before I sailed, I rushed into the _botica_ of old Manuel Iquito, a
half-breed Indian druggist. I could not speak, but I pointed to my
throat and made a sound like escaping steam. He began to yawn. In
an hour, according to the customs of the country, I would have been
waited on. I reached across the counter, seized him by the throat,
and pointed again to my own. He yawned once more, and thrust into my
hand a small bottle containing a black liquid.
"'Take one small spoonful every two hours,' says he.
"I threw him a dollar and skinned for the steamer.
"I steamed into the harbour at Belize thirteen seconds behind the
yacht that Anabela and Fergus were on. They started for the shore in
a dory just as my skiff was lowered over the side. I tried to order
my sailormen to row faster, but the sounds died in my larynx before
they came to the light. Then I thought of old Iquito's medicine, and
I got out his bottle and took a swallow of it.
"The two boats landed at the same moment. I walked straight up to
Anabela and Fergus. Her eyes rested upon me for an instant; then she
turned them, full of feeling and confidence, upon Fergus. I knew I
could not speak, but I was desperate. In speech lay my only hope. I
could not stand beside Fergus and challenge comparison in the way of
beauty. Purely involuntarily, my larynx and epiglottis attempted to
reproduce the sounds that my mind was calling upon my vocal organs
to send forth.
"To my intense surprise and delight the words rolled forth
beautifully clear, resonant, exquisitely modulated, full of power,
expression, and long-repressed emotion.
"'Señorita Anabela,' says I, 'may I speak with you aside for a
moment?'
"You don't want details about that, do you? Thanks. The old
eloquence had come back all right. I led her under a cocoanut palm
and put my old verbal spell on her again.
"'Judson,' says she, 'when you are talking to me I can hear nothing
else--I can see nothing else--there is nothing and nobody else in
the world for me.'
"Well, that's about all of the story. Anabela went back to Oratama
in the steamer with me. I never heard what became of Fergus. I never
saw him any more. Anabela is now Mrs. Judson Tate. Has my story
bored you much?"
"No," said I. "I am always interested in psychological studies.
A human heart--and especially a woman's--is a wonderful thing to
contemplate."
"It is," said Judson Tate. "And so are the trachea and bronchial
tubes of man. And the larynx too. Did you ever make a study of the
windpipe?"
"Never," said I. "But I have taken much pleasure in your story.
May I ask after Mrs. Tate, and inquire of her present health and
whereabouts?"
"Oh, sure," said Judson Tate. "We are living in Bergen Avenue,
Jersey City. The climate down in Oratama didn't suit Mrs. T. I
don't suppose you ever dissected the arytenoid cartilages of the
epiglottis, did you?"
"Why, no," said I, "I am no surgeon."
"Pardon me," said Judson Tate, "but every man should know enough of
anatomy and therapeutics to safeguard his own health. A sudden cold
may set up capillary bronchitis or inflammation of the pulmonary
vesicles, which may result in a serious affection of the vocal
organs."
"Perhaps so," said I, with some impatience; "but that is neither
here nor there. Speaking of the strange manifestations of the
affection of women, I--"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Judson Tate; "they have peculiar ways. But,
as I was going to tell you: when I went back to Oratama I found out
from Manuel Iquito what was in that mixture he gave me for my lost
voice. I told you how quick it cured me. He made that stuff from the
_chuchula_ plant. Now, look here."
Judson Tate drew an oblong, white pasteboard box from his pocket.
"For any cough," he said, "or cold, or hoarseness, or bronchial
affection whatsoever, I have here the greatest remedy in the world.
You see the formula, printed on the box. Each tablet contains
licorice, 2 grains; balsam tolu, 1/10 grain; oil of anise, 1/20
minim; oil of tar, 1/60 minim; oleo-resin of cubebs, 1/60 minim;
fluid extract of _chuchula_, 1/10 minim.
"I am in New York," went on Judson Tate, "for the purpose of
organizing a company to market the greatest remedy for throat
affections ever discovered. At present I am introducing the lozenges
in a small way. I have here a box containing four dozen, which I am
selling for the small sum of fifty cents. If you are suffering--"
I got up and went away without a word. I walked slowly up to the
little park near my hotel, leaving Judson Tate alone with his
conscience. My feelings were lacerated. He had poured gently upon me
a story that I might have used. There was a little of the breath of
life in it, and some of the synthetic atmosphere that passes, when
cunningly tinkered, in the marts. And, at the last it had proven to
be a commercial pill, deftly coated with the sugar of fiction. The
worst of it was that I could not offer it for sale. Advertising
departments and counting-rooms look down upon me. And it would
never do for the literary. Therefore I sat upon a bench with other
disappointed ones until my eyelids drooped.
I went to my room, and, as my custom is, read for an hour stories in
my favourite magazines. This was to get my mind back to art again.
And as I read each story, I threw the magazines sadly and
hopelessly, one by one, upon the floor. Each author, without one
exception to bring balm to my heart, wrote liltingly and sprightly
a story of some particular make of motor-car that seemed to control
the sparking plug of his genius.
And when the last one was hurled from me I took heart.
"If readers can swallow so many proprietary automobiles," I said to
myself, "they ought not to strain at one of Tate's Compound Magic
Chuchula Bronchial Lozenges."
And so if you see this story in print you will understand that
business is business, and that if Art gets very far ahead of
Commerce, she will have to get up and hustle.
I may as well add, to make a clean job of it, that you can't buy the
_chuchula_ plant in the drug stores.