HOW THE PLUMBER FIXED MY BOILER--A VEXATIOUS BUSINESS--HOW
HE DIDN'T COME TO TIME, AND WHAT THE ULTIMATE RESULT WAS--AN
ACCIDENT, AND THE PATHETIC STORY OF YOUNG CHUBB--REMINISCENCES OF
GENERAL CHUBB--THE ECCENTRICITIES OF AN ABSENT-MINDED MAN--THE
RIVALS--PARKER VERSUS SMILEY.
[Illustration]
We have had a great deal of trouble recently with our kitchen boiler,
which is built into the wall over the range. It sprang a leak a few
weeks ago, and the assistance of a plumber had to be invoked for the
purpose of repairing it. I sent for the plumber, and after examining the
boiler, he instructed the servant to let the fire go out that night, so
that he could begin operations early the next morning. His order was
obeyed, but in the morning the plumber failed to appear. We had a cold
and very uncomfortable breakfast, and on my way to the dépôt I overtook
the plumber going in the same direction. He said he was sorry to
disappoint me, but he was called suddenly out of town on imperative
business, and he would have to ask me to wait until the next morning,
when he would be promptly on hand with his men. So we had no fire in the
range upon that day, and the family breakfasted again upon cool viands
without being cheered with a view of the plumber. Upon calling at the
plumber's shop to ascertain why he had not fulfilled his promise, I was
informed by the clerk that he had returned, but that he was compelled to
go over to Wilmington. The man seemed so thoroughly in earnest in his
assertion that the plumber positively would attend to my boiler upon the
following morning that we permitted the range to remain untouched, and
for the third time we broke our fast with a frigid repast. But the
plumber and his assistants did not come.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
As it seemed to be wholly impossible to depend upon these faithless
artisans, our cook was instructed to bring the range into service again
without waiting longer for repairs, and to give the family a properly
prepared meal in the morning. While we were at breakfast there was a
knock at the gate, and presently we perceived the plumber and his men
coming up the yard with a general assortment of tools and materials. The
range at the moment of his entrance to the kitchen was red hot; and when
he realized the fact, he flung his tools on the floor and expressed his
indignation in the most violent and improper language, while his
attendant fiends sat around in the chairs and growled in sympathy with
their chief. When I appeared upon the scene, the plumber addressed me
with the air of a man who had suffered a great and irreparable wrong at
my hands, and he really displayed so much feeling that for a few moments
I had an indistinct consciousness that I had somehow been guilty of an
act of gross injustice to an unfortunate and persecuted fellow-being.
Before I could recover myself sufficiently to present my side of the
case with the force properly belonging to it, the plumbers marched into
the yard, where they tossed a quantity of machinery and tools and lead
pipe under the shed, and then left.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
We had no fire in the range the next morning, but the plumbers did not
come until four o'clock in the afternoon, and then they merely dumped a
cart load of lime-boxes and hoes upon the asparagus bed and went home.
An interval of four days elapsed before we heard of them again; and
meanwhile the cook twice nearly killed herself by stumbling over the
tools while going out into the shed in the dark. One morning, however,
the gang arrived before I had risen; and when I came down to breakfast,
I found that they had made a mortar bed on our best grass plot, and had
closed up the principal garden walk with a couple of wagon loads of
sand. I endured this patiently because it seemed to promise speedy
performance of the work. The plumbers, however, went away at about nine
o'clock, and the only reason we had for supposing they had not forgotten
us was that a man with a cart called in the afternoon and shot a
quantity of bricks down upon the pavement in such a position that nobody
could go in or out of the front gate. Two days afterward the plumbers
came and began to make a genuine effort to reach the boiler. It was
buried in the wall in such a manner that it was wholly inaccessible by
any other method than by the removal of the bricks from the outside. The
man who erected the house evidently was a party with the plumber to a
conspiracy to give the latter individual something to do. They labored
right valiantly at the wall, and by supper-time they had removed at
least twelve square feet of it, making a hole large enough to have
admitted a locomotive. Then they took out the old boiler and went away,
leaving a most discouraging mass of rubbish lying about the yard.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
That was the last we saw of them for more than a week. Whenever I went
after the plumber for the purpose of persuading him to hasten the work,
I learned that he had been summoned to Philadelphia as a witness in a
court case, or that he had gone to his aunt's funeral, or that he was
taking a holiday because it was his wife's birthday, or that he had a
sore eye. I have never been able to understand why the house was not
robbed. An entire brigade of burglars might have entered the cottage and
frolicked among its treasures without any difficulty. I did propose at
first that Bob and I should procure revolvers and take watch and watch
every night until the breach in the wall should be repaired; but Mr.
Parker did not regard the plan with enthusiasm, and it was abandoned. We
had to content ourselves with fastening the inner door of the kitchen as
securely as possible, and we were not molested. But we were nervous.
Mrs. Adeler, I think, assured me positively at least twice every night
that she heard robbers on the stairs, and entreated me not to go out
after them; and I never did.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Finally the men came and began to fill the hole with new bricks. That
evening the plumber walked into my parlor with mud and mortar on his
boots, and informed me that by an unfortunate mistake the hole left for
the boiler by the bricklayers was far too small, and he could not insert
the boiler without taking the wall down again.
[Illustration]
"Mr. Nippers," I said, "don't you think it would be a good idea for me
to engage you permanently to labor upon that boiler? From the manner in
which this business has been conducted, I infer that I can finally be
rid of annoyance about such matters by employing a perennial plumber to
live for ever in my back yard, and to spend the unending cycles of
eternity banging boilers and demolishing walls."
Mr. Nippers said, with apparent seriousness, that he thought it would be
a first-rate thing.
[Illustration]
"Mr. Nippers, I am going to ask a favor of you. I do not insist upon
compliance with my request. I know that I am at your mercy. Nippers, you
have me, and I submit patiently to my fate. But my family is suffering
from cold, we are exposed to the ravages of thieves, we are deprived of
the means of cooking our food properly, and we are made generally
uncomfortable by the condition of our kitchen. I ask you, therefore, as
a personal favor to a man who wishes you prosperity here and felicity
hereafter, and who means to settle your bill promptly, to fix that
boiler at once."
Mr. Nippers thereupon said that he always liked me, and he swore a
solemn oath that he would complete the job next day without fail. That
was on Tuesday. Neither Nippers nor his men came again until Saturday,
and then they put the boiler in its place and went away, leaving four or
five cart loads of ruins in the yard. On Sunday the boiler began to leak
as badly as ever, and I feel sure Nippers must have set the old one in
again, although when he called early Monday morning with a bill for
$237-84/100, which he wanted at once because he had a note to meet, he
declared upon his honor that the boiler was a new one, and that it
would not leak under a pressure of one thousand pounds to the square
inch.
I am going to buy a cooking stove, and defy Nippers and
the entire plumbing fraternity.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
Cooley's boy has been in trouble again. Yesterday morning Mrs. Adeler
heard loud screaming in Cooley's yard, and in a few moments a servant
came to say that Mrs. Cooley wished to see Mrs. Adeler at once. Mrs. A.
hurried over there, supposing that something terrible had happened. She
found Mrs. Cooley shaking her boy and crying, while the lad stood, the
picture of misery and fright, his eyes protruding from his head and his
hands holding his stomach. Mrs. Cooley explained in a voice broken with
sobs that Henry had been playing with a small "mouth organ," and had
accidentally swallowed it. The case was somewhat peculiar; and as Mrs.
Adeler was not familiar with the professional methods which are adopted
in such emergencies, she recommended simply a liberal use of mustard and
warm water. The application was ultimately successful, and the missing
musical instrument was surrendered by the boy. The incident is neither
interesting nor remarkable, and I certainly should not have mentioned it
but for the fact that it had a result which is perhaps worth chronicling
here.
[Illustration]
Last evening Bob came into the sitting-room and behaved in a manner
which led me to believe that he had something on his mind. I asked him
if anything was the matter. He said,
"Well, no; not exactly. The fact is I've been thinking about that
accident to Cooley's boy, and it kind of suggested something to me."
"What was the nature of the suggestion?"
[Illustration]
"I've jotted it down on paper. I've half a notion to send it to the
_Argus_ if you think it's good enough, and that's what I want to find
out. I want to hear your opinion of the story. I don't do much of this
sort of thing, and I'm kind of shy about it. Shall I read it?"
"Of course; let us hear it."
"I'm going to call it 'The Fate of Young Chubb.' I expect it'll make old
Cooley mad as fury when he sees it. It is founded upon the catastrophe
of which his boy was the victim."
* * * * *
THE FATE OF YOUNG CHUBB.
[Illustration]
When Mr. Chubb, the elder, returned from Europe, he brought with him
from Geneva a miniature musical box, long and very narrow, and
altogether of hardly greater dimensions, say, than a large pocket-knife.
The instrument played four cheerful little tunes for the benefit of the
Chubb family, and they enjoyed it. Young Henry Chubb enjoyed it to such
an extent that, one day, just after the machine had been wound up ready
for action, he got to sucking the end of it, and in a moment of
inadvertence it slipped, and he swallowed it. The only immediate
consequence of the accident was that a harmonic stomach-ache was
organized upon the interior of Henry Chubb, and he experienced a
restlessness which he well knew would defy peppermint and paregoric.
Henry Chubb kept his secret in his own soul, and in his stomach also,
determined to hide his misery from his father, and to spare the rod to
the spoiled child--spoiled, at any rate, as far as his digestive
apparatus was concerned.
[Illustration]
But that evening, at the supper-table, Henry had eaten but one mouthful
of bread when strains of wild, mysterious music were suddenly wafted
from under the table. The family immediately made an effort to discover
whence the sounds came, although Henry Chubb sat there filled with agony
and remorse and bread and tunes, and desperately asserted his belief
that the music came from the cellar, where the servant-girl was
concealed with a harp. He well knew that Mary Ann was unfamiliar with
the harp. But he was frantic with anxiety to hide his guilt. Thus it is
that one crime leads to another.
[Illustration]
But he could not disguise the truth for ever, and that very night, while
the family was at prayers, Henry all at once began to hiccough, and the
music box started off without warning with "Way down upon the Suwanee
River," with variations. Whereupon the paternal Chubb arose from his
knees and grasped Henry kindly but firmly by his hair and shook him up
and inquired what he meant by such conduct. And Henry asserted that he
was practicing something for a Sunday-school celebration, which old
Chubb intimated was a singularly thin explanation. Then they tried to
get up that music box, and every time they would seize Henry by the legs
and shake him over the sofa cushion, or would pour some fresh variety of
emetic down his throat, the instrument within would give a fresh spurt,
and joyously grind out "Listen to the Mocking Bird" or "Thou'lt Never
Cease to Love."
[Illustration]
At last they were compelled to permit that musical box to remain within
the sepulchral recesses of young Chubb. To say that the unfortunate
victim of the disaster was made miserable by his condition would be to
express in the feeblest manner the state of his mind. The more music
there was in his stomach, the wilder and more completely chaotic became
the discord in his soul. As likely as not it would occur that while he
lay asleep in the middle of the night the works would begin to revolve,
and would play "Home, Sweet Home" for two or three hours, unless the peg
happened to slip, when the cylinder would switch back again to "Way down
upon the Suwanee River," and would rattle out that tune with variations
and fragments of the scales until Henry's brother would kick him out of
bed in wild despair, and sit on him in a vain effort to subdue the
serenade, which, however, invariably proceeded with fresh vigor when
subjected to unusual pressure.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
And when Henry Chubb went to church, it frequently occurred that, in the
very midst of the most solemn portion of the sermon, he would feel a
gentle disturbance under the lower button of his jacket; and presently,
when everything was hushed, the undigested engine would give a
preliminary buzz and then reel off "Listen to the Mocking Bird" and
"Thou'lt Never Cease to Love," and scales and exercises, until the
clergyman would stop and glare at Henry over his spectacles and whisper
to one of the deacons. Then the sexton would suddenly tack up the aisle
and clutch the unhappy Mr. Chubb by the collar and scud down the aisle
again to the accompaniment of "Home, Sweet Home," and then incarcerate
Henry in the upper portion of the steeple until after church.
But the end came at last, and the miserable boy found peace. One day
while he was sitting in school endeavoring to learn his multiplication
table to the tune of "Thou'lt Never Cease to Love," his gastric juice
triumphed. Something or other in the music box gave way all at once, the
springs were unrolled with alarming force, and Henry Chubb, as he felt
the fragments of the instrument hurled right and left among his vitals,
tumbled over on the floor and expired.
At the _post mortem_ examination they found several pieces of "Home,
Sweet Home" in his liver, while one of his lungs was severely torn by a
fragment of "Way down upon the Suwanee River." Small particles of
"Listen to the Mocking Bird" were removed from his heart and
breast-bone, and three brass pegs of "Thou'lt Never Cease to Love" were
found firmly driven into his fifth rib.
[Illustration]
They had no music at the funeral. They sifted the machinery out of him
and buried him quietly in the cemetery. Whenever the Chubbs buy musical
boxes now, they get them as large as a piano and chain them to the wall.
* * * * *
While Bob was engaged in reading the account of the melodious misery of
the unhappy Chubb, Lieutenant Smiley came in, and the result was that
both became uneasy. Bob disliked to subject himself to the criticism of
a man whom he regarded as an enemy, and the lieutenant was so jealous of
Bob's success that he began instantly to try to think of something that
would enable him at least to maintain his reputation as a teller of
stories.
"That is very good indeed, Bob," I said. "Bangs will be only too glad to
publish it. It is very creditable. Put your name to it, however, if it
goes into the _Argus_, or the colonel will persuade the community that
he is the author of it."
"He will have to get a new brain-pan set in before he can write anything
as good," said Bob.
"It is a very amusing story," remarked Mrs. Adeler. "I had no idea that
you ever attempted such things. It is quite good, is it not,
lieutenant?"
"Oh, very good indeed," said Smiley. "V-e-r-y good. Quite an
achievement, in fact. Ha! ha! do you know that name 'Chubb' reminds me
of a very comical incident."
"Indeed?"
"Ha! yes! Old General Chubb was the actor in it. Perhaps you knew him,
Parker?"
"No, I didn't," growled Bob.
[Illustration]
"Well, he was a very eccentric old man. Deuced queer, you know, and the
most absent-minded person that ever lived. He had a wooden leg late in
his life, and I've often known him to put that leg on backward with the
toes pointing behind him, and then he would come jolting down the street
in the most extraordinary manner, with his good knee bending north and
his timber knee doubling up southwardly; and when I would meet him, he
would stop and growl because the authorities kept the pavements in such
bad repair that a man could hardly walk."
"I don't see anything very funny about that," said Bob, impolitely and
savagely.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
"Well, one day a few months ago," continued Smiley, without noticing Mr.
Parker's ill-nature, "he sauntered into the studio of the celebrated
marine painter Hamilton, in Philadelphia. The artist was out at the
moment, but standing upon the floor was a large and very superb picture
of the sea-beach, with the surf rolling in upon it. The general stood
looking at it for a while, until his mind wandered off from the present,
and under the influence of the picture he was gradually impressed with a
vague notion that he was at the seashore. So, still gazing at the
painting, he slowly removed his clothes, and finally stood in a revery
without a stitch upon him. Then he clasped his nose with his fingers,
bent his neck forward and plunged head foremost into the surf. The
people on the floor below thought there was an earthquake. The artist
came rushing in, and found General Chubb with his head against the
washboard, one leg hanging from the ragged surf and the toes of his left
foot struggling among the ruins of the lighthouse. Hamilton has that
torn picture yet. He says that Chubb's dive is the highest tribute ever
paid to his genius."
As the lieutenant finished the narrative, Bob rose and left the room
with the suggestion, muttered as he passed me, that the story was tough.
"Mr. Parker don't seem well," remarked the lieutenant when Bob had gone.
"Oh yes, he is perfectly well. I imagine that he does not regard you
with precisely the same amount of enthusiastic admiration that he might
perhaps feel if you were not treading on his toes a little."
"Oh," laughed the lieutenant, "you refer, of course, to our relations
with the Magruders? I don't like to talk much about that matter, of
course; it is delicate, and you may think I am meddling with a business
in which I have no concern. But perhaps I may as well tell you frankly
that Parker has no earthly chance there--not the least in the world. The
young lady won't smile on him. I am as certain of that as I am of
death."
"You are positive of that, are you?"
"Yes, sir, you can rely upon my word. Parker might as well give it up.
By the way, I wonder if he has gone down there now?"
"Very likely."
"Well, I must say good-night, then; I promised to call there at
half-past eight, and it is time to be off."
So Lieutenant Smiley bade us adieu. Mrs. Adeler immediately asked:
"Do you believe what that man says?"
"Certainly not, my dear. I have as much faith as a dozen ordinary men,
but it would require a grand army to believe him. He is foolish enough
to hope to frighten Bob away. But Bob shall settle the matter to-morrow.
If he doesn't, we will disown him. The end of the campaign has come. Now
for victory or defeat!"
[Illustration]