_Containing Mr. Alexander MacWhirter's Views on Lord Ponsonby, Major
Yancey, and their Kind._
When I entered No. 3 to-day Mac was struggling with a small upright
piano. He and Marny had rolled it out of Wharton's room at the end of
the corridor, and the two had guided it between the open door and the
screen of No. 3 and were now whirling it into the corner occupied by
Mac's easel.
This done, the two began to make ready for the evening's entertainment.
The big divan where Mac slept was dragged from its shelter, covered with
a rug, and placed against the wall facing the fireplace; the table was
stripped of its junk (there is no other word for the miscellaneous
collection of sketches, books, curios, matches, brushes, tubes of color,
half-used bottles of siccative and the like, which always litters the
table's surface), wiped clean, and placed at right angles with the
divan; all the uncomfortable chairs moved out of sight; a stool backed
up under the window to hold a keg of ice-cool beer, to be brought in
later and wreathed with green; new and old mugs--those of the regular
members, and brand new ones for the invited guests--lined up on the
cleared table: all these shiftings, strippings, and refittings being
especially designed for the comfort of a chosen few, who on these rare
nights (only once a year) were admitted into the charmed half-circle
that curved about the wood fire in No. 3.
These complete, Mac turned his attention to the lesser details: the
stacking up of a pile of wood so that the rattling old fire would have
logs enough with which to warm the latest guests, new or old, no matter
how late they stayed; the hearth swept--all its "dear gray hair combed
back from its rosy face with a broom" Mac used to call this process; the
Chinese screen drawn the closer to keep out the wandering drafts;
candles lighted in the old sconces, ancient candlesticks, and grimy
Dutch lanterns; and last--and this he attended to himself--every vestige
of the work of his own brush tucked out of sight so that not even Boggs
could find one. There were strangers coming to-night--one a partner in
a big banking house and a suspected buyer--and no canvas of his must be
visible.
With the arrival of the keg of "special brew," carried on the shoulders
of a big German from the street to the fifth floor without a pause,
where it was propped up on the wooden stool and steadied by a stick of
kindling wood, Mac opened the window of his studio and took from its
sill a paper box filled with smilax--his own touch in remembrance of his
Munich days. This he wound around the body of the cool keg with the
enthusiasm of a virgin of old twisting garlands about the neck of a
sacred bull. Loyalty to just such ideals is part of Mac's religion.
Pitkin arrived first, bringing with him the much-dreaded banker from
whom Mac had hidden his pictures. The sculptor was at work on a bust of
the rich man's wife, and the paymaster had begged so hard to be admitted
into the charmed circle that Pitkin had singled him out as his guest.
Not that there was any valid reason why he or anyone else should be
debarred its comforts, except upon the ground of uncongeniality. The
habitues of this particular half-circle never tolerated (to quote Mac)
the mixing of water and oil on their palettes.
Then came Boggs with an Irish journalist by the name of Murphy, a
stockily built, round-headed man in gold spectacles; followed by Woods,
who brought a friend of his, an inventor; Marny with another friend from
the club, and last of all Lonnegan, with his big dog Chief.
Each guest had been welcomed by Mac in his hearty way and duly presented
to the stranger, whosoever he might be, and each man had responded
according to his type and personality. The banker had returned Mac's
grasp with a deference never extended by him, so Pitkin thought, to any
financial magnate; the inventor had at once launched out into a
description of his more recent experiments; the club man had said the
proper thing, and immediately thereafter had busied himself making a
mental inventory of the comforts the room afforded, scrutinizing the
etchings, the stuffs on the walls, the old brass--dropping finally into
one of the easy chairs by the fire with the same complacency with which
he would have dropped into his own at the club; and Woods, Marny,
Pitkin, Lonnegan, and the others had all responded in a way to make each
guest feel at home--guests and hosts conducting themselves after the
manner of humans.
Chief's entrance and greeting were along lines peculiarly his own. He
walked in with head erect, his big eyes sweeping the room, stood for an
instant surveying the field, and then walked straight to Mac, where he
returned his host's welcoming hug by snuggling his big head between his
knees. His "manners" made to his host, he visited each guest in
turn--those he knew--waited an instant to be petted and talked to, and
then stretched himself out at full length on the rug before the fire,
where he lay without moving during the entire evening.
"Watch him, Lonny!" burst out Mac--he had followed Chief's every
movement since the dog entered the room--"see the way he lies down. Got
royal blood in him, old man; goes back to the flood; Noah saw one of his
ancestors swimming round and saved him first. I feel as if I were
entertaining a Prime Minister."
The atmosphere of the place began to tell on the new company. The banker
found himself talking to Boggs in whispers, his respect for his host
increasing every moment. That men could plod on as Mac was doing,
hampered by a poverty which was only too evident in his surroundings,
and still maintain a certain contempt for riches, hidden though it might
be under a courtesy which found expression in a big broad fellowship,
was a revelation to him. A sort of reverence for the man took possession
of him, as if he had fallen upon a supposed tramp whom he had afterward
discovered to be either a prophet or some world-known philosopher.
Murphy, the journalist, being poor himself, had other views of life. To
him MacWhirter and his intimates were men after his own heart. He and
they had followed the same road, although with different aims. They
understood each other. As to the rich banker, if the journalist
considered him at all it was purely in the line of his own calling--just
so much material for future columns of type, whenever he could utilize
either his personality or his views.
"No, I don't think American Bohemian life--which is a misnomer," said
Murphy in answer to one of the banker's inquiries, "because no such
thing exists--is any different from any other such life the world over.
We are a class to ourselves, but we in no way differ from our brothers
of the brush and quill abroad. I, of course, am only allowed to creep
around the outside edges, but even that small privilege affords me more
pleasure than any other I possess. Murray Hill and Belgravia may be
necessary to our civilization, but neither one nor the other interests
the man who has any purpose in life. Take, for instance, these men
here," and he pointed to Mac, who was for the moment driving a wooden
spigot into the keg of beer. "Look at MacWhirter. He doesn't want any
liveried servant to wait on him; he would serve that beer himself if
there was a line of flunkies extending from the door to the sidewalk."
"That's what I like him for," cried the banker, jumping up, "and I'm
going to help him," and he carried some of the mugs over to Mac's side.
"Here, fill these, Mr. MacWhirter."
"Bully for him!" muttered Pitkin, turning to me as if for confirmation.
"Didn't know it was in him."
"This mug's for you, Mr. MacWhirter," cried out the banker, with an
enthusiasm he had not shown since his college days, as he handed the mug
to Mac, who drank its contents, his merry eyes fixed on the banker.
"See the monarch picking up the painter's brushes," whispered Boggs to
Marny from behind his hand.
And so the evening went on, the mugs being filled and emptied, the piano
opened, Woods playing the accompaniment to all the songs the Irishman
sang--and he had a dozen of them that no one had ever heard before--the
banker and club man joining in the chorus. Then with pipes and mugs in
hand the circle about the crackling logs was formed anew--this time
twice its regular size to give Chief plenty of room--and the
story-telling part of the evening began.
The club man told of a supper he had been to after the theatre in an
uptown back room, in which a mysterious man and a veiled lady figured.
Woods supplemented it by an experience of his own, having special
reference to a lost lace handkerchief which had been discovered in the
outside pocket of one of the male guests, producing uncomfortable
consequences. I gave the details of a dinner where I had met a titled
individual who claimed to be a mighty hunter of big game, and about whom
the prettiest woman in the room had gone wild, and who turned out later
to be somebody's footman.
Murphy, not to be outdone, and recognizing that his turn had come,
remarked in a low voice that my story of big game reminded him "of
something in his own experience," at which Boggs twisted his head to
listen. It was evident to Boggs, and to the other habitues, that if the
Irishman talked as well as he sang he would not only be a welcome guest
at these "nights" but he might also attain to full membership in the
charmed circle. Of one thing everybody was assured--there was no "water
in his oil."
"It's about a fellow countryman of Mr. MacWhirter's, a Scotchman by the
name of MacDuff," the Irishman began.
"Me a Scotchman!" cried Mac; "I'm only half Scotch--wish I was a whole
one."
"That's because you took to beer and left off drinking whiskey," laughed
Murphy. "MacDuff stuck to his national beverage. That's what helped him
to keep his end up. All this happened at an English country house."
Here Boggs hitched his chair closer so that he might lead the applause
if this new departure of his friend as a story-teller failed at first to
make the expected hit, and thus needed his encouragement.
"Up in Devonshire," continued Murphy, "a very noble lord (his ancestors
were something in beer, I think) was giving a dinner to Lord Ponsonby,
K.C.B., Y.Z., and maybe P.D.Q., for all I know. Ponsonby had just
returned from India, where he had distinguished himself in Her Majesty's
service; stamped out a mutiny, perhaps, by hanging the natives, or
otherwise disporting himself after the manner of his kind.
"Imagine the interior of the dining-room, if you please, gentlemen--the
walls panelled in black oak; sideboards to match, covered with George
the Third silver and bearing the new coat-of-arms; noiseless servants in
knee breeches, except the head butler in funereal black--black as a
raven and as awkward; old family portraits on the walls; big windows
overlooking the lawn sweeping to the river, with rabbits and pheasants
making free until the shooting season opened. At the head of the table
sat the noble lord, presiding with a smile that was an inch deep on his
face. On his right sat the distinguished diplomat with a bay window in
front of him, resting on the edge of the table, and kept snugly in place
by a white waistcoat; red face, burgundy red, with daily washings of
champagne to lend some tone to the color; gray side-whiskers with gray
standing hair, straight up like a shoe brush; big jowls of cheeks;
flabby mouth; two little restless eyes like a terrier's, and a voice
like a fog-horn with an attack of croup. When he glanced down the table
everybody expected fifty lashes; he had learned that look in India and
carried it with him; it was part of his stock in trade.
"Next to Ponsonby sat two dudes from London, high-collared chaps, all
shirt front and white tie, hair parted in the middle and slicked down on
the sides like a lady's lap-dog. One had six hairs on each side of his
upper lip and the other was smooth shaven. Then came a country parson,
a fellow in a long-tailed coat, buttoned up to his chin, with an inch of
collar showing above; a mild-mannered, girl-voiced, timid brother, with
a face as round as a custard pie and about as expressive. When he was
spoken to he rubbed his bleached, bony hands together, bent his
shoulders, and answered with a humility that would have done credit to a
Franciscan monk begging alms for a convent. He had eaten nothing for two
days before the dinner--so nervous had he become over the great honor
conferred upon him in being invited--and was so humble when he arrived,
and so pale and washed-out looking, that after being presented to the
great man his host inquired if he were not ill. Opposite these sat two
or three country gentlemen, simple, straightforward men who make up the
best of English life. Men of no pretence and men of great simplicity.
These two, of course, were also in evening dress.
"At the end of the table sat MacDuff, a little, red-headed, sawed-off
Scotchman, about as high as Mr. Boggs's shoulder, chunkily built,
square-chested; clean-shaven face, with bristling eyebrows, searching
brown eyes that never winked, a determined jaw, and a mouth that came
together like a trunk lid--even all along the lips. He was dressed in a
suit of gray cloth, sack coat and all. His ancestors antedated all those
on the wall by about two hundred years, and as a modern dress-suit was
unknown in their day he selected one of his own. This was a fad of his
and one everybody recognized. No dinner was complete without MacDuff.
Very often he never spoke half a dozen words during the entire repast.
He had friends, however, up at the castle, and that made up for all his
other shortcomings. A nod of MacDuff's head got many a man his
appointment.
"When the port was served, the noble lord turned to his distinguished
guest and said, with a glow on his face that made the candles pale with
envy:
"'Gentlemen, I am about to arsk Lord Ponsonby a great favor, and I know
that you will add your voice to mine in urging him to comply. Only larst
night he delighted a number of us at the club by giving us an account of
a most ex_trawd_'nary adventure that befell him in the wilds of India--a
most ex_trawd_'nary adventure. I have rarely seen, in all me
expa-rience, so profound an impression made upon a group of men. I am
now going to arsk our distinguished guest to repeat it.'
"At this Ponsonby waved his hand in a deprecating way, just as he would
have done had his retainers offered him the crown--such trifles being
beneath his notice. Our host went on:
"'Despite his reluctance, I feel sure that he will yield. May I arsk
your Lordship to repeat it to me guests?'
"Ponsonby bowed; settled himself slightly in his chair so that the curve
in his waistcoat could have full play, toyed with his knife a moment,
looked up at the ceiling as if to remember some of the most important
details, cleared his throat, and shot a glance down the table to command
attention. Everybody felt that the slightest sound from any lips but his
own would be punished with instant death.
"'Well, I don't care if I do. About four years ago His Royal Highness,
as you know, came out to India, and it became part of me duty to attend
upon his purson. He was good enough to remember that service in a way
with which, of course, you are all familiar. One morning at daylight his
equerry came to me quarters, routed me out of bed, and informed me that
His Royal Highness desired me to join him in a tiger hunt, which had
been arranged for the night before, and which, owing to me purfect
knowledge of the country--I knowing every inch of the ground--His Royal
Highness desired to have conducted under me supervision.'
"The two dudes were now listening so intently that one of them came near
sliding off the chair. The Curate sat with eyes and mouth open, his hand
cupping his ear, drinking in each word with the same attention that he
would have shown the Bishop of his diocese. The two country gentlemen
leaned forward to hear the better. MacDuff kept perfectly still, his
eyes on his plate, his finger around his glass of Scotch and soda.
"'When we reached the jungle--I was mounted on an elephant with two of
me retainers; His Royal Highness ahead on another elephant, an
_enor_-mous beast accustomed to hunts of this ke-ind--I heard a plunge
in the thicket to me left, the spring of a man-eater! There is no sound
like it, gentlemen. The next instant he came head on, bounding like a
great cat. When he reached the elephant of His Royal Highness he
gathered his forepaws under him, hunched his hind legs, and made ready
for the fatal spring. I knew what would happen. I realized in an instant
the danger. There was one chawnce in a thousand, but that chawnce I must
take. I caught up me forty-four! The beast was now in the air. The next
instant his claws would be in the flank of the elephant, and the next
His Royal Highness would be chewed to mince-meat. At that instant I
fired; there came a yell; the brute fell back lifeless, and the Prince
was saved! The ball had taken him over the left eye! I dismounted and
hurried to his side. He was the largest beast of his ke-ind I had ever
seen in all me expa'rience of twenty years. When we got him out upon the
sward he measured twenty-nine feet from the end of his nose to the tip
of his tail. If His Royal Highness, gentlemen, is with us to-day, it is
due to that shot.'
"A dead silence followed. Saving a future king's life was too grave a
matter for applause. The silence was broken by one of the dudes cackling
in a low whisper to his mate:
"'Gus, old chap, you know that Ponsonby when he was in the
Gyards--aw--was an awful man with a gun. He used to hit--aw--a
bull's-eye every time, you know--aw--aw--aw----'
"The country gentlemen held their peace. The Curate now piped up. This
was his opportunity.
"'Me Lawd,' he cooed--a dove could not have been more dulcet in its
tones--'what I like in a sto-ory of that ke-ind is not so much the
wonderful skill of the sportsman as the marvellous inflooence of the
British character over the brute beasts of the field.'
"Ponsonby nodded pompously in acknowledgment, and continued to play with
his knife. The host beamed down the table; comments were still in
order--that's what the story was told for. The country gentlemen
passed, and MacDuff, reaching over, drew his glass of Scotch closer,
leaned forward with his elbows on the cloth, lowered his head, and fixed
his gimlet eyes on Ponsonby's face.
"'Well, I have listened with gr'at pl'asure to the story of Lord
Ponsonby. It is veery interestin', and it was veery patriootic of him. I
am not much of a hunter mesel', and I do not shoot tagers, but I am a
wee bit of a fasherman, and last soommer up in the County of Dee I
'ooked a veery pecooliar fash called a skat'--here MacDuff raised his
glass to his lips, his eyes still glued to Ponsonby's face--'and when we
got him oout upon th' bank he covered four acres.'
"Ponsonby rose to his feet red as a lobster; swore that he had never
been so insulted in his life, the host trying to pacify him. The dudes
were stunned, while the country gentlemen and the Curate stood aghast.
MacDuff never moved an inch from his seat. Ponsonby, purple with rage,
stalked out of the room, flung himself into the library, followed by the
host and all the guests except MacDuff. The dudes were so overcome that
they were mopping their faces with their napkins, believing them to be
their handkerchiefs. While Ponsonby was roaring for his carriage the
host rushed back to MacDuff's side.
"'You must apologize, sir, and at once,' he screamed; 'at once, Mr.
MacDuff. How is it possible, sir, for a man raised as a gentleman to
come into an Englishman's house and insult one of Her Majesty's most
distinguished sarvants; a man who for fifty years has----'
"MacDuff clapped one hand to his ear as if to protect it from rupture.
"'Don't br'ak the drum of me ear,' he said in a low, deprecating tone.
'I didn't mean to insoolt Lord Ponsonby. I can't apologize, for the
story of the skat's true. But I'll tell you what I'll do. If Lord
Ponsonby will tak' aboout eighteen feet off the length of that tager,
I'll see what can be doon aboout the skat.' And he emptied the contents
of his glass into his person."
* * * * *
The laughter that followed the conclusion of Murphy's story was so loud
and continuous that the big St. Bernard dog rose to his feet and
fastened his eyes on his master, only resuming his position on the rug
when Lonnegan laid his hand reassuringly on his head.
Boggs was so pleased at his friend's success that he could hardly keep
from hugging him. All doubts as to Murphy's being asked to become a
permanent member of the Select Circle were dissipated. What delighted
Boggs most was the combination of English, Irish, and Scotch dialects
twisted about the same tongue. He thought he knew something about
dialects, but Murphy had beaten him at his own game.
Every man present had some opinion to offer regarding Ponsonby's
adventure, and they all differed. Marny thought the Scot served the old
bag of wind right, even if he did have a numismatic collection
decorating his chest. The banker was interested in the social side and
what it expressed, and said so, winding up with the remark that the
"Englishmen knew how to live." Mac, to the surprise of everybody, had no
opinion to offer. Woods was more philosophical.
"To me the story is much more than funny," said Woods, "it's
instructive. Shows the whole national spirit of the English. They
believe in rank and they love to kowtow. I say this in no offensive
spirit; and being an Irishman, you, of course, know what I mean; and to
tell you the truth I am English in that sense myself. I believe in an
aristocracy and in class distinction. Here everybody is free and equal;
free with everything you own and ready to divide it up equally as soon
as they get their hands on it. Democracy is the curse of our country."
"Woods, you talk like a two-cent demagogue," broke out Boggs. "If you
and Lonnegan don't give up Murray Hill life you'll be worse than Mr.
Murphy's two dudes. There is no such thing as democracy in our country.
You couldn't find it with a microscope. As soon as a man gets one
hundred cents together and has got them hived away safely in a savings
bank he becomes a capitalist. The next generation breeds aristocrats.
The son of the man who waits behind Lonnegan's chair at one of the swell
affairs uptown, if he has his way, will be Minister to England, and wear
knee-breeches at the Queen's receptions. Even the negroes are climbing;
some of them even now are putting on more airs than a Harlem goat with a
hoopskirt. When they get on top there won't be anything left of the
white man. They are beginning in that way now down South. Now you,"
turning to his friend Murphy, "have told us a story which illustrates a
phase of English life in which the middle classes stand in awe of the
higher ones. Now listen to one of mine, which illustrates a phase of
American life, and quite the reverse of yours. I'll tell it to you just
as Major Yancey told it to me, and I'll give you, as near as I can, his
tones of voice. Wonderfully pathetic, that Southern dialect; it
certainly was to me the day I heard him tell it. This Yancey was a
fraud, so far as being a representative Virginia gentleman; didn't get
within a thousand miles of the real thing; but that didn't rob his story
of a certain meaning."
Here Boggs rose to his feet. "I'll have to get up," he said, "for this
is one of the stories I can't tell sitting down." Nobody ever heard
Boggs tell any story sitting down. The restless little fellow was
generally on his plump legs during most of his deliveries.
"I had seen Yancey in the hotel corridor when I came in, and had stubbed
my toe over his outstretched legs--out like a pair of skids on the tail
of a dray; had apologized to the legs; had been apologized to most
effusively in return, with the result that a few minutes later I found
him at my elbow at the bar, where, after some protestations on his part,
he concluded to accept my very 'co-tious' invitation, and 'take
somethin'.'
"'I am sorry I haven't a ke-ard, suh. My name is Yancey, suh--Thomas
Morton Yancey, of Green Briar County, Virginia. You don't know that
po'tion of my State, suh. It's God's own country. Great changes have
taken place, suh--not only in our section of the State, but in our
people. I myself am not what I appear, suh, as you shall learn later.
The old rulin' classes are goin' to the wall; it is the po' white trash
and the negroes, suh, that are comin' to the front. Pretty soon we shall
have to ask their permission to live on the earth. Now, to give you an
idea, suh, of what these changes mean, and how stealthily they are
creepin' in among us, I want to tell you, suh, somethin' connected with
my own life, for ev'ry word of which I can vouch. Thank you, I will take
a drop of bitters in mine,' and he held his glass out to the barkeeper.
'I don't want to detain you, suh, and I don't want to bore you, but it's
the first time for some months that I have had the pleasure of meetin' a
Northern gentleman, and I feel it my duty, suh, to give you somethin' of
the inside history of the South, and to let you know, suh, what we
Southern people suffered immediately after the war, and are still
sufferin'.
"'As for myself, suh, I came out penniless, my estates practically
confiscated, owin' to some very peremptory proceedin's which took place
immediately after the surrender. I, of course, suh, like many other
gentlemen of my standin', found it necessary to go to work, the first
stroke of work that any of my blood, suh, had ever done since my
ancestors settled that po'tion of the State, suh. A crisis, suh, had
arrived in my life, and I proposed to meet it. Question was, what could
I do? I hadn't studied law and so I could not be a lawyer, and I hadn't
taken any course in medicine and so I couldn't be a doctor; and I want
to tell you, suh, that the politics of my State were not runnin' in a
groove by which I could be elected to any public office. After lookin'
over the ground I decided to open a livery stable. Don't start, suh. I
know it will shock you when I tell you that a Yancey had fallen so low,
but you must know, suh, that my wife hadn't had a new dress in fo' years
and my children were pretty nigh barefoot. Well, suh, a circus company
had passed through our way and left two spavined horses in Judge
Caldwell's lot and a bo'rd bill of fo' dollars and ninety-two cents
unpaid. I took my note for a hundred dollars and Judge Caldwell endorsed
it, and I sold it for the amount of the bo'rd bill, and I got the two
horses. Then I made another note for a similar amount and secured it by
a mortgage on the horses, and got a fo'seated wagon and two sets of
second-hand harness. Then I put a sign over my barn do'--"Thomas Martin
Yancey, Livery & Sale Stable."
"'About a week after I had started Colonel Moseley's black Sam--free
then, of co'se, suh--come down to my place and said, "Major Yancey,
there's goin' to be a ball over to Barboursville----"
"'"Is there, Sam?" I said. "You niggers seem to be gettin' up in the
world."
"'"Yes," he said, "and I want you to hook yo' rig and take eight of
us----"
"'"What! you infernal scoundrel! You come to me and ask me to----"
"'"Now, don't get het up, Major! Eight niggers at fifty cents apiece is
fo' dollars."
"'"Yancey," I said to myself, "brace up! This is one of the great crises
of yo' life. Sam, bring on yo' mokes!"
"'There was fo' bucks and fo' wenches, all rigged out to kill. I put 'em
in and started.
"'It was a very cold night, coldest weather I'd seen in my State for
years, with a light crust of snow on the ground. When we got to
Barboursville--it was about eight miles--I found the ball was over a
grocery store with a pair of steps goin' up on the outside to a little
balcony. Well, suh, they got out and went up ahead, and I blanketed the
horses and followed. When I opened the do'--you ain't familiar, suh, I
reckon, with our part of the country, suh, but I tell you, suh, that
with three fiddles, two red hot stoves, and eighty niggers, all dancin',
the atmosphere was oppressive! I stood it as long as I could and then I
went out on the balcony. Then I said to myself--"Yancey, this is a great
crisis of yo' life, but you needn't get pneumonia. Go in and sit down
inside."
"'I hadn't been there three minutes, suh, when black Sam came up to the
bench on which I was sittin'--he had two wenches on his arm--and said,
"Major Yancey; would you have any objection to steppin' outside?"
"'"Why?" I asked.
"'"Cause some of the ladies objects to the smell of horse in yo'
clo'es."
"'I left the livery business that night, suh, and I am what you see--a
broken-down Southern gentleman.'"
Another outburst of laughter followed. Everybody agreed that Boggs had
never been so happy in his delineations. The banker, who knew something
of the Southern dialects, was overjoyed. The allusion to the
ungentlemanly foreclosure proceedings touched his funny-bone in a
peculiar manner, and set him to laughing again whenever he thought of
it. Everybody had expressed some opinion both of Murphy's story and of
Boggs's yarn but MacWhirter, who, strange to say, had seen nothing
humorous in either narrative. During the telling he had been bending
over in his chair stroking the dog's ears.
"What do you think of the two yarns, Mac?" asked Marny.
"Think just what Mr. Murphy thinks--that the Englishman was a snob,
Ponsonby a cad, and that MacDuff should have been shown the door. The
group about that Englishman's table was not of the best English
society--nowhere near it. Consideration for the other man's feelings,
the one below you in rank, invariably distinguishes the true English
gentleman. That old story about the sergeant who got the Victoria Cross
for bringing a wounded officer out under fire illustrates what I mean,"
continued Mac in a perfectly grave, sober voice.
"Never heard it."
"Then I'll tell you. He had crawled on all fours to a wounded officer,
picked him up, and had carried him off the firing line under a hail of
bullets, one of which broke his wrist. He was promoted on the field by
his commanding officer, got the V.C., and took his place among his now
brother officers at the company's mess, and, it being his first meal,
sat on the Colonel's right. Ice was served, a little piece about the
size of a lump of sugar--precious as gold in that climate. It was for
the champagne, something he had never seen. The hero was served first.
He hesitated a moment, and dropped it in his soup. The Colonel took his
piece and dropped it in his soup; so did every other gentleman down both
sides of the table drop his in the soup. As to Boggs's Virginian, he got
what he deserved. He was trying to be something that he wasn't; I'm glad
the darkey took the pride out of him. It's all a pretence and a sham.
They are all trying to be something they are not. 'Tisn't democracy or
aristocracy that is to blame with us--it's the growing power of riches;
the crowding the poor from off the face of the earth. Nothing counts now
but a bank account. Pretty soon we will have a clearing-house of titles,
based on incomes. When the cashier certifies to the amount, the title is
conferred. The man of one million will become a lord; the man with two
millions a count; three millions a duke, and so on. To me all this
climbing is idiotic."
Roars of laughter followed Mac's outburst. When Boggs got his breath he
declared between his gasps that Mac's criticisms were funnier than
Murphy's story.
"Takes it all seriously; not a ghost of a sense of humor in him! Isn't
he delicious!"
"Go on, laugh away!" continued MacWhirter. "The whole thing, I tell you,
is a fraud and a sham. Social ladders are only a few feet long, and the
top round, after all, is not very far from the earth. When you climb up
to that rung, if you are worth anything, you begin to get lonely for the
other fellow, who couldn't climb so high. If it wasn't for our wood fire
even our dear Lonnegan would freeze to death. He thinks he's real
mahogany, and so he sits round and helps furnish some swell's
drawing-room. But that's only Lonny's veneer; his heart's all right
underneath, and it's solid hickory all the way through."
* * * * *
When the last of the guests had gone, followed by Chief and some of the
habitues, only Boggs, Marny, Mac, and I remained. Our rooms were within
a few steps of the fire and it mattered not how late we sat up. The mugs
were refilled, pipes relighted, some extra sticks thrown on the
andirons, and the chairs drawn closer. The fire responded bravely--the
old logs were always willing to make a night of it. The best part of the
evening was to come--that part when its incidents are talked over.
"Mac," said Marny, "you deride money, class distinctions, ambition. What
would you want most if you had your wish?"
"Not much."
"Well, let's have it; out with it!" insisted Marny.
"What would I want? Why just what I've got. An easy chair, a pipe, a dog
once in a while, some books, a wood fire, and you on the other side, old
man," and he laid his hand affectionately on Marny's shoulder.
"Anything more?" asked Boggs, who had been eying his friend closely.
"Yes; a picture that really satisfied me, instead of the truck I'm
turning out."
"And you can think of nothing else?" asked Boggs, still keeping his eyes
on Mac, his own face struggling with a suppressed smile.
"No--" Then catching the twinkle in Boggs's eyes--"What?"
"A climbing millionnaire to buy it and a swell Murray Hill palace to
hang it up in," laughed Boggs.
Mac smiled faintly and leaned forward in his chair, the glow of the fire
lighting up his kindly face. For some minutes he did not move; then a
half-smothered sigh escaped him.
Instantly there rose in my mind the figure of the girl in the steamer
chair, the roses in her lap.
"Was there nothing more?" I asked myself.