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MIXED FACES
BY
ROY NORTON
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
MIXED FACES
CHAPTER I
If Nature is infallible, there should be some philosophic or eugenic
professor arise and explain why she made such a grievous error in the
personal appearance, vocal qualities, and general gestures of the
learned judge, astute politician and hopeful statesman, Hon. J.
Woodworth-Granger and Mr. James Gollop, perigrinating drummer for a
chocolate house. Either the Honorable Judge should have been a
commercial traveler, or the commercial traveler a judge. Outwardly they
could have passed for specimen twins, given handicaps to all comers, and
easily won the blue ribbon. Inwardly their characteristics were as
different as those of any two animals could be, the Judge having the
ponderous gravity of a camel, whilst Mr. James Gollop was as sedate as
a monkey and twice as ebullient. The Judge suffered from a prodigious
sense of responsibility and dignity, whilst his double was given to
frivolities, a distressing sense of the ridiculous and was as
irresponsible and happy as a flea hurdling from one boarding house to
another in a dog pound.
The first intimation the Judge had that some other person dared to look
like him was when, as he strode into the lobby of the Media City hotel
in the best city in his state, a grinning porter rushed up, seized his
suit case and said affably, "Righto, Old Sport! Got here just in time
this trip and I'll send your cases to number two sample room, and open
'em up if you'll gimme the burglar's kit. The room you kicked for last
month--remember."
The Hon. J. Woodworth-Granger, who from force of habit never said
anything until he had formulated the complete sentence and then edited
it, and having a mind that moved with the frantic speed and wild agility
of a tractor engine pulling a carload of coal, glared ponderously at the
porter who took it as a joke. Gollop sometimes assumed that prodigious
seriousness when about to pass out specimens of his best humor.
"Spring it! Spring it! I'm ready to laugh," the porter encouraged him.
"Young man," said the Judge, "I am not accustomed to having those in
your evident station of life address me with any such familiarity. You
should be old enough to know that it is unseemly. You can not succeed,
even in a menial occupation, unless you cultivate that respect which is
due not only to your superiors, but to those who patronize the hotel, or
any other undertaking in which you are employed."
He might have gone ahead and imposed a fine for contempt of court, or
sentenced the unfortunate porter to ten years in the penitentiary, had
not other arrivals come surging through the door, which reminded him
that perhaps it were wiser to register ahead of all newcomers and thus
endeavor to secure the choicest room for himself. The Judge had the
trait which is shared alike by some human beings and many hogs, that he
demanded the best though every other human--or hog--has to suffer. He
liked to make sure that his own feet were firmly planted in the choice
end of the trough; so he hurried to the desk, leaving the jovial porter
still grinning, still expectant and quite hopeful that the tip would be
of its usual generous proportions. Jim tipped liberally, because his
firm was what is known as "easy on the tabs." Anybody can be liberal if
someone else furnishes the platinum. That's why trust magnates and
drummers can't be distinguished, because somebody else always pays the
bills, although there has never yet been invented any painless dentistry
for extraction of the purse. The room clerk in the hotel was new to her
job, and so was the boy who conducted the Judge to his room; but, sad to
relate, the chambermaid winked at the Judge and blew him a kiss. She was
rather pretty too. Now to have a pretty chambermaid blow one a kiss when
he arrives in a fine hotel is not objectionable to most travelers. It
shows such a friendly spirit, and makes one feel at home, or else fancy
that he is still in the running and not so old and ugly as he had begun
to believe. Some men immediately adjust their ties and brush their hair
and grin into the mirror; but the Judge wasn't that sort at all. The
proof that he was no gentleman lies in the fact that he scowled in
outraged dignity at that pretty chambermaid who had most prettily blown
him a kiss, and that she gasped, sniffed, simpered and said, "You ain't
forgot me, have you?"
"Forgotten you! Damn it! I never saw you before in my life!" said the
Judge, annoyed and exasperated to the rare point where his temper
overcame his language.
"G'wan Jimmy, you little josher! You'll be round chuckin' me under the
chin before the lights come on. Gee! There goes the bell again! I'll bet
my switch it's that scraggy old hen in forty-four, wantin' me to run out
and buy her some hair pins, or to hook her up so she'll look like a
prize winner at a wasp show. She makes me sick, she does! But I'll--Yes
Ma'am! Coming right away," she answered in a honeyed voice, as the lady
guest was heard calling her name through a transom somewhere in the
distance.
The Judge carefully shut and locked his door. He was a church member in
good standing and an unmarried man, so had to lock the girl out or
perhaps thought it best to lock himself in. One never knows! The porter
appeared with his suit case in his hand and perturbation in his soul,
the double burden sufficing to render him serious.
"The baggageman says your sample trunks ain't come. He says he went to
the baggage master and they had a look. He says you orter get busy on
the wires because maybe they carried 'em through on sixty-two and her
next stop is at Chicago, and you can't get your layout back before----"
"I have no trunks, I tell you," interrupted the Judge, with freezing
dignity. "Put that suit case over there in the corner and get out. Who
do you think I am, may I ask? A commercial traveler?"
He had intended this as a stern piece of sarcasm; but it had the effect
of causing the porter to blink, stare, drop the suit case and then blurt
out, "Good Lord! You're Jimmy Gollop what travels for the Columbus
Chocolate Company, ain't you? You're Jim Gollop what has stopped here
for years, ain't you? If you ain't----" He jerked off his cap, scratched
his red head and added--"If you ain't---- For the Lord's sake don't say
nothin'----"
"Jimmy Gollop! A commercial traveler! Me?" the Judge actually spluttered
and then, recovering all his overpowering magisterial arrogance,
responded loftily, "I am J. Woodworth-Granger, Judge of the Fourth
District Court. You go down and tell the manager of this hotel to come
here at once. I wish to see him. I demand an explanation for all this
outrageous flippancy. If his guests are to be subjected to such coarse
impoliteness, discourtesy, annoyance and familiarity, he should be
notified or ousted from his position. It is an imposition on the public
which can not be condoned by any one with a sense of propriety, or any
citizen with regard for public welfare. Go and get him!"
The manager, anticipating some rare practical joke, or perhaps
apprehensive of such, having experienced some of Mr. Jimmy Gollop's
freakish efforts in the past, appeared and greeted the Judge with, "Look
here, old man, for my sake let go. Don't pull anything this time. My
board of directors is to have a meeting this afternoon and----" But the
stern eye of the angry judge checked him.
The manager in his turn blinked, and gasped and then exclaimed, "Jordon
says you told him you were the Judge of the Fourth District Court. You
look to me like Jim Gollop. If you're really Judge Woodworth-Granger, I
beg your pardon and think you ought to get your face changed for your
own protection. If you're Jimmy Gollop--and I'm a Dutchman if you
aren't--have some sense and quit your kidding. This has gone far enough!
Look here, Jimmy, there's a limit to even one of your jokes. I can't
stand for it to-day when my board of directors is coming. The last time
you were here and put red fire on the roof and then turned in a fire
alarm cost me twenty-five iron men and the hotel company a round dozen
of Pommery. It's going too strong, I tell you! I'm a joke hound myself
but a starving Dutchman can get too much limburger if he's locked up in
a cheese factory."
Mutual explanations, and abject apologies on the part of the manager and
the porter followed. Everybody apologized, except the pretty
chambermaid, and the judge never saw her again. Also that was a detail
he didn't mention. He rather hoped she would come and apologize. In fact
he thought hopefully of what he might say to her in his kindliest
judicial manner, and occasionally took furtive glances into the hall to
see if she was coming. He was disappointed, perhaps, because she didn't
come, for he was positive he could say things for the good of her soul,
and--Oh, well!--he always subscribed for the Home Missionary Society.
Moreover she was a particularly pretty girl as chambermaids go, and
there is never an orchard without its peach.
So, in due time, the Judge got away from that hotel unscathed; but to
his extreme annoyance, now that he had openly plunged into politics and
felt the necessity for becoming acquainted with the larger cities in the
state despite the consequent discomforts of travel and sojourn, this man
Gollop always intruded. That unfortunate similarity in appearance and
gesture, voice and manner, was proven on a dozen occasions. That the
habits of the Judge and the drummer were divergent made it all the more
annoying. The Judge never had associated with, nor understood, what some
persons called "A bully good fellow." He thought it was a rank and
preposterous assumption on the part of a mere drummer to look, and talk,
and act like a real judge who nursed an ambition to be governor of the
state. It preyed upon his mind and caused him occasionally to say things
that he wouldn't have said if he hadn't lost his temper, become
momentarily a real human being, and found an unexpected safety valve in
speech. Men merely vary in the choice of words. One says "Oh, dear me!"
Another "Oh, Fudge!" another "Oh, Pshaw!" and so on down to the common,
vulgar, horny-handed sonofagun who blurts out "Damn it all!" or worse
and--the judge finally got to the limit. One writes this with glad,
cheerful hopefulness for the entire human race because it's a fine thing
to be natural and human, after all.
In the meantime Mr. James Gollop was working his Eastern territory.
Working it both ways and up and down the middle; selling chocolates to
people who thought they might do better with So-and-So, inducing some
men to overorder, others to underorder, tipping porters, buying--sody
pop (?)--now and then, spinning yarns, peddling the latest funny story,
explaining to his house why his expense account should be passed without
those querulous protests, and generally comporting himself according to
his own erratic and sometimes pyrotechnical ideas. And when Jimmy
breezed westward again and heard that the Judge of the Fourth Judicial
District was his double he chuckled, laughed, and finally beat his plump
legs at what was told him.
"By Gosh!" he chuckled to a confrere, "if that judge looks and sounds so
much like me, I'll make a trip up to Princetown just to have a look at
him and shake his paw, and congratulate him. We ought to make a right
good team, although I can't exactly recommend him for his judgment in
the choice of faces. I never yet won a beauty prize, although once upon
a time I did win a family photograph album at a pie eating contest.
Huckleberry too! Spoiled a forty-dollar suit of clothes and a two-dollar
tie to win a sixty-cent album at a town fair. Got the album to prove it.
Got it on the parlor table with the marble top down home in Maryland,
and every time Maw looks at it she smiles and says 'Jimmy may be not
much good at anything he's tried yet, but he can eat pie!'"
Now the peculiar part of Jim Gollop's makeup was that underneath all his
banter, and his lightness, and his irresponsible sense of humor, there
lurked something which made him keep his resolutions. He was a pretty
good sort after all. Just a very human, contented, work-a-day man who
liked other good fellows, was sorry for those who took life too
seriously, never did any person a contemplated harm, knew neither malice
nor envy, was always a booster and never a knocker, and whose sense of
humor was generously given out for expansion rather than preserved to
harass his own soul. So, one day, he made a sixty-mile journey out of
his way to see, become acquainted with, and felicitate this judge whom
he so startlingly resembled. For sixty miles he chuckled and bubbled
with anticipation and curiosity. He even thought of a forgotten joke or
two to spring and resolved that what he spent in entertainment for this
meeting should come from his own purse and never appear on the expense
account. True, it cost him a pang to forego that expense account, but he
didn't see how he could ever explain to his firm that it had been
necessary to travel sixty miles and entertain a judge of a state court
in the hope of selling him a big order of chocolate drops. He was afraid
the firm might be skeptical. Some people can't be convinced.
And so, picturing a mutual hand shaking, some lively interchanges and
facetious comments on what constituted good looks and bad looks, perhaps
a luncheon or a dinner, and a new friend through the strange accident of
nature, he climbed the stairs to Judge J. Woodworth-Granger's office
with a cheerful smile on his face, and after a gasp from the office boy
and some stares of astonishment from a clerk or two, was ushered in. He
had expected to enter the tropics. He found himself as "happy as a
Mexican hairless dog in the Arctic regions" as Marshall would say. Cold?
There may be in the vast, dead planets of space places much colder than
the North pole; but these would have been warm and comfortable compared
with the atmosphere of Judge Woodworth-Granger's austere office when he
turned his eyes on the person of Mr. James Gollop. Here before him,
grinning and sticking out a plump, friendly hand, was the man to whose
personal similarity he strongly objected, and of whose personal ways he
disapproved.
"And so, sir," said the Judge icily, as he stood up and scrutinized the
drummer, "you are the man who has caused me so much personal
embarrassment, indignity, familiarity, and--if I never loathed my own
appearance before, I can do so now after looking at you!"
Jimmy's grin froze on his face, became hard, and slowly changed to
something very different. His well-meaning hand slowly came back as if
half-paralyzed by such a reception. It had never before been rebuffed.
It was a liberal hand that had gone into its pocket many times to help
those in hard luck. It had never been slow in friendliness or that
courtesy which prevails between well-meaning and generous hands
throughout the sad old world. It had seldom been hastily raised in
anger. But now it shut hard and its owner said, "So that's the way of
it, eh? You're sore because I look like you. Why shouldn't I get hot
under the collar because you look like me? About the only difference
between us is that you're a judge and I'm a drummer. That doesn't keep
you from being a good sport, does it? I came a long way to get
acquainted with you and I like most people. It's not my fault that you
look so much like me, is it?"
"Look like you? It's your fault that you look like me!" snapped the
Judge as if that fault were an impertinence.
"Phew!" said Jimmy, puffing out his cheeks. "That's the sort you are,
eh? Guess I made a mistake."
"I guess you did," grimly said the Judge, mimicking Jimmy's voice
without in the least realizing it. And then he added, "Good day, Mr.
Gollop. I hope I may not see you again and that you travel in some
other territory than this."
As if incredulous, Jimmy stared at him for a full quarter minute and
then, recovering his good humor, clapped his hat on his head and
assuming a highly melodramatic air in imitation of the Judge's ponderous
methods said, "Harold, beware! Beware! I say! It's a long worm that has
no turning. Them papers shall be mine! I swear it on me lyfe." And with
a boisterous shout of laughter turned out through the door and down the
stairs. That ribald laughter still floated upward as he made his
departure, and the Judge was annoyed. Very much annoyed. He felt himself
soiled; quite as if the garbage van man had suddenly tried to kiss him
with brotherly affection. It was outrageous! Impossible! And a mere
drummer, too!
Jimmy retired to an hotel, pausing on the way to buy a pair of blue
goggles, and to fit them on, and to pull his hat down over his eyes.
"I don't intend to look like that old catamount in his own town anyhow,"
he said to himself. "If he's as popular with his fellow citizens as he
is with me it might not be safe. Wish I had a set of false whiskers to
wear during my sojourn. Wonder when the next train leaves? I'm like the
chap that got pinned down under a burning railway wreck and said he
thought he really ought to get away from there. That's me! I want to get
away from here."
In the hotel room he dug his pocket time table from his grip, and no
hungry reader ever plunged into the pages of the latest "Best Seller"
more avidly than did he thumb those flimsy pages. His capable fingers
turned the leaves rapidly and, being expert and highly trained in
working out the abstruse puzzles and problems with which time table
people always try to fill their books so that people will get tired of
seeking information and look at the advertisements, in less than five
minutes he slammed the book shut and almost viciously hurled it back
into his bag.
"By Heck!" he muttered, despairingly, "no train out till four o'clock
to-morrow morning and--I'll bet it smells of new laid milk and long laid
cows. There'll be an hour's delay while they fill the baggage car with
chickens in coops. Serves the chickens right for getting up that early.
Ought to go some place and have their heads chopped off. There'll be
one combination smoker car filled with yawning farm hands who wear
fertilizer on their boots. But it's me for that train!"
Then, recovering his cheerfulness, he sallied out to visit all the
confectionary shops; but met with no success and attributed his failure
to the hideous goggles and the fact that his customary happy and
seductive grin was slightly stiff about the corners as if his face
needed oiling. "Hang it all! Nobody but an undertaker could look happy
in this town," Jimmy thought after his final effort. "No wonder that old
cuss is so solemn. I'd be too, if I lived in a morgue!"
To escape the town he decided to make a pedestrian trip to where the
only big enterprise near Princetown was in full blast. It was spoken of
as "out at the falls" as if they were the only ones on earth. It was two
and a half miles from the town and the day was hot. "Thank Heaven it
might be worse," thought Jimmy. "I might have to tote a hundred pound
grip this far in the hope of getting an order, and now all I've got to
lug is my goggles." He took them off, wiped the sweat from his face,
stopped to watch some fish in a stream, regretted that he hadn't
brought some string and a fish hook, contemplated a swim, and then
trudged onward, whistling as he went and wholly forgetful of his woes.
He came in sight of "The Falls," and stopped.
"Whew!" he puffed. "Of course they're not as big as Niagara--except to
the folks of Princetown; but by Heck! They're some falls after all. And,
what's more, some live individual knows it. Bet he wasn't born in
Princetown anyhow. This looks like business."
He leaned on the railing of a bridge and speculatively regarded the
considerable manufacturing plant that was in full industry, saw that its
prosperity was evidenced by some big new buildings under course of
construction, and deliberated over a long white sign on top that read
"Sayers Automobiles."
He rather objected to that sign. If he had designed it it would have
been twice as high, twice as long and might have read "Sayers
Automobiles, best on earth for the money. Cheapest at any price. No home
complete without one."
He remembered that he had ridden in one a few days before and that it
was what he called "nifty and nippy." In fact he had thought he would
like to have one--just a very small one to suit his purse, and had
intended to ask what they cost. All his automobiling experience had been
at the expense of his firm; but he had done quite a lot of riding. In
fact the cashier had once asked him, sarcastically, whilst checking up
his expense account, if he took an automobile to bed with him.
Jimmy got out his goggles, and visited the works. He was fascinated by
the machinery, the noise, the way things were made. He wished that his
line was automobiles instead of chocolates; but regretfully concluded
that probably it took a long time to learn the patter, and how to run
one, and that the only hopeless individual in the world was a candy
drummer, because, "once a candy drummer always a candy drummer" was the
proverb of the road.
A whistle blew and with a start he looked at his watch, scarcely
believing it possible that he had passed the afternoon so quickly. He
walked out through the big gates and started his homeward journey, and
was surprised to realize that he was as tired as if he had done a heavy
day's work. Absorbed in reflections concerning automobiles, and trade,
he suddenly brought up with a jerk and heard behind him a man jamming
on the brakes of a car, and using several shining expletives. Jimmy made
the jump of his life and got out of the road just in time.
"Gee Whizz!" he exclaimed. "If I've got to be run down by a taxi let it
be on Broadway, not on a rube trail. Thank the Lord it wasn't a hay
cart, because it'd have got me, sure!"
The motorist, looking back in exasperation, abruptly brought his car to
a halt and turning half round in his seat shouted, "Sorry I missed you
so close."
"Why, did you want to get me? It was close enough to suit me," replied
Jimmy, recovering his grin.
"Of course I didn't know you were blind, sir. I'm very sorry," said the
man.
"Why? Do you prefer to run down the blind ones?" queried Jimmy, coming
abreast of the car and then laughing when he remembered that he was
still wearing those ridiculous blue goggles. "I'm not blind. I just wear
these for ornament. But it's all right, old chap. Don't you worry. I
reckon I was so busy thinking that I didn't hear you coming at all. I
get rather fond of myself when I think, which isn't often enough so but
that it surprises me to catch myself doing it. It's all right. No harm
done."
The man surrendered to that entrancing smile and the glitter of exposed
and perfect white teeth.
"Well the least I can do is to give you a lift, if you're going toward
town," he said, with a return grin. "Get in, can't you?"
"Can't I? Watch me, as the drunk said when the policeman tapped him and
told him he couldn't sleep sitting against a lamp post," and, grateful
for conveyance, he climbed aboard. "It's the first time I ever won
anything by missing anything," he said, laughing at his own paradox. "My
feet are so sore from walking over these country roads that after this
I'll never be able to look at a farm horse without tears in my eyes, and
I'll take him by the hand and give the poor chap a box of corn salve.
Phew! Pavements for mine. Do automobiles ever get sore feet out here?"
Jimmy learned that the driver was a foreman at the Sayers plant and was
very enthusiastic about the merits of the car.
"It's not old enough or advertised enough to be well known yet," he
said, "but she will be. I know. Been in automobile factories all my
life. Worked for some of the best of 'em. These are A-1. And Sayers is a
live one. Fine old feller, too. That's his house up there on the hill.
Some swell, eh?"
Jimmy looked up and saw a fine home that he had admired on his way out
and had deduced that it belonged to the nabob of the town.
"I could do with it first rate," Jimmy assented. "All except the society
stunt and that----" He concluded with a little cluck of his tongue.
The driver laughed.
"You don't know old Tom Sayers," he said. "Old Tom doing society stunts!
Humph! He began as a machinist. Then got to be a designing engineer and
now--well--there you are! Self-made man, Old Tom, and as fine as they
make 'em. I don't reckon he'd care for a house as grand as that but you
see he's married. Funny how some women first want to get married, then
want their men to get rich, then instead of bein' satisfied get the
society itch and after that are forever scratchin', ain't it? Mrs.
Sayers spends about half her time in Europe. Schools here weren't good
enough for her girl Margaret, so she took her over to some of those
nunneries in France and Switzerland, and goodness knows where. Gone
some time now. Mighty pretty girl. But Old Tom? If you think he's ever
gallivantin' anywhere except around his works, you ought to be up there
loafin' some day when you think no one's about to see you! Old Tom can
say things in five minutes that you don't have to learn by heart to
remember the rest of your life. He works four hundred men now and he
knows 'em all. Don't you doubt that!"
Jimmy, who was so keenly alive and imaginative that he was interested in
nearly everything and everybody, looked back over his shoulder at the
fine old remodeled colonial house on the hill with its broad sweep of
lawns, its background of splendid trees, mountains in the distance, and
the lively river at its feet, and, distinctly urban as he was, thought
that if Mrs. Sayers knew when she was well off she'd stay at home.
"If I had a place like that with Maw in it--say sitting up there on the
veranda, knitting--she's great on knitting, Maw is!--I reckon the show
hasn't hit Broadway yet that could drag me out for a single night.
No-sir-ee! Not if the whole chorus had chocolate legs!" he said to the
foreman, who vociferously agreed.
"Beats the Dutch how some folks get everything, and others nothin'," he
half grumbled.
"Cheer up, son!" said Jimmy. "You never get anything by envying somebody
else. Why, look at me! I haven't even ever owned a run-about! And I'm
not kicking! I like to see others have a lot of things I can't have
myself, because it makes me glad to think that most likely they're happy
owning things I'd like to have too, if I could afford 'em. By gosh! It's
the finest feeling in the world to know that other folks are happy.
Keeps you from feeling unhappy yourself. Makes it a mighty pleasant
world for all of us. All the money I've got in the world, if made into
cloth, wouldn't make me a patch if I had a hole in the seat of my pants
as big as a postage stamp; but I don't lay awake nights grieving for
fear I'll be pinched for indecent exposure. Not me! I just thank God the
hole's not any bigger and keep plugging along, and I whistle while I
plug. It helps. Plug & Whistle, I reckon, is the best firm on earth."
His benefactor had become so engrossed in his quaint passenger that the
car was driven squarely up to the hotel door to let him out.
"Got any kids at home?" Jimmy asked, and on being told there were three,
said cheerfully, "Wait a minute," and ran up the steps three at a time
to return with a box of chocolates purloined from his samples.
"Take that to 'em," he said to the driver. "They're all right, I know.
I'm a candy drummer. Good thing you've only got three because I couldn't
spare a bigger box. My boss isn't a bad old chap, but he did ask me one
time if I went on the road to sell candy or to give it away. The only
man in the world I'd like to change jobs with is Santa Claus. Much
obliged for the ride."
He loitered in the hotel lobby long enough to read a bill announcing
that there would be a mass meeting that night in the "Grand Opera House"
under the auspices of the Princetown Municipal Improvement League and
then saw in big letters, that the meeting would be addressed by "His
Honor, Judge J. Woodworth-Granger."
Jimmy had forgotten his rebuff, but now frowned a trifle at the
recollection aroused by that name. He was entertained at supper by his
sole fellow guest who sold machinery and hoped to get an order from the
Sayers' plant. And although the technical part was as foreign as Greek
to Jimmy, he was mightily interested and wanted to know all about it.
After dinner he sat alone on the veranda in front of the hotel and
watched people coming down the drowsy, shaded street or loitering in the
town square. There was nothing else to do. No theaters, cinema shows but
three nights a week, and this an off night. Some wandering fireflies
absorbed him for a while, and then they flew away, leaving him alone.
Suddenly he dropped his chair from where it had been tilted back against
the wall, and said, "Well, I reckon I'll have to go and hear what the
judge has to say about improving this place. It needs it!" He found the
Grand Opera House readily enough by following the slowly moving people
who traveled in but one direction. Also he found on entering that
there's not much in a name, its grandeur consisting of a lot of badly
worn wooden seats, dingy painting, and some strips of jute carpet in the
aisles that looked as if they had been collected after a cyclone. The
stage was the bright spot, due to the decorations of flags, banners and
bunting. Jimmy got a seat in the back row after some difficulty. The
Opera House was full, perhaps because there was no charge for admission,
perhaps because there was no other place to go; but Jimmy charitably
thought the town should be patted on the back for its interest in public
improvements. Two girls played a duet on a piano and played it rather
badly. And then there came in from the wings those who were to occupy
the chairs on the stage. They entered as solemnly as if each was alone
and about to recite Hamlet's soliloquy. Some of them threw out their
chests and glared at the audience, others slunk in like harness makers
visiting a lace factory. All were seated before there stalked in the
counterpart of the drummer in the back row, and there was some evidence
in the Judge's deportment that he had the dramatic sense to wait for a
proper pause so that the spectators might see him in all his aloof
magnificence. Had the two girls played "See the Conquering Hero Comes,"
he might have accepted it as befitting.
"Stranger here, ain'tchu?" Jimmy's neighbor, a dried up little old man,
queried.
"Yes, why?" Jimmy mumbled back.
"Come to stay long?"
"Never can tell," replied Jimmy aloud, and mentally added, "Hope not."
"Goin' inter business?"
"No."
"Lookin' fer a job? I hear as how old Tom Sayers is hirin' all the men
he can git to work on his new buildin's." A moment's wait and then,
"Ain't a bricklayer, be you? You don't look like one. Look more
like--like a feller that don't know much about hard work. Interested in
autymobiles?"
"Yes," said Jimmy, telling the truth.
The old man cackled and said, "By gum! I thought so--I can spot 'em."
"How do you do that?" queried Jimmy, instantly curious concerning this
new psychological art.
"They all wear goggles and scarf pins," said the old man, triumphantly,
and then, as a speaker got up to open the meeting, whispered, "That's
old Smith. He's the mayor. He can't talk. Wait till you hear the Jedge
spout. Then you'll hear somethin' if he gets goin' good. He can talk so
loud that when he was in court before he was elected jedge, you could
hear him four blocks away from the square. Best lawyer in the state
because you could hear him the furdest."
"Hope he doesn't get going to-night," said Jimmy, and listened to the
mayor, who mumbled something about "Distinguished fellow townsmen,"
"Ardent believers in City Beautiful," "Great and growing city of
Princetown," and "Future metropolis of the state."
"The object of this meeting is to raise money enough to build a band
stand in the middle of the square. Mr. Sayers has kindly agreed in
consideration of the city's building such, to donate the cost of the
instruments."
Jimmy's neighbor had cupped his hand behind his ear and was evidently
disappointed. He started to ask Jimmy for an explanation but was
interrupted by the applause which greeted the introduction of the Judge
and relapsed, doubtless, hoping that he could enjoy such a golden
tongued orator as one who could be plainly heard for four blocks when he
"got goin'."
The Judge got up and bowed as the audience applauded. He stalked stiffly
to the little center table in the forefront of the stage, buttoned his
coat, shot his cuffs, and said "Ahem!" After that he took a long pause,
carefully poured himself a glass of water, daintily wiped his lips with
his pocket handkerchief, and in a louder tone said, "Ahem!"
"It's a mighty fine speech so far all right," commented Jimmy to the old
man, who began excitedly, "You just wait! If he gets goin', I tell
you----"
"S-s-sh" hissed someone in front of them, turning and glaring at the
offender, and the conversationalist subsided and looked at Jimmy and
glared and said, "S-s-sh!" as if the latter were the culprit.
"Friends and fellow citizens," said the Judge, condescendingly, "I
esteem it a great honor to be called upon to address you to-night on a
subject so near and dear to my heart as the welfare of this, my home
city, the greatest city in the world as far as my affections can be
bestowed. I have lived amongst you for nearly ten years ever since
leaving the great universities beyond our borders, and I crave your
indulgence for putting some of my larger views before you ere I speak
on purely local topics. Friends and fellow citizens, we must make the
world free for democracy. Let freedom of the seas be that shining
shibboleth which through its ulterior meaning, when considerately
scrutinized to its utmost and ultimate, and defined as we Americans who
are fully cognizant of our grave responsibilities toward humanity and
the affairs of other nations, races, and peoples of this globe, which is
round--those responsibilities handed down to us by the father of our
country, George Washington--interpret as meaning that we wish freedom of
the seas. Not in the abstract, but in the concrete, not in modicum but
in unconditional unobstruction and under such international statutes and
regulations as shall confine sea spaces to neither the individual, to
the group, to those who live within certain prescribed boundaries which
constitute government by the people for the people and of the people,
nor yet again for any comity, compact, or treaty-tied group of nations.
Small nations must be free by the exercises of their God-given processes
of reasoning and power of thought to so constitute their affairs that
they may, by their own approval and their own desires, succeed in
securing that power of growth and expression which can come to a people
solely and singularly when permitted the right of self-government."
"What's that?" whispered the old man, cupping his hand to his ear and
looking a trifle bewildered.
"He means people ought to be allowed to govern themselves," explained
Jimmy.
"Good Gawd! Did it take him all that time to say that?" questioned the
old man.
"S-s-s-sh!" cautioned a highly impressed person in front, impatient lest
he lose any of these obfuscated words of supposed wisdom.
"The way to be a good citizen is to be a good citizen," said the Judge
impressively. "We learn by learning. The man who lives the longest is
the oldest. All of us who do our best do our best. Our country is the
home of the free and the brave, let us cherish its traditions. The best
townsman is the man who does the best for his town. I can not stand
before you to-night without feeling that the entire sentiment of the
people is with me, my fellow citizens, and I should deem myself unworthy
of addressing you here to-night, upon this platform, did I not make it
plain to you, or as plainly as I can, that I consider myself as one of
those in the vanguard of that high and lofty motive whose purity of
purpose none dare assail, municipal improvements!"
In the tumultuous burst of applause that followed the old man croaked to
Jimmy, "What was that he said?"
"He says he's for the band stand," Jimmy interpreted with great brevity.
"That is, that's the way I understand it. Maybe that's not exactly what
he means. It takes a lot of hard thinking and consideration to find out
what some men really do mean when they talk."
"To hell with the band stand. I been here forty year and we got along
all right without it, say I! If that's what he's talkin' about, I'm
goin' home. I understood it was somethin' about taxes we was to hear.
They got me taxed plumb out of my socks and----"
"S-s-sh!" cautioned those in the vicinity.
"And if they tax us for this I can't have any underwear at all! Lemme
outer this. I'm goin'!" said the veteran and Jimmy was compelled to
stand up to let him pass, and then, thinking this an excellent
opportunity to escape, himself fled. The Judge was still uttering
profound nothings when his last words were audible, and that proved that
he was a great and blossoming statesman for whom no dignity was too
high!