Delphi complete works of.., p.831
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 831
In the daytime they played tennis. There was a court at one end of the lawn beneath the trees, all chequered with sunlight and mingled shadow; very beautiful, Norah thought, though Mr. Spillikins explained that the spotted light put him off his game. In fact, it was owing entirely to this bad light that Mr. Spillikins’ fast drives, wonderful though they were, somehow never got inside the service court.
Norah, of course, thought Mr. Spillikins a wonderful player. She was glad — in fact it suited them both — when he beat her six to nothing. She didn’t know and didn’t care that there was no one else in the world that Mr. Spillikins could beat like that. Once he even said to her,
“By Gad! you don’t play half a bad game, you know. I think, you know, with practice you’d come on quite a lot.”
After that the games were understood to be more or less in the form of lessons, which put Mr. Spillikins on a pedestal of superiority, and allowed any bad strokes on his part to be viewed as a form of indulgence.
Also, as the tennis was viewed in this light, it was Norah’s part to pick up the balls at the net and throw them back to Mr. Spillikins. He let her do this, not from rudeness, for it wasn’t in him, but because in such a primeval place as Castel Casteggio the natural primitive relation of the sexes is bound to reassert itself.
But of love Mr. Spillikins never thought. He had viewed it so eagerly and so often from a distance that when it stood here modestly at his very elbow he did not recognize its presence. His mind had been fashioned, as it were, to connect love with something stunning and sensational, with Easter hats and harem skirts and the luxurious consciousness of the unattainable.
Even at that, there is no knowing what might have happened. Tennis, in the chequered light of sun and shadow cast by summer leaves, is a dangerous game. There came a day when they were standing one each side of the net, and Mr. Spillikins was explaining to Norah the proper way to hold a racquet so as to be able to give those magnificent backhand sweeps of his, by which he generally drove the ball half-way to the lake; and explaining this involved putting his hand right over Norah’s on the handle of the racquet, so that for just half a second her hand was clasped tight in his; and if that half-second had been lengthened out into a whole second it is quite possible that what was already subconscious in his mind would have broken its way triumphantly to the surface, and Norah’s hand would have stayed in his, how willingly! — for the rest of their two lives.
But just at that moment Mr. Spillikins looked up, and he said in quite an altered tone,
“By Jove! who’s that awfully good-looking woman getting out of the motor?”
And their hands unclasped. Norah looked over towards the house and said,
“Why, it’s Mrs. Everleigh. I thought she wasn’t coming for another week.”
“I say,” said Mr. Spillikins, straining his short sight to the uttermost, “what perfectly wonderful golden hair, eh?”
“Why, it’s—” Norah began, and then she stopped. It didn’t seem right to explain that Mrs. Everleigh’s hair was dyed.
“I didn’t know she was coming so soon,” she said, and there was weariness already in her heart. Certainly she didn’t know it; still less did she know, or anyone else, that the reason of Mrs. Everleigh’s coming was because Mr. Spillikins was there. She came with a set purpose.
“Oughtn’t we to go to the house?” she added.
“All right,” said Mr. Spillikins with great alacrity, “let’s go.”
There is no need to pursue in detail the stages of Mr. Spillikins’ wooing. Its course was swift and happy. Mr. Spillikins, having seen the back of Mrs. Everleigh’s head, had decided instanter that she was the most beautiful woman in the world; and that impression is not easily corrected in the half-light of a shaded drawing room; nor across a dinner-table lighted only with candles with deep red shades; nor even in the daytime through a veil. In any case, it is only fair to state that if Mrs. Everleigh was not and is not a singularly beautiful woman, Mr. Spillikins still doesn’t know it.
So the course of Mr. Spillikins’ love, for love it must have been, ran swiftly to its goal. Each stage of it was duly marked by his comments to Norah.
“She is a splendid woman,” he said; “so sympathetic. She always seems to know just what one is going to say.”
So she did, for she was making him say it.
“By Jove!” he said, a day later, “Mrs. Everleigh’s an awfully fine woman, isn’t she? I was telling her about my having been in the oil business for a little while, and she thinks that I’d really be awfully good in money things. She said she wished she had me to manage her money for her.”
This also was quite true, except that Mrs. Everleigh had not made it quite clear that the management of her money was of the form generally known as deficit financing. In fact, her money was, very crudely stated, non-existent, and it needed a lot of management.
And very soon after that Mr. Spillikins was saying, with quite a quaver in his voice,
“By Jove! yes, I’m awfully lucky; I never thought for a moment that she’d have me, you know — a woman like her, with so much attention and everything. I can’t imagine what she sees in me.”
Which was just as well.
And then Mr. Spillikins checked himself, for he noticed — this was on the verandah in the morning — that Norah had a hat and a jacket on and that the motor was rolling towards the door.
“I say,” he said, “are you going away?”
“Yes, didn’t you know?” Norah said, “I thought you heard them speaking of it at dinner last night. I have to go home; father’s alone, you know.”
“Oh, I’m awfully sorry,” said Mr. Spillikins; “we shan’t have any more tennis.”
“Good-bye,” said Norah, and as she said it and put out her hand there were tears brimming up into her eyes. But Mr. Spillikins, being short of sight, didn’t see them.
“Good-bye,” he said.
Then, as the motor carried her away, he stood for a moment in a sort of reverie. Perhaps certain things that might have been rose unformed and inarticulate before his mind.
And so in the fulness of time — nor was it so very full either, in fact, only about five weeks — Peter Spillikins and Mrs. Everleigh were married in St. Asaph’s Church on Plutoria Ave. And the wedding was one of the most beautiful and sumptuous of the weddings of the September season. There were flowers, and bridesmaids in long veils, and tall ushers in frock coats, and awnings at the church door, and strings of motors with wedding favors, and imported chauffeurs, and all that goes to invest marriage on Plutoria Avenue with its peculiar sacredness. The face of the young rector, Mr. Fareforth Furlong, wore the added saintliness that springs from a five-hundred dollar fee. The whole town was there, or at least everybody that was anybody; and if there was one person absent, one who sat by herself in a darkened drawing room of a dull little house on a shabby street, who knew or cared?
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich.
A HERO IN HOMESPUN
OR THE LIFE STRUGGLE OF HEZEKIAH HAYLOFT
“CAN YOU GIVE me a job?”
The foreman of the brick-layers looked down from the scaffold to the speaker below. Something in the lad’s upturned face appealed to the man. He threw a brick at him.
It was Hezekiah Hayloft. He was all in homespun. He carried a carpet-bag in each hand. He had come to New York, the cruel city, looking for work.
Hezekiah moved on. Presently he stopped in front of a policeman.
“Sir,” he said, “can you tell me the way to—”
The policeman struck him savagely across the side of the head.
“I’ll learn you,” he said, “to ask damn fool questions—”
Again Hezekiah moved on. In a few moments he met a man whose tall black hat, black waistcoat and white tie proclaimed him a clergyman.
“Good sir,” said Hezekiah, “can you tell me—”
The clergyman pounced upon him with a growl of a hyena, and bit a piece out of his ear. Yes, he did, reader. Just imagine a clergyman biting a boy in open daylight! Yet that happens in New York every minute.
Such is the great, cruel city — and imagine looking for work in it. You and I who spend our time in trying to avoid work can hardly realize what it must mean. Think how it must feel to be alone in New York, without a friend or a relation at hand, with no one to know or care what you do. It must be great!
For a few moments Hezekiah stood irresolute. He looked about him. He looked up at the top of the Metropolitan Tower. He saw no work there. He looked across at the sky-scrapers on Madison Square, but his eye detected no work in any of them. He stood on his head and looked up at the Flat-iron building. Still no work in sight.
All that day and the next Hezekiah looked for work.
A Wall Street firm had advertised for a stenographer.
“Can you write shorthand?” they said.
“No,” said the boy in homespun, “but I can try.”
They threw him down the elevator.
Hezekiah was not discouraged. That day he applied for fourteen jobs.
The Waldorf-Astoria was in need of a chef. Hezekiah applied for the place.
“Can you cook?” they said.
“No,” said Hezekiah, “but oh, sir, give me a trial, give me an egg and let me try — I will try so hard.” Great tears rolled down the boy’s face.
They rolled him out into the corridor.
Next he applied for a job as a telegrapher. His mere ignorance of telegraphy was made the ground of refusal.
At nightfall Hezekiah Hayloft grew hungry. He entered again the portico of the Waldorf-Astoria. Within it stood a tall man in uniform.
“Boss,” said the boy hero, “will you trust me for the price of a square meal?”
They set the dog on him.
Such, reader, is the hardness and bitterness of the Great City.
For fourteen weeks Hezekiah Hayloft looked for work. Once or twice he obtained temporary employment, only to lose it again.
For a few days he was made accountant in a trust company. He was discharged because he would not tell a lie. For about a week he held a position as cashier in a bank. They discharged the lad because he refused to forge a cheque. For three days he held a conductorship on a Broadway surface car. He was dismissed from this business for refusing to steal a nickel.
Such, reader, is the horrid degradation of business life in New York.
Meantime the days passed and still Hayloft found no work. His stock of money was exhausted. He had not had any money anyway. For food he ate grass in Central Park and drank the water from the Cruelty to Animals horse-trough.
Gradually a change came over the lad; his face grew hard and stern; the great city was setting its mark upon him.
One night Hezekiah stood upon the sidewalk. It was late — long after ten o’clock. Only a few chance pedestrians passed.
“By Heaven!” said Hezekiah, shaking his fist at the lights of the cruel city, “I have exhausted fair means, I will try foul. I will beg. No Hayloft has been a beggar yet,” he added, with a bitter laugh, “but I will begin.”
A well-dressed man passed along.
Hezekiah seized him by the throat.
“What do you want?” cried the man in sudden terror. “Don’t ask me for work. I tell you I have no work to give.”
“I don’t want work,” said Hezekiah grimly. “I am a beggar.”
“Oh! is that all,” said the man, relieved. “Here, take this ten dollars and go and buy a drink with it.”
Money! money! and with it a new sense of power that rushed like an intoxicant to Hezekiah’s brain.
“Drink,” he muttered hoarsely, “yes, drink.”
The lights of a soda-water fountain struck his eye.
“Give me an egg phosphate,” he said, as he dashed his money on the counter. He drank phosphate after phosphate till his brain reeled. Mad with the liquor, he staggered to and fro in the shop, weighed himself recklessly on the slot machine three or four times, tore out chewing gum and matches from the automatic nickel boxes, and finally staggered on to the street, reeling from the effects of thirteen phosphates and a sarsaparilla soda.
“Crime,” he hissed. “Crime, crime, that’s what I want.”
He noticed that the passers-by made way for him now with respect. On the corner of the street a policeman was standing.
Hezekiah picked up a cobblestone, threw it, and struck the man full on the ear.
The policeman smiled at him roguishly, and then gently wagged his finger in reproof. It was the same policeman who had struck him fourteen weeks before for asking the way.
Hezekiah moved on, still full of his new idea of crime. Down the street was a novelty shop, the window decked with New Year’s gifts.
“Sell me a revolver,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” said the salesman. “Would you like something for evening wear, or a plain kind for home use. Here’s a very good family revolver, or would you like a roof-garden size?”
Hezekiah selected a revolver and went out.
“Now then,” he muttered, “I will burglarize a house and get money.”
Walking across to Fifth Avenue he selected one of the finest residences and rang the bell.
A man in livery appeared in the brightly-lighted hall.
“Where is your master?” Hezekiah asked, showing his revolver.
“He is upstairs, sir, counting his money,” the man answered, “but he dislikes being disturbed.”
“Show me to him,” said Hezekiah, “I wish to shoot him and take his money.”
“Very good sir,” said the man, deferentially. “You will find him on the first floor.”
Hezekiah turned and shot the footman twice through the livery and went upstairs. In an upper room was a man sitting at a desk under a reading lamp. In front of him was a pile of gold. He was an old man, with a foolish, benevolent face.
“What are you doing?” said Hezekiah.
“I am counting my money,” said the man.
“What are you?” asked Hezekiah sternly.
“I am a philanthropist,” said the man. “I give my money to deserving objects. I establish medals for heroes. I give prizes for ship captains who jump into the sea, and for firemen who throw people from the windows of upper stories at the risk of their own; I send American missionaries to China, Chinese missionaries to India, and Indian missionaries to Chicago. I set aside money to keep college professors from starving to death when they deserve it.”
“Stop!” said Hezekiah, “you deserve to die. Stand up. Open your mouth and shut your eyes.”
The old man stood up.
There was a loud report. The philanthropist fell. He was shot through the waistcoat and his suspenders were cut to ribbons.
Hezekiah, his eyes glittering with the mania of crime, crammed his pockets with gold pieces.
There was a roar and a hubbub in the street below.
“The police!” Hezekiah muttered. “I must set fire to the house and escape in the confusion.”
He struck a safety match and held it to the leg of the table.
It was a fireproof table and refused to burn. He held it to the door. The door was fireproof. He applied it to the bookcase. He ran the match along the books. They were all fireproof. Everything was fireproof.
Frenzied with rage, he tore off his celluloid collar and set fire to it. He waved it above his head. Great tongues of flame swept from the windows.
“Fire! Fire!” was the cry.
Hezekiah rushed to the door and threw the blazing collar down the elevator shaft. In a moment the iron elevator, with its steel ropes, burst into a mass of flame; then the brass fittings of the doors took fire, and in a moment the cement floor of the elevator was one roaring mass of flame. Great columns of smoke burst from the building.
“Fire! Fire!” shouted the crowd.
Reader, have you ever seen a fire in a great city? The sight is a wondrous one. One realizes that, vast and horrible as the city is, it nevertheless shows its human organization in its most perfect form.
Scarcely had the fire broken out before resolute efforts were made to stay its progress. Long lines of men passed buckets of water from hand to hand.
The water was dashed on the fronts of the neighboring houses, thrown all over the street, splashed against the telegraph poles, and poured in torrents over the excited crowd. Every place in the neighbourhood of the fire was literally soaked. The men worked with a will. A derrick rapidly erected in the street reared itself to the height of sixteen or seventeen feet. A daring man mounted on the top of it, hauled bucket after bucket of water on the pulley. Balancing himself with the cool daring of the trained fireman, he threw the water in all directions over the crowd.
The fire raged for an hour. Hezekiah, standing at an empty window amid the flames, rapidly filled his revolver and emptied it into the crowd.
From one hundred revolvers in the street a fusillade was kept up in return.
This lasted for an hour. Several persons were almost hit by the rain of bullets, which would have proved fatal had they struck any one.
Meantime, as the flames died down, a squad of policemen rushed into the doomed building.
Hezekiah threw aside his revolver and received them with folded arms.
“Hayloft,” said the chief of police, “I arrest you for murder, burglary, arson, and conspiracy. You put up a splendid fight, old man, and I am only sorry that it is our painful duty to arrest you.”
As Hayloft appeared below a great cheer went up from the crowd. True courage always appeals to the heart of the people.
Hayloft was put in a motor and whirled rapidly to the police station.
