"Come," she said, "you shall speak to my sons," and she led him down the stairs towards the room of Halfoff and Kwitoff.
"They are my sons," she said. "Olga is their sister. They are working to save her."
Then she opened the door. Halfoff and Kwitoff were working as Serge had seen them before, beside the crucible with the blue flame on their faces.
They had not slept.
Madame Vasselitch spoke.
"He has seen Olga," she said. "It is to-day."
"We are too late," said Halfoff, and he groaned.
"Courage, brother," said Kwitoff. "She will not die till sunrise. It is twilight now. We have still an hour. Let us to work."
Serge looked at the brothers.
"Tell me," he said. "I do not understand."
Halfoff turned a moment from his work and looked at Serge.
"Brother," he said, "will you give your life?"
"Is it for Olga?" asked Serge.
"It is for her."
"I give it gladly," said Serge.
"Listen then," said Halfoff. "Our sister is condemned for the killing of Popoff, inspector of police. She is in the prison of the condemned, the house of the dead, across the street. Her cell is there beside us. There is only a wall between. Look--"
Halfoff as he spoke threw aside a curtain that hung across the end of the room. Serge looked into blackness. It was a tunnel.
"It leads to the wall of her cell," said Halfoff. "We are close against the wall but we cannot shatter it. We are working to make a bomb. No bomb that we can make is hard enough. We can only try once. If it fails the noise would ruin us. There is no second chance. We try our bombs in the crucible. They crumble. They have no strength. We are ignorant. We are only learning. We studied it in the books, the forbidden books. It took a month to learn to set the wires to fire the bomb. The tunnel was there. We did not have to dig it. It was for my father, Vangorod Vasselitch. He would not let them use it. He tapped a message through the wall, 'Keep it for a greater need.' Now it is his daughter that is there."
Halfoff paused. He was panting and his chest heaved. There was perspiration on his face and his black hair was wet.
"Courage, little brother," said Kwitoff. "She shall not die."
"Listen," went on Halfoff. "The bomb is made. It is there beside the crucible. It has power in it to shatter the prison. But the wires are wrong. They do not work. There is no current in them. Something is wrong. We cannot explode the bomb."
"Courage, courage," said Kwitoff, and his hands were busy among the wires before him. "I am working still."
Serge looked at the brothers.
"Is that the bomb?" he said, pointing at a great ball of metal that lay beside the crucible.
"It is," said Halfoff.
"And the little fuse that is in the side of it fires it?
And the current from the wires lights the fuse?"
"Yes," said Halfoff.
The two brothers looked at Serge, for there was a meaning in his voice and a strange look upon his face.
"If the bomb is placed against the wall and if the fuse is lighted it would explode."
"Yes," said Halfoff despairingly, "but how? The fuse is instantaneous. Without the wires we cannot light it. It would be death."
Serge took the bomb in his hand. His face was pale.
"Let it be so!" he said. "I will give my life for hers."
He lifted the bomb in his hand. "I will go through the tunnel and hold the bomb against the wall and fire it," he said. "Halfoff, light me the candle in the flame. Be ready when the wall falls."
"No, no," said Halfoff, grasping Serge by the arm. "You must not die!"
"My brother," said Kwitoff quietly, "let it be as he says. It is for Russia!"
But as Halfoff turned to light the candle in the flame there came a great knocking at the door above and the sound of many voices in the street.
All paused.
Madame Vasselitch laid her hand upon her lips.
Then there came the sound as of grounded muskets on the pavement of the street and a sharp word of command.
"Soldiers!" said Madame Vasselitch.
Kwitoff turned to his brother.
"This is the end," he said. "Explode the bomb here and let us die together."
Suddenly Madame Vasselitch gave a cry.
"It is Olga's voice!" she said.
She ran to the door and opened it, and a glad voice was heard crying.
"It is I, Olga, and I am free!"
"Free," exclaimed the brothers.
All hastened up the stairs.
Olga was standing before them in the hall and beside her were the officers of the police, and in the street were the soldiers. The students from above had crowded down the stairs and with them were Itch, the serving man, and Yump, the cook.
"I am free," cried Olga, "liberated by the bounty of the Czar--Russia has declared war to fight for the freedom of the world and all the political prisoners are free."
"Rah, rah!" cried the students. "War, war, war!"
"She is set free," said the officer who stood beside Olga. "The charge of killing Popoff is withdrawn. No one will be punished for it now."
"I never killed him," said Olga. "I swear it," and she raised her hand.
"You never killed him!" exclaimed Serge with joy in his heart. "You did not kill Popoff? But who did?"
"Defend us," said Yump, the cook. "Since there is to be no punishment for it, I killed him myself."
"You!" they cried.
"It is so," said Yump. "I killed him beside the river.
It was to defend my honour."
"It was to defend her honour," cried the brothers. "She has done well."
They clasped her hand.
"You destroyed him with a bomb?" they said.
"No," said Yump, "I sat down on him."
"Rah, rah, rah," said the students.
There was silence for a moment. Then Kwitoff spoke.
"Friends," he said, "the new day is coming. The dawn is breaking. The moon is rising. The stars are setting. It is the birth of freedom. See! we need it not!"--and as he spoke he grasped in his hands the bomb with its still unlighted fuse--"Russia is free. We are all brothers now. Let us cast it at our enemies. Forward! To the frontier! Live the Czar."
Movies and Motors, Men and Women
IV. Madeline of the Movies: A Photoplay done back into Words
EXPLANATORY NOTE.
In writing this I ought to explain that I am a tottering old man of forty-six. I was born too soon to understand moving pictures. They go too fast. I can't keep up. In my young days we used a magic lantern. It showed Robinson Crusoe in six scenes. It took all evening to show them. When it was done the hall was filled full with black smoke and the audience quite unstrung with excitement. What I set down here represents my thoughts as I sit in front of a moving picture photoplay and interpret it as best I can.
Flick, flick, flick! I guess it must be going to begin now, but it's queer the people don't stop talking: how can they expect to hear the pictures if they go on talking? Now it's off. PASSED BY THE BOARD OF--. Ah, this looks interesting--passed by the board of--wait till I adjust my spectacles and read what it--
It's gone. Never mind, here's something else, let me see--CAST OF CHARACTERS--Oh, yes--let's see who they are--MADELINE MEADOWLARK, a young something--EDWARD DANGERFIELD, a--a what? Ah, yes, a roo--at least, it's spelt r-o-u-e, that must be roo all right--but wait till I see what that is that's written across the top--MADELINE MEADOWLARK; OR, ALONE IN A GREAT CITY. I see, that's the title of it. I wonder which of the characters is alone. I guess not Madeline: she'd hardly be alone in a place like that. I imagine it's more likely Edward Dangerous the Roo. A roo would probably be alone a great deal, I should think. Let's see what the other characters are--JOHN HOLDFAST, a something. FARMER MEADOWLARK, MRS. MEADOWLARK, his Something--
Pshaw, I missed the others, but never mind; flick, flick, it's beginning--What's this? A bedroom, eh? Looks like a girl's bedroom--pretty poor sort of place. I wish the picture would keep still a minute--in Robinson Crusoe it all stayed still and one could sit and look at it, the blue sea and the green palm trees and the black footprints in the yellow sand--but this blamed thing keeps rippling and flickering all the time--Ha! there's the girl herself--come into her bedroom. My! I hope she doesn't start to undress in it--that would be fearfully uncomfortable with all these people here. No, she's not undressing--she's gone and opened the cupboard. What's that she's doing--taking out a milk jug and a glass--empty, eh? I guess it must be, because she seemed to hold it upside down. Now she's picked up a sugar bowl--empty, too, eh?--and a cake tin, and that's empty--What on earth does she take them all out for if they're empty? Why can't she speak? I think--hullo--who's this coming in? Pretty hard-looking sort of woman--what's she got in her hand?--some sort of paper, I guess--she looks like a landlady, I shouldn't wonder if--
Flick, flick! Say! Look there on the screen:
"YOU OWE ME
THREE WEEKS' RENT."
Oh, I catch on! that's what the landlady says, eh? Say! That's a mighty smart way to indicate it isn't it? I was on to that in a minute--flick, flick--hullo, the landlady's vanished--what's the girl doing now--say, she's praying! Look at her face! Doesn't she look religious, eh?
Flick, flick!
Oh, look, they've put her face, all by itself, on the screen. My! what a big face she's got when you see it like that.
She's in her room again--she's taking off her jacket--by Gee! She is going to bed! Here, stop the machine; it doesn't seem--Flick, flick!
Well, look at that! She's in bed, all in one flick, and fast asleep! Something must have broken in the machine and missed out a chunk. There! she's asleep all right--looks as if she was dreaming. Now it's sort of fading. I wonder how they make it do that? I guess they turn the wick of the lamp down low: that was the way in Robinson Crusoe--Flick, flick!
Hullo! where on earth is this--farmhouse, I guess--must be away upstate somewhere--who on earth are these people? Old man--white whiskers--old lady at a spinning-wheel--see it go, eh? Just like real! And a young man--that must be John Holdfast--and a girl with her hand in his. Why! Say! it's the girl, the same girl, Madeline--only what's she doing away off here at this farm--how did she get clean back from the bedroom to this farm? Flick, flick! what's this?
"NO, JOHN, I CANNOT MARRY YOU.
I MUST DEVOTE MY LIFE
TO MY MUSIC."
Who says that? What music? Here, stop--
It's all gone. What's this new place? Flick, flick, looks like a street. Say! see the street car coming along--well! say! isn't that great? A street car! And here's Madeline! How on earth did she get back from the old farm all in a second? Got her street things on--that must be music under her arm--I wonder where--hullo--who's this man in a silk hat and swell coat? Gee! he's well dressed. See him roll his eyes at Madeline! He's lifting his hat--I guess he must be Edward Something, the Roo--only a roo would dress as well as he does--he's going to speak to her--
"SIR, I DO NOT KNOW YOU.
LET ME PASS."
Oh, I see! The Roo mistook her; he thought she was somebody that he knew! And she wasn't! I catch on! It gets easy to understand these pictures once you're on.
Flick, flick--Oh, say, stop! I missed a piece--where is she? Outside a street door--she's pausing a moment outside--that was lucky her pausing like that--it just gave me time to read EMPLOYMENT BUREAU on the door. Gee! I read it quick.
Flick, flick! Where is it now?--oh, I see, she's gone in--she's in there--this must be the Bureau, eh? There's Madeline going up to the desk.
"NO, WE HAVE TOLD YOU BEFORE,
WE HAVE NOTHING ..."
Pshaw! I read too slow--she's on the street again. Flick, flick!
No, she isn't--she's back in her room--cupboard still empty--no milk--no sugar--Flick, flick!
Kneeling down to pray--my! but she's religious--flick, flick--now she's on the street--got a letter in her hand--what's the address--Flick, flick!
Mr. Meadowlark
Meadow Farm
Meadow County
New York
Gee! They've put it right on the screen! The whole letter! Flick, flick--here's Madeline again on the street with the letter still in her hand--she's gone to a letter-box with it--why doesn't she post it? What's stopping her?
"I CANNOT TELL THEM
OF MY FAILURE.
IT WOULD BREAK THEIR ..."
Break their what? They slide these things along altogether too quick--anyway, she won't post it--I see--she's torn it up--Flick, flick!
Where is it now? Another street--seems like everything --that's a restaurant, I guess--say, it looks a swell place--see the people getting out of the motor and going in--and another lot right after them--there's Madeline --she's stopped outside the window--she's looking in--it's starting to snow! Hullo! here's a man coming along! Why, it's the Roo; he's stopping to talk to her, and pointing in at the restaurant--Flick, flick!
"LET ME TAKE YOU IN HERE
TO DINNER."
Oh, I see! The Roo says that! My! I'm getting on to the scheme of these things--the Roo is going to buy her some dinner! That's decent of him. He must have heard about her being hungry up in her room--say, I'm glad he came along. Look, there's a waiter come out to the door to show them in--what! she won't go! Say! I don't understand! Didn't it say he offered to take her in? Flick, flick!
"I WOULD RATHER DIE
THAN EAT IT."
Gee! Why's that? What are all the audience applauding for? I must have missed something! Flick, flick!
Oh, blazes! I'm getting lost! Where is she now? Back in her room--flick, flick--praying--flick, flick! She's out on the street!--flick, flick!--in the employment bureau --flick, flick!--out of it--flick--darn the thing! It changes too much--where is it all? What is it all--? Flick, flick!
Now it's back at the old farm--I understand that all right, anyway! Same kitchen--same old man--same old woman--she's crying--who's this?--man in a sort of uniform--oh, I see, rural postal delivery--oh, yes, he brings them their letters--I see--
"NO, MR. MEADOWLARK,
I AM SORRY,
I HAVE STILL NO LETTER
FOR YOU..."
Flick! It's gone! Flick, flick--it's Madeline's room again--what's she doing?--writing a letter?--no, she's quit writing--she's tearing it up--
"I CANNOT WRITE.
IT WOULD BREAK THEIR ..."
Flick--missed it again! Break their something or other
--Flick, flick!
Now it's the farm again--oh, yes, that's the young man John Holdfast--he's got a valise in his hand--he must be going away--they're shaking hands with him--he's saying something--
"I WILL FIND HER FOR YOU
IF I HAVE TO SEARCH
ALL NEW YORK."
He's off--there he goes through the gate--they're waving good-bye--flick--it's a railway depot--flick--it's New York--say! That's the Grand Central Depot! See the people buying tickets! My! isn't it lifelike?--and there's John--he's got here all right--I hope he finds her room--
The picture changed--where is it now? Oh, yes, I see --Madeline and the Roo--outside a street entrance to some place--he's trying to get her to come in--what's that on the door? Oh, yes, DANCE HALL--Flick, flick!
Well, say, that must be the inside of the dance hall --they're dancing--see, look, look, there's one of the girls going to get up and dance on the table.
Flick! Darn it!--they've cut it off--it's outside again --it's Madeline and the Roo--she's saying something to him--my! doesn't she look proud--?
"I WILL DIE RATHER THAN DANCE."
Isn't she splendid! Hear the audience applaud! Flick--it's changed--it's Madeline's room again--that's the landlady --doesn't she look hard, eh? What's this--Flick!
"IF YOU CANNOT PAY, YOU MUST
LEAVE TO-NIGHT."
Flick, flick--it's Madeline--she's out in the street--it's snowing--she's sat down on a doorstep--say, see her face, isn't it pathetic? There! They've put her face all by itself on the screen. See her eyes move! Flick, flick!
Who's this? Where is it? Oh, yes, I get it--it's John--at a police station--he's questioning them--how grave they look, eh? Flick, flick!
"HAVE YOU SEEN A GIRL
IN NEW YORK?"
I guess that's what he asks them, eh? Flick, flick--
"NO, WE HAVE NOT."
Too bad--flick--it's changed again--it's Madeline on the doorstep--she's fallen asleep--oh, say, look at that man coming near to her on tiptoes, and peeking at her--why, it's Edward, it's the Roo--but he doesn't waken her--what does it mean? What's he after? Flick, flick--
Hullo--what's this?--it's night--what's this huge dark
thing all steel, with great ropes against the sky--it's
Brooklyn Bridge--at midnight--there's a woman on it!
It's Madeline--see! see! She's going to jump--stop her!
Stop her! Flick, flick--
Hullo! she didn't jump after all--there she is again on the doorstep--asleep--how could she jump over Brooklyn Bridge and still be asleep? I don't catch on--or, oh, yes, I do--she dreamed it--I see now, that's a great scheme, eh?--shows her dream--
The picture's changed--what's this place--a saloon, I guess--yes, there's the bartender, mixing drinks--men talking at little tables--aren't they a tough-looking lot?--see, that one's got a revolver--why, it's Edward the Roo--talking with two men--he's giving them money--what's this?--
"GIVE US A HUNDRED APIECE
AND WE'LL DO IT."
It's in the street again--Edward and one of the two toughs --they've got little black masks on--they're sneaking up to Madeline where she sleeps--they've got a big motor drawn up beside them--look, they've grabbed hold of Madeline--they're lifting her into the motor--help! Stop! Aren't there any police?--yes, yes, there's a man who sees it--by Gee! It's John, John Holdfast--grab them, John--pshaw! they've jumped into the motor, they're off!
Where is it now?--oh, yes--it's the police station again --that's John, he's telling them about it--he's all out of breath--look, that head man, the big fellow, he's giving orders--
"INSPECTOR FORDYCE, TAKE YOUR
BIGGEST CAR AND TEN MEN.
IF YOU OVERTAKE THEM,
SHOOT AND SHOOT
TO KILL."
Hoorah! Isn't it great--hurry! don't lose a minute--see them all buckling on revolvers--get at it, boys, get at it! Don't lose a second--
Look, look--it's a motor--full speed down the street--look at the houses fly past--it's the motor with the thugs--there it goes round the corner--it's getting smaller, it's getting smaller, but look, here comes another--my! it's just flying--it's full of police--there's John in front--Flick!
Now it's the first motor--it's going over a bridge--it's heading for the country--say, isn't that car just flying --Flick, flick!
It's the second motor--it's crossing the bridge too--hurry, boys, make it go!--Flick, flick!
Out in the country--a country road--early daylight--see the wind in the trees! Notice the branches waving? Isn't it natural?--whiz! Biff! There goes the motor--biff! There goes the other one--right after it--hoorah!
The open road again--the first motor flying along! Hullo, what's wrong? It's slackened, it stops--hoorah! it's broken down--there's Madeline inside--there's Edward the Roo! Say! isn't he pale and desperate!
Hoorah! the police! the police! all ten of them in their big car--see them jumping out--see them pile into the thugs! Down with them! paste their heads off! Shoot them! Kill them! isn't it great--isn't it educative--that's the Roo--Edward--with John at his throat! Choke him, John! Throttle him! Hullo, it's changed--they're in the big motor--that's the Roo with the handcuffs on him.
That's Madeline--she's unbound and she's talking; say, isn't she just real pretty when she smiles?
"YES, JOHN, I HAVE LEARNED THAT
I WAS WRONG TO PUT MY ART
BEFORE YOUR LOVE. I WILL
MARRY YOU AS SOON AS
YOU LIKE."
Flick, flick!
What pretty music! Ding! Dong! Ding! Dong! Isn't it soft and sweet!--like wedding bells. Oh, I see, the man in the orchestra's doing it with a little triangle and a stick--it's a little church up in the country--see all the people lined up--oh! there's Madeline! in a long white veil--isn't she just sweet!--and John--
Flick, flack, flick, flack.
"BULGARIAN TROOPS ON THE
MARCH."
What! Isn't it over? Do they all go to Bulgaria? I don't seem to understand. Anyway, I guess it's all right to go now. Other people are going.
V. The Call of the Carburettor, or,
Mr. Blinks and his Friends
"First get a motor in your own eye and then you will overlook more easily the motor in your brother's eye."--Somewhere in the Bible.
"By all means let's have a reception," said Mrs. Blinks. "It's the quickest and nicest way to meet our old friends again after all these years. And goodness knows this house is big enough for it"--she gave a glance as she spoke round the big reception-room of the Blinkses' residence--"and these servants seem to understand things so perfectly it's no trouble to us to give anything. Only don't let's ask a whole lot of chattering young people that we don't know; let's have the older people, the ones that can talk about something really worth while."
"That's just what I say," answered Mr. Blinks--he was a small man with insignificance written all over him--"let me listen to people talk; that's what I like. I'm not much on the social side myself, but I do enjoy hearing good talk. That's what I liked so much over in England. All them--all those people that we used to meet talked so well. And in France those ladies that run saloons on Sunday afternoons--"
"Sallongs," corrected Mrs. Blinks. "It's sounded like it was a G." She picked up a pencil and paper. "Well, then," she said, as she began to write down names, "we'll ask Judge Ponderus--"
"Sure!" assented Mr. Blinks, rubbing his hands. "He's a fine talker, if he'll come!"
"They'll all come," said his wife, "to a house as big as this; and we'll ask the Rev. Dr. Domb and his wife--or, no, he's Archdeacon Domb now, I hear--and he'll invite Bishop Sollem, so they can talk together."
"That'll be good," said Mr. Blinks. "I remember years and years ago hearing them two--those two, talking about religion, all about the soul and the body. Man! It was deep. It was clean beyond me. That's what I like to listen to."
"And Professor Potofax from the college," went on Mrs.
Blinks. "You remember, the big stout one."
"I know," said her husband.
"And his daughter, she's musical, and Mrs. Buncomtalk, she's a great light on woman suffrage, and Miss Scragg and Mr. Underdone--they both write poetry, so they can talk about that."
"It'll be a great treat to listen to them all," said Mr.
Blinks.
A week later, on the day of the Blinkses' reception, there was a string of motors three deep along a line of a hundred yards in front of the house.
Inside the reception rooms were filled.
Mr. Blinks, insignificant even in his own house, moved to and fro among his guests.
Archdeacon Domb and Dean Sollem were standing side by side with their heads gravely lowered, as they talked, over the cups of tea that they held in their hands.
Mr. Blinks edged towards them.
"This'll be something pretty good," he murmured to himself as he got within reach of their conversation.
"What do you do about your body?" the Archdeacon was asking in his deep, solemn tones.
"Practically nothing," said the Bishop. "A little rub of shellac now and then, but practically nothing."
"You wash it, of course?" asked Dr. Domb.
"Only now and again, but far less than you would think.
I really take very little thought for my body."
"Ah," said Dr. Domb reflectively, "I went all over mine last summer with linseed oil."
"But didn't you find," said the Bishop, "that it got into your pipes and choked your feed?"
"It did," said Dr. Domb, munching a bit of toast as he spoke. "In fact, I have had a lot of trouble with my feed ever since."
"Try flushing your pipes out with hot steam," said the
Bishop. Mr. Blinks had listened in something like dismay.
"Motor-cars!" he murmured. "Who'd have thought it?"
But at this moment a genial, hearty-looking person came pushing towards him with a cheery greeting.
"I'm afraid I'm rather late, Blinks," he said.
"Delayed in court, eh, Judge?" said Blinks as he shook hands.
"No, blew out a plug!" said the Judge. "Stalled me right up."
"Blew out a plug!" exclaimed Dr. Domb and the Bishop, deeply interested at once.
"A cracked insulator, I think," said the Judge.
"Possibly," said the Archdeacon very gravely, "the terminal nuts of your dry battery were loose."
Mr. Blinks moved slowly away.
"Dear me!" he mused, "how changed they are."
It was a relief to him to edge his way quietly into another group of guests where he felt certain that the talk would be of quite another kind.
Professor Potofax and Miss Scragg and a number of others were evidently talking about books.
"A beautiful book," the professor was saying. "One of the best things, to my mind at any rate, that has appeared for years. There's a chapter on the silencing of exhaust gas which is simply marvellous."
"Is it illustrated?" questioned one of the ladies.
"Splendidly," said the professor. "Among other things there are sectional views of check valves and flexible roller bearings--"
"Ah, do tell me about the flexible bearings," murmured
Miss Scragg.
Mr. Blinks moved on.
Wherever he went among his guests, they all seemed stricken with the same mania. He caught their conversation in little scraps.
"I ran her up to forty with the greatest of ease, then threw in my high speed and got seventy out of her without any trouble."--"No, I simply used a socket wrench, it answers perfectly."--"Yes, a solution of calcium chloride is very good, but of course the hydrochloric acid in it has a powerful effect on the metal."
"Dear me," mused Mr. Blinks, "are they all mad?"
Meantime, around his wife, who stood receiving in state at one end of the room, the guests surged to and fro.
"So charmed to see you again," exclaimed one. "You've been in Europe a long time, haven't you? Oh, mostly in the south of England? Are the roads good? Last year my husband and I went all through Shakespeare's country. It's just delightful. They sprinkle it so thoroughly. And Stratford-on-Avon itself is just a treat. It's all oiled, every bit of it, except the little road by Shakespeare's house; but we didn't go along that. Then later we went up to the lake district: but it's not so good: they don't oil it."
She floated away, to give place to another lady.
"In France every summer?" she exclaimed. "Oh, how perfectly lovely. Don't you think the French cars simply divine? My husband thinks the French body is far better modelled than ours. He saw ever so many of them. He thought of bringing one over with him, but it costs such a lot to keep them in good order."
"The theatres?" said another lady. "How you must have enjoyed them. I just love the theatres. Last week my husband and I were at the Palatial--it's moving pictures--where they have that film with the motor collision running. It's just wonderful. You see the motors going at full speed, and then smash right into one another--and all the people killed--it's really fine."
"Have they all gone insane?" said Mr. Blinks to his wife after the guests had gone.
"Dreadful, isn't it?" she assented. "I never was so bored in my life."
"Why, they talk of nothing else but their motor-cars!" said Blinks. "We've got to get a car, I suppose, living at this distance from the town, but I'm hanged if I intend to go clean crazy over it like these people."
And the guests as they went home talked of the Blinkses.
"I fear," said Dr. Domb to Judge Ponderus, "that Blinks has hardly profited by his time in Europe as much as he ought to have. He seems to have observed nothing. I was asking him about the new Italian touring car that they are using so much in Rome. He said he had never noticed it. And he was there a month!"
"Is it possible?" said the Judge. "Where were his eyes?"
All of which showed that Mr. and Mrs. Blinks were in danger of losing their friends for ever.
But it so happened that about three weeks later Blinks came home to his residence in an obvious state of excitement. His face was flushed and he had on a silly little round cap with a glazed peak.
"Why, Clarence," cried his wife, "whatever is the matter?"
"Matter!" he exclaimed. "There isn't anything the matter! I bought a car this morning, that's all. Say, it's a beauty, a regular peach, four thousand with ten off. I ran it clean round the shed alone first time. The chauffeur says he never saw anybody get on to the hang of it so quick. Get on your hat and come right down to the garage. I've got a man waiting there to teach you to run it. Hurry up!"
Within a week or two after that one might see the Blinkses any morning, in fact every morning, out in their car!
"Good morning, Judge!" calls Blinks gaily as he passes, "how's that carburettor acting?--Good morning. Archdeacon, is that plug trouble of yours all right again?--Hullo, Professor, let me pick you up and ride you up to the college; oh, it's no trouble. What do you think of the bearings of this car? Aren't they just dandy?"
And so Mr. Blinks has got all his friends back again.
After all, the great thing about being crazy is to be all crazy together.
VI. The Two Sexes in Fives or Sixes.
A Dinner-party Study
"But, surely," exclaimed the Hostess, looking defiantly and searchingly through the cut flowers of the centre-piece, so that her eye could intimidate in turn all the five men at the table, "one must admit that women are men's equals in every way?"
The Lady-with-the-Bust tossed her head a little and echoed, "Oh, surely!"
The Debutante lifted her big blue eyes a little towards the ceiling, with the upward glance that stands for innocence. She said nothing, waiting for a cue as to what to appear to be.
Meantime the Chief Lady Guest, known to be in suffrage work, was pinching up her lips and getting her phrases ready, like a harpooner waiting to strike. She knew that the Hostess meant this as an opening for her.
But the Soft Lady Whom Men Like toyed with a bit of bread on the tablecloth (she had a beautiful hand) and smiled gently. The other women would have called it a simper. To the men it stood for profound intelligence.
The five men that sat amongst and between the ladies received the challenge of the Hostess's speech and answered it each in his own way.
From the Heavy Host at the head of the table there came a kind of deep grunt, nothing more. He had heard this same talk at each of his dinners that season.
There was a similar grunt from the Heavy Business Friend of the Host, almost as broad and thick as the Host himself. He knew too what was coming. He proposed to stand by his friend, man for man. He could sympathise. The Lady-with-the-Bust was his wife.
But the Half Man with the Moon Face, who was known to work side by side with women on committees and who called them "Comrades," echoed:
"Oh, surely!" with deep emphasis.
The Smooth Gentleman, there for business reasons, exclaimed with great alacrity, "Women equal! Oh, rather!"
Last of all the Interesting Man with Long Hair, known to write for the magazines--all of them--began at once:
"I remember once saying to Mrs. Pankhurst--" but was overwhelmed in the general conversation before he could say what it was he remembered saying to Mrs. Pankhurst.
In other words, the dinner-party, at about course number seven, had reached the inevitable moment of the discussion of the two sexes.
It had begun as dinner-parties do.
Everybody had talked gloomily to his neighbour, over the oysters, on one drink of white wine; more or less brightly to two people, over the fish, on two drinks; quite brilliantly to three people on three drinks; and then the conversation had become general and the European war had been fought through three courses with champagne. Everybody had taken an extremely broad point of view. The Heavy Business Friend had declared himself absolutely impartial and had at once got wet with rage over cotton. The Chief Lady Guest had explained that she herself was half English on her mother's side, and the Lady-with- the-Bust had told how a lady friend of hers had a cousin who had travelled in Hungary. She admitted that it was some years ago. Things might have changed since. Then the Interesting Man, having got the table where he wanted it, had said: "I remember when I was last in Sofia--by the way it is pronounced Say-ah-fee-ah--talking with Radovitch--or Radee-ah-vitch, as it should be sounded--the foreign secretary, on what the Sobranje--it is pronounced Soophrangee--would be likely to do"--and by the time he had done with the Sobranje no one dared speak of the war any more.
But the Hostess had got out of it the opening she wanted, and she said:
"At any rate, it is wonderful what women have done in the war--"
"And are doing," echoed the Half Man with the Moon Face.
And then it was that the Hostess had said that surely every one must admit women are equal to men and the topic of the sexes was started. All the women had been waiting for it, anyway. It is the only topic that women care about. Even men can stand it provided that fifty per cent or more of the women present are handsome enough to justify it.
"I hardly see how, after all that has happened, any rational person could deny for a moment," continued the Hostess, looking straight at her husband and his Heavy Business Friend, "that women are equal and even superior to men. Surely our brains are just as good?" and she gave an almost bitter laugh.
"Don't you think perhaps--?" began the Smooth Gentleman.
"No, I don't," said the Hostess. "You're going to say that we are inferior in things like mathematics or in logical reasoning. We are not. But, after all, the only reason why we are is because of training. Think of the thousands of years that men have been trained. Answer me that?"
"Well, might it not be--?" began the Smooth Gentleman.
"I don't think so for a moment," said the Hostess. "I think if we'd only been trained as men have for the last two or three thousand years our brains would be just as well trained for the things they were trained for as they would have been now for the things we have been trained for and in that case wouldn't have. Don't you agree with me," she said, turning to the Chief Lady Guest, whom she suddenly remembered, "that, after all, we think more clearly?"
Here the Interesting Man, who had been silent longer than an Interesting Man can, without apoplexy, began:
"I remember once saying in London to Sir Charles Doosey--"
But the Chief Lady Guest refused to be checked.
"We've been gathering some rather interesting statistics," she said, speaking very firmly, syllable by syllable, "on that point at our Settlement. We have measured the heads of five hundred factory girls, making a chart of them, you know, and the feet of five hundred domestic servants--"
"And don't you find--" began the Smooth Gentleman.
"No," said the Chief Lady Guest firmly, "we do not. But I was going to say that when we take our measurements and reduce them to a scale of a hundred--I think you understand me--"
"Ah, but come, now," interrupted the Interesting man,
"there's nothing really more deceitful than anthropometric
measures. I remember once saying (in London) to Sir Robert
Bittell--the Sir Robert Bittell, you know--"
Here everybody murmured, "Oh, yes," except the Heavy Host and his Heavy Friend, who with all their sins were honest men.
"I said, 'Sir Robert, I want your frank opinion, your very frank opinion--'"
But here there was a slight interruption. The Soft Lady accidentally dropped a bangle from her wrist on to the floor. Now all through the dinner she had hardly said anything, but she had listened for twenty minutes (from the grapefruit to the fish) while the Interesting Man had told her about his life in Honduras (it is pronounced Hondooras), and for another twenty while the Smooth Gentleman, who was a barrister, had discussed himself as a pleader. And when each of the men had begun to speak in the general conversation, she had looked deep into their faces as if hanging on to their words. So when she dropped her bangle two of the men leaped from their chairs to get it, and the other three made a sort of struggle as they sat. By the time it was recovered and replaced upon her arm (a very beautiful arm), the Interesting Man was side-tracked and the Chief Lady Guest, who had gone on talking during the bangle hunt, was heard saying:
"Entirely so. That seems to me the greatest difficulty before us. So few men are willing to deal with the question with perfect sincerity."
She laid emphasis on the word and the Half Man with the Moon Face took his cue from it and threw a pose of almost painful sincerity.
"Why is it," continued the Chief Lady Guest, "that men always insist on dealing with us just as if we were playthings, just so many dressed-up dolls?"
Here the Debutante immediately did a doll.
"If a woman is attractive and beautiful," the lady went on, "so much the better." (She had no intention of letting go of the doll business entirely.) "But surely you men ought to value us as something more than mere dolls?"
She might have pursued the topic, but at this moment the Smooth Gentleman, who made a rule of standing in all round, and had broken into a side conversation with the Silent Host, was overheard to say something about women's sense of humour.
The table was in a turmoil in a moment, three of the ladies speaking at once. To deny a woman's sense of humour is the last form of social insult.
"I entirely disagree with you," said the Chief Lady Guest, speaking very severely. "I know it from my own case, from my own sense of humour and from observation. Last week, for example, we measured no less than seventy-five factory girls--"
"Well, I'm sure," said the Lady-with-the-Bust, "I don't know what men mean by our not having a sense of humour. I'm sure I have. I know I went last week to a vaudeville, and I just laughed all through. Of course I can't read Mark Twain, or anything like that, but then I don't call that funny, do you?" she concluded, turning to the Hostess.
But the Hostess, feeling somehow that the ground was dangerous, had already risen, and in a moment more the ladies had floated out of the room and upstairs to the drawing-room, where they spread themselves about in easy chairs in billows of pretty coloured silk.
"How charming it is," the Chief Lady Guest began, "to find men coming so entirely to our point of view! Do you know it was so delightful to-night: I hardly heard a word of dissent or contradiction."
Thus they talked; except the Soft Lady, who had slipped into a seat by herself with an album over her knees, and with an empty chair on either side of her. There she waited.
Meantime, down below, the men had shifted into chairs to one end of the table and the Heavy Host was shoving cigars at them, thick as ropes, and passing the port wine, with his big fist round the neck of the decanter. But for his success in life he could have had a place as a bar tender anywhere.
None of them spoke till the cigars were well alight.
Then the Host said very deliberately, taking each word at his leisure, with smoke in between:
"Of course--this--suffrage business--"
"Tommyrot!" exclaimed the Smooth Gentleman, with great alacrity, his mask entirely laid aside.
"Damn foolishness," gurgled the Heavy Business Friend, sipping his port.
"Of course you can't really discuss it with women," murmured the Host.
"Oh, no," assented all the others. Even the Half Man sipped his wine and turned traitor, there being no one to see.
"You see," said the Host, "if my wife likes to go to meetings and be on committees, why, I don't stop her."
"Neither do I mine," said the Heavy Friend. "It amuses her, so I let her do it." His wife, the Lady-with-the-Bust, was safely out of hearing.
"I remember once," began the Interesting Man, "saying to"--he paused a moment, for the others were looking at him--"another man that if women did get the vote they'd never use it, anyway. All they like is being talked about for not getting it."
After which, having exhausted the Woman Question, the five men turned to such bigger subjects as the fall in sterling exchange and the President's seventeenth note to Germany.
Then presently they went upstairs. And when they reached the door of the drawing-room a keen observer, or, indeed, any kind of observer, might have seen that all five of them made an obvious advance towards the two empty seats beside the Soft Lady.
VII. The Grass Bachelor's Guide.
With sincere Apologies to the Ladies' Periodicals
There are periods in the life of every married man when he is turned for the time being into a grass bachelor.
This happens, for instance, in the summer time when his wife is summering by the sea, and he himself is simmering in the city. It happens also in the autumn when his wife is in Virginia playing golf in order to restore her shattered nerves after the fatigues of the seaside. It occurs again in November when his wife is in the Adirondacks to get the benefit of the altitude, and later on through the winter when she is down in Florida to get the benefit of the latitude. The breaking up of the winter being, notoriously, a trying time on the system, any reasonable man is apt to consent to his wife's going to California. In the later spring, the season of the bursting flowers and the young buds, every woman likes to be with her mother in the country. It is not fair to stop her.
It thus happens that at various times of the year a great number of men, unable to leave their business, are left to their own resources as housekeepers in their deserted houses and apartments. It is for their benefit that I have put together these hints on housekeeping for men. It may be that in composing them I owe something to the current number of the leading women's magazines. If so, I need not apologise. I am sure that in these days We Men all feel that We Men and We Women are so much alike, or at least those of us who call ourselves so, that we need feel no jealousy when We Men and We Women are striving each, or both, in the same direction if in opposite ways. I hope that I make myself clear. I am sure I do.
So I feel that if We Men, who are left alone in our houses and apartments in the summer-time, would only set ourselves to it, we could make life not only a little brighter for ourselves but also a little less bright for those about us.
Nothing contributes to this end so much as good housekeeping. The first thing for the housekeeper to realise is that it is impossible for him to attend to his housekeeping in the stiff and unbecoming garments of his business hours. When he begins his day he must therefore carefully consider--
WHAT TO WEAR BEFORE DRESSING
Having a kimono such as this, our housekeeper can either button himself into it with a button-hook (very good ones are supplied by Messrs. Einstein & Fickelbrot [see ad.] at a very reasonable price or even higher), or better still, he can summon the janitor of the apartment, who can button him up quite securely in a few minutes' time --a quarter of an hour at the most. We Men cannot impress upon ourselves too strongly that, for efficient housekeeping, time is everything, and that much depends on quiet, effective movement from place to place, or from any one place to any number of other places. We are now ready to consider the all-important question--
WHAT TO SELECT FOR BREAKFAST
Our housekeeper will naturally desire something that is simple and easily cooked, yet at the same time sustaining and invigorating and containing a maximum of food value with a minimum of cost. If he is wise he will realise that the food ought to contain a proper quantity of both proteids and amygdaloids, and, while avoiding a nitrogenous breakfast, should see to it that he obtains sufficient of what is albuminous and exogamous to prevent his breakfast from becoming monotonous. Careful thought must therefore be given to the breakfast menu.
For the purpose of thinking, a simple but very effective costume may be devised by throwing over the kimono itself a thin lace shawl, with a fichu carried high above the waistline and terminating in a plain insertion. A bit of old lace thrown over the housekeeper's head is at once serviceable and becoming and will help to keep the dust out of his brain while thinking what to eat for breakfast.
Very naturally our housekeeper's first choice will be some kind of cereal. The simplest and most economical breakfast of this kind can be secured by selecting some cereal or grain food--such as oats, flax, split peas that have been carefully strained in the colander, or beans that have been fired off in a gun. Any of these cereals may be bought for ten cents a pound at a grocer's--or obtained from Messrs. Einstein & Fickelbrot for a dollar a pound, or more. Supposing then that we have decided upon a pound of split peas as our breakfast, the next task that devolves upon our housekeeper is to--
GO OUT AND BUY IT
Here our advice is simple but positive. Shopping should never be done over the telephone or by telegraph. The good housekeeper instead of telegraphing for his food will insist on seeing his food himself, and will eat nothing that he does not first see before eating. This is a cardinal rule. For the moment, then, the range must be turned low while our housekeeper sallies forth to devote himself to his breakfast shopping. The best costume for shopping is a simple but effective suit, cut in plain lines, either square or crosswise, and buttoned wherever there are button-holes. A simple hat of some dark material may be worn together with plain boots drawn up well over the socks and either laced or left unlaced. No harm is done if a touch of colour is added by carrying a geranium in the hand. We are now ready for the street.
TEST OF EFFECTIVE SHOPPING
Here we may say at once that the crucial test is that we must know what we want, why we want it, where we want it, and what it is. Time, as We Men are only too apt to forget, is everything, and since our aim is now a pound of split peas we must, as we sally forth, think of a pound of split peas and only a pound. A cheery salutation may be exchanged with other morning shoppers as we pass along, but only exchanged. Split peas being for the moment our prime business, we must, as rapidly and unobtrusively as possible, visit those shops and only those shops where split peas are to be had.
Having found the split peas, our housekeeper's next task is to pay for them. This he does with money that may be either carried in the hand or, better, tucked into a simple etui, or dodu, that can be carried at the wrist or tied to the ankle. The order duly given, our housekeeper gives his address for the delivery of the peas, and then, as quietly and harmlessly as possible, returns to his apartment. His next office, and a most important one it is, is now ready to be performed. This new but necessary duty is--
WAITING FOR THE DELIVERY VAN
A good costume for waiting for the delivery van in, is a simple brown suit, slashed with yellow and purple, and sliced or gored from the hip to the feet. As time is everything, the housekeeper, after having put on his slashed costume for waiting for the delivery van, may set himself to the performance of a number of light household tasks, at the same time looking occasionally from the window so as to detect the arrival of the van as soon as possible after it has arrived. Among other things, he may now feed his canary by opening its mouth with a button-hook and dropping in coffee beans till the little songster shows by its gratified air that it is full. A little time may be well spent among the flowers and bulbs of the apartment, clipping here a leaf and here a stem, and removing the young buds and bugs. For work among the flowers, a light pair of rather long scissors, say a foot long, can be carried at the girdle, or attached to the etui and passed over the shoulder with a looped cord so as to fall in an easy and graceful fold across the back. The moment is now approaching when we may expect--
THE ARRIVAL OF THE VAN
The housekeeper will presently discover the van, drawn up in the front of the apartment, and its driver curled up on the seat. Now is the moment of activity. Hastily throwing on a peignoir, the housekeeper descends and, receiving his parcel, reascends to his apartment. The whole descent and reascent is made quickly, quietly, and, if possible, only once.
PUTTING THE PEAS TO SOAK
Remember that unsoaked peas are hard, forcible, and surcharged with a nitrogenous amygdaloid that is in reality what chemical science calls putrate of lead. On the other hand, peas that are soaked become large, voluble, textile, and, while extremely palatable, are none the less rich in glycerine, starch, and other lacteroids and bactifera. To contain the required elements of nutrition split peas must be soaked for two hours in fresh water and afterwards boiled for an hour and a quarter (eighty-five minutes).
It is now but the work of a moment to lift the saucepan of peas from the fire, strain them through a colander, pass them thence into a net or bag, rinse them in cold water and then spread the whole appetising mass on a platter and carry it on a fireshovel to the dining-room. As it is now about six o'clock in the evening, our housekeeper can either--
TELEPHONE TO HIS CLUB
AND ORDER A THIN SOUP
WITH A BITE OF FISH,
TWO LAMB CHOPS WITH ASPARAGUS,
AND SEND WORD ALSO
FOR A PINT OF MOSELLE
TO BE LAID ON ICE
Or he can sit down and eat those d--n peas.
WE KNOW WHICH HE WILL DO
VIII. Every Man and his Friends. Mr. Crunch's
Portrait Gallery (as Edited from his Private Thoughts)
(I) HIS VIEWS ON HIS EMPLOYER
A mean man. I say it, of course, without any prejudice, and without the slightest malice. But the man is mean. Small, I think, is the word. I am not thinking, of course, of my own salary. It is not a matter that I would care to refer to; though, as a matter of fact, one would think that after fifteen years of work an application for an increase of five hundred dollars is the kind of thing that any man ought to be glad to meet half-way. Not that I bear the man any malice for it. None. If he died to-morrow, no one would regret his death as genuinely as I would: if he fell into the river and got drowned, or if he fell into a sewer and suffocated, or if he got burned to death in a gas explosion (there are a lot of things that might happen to him), I should feel genuinely sorry to see him cut off.
But what strikes me more than the man's smallness is his incompetence. The man is absolutely no good. It's not a thing that I would say outside: as a matter of fact I deny it every time I hear it, though every man in town knows it. How that man ever got the position he has is more than I can tell. And, as for holding it, he couldn't hold it half a day if it weren't that the rest of us in the office do practically everything for him.
Why, I've seen him send out letters (I wouldn't say this to anyone outside, of course, and I wouldn't like to have it repeated)--letters with, actually, mistakes in English. Think of it, in English! Ask his stenographer.
I often wonder why I go on working for him. There are dozens of other companies that would give anything to get me. Only the other day--it's not ten years ago--I had an offer, or practically an offer, to go to Japan selling Bibles. I often wish now I had taken it. I believe I'd like the Japanese. They're gentlemen, the Japanese. They wouldn't turn a man down after slaving away for fifteen years.
I often think I'll quit him. I say to my wife that that man had better not provoke me too far; or some day I'll just step into his office and tell him exactly what I think of him. I'd like to. I often say it over to myself in the street car coming home.
He'd better be careful, that's all.
(II) THE MINISTER WHOSE CHURCH HE ATTENDS
A dull man. Dull is the only word I can think of that exactly describes him--dull and prosy. I don't say that he is not a good man. He may be. I don't say that he is not. I have never seen any sign of it, if he is. But I make it a rule never to say anything to take away a man's character.
And his sermons! Really that sermon he gave last Sunday on Esau seemed to me the absolute limit. I wish you could have heard it. I mean to say--drivel. I said to my wife and some friends, as we walked away from the church, that a sermon like that seemed to me to come from the dregs of the human intellect. Mind you, I don't believe in criticising a sermon. I always feel it a sacred obligation never to offer a word of criticism. When I say that the sermon was punk, I don't say it as criticism. I merely state it as a fact. And to think that we pay that man eighteen hundred dollars a year! And he's in debt all the time at that. What does he do with it? He can't spend it. It's not as if he had a large family (they've only four children). It's just a case of sheer extravagance. He runs about all the time. Last year it was a trip to a Synod Meeting at New York--away four whole days; and two years before that, dashing off to a Scripture Conference at Boston, and away nearly a whole week, and his wife with him!
What I say is that if a man's going to spend his time gadding about the country like that--here to-day and there to-morrow--how on earth can he attend to his parochial duties?
I'm a religious man. At least I trust I am. I believe --and more and more as I get older--in eternal punishment. I see the need of it when I look about me. As I say, I trust I am a religious man, but when it comes to subscribing fifty dollars as they want us to, to get the man out of debt, I say "No."
True religion, as I see it, is not connected with money.
(III) HIS PARTNER AT BRIDGE
The man is a complete ass. How a man like that has the nerve to sit down at a bridge table, I don't know. I wouldn't mind if the man had any idea--even the faintest idea--of how to play. But he hasn't any. Three times I signalled to him to throw the lead into my hand and he wouldn't: I knew that our only ghost of a chance was to let me do all the playing. But the ass couldn't see it. He even had the supreme nerve to ask me what I meant by leading diamonds when he had signalled that he had none. I couldn't help asking him, as politely as I could, why he had disregarded my signal for spades. He had the gall to ask in reply why I had overlooked his signal for clubs in the second hand round; the very time, mind you, when I had led a three spot as a sign to him to let me play the whole game. I couldn't help saying to him, at the end of the evening, in a tone of such evident satire that anyone but an ass would have recognised it, that I had seldom had as keen an evening at cards.
But he didn't see it. The irony of it was lost on him.
The jackass merely said--quite amiably and unconsciously
--that he thought I'd play a good game presently. Me!
Play a good game presently!
I gave him a look, just one look as I went out! But I don't think he saw it. He was talking to some one else.
(IV) HIS HOSTESS AT DINNER
On what principle that woman makes up her dinner parties is more than human brain can devise. Mind you, I like going out to dinner. To my mind it's the very best form of social entertainment. But I like to find myself among people that can talk, not among a pack of numbskulls. What I like is good general conversation, about things worth talking about. But among a crowd of idiots like that what can you expect? You'd think that even society people would be interested, or pretend to be, in real things. But not a bit. I had hardly started to talk about the rate of exchange on the German mark in relation to the fall of sterling bills--a thing that you would think a whole table full of people would be glad to listen to--when first thing I knew the whole lot of them had ceased paying any attention and were listening to an insufferable ass of an Englishman--I forget his name. You'd hardly suppose that just because a man has been in Flanders and has his arm in a sling and has to have his food cut up by the butler, that's any reason for having a whole table full of people listening to him. And especially the women: they have a way of listening to a fool like that with their elbows on the table that is positively sickening.
