"De first bottle will make you cough, de second will affect your
eyesight, and de dird bottle will make you ill. I will soon show to
you dat I am not lying. From de first bottle I will now take de
stopper."
He did, before anyone could stop him; in fact, before I, for one, had
any idea of what it was that he was driving at. Directly he did so the
atmosphere of the room became impregnated with an acrid odour which
had a most irritating effect on the tonsils of the throat. Whether the
man was a maniac or not, to this hour I have not certainly decided;
but there he stood, the stopper in his hand, the atmosphere growing
worse and worse, my guests staring at him with scared faces, every
second increasing their sense of discomfort. One person began to
cough, then another, then another, until presently everyone was
coughing as I doubt if they had ever coughed before. It was a horrid
spectacle. As for me--my throat is uncomfortably sensitive--I expected
every moment I should choke.
"Did I not say," observed the scoundrel Steingard, "dat de first
bottle would make you cough? I will now replace de stopper."
He replaced it. By degrees that peculiar acrid quality in the air
became less prominent. People began to recover--just in time. It is my
belief that if they had continued to cough much longer something
serious would have happened. As it was several of them were too
exhausted to be able to give expression to their feelings in audible
speech.
"I will now remove de stopper from de second bottle."
Had I been able to do so I should have prevented him, even at the risk
of a scene--I am sure I should, I don't care who denies it. But the
truth is I was so shaken that it was all I could do to stand, and
before I was sufficiently recovered to allow of my interference the
miscreant had worked his wicked will. He had unstoppered bottle No. 2,
and for the former acrid odour there was substituted a pungent
something which affected one like an unusual kind of smelling-salts.
One's eyes not only began to water, they continued to water. They
watered more and more. The tears trickled down our noses. We had to
use our pocket-handkerchiefs to mop them up with. The more we mopped
the more they flowed. It was ludicrous. We were literally blinded by
our tears. Nothing could have been more out of place in a jovial
gathering. For my part my lachrymal ducts were acted on to such an
extraordinary extent that I could see nothing. I endured the acme of
discomfort.
"Did I not say," remarked the experimental Steingard--he spoke as if
he were uttering the merest commonplace!--"dat de second bottle would
affect de eyesight? Did I choose, de mere continuation of de stopper
out of de bottle in de end would make you blind. But for our purpose
to-night it is not necessary to go so far as dat. We will now pass on
to de dird bottle."
"Pardon me, sir--excuse me for one moment!" The interruption came from
General Wheeler, and evinced considerable presence of mind. Steingard
paused with his hand upon the stopper. The General went on. "Did I
understand you to say that the effect of unstoppering that other
bottle will be to make us ill?"
"Yes, my friend, dat is so. I am now about to show it to you."
"You needn't, it is unnecessary. I'm ill already. So ill, indeed, that
I shall send for a physician the instant I reach home. And I'm going
home at once. If this is a party it's the first I've ever been to, and
I'll take my oath it shall be the last. Now, Mrs. Wheeler! Now,
Augusta! Philippa! Mary! Matilda! Lucy! you girls! George! Frederic!
Ferdinand! you boys, put your things on and come away with me at once.
We're not going to stop here to be slaughtered by way of illustrating
a murderous lecture on warfare up-to-date."
And the General began to collect his numerous progeny with what was,
undoubtedly, a considerable show of heat. That he should have been
moved to such behaviour in my house was most distressing. My wife
regards the Wheelers as being among the most distinguished of her
acquaintance--though an uglier lot of girls I never saw. But the
General was not the only person who felt himself outraged--I wish he
had been.
"Oh!--oh!--oh! Take me out of this dreadful house before I faint!"
That's what my wife's aunt, Mrs. Merridew, said before the whole
assemblage--and from that particular aunt my wife has always had the
most sanguine expectations. Of course, when she went on like that, my
wife began at me--there are occasions on which Louisa has no sense of
propriety, nor of justice either.
"This is Mr. Parker's idea of a little surprise! You can always rely
on Mr. Parker doing anything to please his friends! When Mr. Parker's
in sight you never need look far for a fool!"
That was the sort of remark she kept making--out loud; it was most
annoying. I endeavoured to calm her, and the General, and Mrs.
Merridew, and others--for I was pained to see that a general feeling
of unrest was making itself unpleasantly obvious. While I was
striving, as it were, to spread oil upon the troubled waters, the
voice of the miscreant Steingard was heard to observe:
"I will now remove de stopper from de dird bottle. If de ladies and
gentlemen will keep deir seats dey will be de better able to
abbreciate de success of dis exberiment."
In a moment the room was filled with a perfume--I use the word
advisedly!--of a kind which no pen could adequately describe. Never
did I come across anything of the sort before--it was astounding.
Most of the people had been standing up; there and then they most of
them sat down again--they had to. I noticed the General drop back on
to his chair with a kind of gasp. Folks looked at each other with
startled faces; they looked at me; they looked at the lecturer--that
bottle fiend; they looked about them dumbly, as if in search of
something--speech was impossible while that bottle remained
unstoppered. Their countenances were transfigured--it is really no
exaggeration to say that they turned most of the colours of the
rainbow. Some crammed their handkerchiefs into their mouths; some
pinched their nostrils between their fingers; some clapped their hands
to the pits of their stomachs. Nothing they could do was the slightest
protection against the mephitic vapours which issued from that
unstoppered bottle. It was a moving spectacle to see those people all
bent double--especially if you regarded it from the point of view of
the host, and remembered that you had invited them to an evening
party.
At last--it seemed a long at last to me, but I suppose, after all, it
could only have been a second or two--at last those against the door
began to shuffle through it--when they were once through they never
stopped till they had rushed downstairs and were out into the street.
Others followed, a tottering crew, so that by degrees the room was
emptied, and finally--a happy finally!--my guests, my wife, and I
stood, a shivering crowd, on the windblown pavement.
At this point the demon Steingard came out on the landing and shouted
to us, so that we heard him in the street.
"Did I not say de dird bottle would make you ill? Very well den--is it
not true? Has it not routed you--like a flock of sheep? Just so would
it rout an army. Not all de armies of all de nations would stand
against dat bottle when it was unstobbered. Now, ladies and gentlemen,
if you will return I will bass on to a fresh branch of my subject--or,
rather, I will commence my subject brober, and I will show you dings
combared to which that bottle is as noding--noding at all. You shall
see if I am lying."
That frightful threat finished it; settled the affair out of hand;
concluded it at once. Nothing thereafter could have persuaded my
guests to stand upon the order of their going. They went at
once--before the party had had a chance of starting. It was worse than
a catastrophe--it was a cataclysm. I can only trust that such a
disaster is unparalleled in the history of festive gatherings. I had
not the heart to attempt to stay their going. I was too demoralised,
both physically and mentally. The impression made upon me by that
third bottle was an enduring one.
When I returned into the house the creature who was the cause of all
the trouble was still standing on the landing. He appeared unconscious
of the deeds which he had done.
"I am waiting. Do not de ladies and gentlemen return?"
"Mr. Steingard," I said, with as much firmness as at that moment I had
it in my power to display, "come downstairs and bring your bottles
with you."
He seemed at a loss to understand my meaning.
"My friend, what do you mean? My lecture is hardly begun--my lecture
brober not at all."
"Begun!" I screamed. "Begun!--It's finished!--So's the party!"
He actually betrayed symptoms of irritation.
"Noding of de kind--what you know of it? I have still sixty-seven
bottles with which I wish to try my little experiments."
That was enough for me. Still sixty-seven bottles! And, for all I
knew, or for anything I could do to prevent him, he might unstopper
them, not only one by one, but all together, and at any moment. Half a
dozen policemen were outside--they had gathered together under the
apparent impression that in my establishment a riotous assemblage was
taking place. I called three or four of them into the house. I pointed
to Mr. Steingard on the landing.
"Put that man outside--with his bottles!"
A painful and, I may add, an expensive scene ensued. But at last there
was an end of Steingard, and of the party.
The next day I called on Nowell. He had returned to town.
"Nowell," I asked, more in sorrow than in anger, "what induced you to
suppose that 'A Battlefield Up-to-Date, with Realistic Illustrations
and Experiments,' would be a suitable subject for an evening party?"
He put his feet on the table and his hands in his pockets, and he
rattled his coppers--and he smiled.
"Well, you see, my dear Parker, I wasn't invited. I am aware that it
was an oversight--the purest oversight. But, of course, if I had been
invited I should not have recommended Steingard's lecture."
I was aware he had not been invited--perfectly aware. There had been
no oversight about it. The man is not a member of our social circle.
We had never meant to invite him. But to think that merely on that
account he should have played us such a trick!
It just shows what an amount of malevolence is hidden away in the
depths of human nature.
At the present moment I am scarcely on speaking terms with a single
one of my old friends. They all seem to think that I did it on
purpose.