Delphi complete works of.., p.219
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 219
TABLEAU NO. II
The Scene in Which Mr. McDuff of the McDuff Hardware Store in Central City (po,862) Borrows $1,000 from the Local Bank
The second degree in borrowing is represented by this scene in which Mr. John McDuff, of McDuff Bros. Hardware Store (Everything in Hardware), calls on the local bank manager with a view to getting $1,000 to carry the business forward for one month till the farmers’ spring payments begin to come in.
Mr. McDuff is told by one of the (two) juniors in the bank to wait — the manager is engaged for the moment.
The manager in reality is in his inner office, sorting out trout flies. But he knows what McDuff wants and he means to make him wait for it and suffer for it.
When at last McDuff does get in, the manager is very cold and formal.
“Sit down, Mr. McDuff,” he says. When they go fishing together, the manager always calls McDuff “John.” But this is different. McDuff is here to borrow money. And borrowing money in Central City is a criminal act.
“I came in about that loan,” says McDuff.
The manager looks into a ledger.
“You’re overdrawn seventeen dollars right now,” he says.
“I know, but I’ll be getting my accounts in any time after the first.”
Then follows a string of severe questions. What are McDuff’s daily receipts? What is his overhead? What is his underfoot? Is he a church-goer? Does he believe in a future life?
And at last even when the manager finally consents to lend the thousand dollars (he always meant to do it), he begins tagging on conditions:
“You’ll have to get your partner to sign.”
“All right.”
“And you’d better get your wife to sign.”
“All right.”
“And your mother, she might as well sign too — —”
There are more signatures on a country bank note for one month than on a Locarno treaty.
And at last McDuff, of Everything in Hardware, having pledged his receipts, his premises, his credit, his honor, his wife, and his mother — gets away with the thousand dollars.
TABLEAU NO. III
How Mr. P. O. Pingpoint, of the Great Financial House of Pingpoint, Pingpong and Company, New York and London, Borrows a Million Dollars before Lunch
Here the scene is laid in a fitting setting. Mr. Pingpoint is shown into the sumptuous head office of the president of the First National Bank.
“Ah, good morning,” says the president as he rises to greet Mr. Pingpoint, “I was expecting you. Our general manager told me that you were going to be good enough to call in. Won’t you take this larger chair? — you’ll find it easier.”
“Ah, thank you. You’re very comfortable here.”
“Yes, we rather think this a pleasant room. And our board room, we think, is even better. Won’t you let me show you our board room?”
“Oh, thanks, I’m afraid I hardly have the time. I just came in for a minute to complete our loan of a million dollars.”
“Yes, our executive Vice-President said that you are good enough to come to us. It is very kind of you, I’m sure.”
“Oh, not at all.”
“And you are quite sure that a million is all that you care to take? We shall be delighted, you know, if you will take a million and a half.”
“Oh, scarcely. A million, I think, will be ample just now; we can come back, of course, if we want more.”
“Oh, certainly, certainly.”
“And do you want us to give any security, or anything of that sort?”
“Oh, no, quite unnecessary.”
“And is there anything you want me to sign while I am here?”
“Oh, no, nothing, the clerks will attend to all that.”
“Well, thanks, then, I needn’t keep you any longer.”
“But won’t you let me drive you up town? My car is just outside. Or, better still, if you are free, won’t you come and eat some lunch with me at the club?”
“Well, thanks, yes, you’re really extremely kind.”
And with this, quite painlessly and easily, the million dollars has changed hands.
But even that is not the last degree. Eclipsing that sort of thing, both in case and in splendor, is the international loan, as seen in ——
TABLEAU NO. IV
The Scenes Which Accompany the Flotation of an Anglo-French Loan in the American Market, of a Hundred Million Dollars, by the Right Hon. Samuel Rothstein of England and the Vicomte Baton Rouge de Chauve Souris of France
This occurrence is best followed as it appears in its triumphant progress in the American press.
New York, Friday — An enthusiastic reception was given yesterday to the Right Hon. Mr. Samuel Rothstein, of the British Cabinet, and to the Vicomte de Chauve Souris, French plenipotentiary, on their landing from the Stacquitania. It is understood that they will borrow $100,000,000. The distinguished visitors expect to stay only a few days.
New York, Saturday — An elaborate reception was given last evening in the home of Mrs. Bildermont to the Right Hon. Samuel Rothstein and the Baron de Chauve Souris. It is understood that they are borrowing a hundred million dollars.
New York, Monday — The Baron de Chauve Souris and the Right Hon. Samuel Rothstein were notable figures in the Fifth Avenue church parade yesterday. It is understood that they will borrow a hundred million dollars.
New York, Tuesday — The Baron de Chauve Souris and the Right Hon. Samuel Rothstein attended a baseball game at the Polo Grounds. It is understood that they will borrow a hundred million dollars.
New York, Wednesday — At a ball given by Mr. and Mrs. Ashcoop-Vandermore for the distinguished English and French plenipotentiaries, Mr. Samuel Rothstein and the Baron de Chauve Souris, it was definitely stated that the loan which they are financing will be limited to a hundred million dollars.
New York (Wall Street), Thursday — The loan of $100,000,000 was subscribed this morning at eleven o’clock in five minutes. The Right Hon. Mr. Rothstein and the Baron Baton Rouge de Chauve Souris left America at twelve noon, taking the money with them. Both plenipotentiaries expressed their delight with America.
“It is,” said the Baron— “how do you call it? — a cinch.”
EPILOGUE
And yet, six months later, what happened? Who paid and who didn’t?
Hardup Jones paid $5.40 within a month, $3.00 the next month and the remaining one dollar and sixty cents two weeks later.
McDuff Bros. met their note and went fishing with the manager like old friends.
The Pingpoint Syndicate blew up and failed for ten million dollars.
And the international loan got mixed up with a lot of others, was funded, equated, spread out over fifty years, capitalized, funded again — in short, it passed beyond all recognition.
And the moral is, when you borrow, borrow a whole lot.
Life’s Minor Contradictions THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THINGS AS THEY ARE AND AS THEY SEEM
ISN’T IT FUNNY how different people and things are when you know them from what you think they are when you don’t know them?
For instance, everybody knows how much all distinguished people differ in their private lives from what they appear to the public. We all get used to being told in the papers such things as that in his private life Signor Mussolini is the very gentlest of men, spending his time by preference among children and dolls; that in his private life Dean Inge, the “gloomy Dean” of St. Paul’s Cathedral, is hilariously merry; and that Mr. Chesterton, fat though he appears in public, is in private life quite thin.
I myself had the pleasure not long ago of meeting the famous Mr. Sandpile, at that time reputed to be the most powerful man in America, and giving public exhibitions of muscular strength of a most amazing character. I was surprised to find that in his private life Sandpile was not a strong man at all, but quite feeble. “Would you mind,” he said to me, “handing me that jug? It’s too heavy for me to lift.”
In the same way, I recall on one occasion walking down a street in an English seaport town late one night with Admiral Beatty — I think it was Admiral Beatty, either Beatty or Jellicoe. “Would you mind,” he said, “letting me walk behind you? I’m afraid of the dark.” “You mean of course,” I said, “only in your private life.” “Certainly,” he answered. “I don’t mind it a damn in daylight.”
Few people know that Mr. Henry Ford cannot drive a motor car, that Mr. Rockefeller never has any money, and that Thomas Edison has never been able to knit.
But lately I have been noticing that these contradictions extend also to institutions and things in general. Take for instance, a circus. In past generations it was supposed by many of the best supposers that circus people were about as tough an “aggregation” as it was possible to aggredge. But not at all. Quite the other way.
Not long ago a circus came to our town and I had the pleasure of spending some time with one of the clowns — he was studying for a Ph.D. in private life — and of getting a good deal of information from him as to what a modern circus is like when seen from the inside.
I expressed my astonishment that he should be a clown and also a Philosophy student. “Not at all,” he said, “there’s nothing unusual about that. As a matter of fact, four of our clowns are in philosophy, and the ringmaster himself is studying palæontology, though he is still some distance from it. Nearly all our clowns are college men: they seem specially fitted for it somehow.
“And most of our trapeze ladies are college girls. You can tell a college girl on a trapeze at any time. You must come over and see us,” he added, “we are having a little sort of gathering on Sunday afternoon — one of our Fortnightly Teas. We generally have a little reading and discussions. We take up some author or period and some one reads a paper on it. This afternoon we are to discuss the Italian Renaissance and the bandmaster is to deal with Benvenuto Cellini.
“We have a welfare Society, and a Luncheon Club, and our Big Sister Movement. As to drunkenness,” he added, “the other day some one brought in a bottle of Ontario four per cent beer and our manager was terribly distressed about it. He gave it to the kangaroo.”
It seems impossible to doubt the truth of his words, especially when we corroborate them with similar disclosures about other institutions.
Take, for example, some information which I recently received in regard to cowboys from a man who had just made a tour in the West.
“You are quite mistaken,” he told me, “in imagining that the western cowboy is the kind of ‘bad man,’ all dressed up in leather fringes, that you read about in the half-dime novels. As a matter of fact, most of the cowboys nowadays are college men. There seems to be something in a college training which fits a man for cattle.
“They are principally law students. Few of the cowboys of today undertake to ride, for of course they don’t need to. They mostly use cars in going after the cattle, and many of them, for that matter, can’t drive a car. They have chauffeurs. And in any case, the cattle of today are very quiet and seldom move faster than a walk or a run.
“The cowboy has naturally long since discarded his peculiar dress and wears just a plain lounge suit with a thin duster and motor goggles. Of course, they change for dinner at night, especially when invited out to dine with the Indians, or at one of the section men’s clubs beside the railway track. But you ought to go out and see them for yourself.”
I admitted that I ought.
Meantime I notice the same kind of contradiction in another set of institutions, but this time turned the other way around. I’ll give as an example of it the newspaper account of the entertainment (it is an annual affair) that was given in our town the other night under the auspices of the Girls’ Uplift Society in aid of the Rescue Fund for Sunken Delinquents.
“The Revue put on last week by the Girls’ Uplift Society in the Basement of the Seventh Avenue Social Center certainly outclassed any of the previous performances of the Society. The chorus dancing of the Rescue Squad was pronounced worthy of the Midnight Follies of the metropolis itself, and the pastor in his remarks spoke especially of the trapeze work of the Mothers’ Aid.
“The pastor drew attention, however, to the fact that this year more than ever there had been complaints about the young ladies bringing flasks to their dressing rooms. He himself — he admitted it reluctantly — had not seen any of these flasks and could not speak of the contents. But the janitor had picked up twenty-six. He himself, however, had looked all round the basement, but had failed to find any.
“He deplored also the increasing prevalence of smoking at the performances. He himself saw no harm in a good cigar, for himself, especially in a well-seasoned twenty-five-cent dark Habanana, which he said beat Virgyptian tobacco hands down. But he looked on a cigarette as a mighty poor smoke.”
When we add to the disclosures of this sort such minor and obvious facts as that nowadays sailors can’t swim, and clergymen swear, and brewers don’t drink, and actors can’t act — we have to admit that we live in a changing world.
A Great Life in Our Midst JOE BROWN, CHAMPION PIE EATER
ONE’S FIRST IMPRESSIONS of Joe Brown, champion pie-eater, is that of a quiet, unassuming man, of a stature in no way out of the common, and having a frank, offhand manner that puts one at once at one’s ease.
“Sit right down,” he said to the group of us (we were reporting for the press), and he waved his hand towards the rocking-chairs on the veranda. “Sit right down. Warm, ain’t it?”
The words were simple, but spoken with a heartiness and good will that made one at once feel at home. It seemed hard to believe that this was actually the man who had eaten more pie, more consecutive pie, than any other man alive — still alive.
“Well, Joe,” we said, getting out our notebooks and pencils, “what about this pie?”
Mr. Brown laughed, with that pleasant, easy laugh of his, which makes one feel entirely reassured.
“I rather supposed you boys were going to talk about the pie,” he said.
“Well,” we admitted, “all the world is talking about it, Joe. Coming right on top of the news that a man has played golf continually for twenty-four hours and that a woman in Indiana shucked peas for three days, and that the huckleberry record has been broken, that a man in Medicine Hat, Alberta, stood on one leg for seven hours, and that the champion fat boy of Iowa passed four hundred pounds last week, this pie stuff of yours seems to be going over pretty big.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Brown, quietly, “there are big things being done to-day certainly, and I’m glad to be in it. And yet I don’t feel as if I had done anything so very much after all.”
“Oh, come, Joe,” we expostulated, “in New York they are saying that your pie act is about the biggest endurance stunt of the month. It puts you, or it ought to, right in the first rank of the big men to-day.”
“Well,” said the champion modestly, “I’m afraid I can’t take too much credit for it. I just did my best, that was all. I wasn’t going to let it beat me, and so I just put into it every ounce of pep, or pepsin, that I had.”
“What first turned you to eating pie, Joe?” asked one of the boys.
“It’s hard to say,” he answered. “I think I just took to it naturally. Even as a little fellow, before I understood anything about it, I was fond of pie and liked to see how much I could eat.”
“How did it feel when you ate the first slice in the championship?” asked one of the boys.
“No,” broke in another, “tell us about your training, Joe — how did you go at that?” “No,” said a third, “tell us what was the most trying moment of the whole contest.”
The great man laughed. “I’m afraid you boys are asking a whole lot of questions altogether,” he said. “But the main facts are simple enough, and, as I see it, nothing so very much to boast about.
“As for the championship contest,” he continued, and a look of quiet earnestness came over his face as he spoke, “I can only say, boys, that I’m glad it’s over. It was a strain, a great strain. I’ll never forget how I felt as we passed the twentieth slice and then the thirtieth and then the fortieth. I said to myself, ‘Surely this can’t last; there must come a time when it just can’t go on.’ Something seemed to make me understand that.
“I’d run into a burst of speed from the twentieth up to the thirtieth, with a stroke of two bites to the second, but I saw I couldn’t hold the pace; I slowed it down to four bites in five seconds and just hung on to that, till I heard the big shout that told me I had won. After that, I guess I pretty well keeled over. I was all in.”
“Were you laid out for long?” some one asked.
“No, just for two or three minutes. Then I went home, had a bath and a rub-down, and got something to eat, and then I felt dandy.”
“Is it true you’re to go over to the other side, Joe?” asked one of the boys.
“I don’t quite know. My manager wants me to go over to England and eat pie there. There are some first-class men in England, so they tell me, that one would be proud to eat against.”
“What about France, Joe?”
“Yes, France, too. The French have got some good men and some fine men. And their technique is better than ours. They’re quicker. They’ve done more so far in jaw movement than we have. If I eat a Frenchman, my only advantage, if I have any at all, will be in endurance.”
“Aren’t the pie-eating rules in France different, Joe?” asked one of us.
“They were,” said the champion. “The French used to allow drinking — up to six gallons — during the contest. As you know, we don’t. But now that we have got the International Pie-Eating Association, we expect to have a set of rules the same for everybody.”
“Where will you train if you go?” the champion was next asked.
“Most likely,” he said, “I’ll train at the lunch counters in New York and some of the big cities. But the station restaurants are good too; and I may tackle the cafeterias in some of the big hotels. Anywhere, in short, where I can get speed and atmosphere.”
