"AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL TEA"
"No," said Mrs. Idiot. "I don't think we'd better. In the first place, Mrs. Whalker told me yesterday that Polly is to read a paper on Balzac before the S. F. M. E. to-morrow evening, and on Friday morning she is to discuss the 'Influence of Mozart on De Koven' before the Musical Mothers' Meeting, and on Saturday afternoon she is going to have an anthropological tea at her house, which she is to open with some speculations as to whether in the Glacial Period dudes were addicted to the use of cigarettes."
"Great Scott!" said the Idiot. "This is her busy week."
"Tolerably so," said Mrs. Idiot. "She has probably reserved this evening to read up on Balzac for to-morrow's essay, so I think, my dear, we'd better not go."
"Right as usual," said the Idiot. And then he added, "Poor Dawkins, who is taking care of him now?"
"I think," said Mrs. Idiot, "that possibly Mrs. Dawkins has sublet the contract for looking after her husband and children to the United States Housekeeping Company Limited."
The Idiot gazed blankly at his wife, and awaited an explanation.
"'THE BABY IS ROCKED TO SLEEP EVERY NIGHT'"
"An organization, my dear," she continued, "formed by a number of well-meaning and remorseful widows who, having lost their husbands, begin to appreciate their virtues, and who, finding themselves sympathetic when it is too late, are devoting themselves to the husbands of others who are neglected. A subscription of five hundred dollars will secure the supervision of all the domestic arrangements of a home—marketing, engagement and discharge of domestics, house-cleaning, buttons sewed on, darning done, care of flowers, wifely duties generally; for one thousand dollars they will bring up the children, and see that the baby is rocked to sleep every night, and suitably interested in elevating narratives and poems like Joseph's coat of many colors, and Tom, Tom the Piper's Son. This enables an advanced woman like Mrs. Dawkins to devote her mornings to the encyclopedias, her afternoons to the public libraries, and her evenings to the functions whereat she may read the papers which her devotion to the encyclopedias and the libraries has brought forth."
"Excuse me, my dear Bess," said the Idiot, rising. "I wish to telephone Dr. Simmons."
"For what—for whom?" demanded the lady.
"You, of course," returned the Idiot. "You are developing alarming symptoms. You give every indication of a bad attack of professional humor. Your 'International Widows Company for the Protection and Amelioration of Neglected Husbandry' proves that!"
Mrs. Idiot laughed again.
"POOR DICK DAWKINS ISN'T TAKEN CARE OF AT ALL'"
"Oh, I didn't say that there really is such an institution!" she cried. "I said that I supposed there was, for if there isn't, poor Dick Dawkins isn't taken care of at all."
"Well, I'm sorry for it all, anyhow," said the Idiot, seriously. "They're both of 'em good friends of ours, and I hate to see two families that have been so close drawing apart."
Just then Mollie and Tommy came in.
"Mamma, Willie Dawkins says he can't come to our party because his ma won't let him," said Mollie. "She says we don't never go down there."
"That's it," said the Idiot. "Mrs. Dawkins has got so many irons in the fire she's begun to keep social books. I'll bet you she's got a ledger and a full set of double-entry account-books charging up calls payable and calls receivable."
"I don't see how she can get along unless she has," replied Mrs. Idiot. "With all her clubs and church societies and varied social obligations she needs an expert accountant to keep track of them all."
"I suppose a promise to read a paper on Balzac," put in the Idiot, "is something like a three-months' note. It's easy to promise to pay, with three months in which to prepare, but you've got to keep track of the date and meet the obligation when it falls due. As for me, I'd rather meet the note."
"That is about it," said Mrs. Idiot. "If a woman goes into society properly she's got to make a business of it. For instance, there are about ten dances given at the club here every year. Polly is patroness for every one of 'em. There are twenty-five teas during the spring and summer months. Polly assists at half of them, and gives a fifth of them. She's president of the King's Daughters, corresponding secretary of the Dorcas, treasurer of the Red Cross Society, and goodness knows what all!"
"I can quite understand why she needs to keep accounts—social accounts," said the Idiot. "But it's rather queer, don't you think, that she has the children on her books? The idea of saying that Jimmie and Gladys can't come to Mollie's party because Mollie hasn't been down there—why, it's nonsense!"
"No," said Mrs. Idiot, "it is merely logical. Whatever Polly Dawkins does she tries to do thoroughly. I've no doubt she'll do Balzac up completely. If she keeps social books showing call balances in her favor or against herself she might as well go the whole thing and write the children in—only she's made a mistake, as far as we are concerned, unless she means to write us off without squaring up."
"You talk like a financier," said the Idiot, admiringly. "What do you know about writing off?"
"I used to help my father with his accounts, occasionally," said Mrs. Idiot. "Polly Dawkins's books ought to show a balance of one call in our favor. That's really the reason I'm not willing to call there to-night. She's so queer about it all, and, as a matter of fact, she owes me a call. I'm not going to overwhelm her with an added obligation."
"Ho!" smiled the Idiot. "You keep books yourself, eh?"
"I keep score," said Mrs. Idiot. "I learned that playing golf."
"It's a bad thing to keep score in golf," said the Idiot.
"So they say, but I find it amusing," she replied.
"And how many calls does Mrs. Wilkins owe you?" demanded the Idiot.
"I don't know," returned the wife. "And I don't care. When I want to see Mrs. Wilkins I call on her whether she owes me a call or not, but with Polly Dawkins it's different. She began the book-keeping, and as long as she likes it I must try to live up to her ideas. If social intercourse develops into a business, business requirements must be observed."
"It's a good idea in a way," said the Idiot, reflectively. "But if you make a business of society, why don't you carry it to a logical conclusion? Balance your books, if you mean business, every month, and send your debtors a statement of their account."
"Well, I will if you wish me to," said Mrs. Idiot. "Suppose they don't pay?"
"Dun 'em," said the Idiot. And then the matter dropped.
On the fifth of the following month Mr. and Mrs. Idiot were seated comfortably in their library. The children had gone to bed, and they were enjoying the bliss of a quiet evening at home, when the door-bell rang, and in a moment or two the maid ushered in Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dawkins, preceded, of course, by their cards. The young householders were delighted, and Polly Dawkins was never more charming. She looked well, and she talked well, and there was not a symptom of any diminution of the old-time friendship perceptible—only she did appear to be tired and care-worn.
The evening wore away pleasantly. The chat reverted to old times, and by degrees Mrs. Dawkins seemed to grow less tired.
About ten o'clock the Idiot invited his neighbor to adjourn to the smoking-room, where they each lit a cigar and indulged in a companionable glass.
"Idiot," said Dawkins, when his wife called out to him that it was time to go home, "your wife is a wonder. I've been trying for three months to make Polly come up here and she wouldn't. Keeps books, you know—now. Has to—so much to do. Thought you owed us a call, but received your bill Wednesday—looked it up—questioned servants—found you were right."
"Bill," cried the Idiot. "What bill?"
"Why, the one Mrs. Idiot sent—this," said Dawkins, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Confoundedly good joke."
The Idiot took up the piece of paper. It was type-written—on Tommy's machine—and read as follows:
November 1 1898
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dawkins
To Mr. and Mrs. Idiot Dr.
September 29Evening call1Account overdue. Please remit.
"Great Scott!" laughed the Idiot.
"My dear," said the Idiot after the Dawkinses had gone, "that bill of yours was a great idea."
"It wasn't my idea at all—it was yours," said Mrs. Idiot, laughing. "You said we ought to be business-like to the last and send out a statement on the first of the month. I sent it. And they paid up."
"Richard," said Mrs. Dawkins, as they drove home, "did you get a receipt?"
"I am very glad I didn't take Tommy and Mollie to church with me this morning," said Mrs. Idiot, on her return from service. "It would have broken their hearts to have heard the sermon. I don't know what gets into Dr. Preachly sometimes. He gave us a blast about Santa Claus."
"A blast about Santa Claus, eh!" said the Idiot. "And how did he blast the good old saint?"
"He said he was a lie," rejoined Mrs. Idiot, indignantly, "and that it was the duty of every Christian in the land to see that the lie was exposed."
"Great heavens!" cried the Idiot, in astonishment. "Doesn't Dr. Preachly believe in Santa Claus? Poor old Preachly! How much he has lost! Did he say anything about Hop o' My Thumb and Cinderella?"
"No, of course not. Why should he?" returned Mrs. Idiot.
"Oh, because; I suppose that a man who doesn't believe in Santa Claus is a skeptic on the subject of Hop o' My Thumb, and Rumpelstiltzken, and Cinderella, and Jack the Giant-Killer, and all the rest of that noble army of childhood friends," explained the Idiot.
"He didn't mention them," said Mrs. Idiot. "He—"
"He's going to preach a series of sermons on lies, I presume," said the Idiot. "He's tackled Santa Claus first, as being the most seasonable of the lot, eh? Jack the Giant-Killer ought to be a good subject for a ministerial attack."
"Well, he pulled poor old Santa Claus to pieces," said Mrs. Idiot, with a sigh.
"Why didn't you bring me a piece of him as a souvenir?" demanded the Idiot. "Just a lock of his hair for my collection of curios? What was done with the remains?"
Mrs. Idiot laughed as she pulled over her gloves and smoothed them upon her lap.
"There weren't any remains," she answered. "When Dr. Preachly got through with him there wasn't a vestige of the old chap left. To begin with, he was a lie, the doctor said. Then he went on and showed that he was a wickedly partial old fellow—a very snob, he called him—because he gives fine things to the children of the rich and little or nothing to the children of the poor. He filled the little folk with hope and brought them disappointment, and so on. It was a powerful sermon, although I wanted to weep over it."
"Go ahead and weep," said the Idiot; "it's the appropriate thing to do. I don't wonder you wanted to cry; you've always liked Dr. Preachly."
"Of course," said Mrs. Idiot.
"And you hate to see him make a—ah—a—well, you know—of himself in the pulpit; and I quite agree with you. I rather like Preachly myself. It is too bad to see a well-meaning man like that batting his brains out against the rock of Gibraltar, whether suicide is sin or not. What has put him in this despondent mood? Do you suppose he has heard?"
"Heard what?" demanded Mrs. Idiot.
"About the slippers," said the Idiot.
"What slippers?" asked his wife.
"Oh, the same old slippers," said the Idiot. "You know the ones I mean—the ones he's going to get from Santa Claus. Really, I'm not surprised, after all. If I were a minister, and realized that truckloads of embroidered slippers of every size and color, covered with stags of red worsted jumping over rivulets of yellow floss, with split agates for eyes set in over the toe, were to be dumped in my front yard every Christmas Eve by that old reprobate, Santa Claus, I think I, too, would set him down as a fraud, or an overworked cobbler, anyhow."
"'DR. PREACHLY ONLY GOT EIGHT PAIRS LAST XMAS'"
"That's exaggerated—a comic-paper idea," said Mrs. Idiot. "I don't believe the average clergyman gets so many slippers. Dr. Preachly only got eight pairs last Christmas."
"Is that all?" cried the Idiot. "Mercy, what a small income of slippers! Dear me! how can he live with only eight pairs of slippers? But, after all, slippers are an appropriate gift for a clergyman," he added, "and Santa Claus should be credited with that fact. Slippers have soles, and the more slippers he gets the easier it is to save their soles, and therefore—"
"Really, my dear, you are flippant," said Mrs. Idiot.
"Not at all," rejoined the Idiot. "I am merely trying to sit on two stools at once—to retain my respect for Dr. Preachly without giving up my everlasting regard for Santa Claus. If I can't do both I am very much afraid it will be Dr. Preachly, and not Santa Claus, who will go to the wall in this establishment, and that would be sad. I can't say I think much of the doctor's logic. Do you?"
"I didn't notice his logic," Mrs. Idiot replied.
"Very likely," said the Idiot; "from what you tell me of his discourse I imagine he must have left it at home, which is a bad thing to do in an argument. To begin, he called Santa a lie, did he?"
"Yes; said he didn't exist at all."
"Good! Then how could he have been a snob?"
"Why, while of course I have no sympathy with his conclusions, Dr. Preachly handled that point pretty well. It certainly is true that in the homes of the rich there is a lavishness of gifts that you don't find in the homes of the poor, and therefore Santa Claus treats the rich better than he does the poor. We all know that."
"Hum!" said the Idiot. "And so it is Santa Claus who is the snob, eh, and not Fortune?"
"Well, Dr. Preachly did not touch upon that. All he said was that Santa Claus was a snob for favoring 'high society' and in many cases absolutely ignoring the submerged."
"But I don't see how," said the Idiot.
"Suppose he brings a diamond necklace to the daughter of a Crœsus?"
"Precisely," said the Idiot.
"'A CHINA DOLL TO THE DAUGHTER OF A CARPENTER'"
"And a china doll to the daughter of a carpenter?" said Mrs. Idiot.
"That's tact, not snobbishness," said the Idiot. "What would the daughter of a carpenter do with a diamond necklace? The china doll is not only more appropriate, but a better plaything."
"Well, anyhow, he gives richly to those that have, and sparsely, if at all, to those that haven't, Dr. Preachly said," said Mrs. Idiot.
"There is scriptural authority for that," observed the Idiot. "I wonder if Dr. Preachly reads his Bible! Perhaps I'd better send him one for Christmas instead of a pair of galoshes. He'll find in the Bible that 'to him that hath shall be given,' and so forth. But to return to the logic—"
"I told you I didn't notice it," said Mrs. Idiot.
"Nor did Dr. Preachly, my dear; passed it by as if it were a poor relation, apparently. But this is true, a lie is an untruth. Truth alone lives, therefore an untruth does not live. Santa Claus is a lie and does not live, and is a snob, according to our reverend logician. Now, how can one who does not live be a snob or anything else? Truly, I wish Dr. Preachly would be more careful in his statements. As a pew-holder in his church I do not like to hear him denounce something that does not exist as having unworthy qualities. It's like shaking a sword at nothing and patting yourself on the back afterwards for your courage; still more in this instance is it like batting your poor mortal head against the hard surface of an everlasting rock, and our clergy should be in better business.
"Let 'em fight the harmful lies—the lies of false social ideas as propagated by distinctions of pew-holding, for instance. The man who sits in the front of the church is no better than the man who sits at the back, and is frequently his inferior; but has he more or has he less influence? The man who hands in his check for ten thousand dollars, having that and more to spare, is not more the friend of religion and Christianity than the poor beggar who stumbles in and puts his penny in the plate, thus diminishing by one-fifth his capital. Suppose Santa Claus is in a material sense a fancy or a lie; Heaven help Dr. Preachly if he can't see the beauty and the ethical value of the deception. Is he not the embodiment of the golden rule, and is he not, after all—God bless him and them!—something beautiful in the eyes of the children?"
"I'm flippant, and I know it, but there are some things I cling to," he added, after a pause. "Santa Claus is one of them, and Dr. Preachly can preach through all eternity, and, with all due respect to him, he can't remove from my mind the beauty of an idea that was planted there by two people who were practical enough, my father and my mother. I've inherited Santa Claus, and I'm not going to give him up, and no preacher in our church or in the church of others can take him away from me by one sermon, or by an infinite number of sermons, however sincere they may be. Is dinner ready?"
Dinner was ready. It was eaten reflectively, and after it the children went to Sunday-school. From this Tommy returned with a swollen eye, which later became dark.
"Hullo, pop!" he said, addressing the Idiot as he entered the house.
"'HULLO, SONNY! HAD A GOOD TIME?'"
"Hullo, sonny!" replied the Idiot, observing the swollen eye. "Had a good time?"
"Yep," said the boy; "pretty good."
"Been fighting?" suggested the Idiot.
"Not so very much," said the boy; "only a little." And he began to sing a popular air, as if he didn't care much about life in general, and didn't mind an aching eye, which was rapidly, by its inflammation, giving away the fact that he had met with trouble.
"What did you learn at Sunday-school?" asked the Idiot.
"More blessed to give than to receive," said Tommy.
"Good!" said the Idiot. "I hope you will remember that, sonny. There is no satisfaction in all the world like that of giving if you can afford it."
"I think tho, too," said Mollie, sitting down on her father's lap with the contented sigh of a little girl who has discovered that life is not all an illusion. "I gave my dollie away to-day, papa," she added. "She wath only thawdust, and Pollie Harrington hath her now. She was a drefful care, and I'm glad to be ridden of her."
"'I GAVE MY DOLLY AWAY TO-DAY'"
But the Idiot's mind was not on dolls, and he showed it. His boy's eye proved a greater care.
"Come here, my boy," he said.
The boy approached inquiringly.
"How did this happen?" the Idiot asked. "Your eye is swollen."
"Oh, I don't know," cried Tommy, exultantly. "Jimmie Roberts said there wasn't no Santy Claus."
"Well?"
"I said there was, an' then I gave him one on the end of his nose."
Here the boy struggled away from his father, as if he had done something he was willing to stand by.
"Let me understand this," said the Idiot. "Jimmie said—"
"There wasn't any Santy Claus," interrupted Tommy.
"Then what did you say?" asked the Idiot.
"I told him he didn't know what he was talking about," said Tommy.
"Why did you say that?"
"Because he was wrong, papa," said Tommy. "I've seen Santy Claus; I saw him last year."
"Ah! You did, eh? I was not aware of that fact."
Tommy began to laugh.
"You can't fool me, daddy," he said, climbing onto his father's knee. "Of course I've seen him, and he's the bulliest feller in all the world.You're him!"
And a hug followed.
Later on Mrs. Idiot and the Idiot sat together. The latter was deep in thought.
"Children have queer notions," said he, after a while.
"They are generally pretty right, though," observed Mrs. Idiot. "You are a pretty good Santa Claus, after all," she added.
"Pollie," said the Idiot, rising, "I believe in Santa Claus because he represents the spirit of the hour, and whoever tries to turn him down tries to turn down that spirit—the most blessed thing we have. Let's keep the children believing in Santa Claus, eh?"
"I agree," said Mrs. Idiot. "For the secret is out. You are Santa Claus to them."
"Heaven grant I may always be as much," said the Idiot. "For if a father is Santa Claus, and a boy or a girl believes in Santa Claus as a friend, as a companion, as something that brings them only sincerity and love and sympathy, then may we feel that Tiny Tim's prayer has been answered, and that God has blessed us all."
It was New-Year's eve, and Mr. and Mrs. Idiot with their old friends were watching the old year die. The old year had been a fairly successful one for them all, and they were properly mournful over its prospective demise, but the promise of the new was sufficiently bright to mitigate their sorrow.
"What a sandwich life is, after all!" ejaculated the Idiot.
Mr. Pedagog started nervously. The remark was so idiotic that even its source seemed to make it inexcusable.
"'I DON'T QUITE CATCH YOUR DRIFT'"
"I don't quite catch your drift," said he.
"As the man said when an avalanche of snow fell off his neighbor's roof and missed him by an inch," said the Idiot. "Why, just think a moment, Doctor, and my drift will overwhelm you. Look about you and consider what we have ourselves demonstrated to-night. If that does not prove life a series of emotional sandwiches, then I don't know what a sandwich is. Twenty minutes ago we were all gladness over the prosperity of the year gone by. Five minutes ago we were all on the verge of tears because the good old year is going the way of all years. An hour from now we will be joyously acclaiming the new. Two thick slices of joy with a thin slice of grief between."
"Ah!" said Mr. Pedagog. "I see. There is something in the analogy, after all. The bread of joy and the ham of sorrow, as you might put it; do make up the sum of human existence; but in some cases, my lad, I am afraid you will find there is only one slice of bread to two of ham."
"No doubt," replied the Idiot, "but that does not affect my proposition that life is a sandwich. If one slice of ham between two slices of bread is a ham sandwich, why is not one slice of bread between two slices of ham a bread sandwich? What is a sandwich, anyhow? The dictionary says that a sandwich is something placed between two other things; hence, all things are sandwiches, because there is nothing in the world, the world being round, that is not between two other things. Therefore, all things being sandwiches, life is a sandwich, Q. E. D."
"Is life a thing?" demanded Mr. Pedagog.
"Certainly," said the Idiot. "And a mighty good thing, too. If you don't believe it look the word thing up in the dictionary. All things are things."
"But," continued the Schoolmaster, his old spirit of antagonism rising up in his breast, "granted that life is a thing, what is it between so that it becomes a sandwich?"
"The past and the future," said the Idiot. "It is a slice of the immediate between a slice of past and one of future."
Mr. Pedagog laughed.
"You are still the same old Idiot," he said.
"Yes," said the Idiot. "Gibraltar and I and Truth are the three unchangeable things in this life, and that's why I am so happy. I'm in such good company. Gibraltar and Truth are good enough companions for anybody."
Meanwhile Mollie and Tommy, who had been allowed to sit up upon this rare occasion, stirred uneasily.
"Ith I a thandwich, popper?" said the little girl, sleepily, raising her head from her father's shoulder and gazing into his eyes.
"Yes, indeed, you are," said her father, giving her an affectionate squeeze. "A sugar sandwich, Mollie. You're really good enough to eat."
"Well, I'd rather be a pie," put in Tommy; "an apple pie."
"Very well, my son," returned the Idiot. "Have your own way. Henceforth be a pie if you prefer—an apple pie. But may I ask why you express this preference?"
"Oh, because," said Tommy, "if I'm to be an apple pie somebody's got to fill me chock-full of apple sauce."
"The son of his father," observed Mr. Whitechoker.
"I think it is a pity," Mrs. Pedagog put in at this point, "that some of the good old customs of the New Year have gone out."
"As to which, Mrs. Pedagog?" asked the Idiot.
"Well, New-Year's calling particularly," explained the lady. "It is no longer the thing for people to make New-Year's calls, and I must confess I regret it. It used to be a great pleasure to me in the old days to receive the gentlemen—my old friends, and relatives, and boarders."
"Why distinguish between your old friends and your boarders, Mrs. Pedagog?" interrupted the Idiot. "They are synonymous terms."
"They are now," said the good lady, "but—ah—they weren't always. I used sometimes to think you, for instance, didn't like me as much as you might."
"I didn't dare," explained the Idiot. "If I'd liked you as much as I might I'd have told you so, and then Mr. Pedagog would have got jealous and there'd have been a horrid affair."
The lady smiled graciously, and Mr. Pedagog threw a small paper pellet at the Idiot.
"I'm much obliged to you for holding off, Idiot," he said. "I don't know where I'd have been to-day if you'd got in ahead of me. Mrs. Pedagog has always had a soft spot in her heart for you."
"I've got the other spot," said the Idiot, "and a pair of aces are hard to beat in pairs; but I think I voice Mrs. Pedagog's sentiments in the matter, Mr. Pedagog, when I say that she and I would always have been glad to see you every other New-Year's day if I had been the fortunate winner of her hand."
"And Mr. Pedagog and I would have been glad to see you and Mrs. Pedagog in the sandwich years," said Mrs. Idiot to her husband; and then, turning to the Schoolmaster, added, "Wouldn't we, Mr. Pedagog?"
"No, madame," returned Mr. Pedagog, courteously. "You might have been, but I would not. If I had married you I could never have seen any one else with pleasure. I should have kept my eyes solely for you."
"John!" cried Mrs. Pedagog, arching her eyebrows.
"Pleasantry, my dear—mere pleasantry," returned the Schoolmaster, tapping his fingers together and smiling sweetly upon Mrs. Idiot.
"You didn't finish, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot. "You were telling us how you used to enjoy New-Year's calling before it went out."
"Yes," replied Mrs. Pedagog. "It was charming. I used positively to look forward to its coming with delight. We women, Mr. Idiot, found the old custom very delightful."
"But the men, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot, "did you ever think of them?"
"What else did we think of? What else is there for a woman to think about?" replied Mrs. Pedagog.
"Jane!" cried Mr. Pedagog.
"Pleasantry, my dear—mere pleasantry," returned Mrs. Pedagog, frigidly. And Mr. Pedagog lit a cigar. It is not always pleasant to be quoted.
"Still," said the Idiot, "you thought of men only as creatures of the moment—"
"Entirely," said Mrs. Pedagog.
"And not as creatures of the week following," said the Idiot.
"What has that to do with it?" asked Mrs. Pedagog.
"Much—from the man's stand-point," returned the Idiot. "His digestion was butchered to make a woman's holiday. Take myself as an example. I used to make New-Year's calls; and to get through with my list by midnight, I had to start in at nine o'clock in the morning."
"Nine o'clock is not so early," said Mr. Whitechoker.
"It's early for cake and pickled oysters," said the Idiot. "And for chicken salad and wedding-cake, and for lemonade and punch, and for lobster and egg-nog, and for ice-cream andpâté-de-foie-gras."
"H'm!" said Mr. Pedagog, reflectively. "That's true."
"Quite so," observed Mr. Whitechoker, brushing off his vest, upon which the ashes of his cigar had rested. "Especially for the punch."
"There was no punch in my house," said Mrs. Pedagog. "Indeed, I always served a very simple luncheon. We did have chicken salad, of course, but the chicken was good and the salad was crisp—"
"I'd swear to it," said the Idiot.
"And we had egg-nog, but there was more egg than nog in it—"
"Again I'd swear to it," said the Idiot, smacking his lips.
"And as for the lobsters, nobody ever complained—"
"He'd have been a lobster himself who would," said the Idiot. "But that does not prove that no one ever suffered."
"And as for the pickled oysters, no one ever suffered from them that I knew of," continued the good lady. "They are harmless eaten in moderation."
"'I FELT AS IF I HAD SWALLOWED AS OVERSHOE'"
"Exactly right," cried the Idiot. "No gentleman would ever complain of pickled oysters, even if they were made of inferior rubber, eaten in moderation. Yet I recall in my own experience a pickled oyster of most impressive quality. He was not a pickled oyster of the moment. He was the Admiral Dewey of pickled oysters. In appearance he resembled every other pickled oyster I ever met, but—well, he kept me in a state of worry for a month. Just eating him alone was eating pickled oysters in immoderation. I felt as if I had swallowed an overshoe. He was a charming pickled oyster, Mrs. Pedagog, and he was devoted to me, but he involved me in complications alongside of which the Philippine question is child's play. If a New-Year's caller could have confined his attentions to the ladies he met no harm would have come to him, but he couldn't, you know. The day was one continuous round of effort and indigestibles. What a man got at your house and had to eat merely to show his appreciation of your hospitality was all right and wholesome. Your lobster and egg-nog could do him no harm, but he couldn't stop with yours; he had to continue, and consume lobsters and egg-nog everywhere else and all day long. The day resolved itself into a magnificent gorge alongside of which that of Niagara seems like a wagon-rut. It finally came down to the point where either man or the custom had to die, and man being selfish, the custom went. Did you ever consider exactly how much indigestible food an amiable, well-meaning person had to consume in a round of, say, three dozen calls, Mrs. Pedagog?"
Mr. Brief nodded his approval. "Now you've struck it," he said. "I've been there, Idiot."
"I must confess," said Mrs. Pedagog, "that I never looked into that question."
"Well, I'll tell you," the Idiot resumed. "The last time I made New-Year's calls I figured it out for the doctor the next morning, and as I recall the statistics, in the course of that day I ate one hundred and twenty-nine pickled oysters, thirteen plates of chicken salad, seven plates of lobster salad, five plates of mulled sardines, twenty-three plates of ice-cream, four hundred and sixty-three macaroons, eighty-seven sandwiches ranging from lettuce and ham to chicken and potted goose-liver, enough angel-cake to feed all the angels there are and two more, sixteen Welsh rarebits that were being made just as I happened in, and crystallized ginger and salted almonds and marrons to the extent of about eighteen pounds."
"Mercy!" cried Mrs. Pedagog.
"Say, pa, where was I then?" asked Tommy, his eyes glittering with delight.
"'I FOUND EIGHT SANDWICHES AND A PINT OF SALTED ALMONDS'"
"You were eating green cheese on the moon, Tommy," said the Idiot.
"Wisht I'd been with you," said Tommy. "Must o' been better than bein' a pie."
"And all of these things," continued the Idiot, with a wink at his son, "I washed down with six gallons of lemonade, nineteen cups of coffee, eighteen cups of tea, and a taste of claret punch."
"And how about the egg-nog?" asked the Bibliomaniac, slyly.
"I judge there were about six crates of eggs in it," said the Idiot. "I never had the nerve to estimate the nog-end of it."
"What did the doctor say when you told him all that?" asked Mrs. Pedagog.
The Idiot chuckled. "What did he say?" he cried. "Why, I should think you could guess. He blamed it all on the Welsh rarebits, but he thought he could get me into shape again in time for the next New Year. I've never been the same man since."
"Well, the way I look at it," said Mrs. Pedagog, "is that it is a great pity that women must be deprived of a function that gives them pleasure because the men make pigs of themselves."
"But you don't understand, Mrs. Pedagog," the Idiot persisted. "I grant you that the man who eats all that makes a pig of himself, but he has no choice. He can't help himself. When a charming hostess insists, he'd be a greater pig if he refused to partake of her hospitality. The custom involved an inevitable sacrifice of man's digestion upon the altar of woman. That's all there was about it. If it could have been arranged so that a man could take a hamper about with him and stow all the cakes and salads and other good things away in that, and eat them later as he happened to need or want them, instead of in his own inner self, the good old custom might have been preserved, but that is impossible in these conventional days."
"You needn't have eaten it all," put in Mrs. Idiot. "You could have pretended to eat it and put it down somewhere."
"'THEY WERE FOUND SOME DAYS LATER WHEN THE ROOM WAS PUT IN ORDER'"
"I know that, my dear. I didn't even on that occasion eat it all—I only ate what I told you. I found eight sandwiches and a pint of salted almonds in my coat-tail pocket the next morning, which I managed surreptitiously to hide away while my hostesses were getting me something else, and in one place, while nobody was watching me, I hid a half-dozen pickled oysters under a sofa, where I suppose they were found some days later when the room was put in order."
As the Idiot spoke the clock struck twelve, and the guests all rose up.
"Here's to the New Year!" said Mr. Pedagog.
"Not yet," interposed the Idiot. "That's only a signal for the Welsh rarebits to be brought in. I've sworn them off for the New Year, but I haven't for the old. The clock is a half-hour fast."
"No, my dear," said Mrs. Idiot. "It was, but I put it back. It's exactly right now."
"Then," said the Idiot, "I join you in the toast, Mr. Pedagog. Here's to the New Year: may it bring joy to everybody. Meanwhile may it bring also the Welsh rarebits."
"I thought you'd sworn off," suggested Mr. Pedagog.
"So I had," replied the Idiot, "but circumstances over which I have no control force me to postpone my reformation for another twelve months. If they had been served at half-past eleven I should have stuck to my resolve; as they have been delayed until twelve-one I cannot do less than eat them. I do not believe in wilful waste; and besides, it is quite as much the duty of the host to consume the good things he places before his guests as it is for the guests to partake. I can wait a year, I think, without wholly ruining what little digestion my former devotion to New-Year's calling has left me. Gentlemen, I propose the ladies: May their future be as golden as this rarebit; and for the men, may they always be worthy to be the toast upon which that golden future may rest with the certainty born of confidence."
And the guests fell to and ate each a golden buck to the New Year—all save Mollie and Tommy. These two important members of the household went up to their little beds, but just before going to sleep Tommy called through the door to his little sister:
"Mollie!"
"Yeth!"
"Want to play a game with me to-morrow?"
"Yeth!"
"Well, you get a cake and a pie and some gingersnaps and a lot of apples and some candy and we'll play New-Year's calls."
"Splendid!" lisped Mollie. "You'll call on me?"
"Yes," said Tommy; "and all you'll have to do will be to force food on me."
And they soon passed into the land of dreams.
"'THERE'S NOT MUCH MONEY IN STOCKS'"
"I think I'll give up the business of broking and go into inventing," said the Idiot one Sunday morning, as he and Mrs. Idiot and their friends sat down at breakfast. "There's not much money in stocks, but the successful inventor of a patent clothes-pin makes a fortune."
"I'd think twice about that before acting," observed Mr. Brief. "There may not be much money in stocks, but you can work eight hours a day, and get good pay in a broker's office, while the inventor has to wait upon inspiration."
"True enough," said the Idiot; "but waiting on inspiration isn't a bad business in itself. You can play golf or read a rattling good novel, or go to a yacht-race while you wait."
"But where does the money come in?" asked Mr. Pedagog, his usual caution coming to the fore.
"Inspiration brings it with her," said the Idiot, "and by the barrel, too. What's the use of toiling eight hours a day for fifty weeks in a year for three thousand dollars when by waiting on inspiration in a pleasant way you make a million all of a sudden?"
"Well," said Mr. Pedagog, indulgently, "if you have the inspiration lassoed, as you might say, your argument is all right; but if you are merely going to sit down and wait for it to ring you up on the telephone, and ask you when and where you wish your barrels of gold delivered, I think it will be your creditors, and not fortune, who will be found knocking at your door. How are you going about this business, provided you do retire from Wall Street?"
"Choose my field and work it," replied the Idiot. "For the present I should choose the home. That is the field I am most interested in just now. I should study its necessities, and endeavor to meet whatever these might demand with an adequate supply. Any man who stays around home all day will find lots of room for the employment of his talents along inventive lines."
"You've tried it, have you?" asked Mr. Brief.
"Certainly I have," said the Idiot, "though I haven't invented anything yet. Why, only last week I stayed home on Monday—wash-day—and a thousand things that might be invented suggested themselves to me."
"As, for instance?" asked Mrs. Idiot, who was anxious to know of any possible thing that could mitigate the horrors of wash-day.
"'A NICE LITTLE BASKET-HAT ON HER HEAD TO HOLD THE PINS IN'"
"Well, it wouldn't helpyoumuch, my dear," said the Idiot, "but the wash-lady would hail with unmixed delight a substitute for her mouth to hold clothes-pins in while she is hanging out the clothes. I watched Ellen in the yard for ten minutes that day, and it was pathetic. There she was, standing on her tiptoes, hanging innumerable garments on the line, her mouth full of clothes-pins, and Jimpsonberry's hired man leaning over the fence trying to shout sweet nothings in her ear. If she had had a nice little basket-hat on her head to hold the pins in she could have answered back without stopping her work every other minute to take them out of her mouth in order to retort to his honeyed sentiments."
Mrs. Idiot laughed. "Ellen finds time enough to talk and do the washing, too," she said. "I sometimes think she does more talking than washing."
"No doubt of it; she's only human, like the rest of us," said the Idiot. "But she might save time to do something else for us if she could do the washing and the talking at the same time. She may give up the washing, but she'll never give up the talking. Therefore, why not make the talking easier?"
"What you need most, I think," put in Mr. Brief, "is an instrument to keep hired men from leaning over the fence and distracting the attention of the laundress from her work. That would be a great boon."
"Not unless idleness is a great boon," retorted the Idiot. "Half the hired men I know would be utterly out of employment if they couldn't lean over a fence and talk to somebody. Leaning over a fence and talking to somebody forms seventy-five per cent. of the hired man's daily labor. He seems to think that is what he is paid for. Still, any one who objects could very easily remedy the conversational detail in so far as it goes on over the fence."
"By the use of barbed wire, I presume," suggested Mr. Pedagog.
"By something far more subtle and delicately suggestive," rejoined the Idiot. "Hired men do not mind barbed-wire fences. They rather like them when they annoy other people. When they annoy themselves they know how to treat them. My own man Mike, for instance, minds them not at all. Indeed, he has taken my pruning-shears and clipped all the barbs off the small stretch of it we had at the rear end of our lot to keep him from climbing over for a short cut home."
"With what result?" asked Mr. Brief.