"The adventure had one result that was rather curious and unexpected.
It brought Harry close to me and established our relations to each other. That they admitted me to his confidence as a friend and counselor of the utmost frankness was on the whole exceedingly fortunate. From that time he began to trust me and to distrust himself.
"So it happened that I was really introduced to Harry by the Bishop of St. Clare, who died in 1712, and those credentials gave me a standing which I could not otherwise have enjoyed.
"Coming home, I limbered up my imagination and outlied Harry.
"I was forced to invent that cheerful, handy liar the late Dr. G.o.dfrey Vogeldam Guph, Professor of the Romance Languages in the University of Brague and the intimate friend of any great man you may be pleased to mention. With his help I have laid low even the most authoritative, learned, and precise liars in the State of Connecticut. I do it by quoting from his memoirs.
"Harry"s specialty were lies of adventure in court and palace, and, as Dr. Guph had known all the crowned heads, he became an ever-present help in time of trouble.
"Every lie of Harry"s I outdid with another of ampler proportions. He put on a little more steam, but I kept abreast or a length ahead of him. By and by he broke down and begged for quarter.
""On my word as a gentleman," said he, "that last story I told was true. It really happened, don"t you know?"
""Well, Harry, if you will only notify me when you propose to tell the truth, I shall be glad to take your word for it," was my answer.
""And keep Dr. Guph chained," said he.
""Exactly, and give you like warning when I have a lie ready to launch."
""That"s a fair treaty," he agreed.
""And a good idea," I said. "As a liar of long experience I have found it best to notify all comers what to expect of me when I see a useful lie in the offing. That has enabled me to give my fancy full play without impairing my reputation. My n.o.blest faculties have had ample exercise while my word has remained at par."
"We made an agreement along that line, and Harry ceased to be a liar, and became a story-teller of much humor and ingenuity."
III
WHICH IS THE STORY OF THE PIMPLED QUEEN AND THE BLACK SPOT
"Well, on our return, Mrs. Delance had a helmet and a battle-ax, with sundry accessories, emblazoned on her letter-heads and the doors of her limousine. Here was another case of charge it, but this time it was charged against her slender capital of good sense. Mrs. Delance was a stout lady of the Dreadnought type. Harry settled down in the home of his father and began to study the "middle clahsses" with a drag and tandem and garments for every kind of leisure. The girls went to ride with him, and naturally began to smarten their dress and accents and to change their estimates. His "aristocratic" friends and manners were much in their company and ever in their dreams.
"Of course, all that began to react on the young men: if that was the kind of thing the girls liked, they must try to be in it. Slowly but surely a Pointview aristocracy began its line of cleavage and a process of integration. Crests appeared on the letter-heads and limousine doors of the newly rich. In a month or so people of brain and substance degenerated into a condition of hardened shameless idiocy.
"Some of our best citizens went abroad, each to find his place among the descendants of William the Conqueror. Suddenly I discovered that the clerk in my office was ashamed to be seen on the street with a package in his hands.
"Our young men began to long for wealth and leisure. They grew impatient of the old process of thrift and industry. It was too slow.
Many of them opened accounts in Wall Street.
"Young Roger Daniels had some luck there and began to advertise the fact with a small steam-yacht and a cruise. We were going as hard as ever to keep up, but on higher levels of aspiration. The girls were engaged in a strenuous contest for the prize of Harry"s favor, with that handsome young _divorcee_ well in the lead.
"Roger and his party were about to return from their cruise, and Harry was to give them a ball at the Yacht Club.
"The day before the ball our best known physician came to see Mrs.
Potter, who was ill, and cheered us up with a story. The Doctor was young, attractive, and able. He had threatened every appendix in Pointview, and had a lot of inside information about our men and women--especially the latter. He looked weary.
""Yesterday was a little hard on me," he said. "It began at four in the morning with a confinement case and ended at one A.M. There were two operations at the hospital, a steady stream at the office, and a twenty-mile ride over the hills. Got back in the evening pretty well worn out. Tumbled into bed at two minutes of eleven, and was asleep before the clock struck. The "phone-bell at my bedside awoke me. I let it go on for a minute. Hadn"t energy enough to get up. It rang and rang. Out I tumbled.
""h.e.l.lo!" I said.
""A voice answered. "I am Mrs. So-and-So"s butler," it said. "She wishes to see you as soon as you can get here. It"s very urgent."
"""What"s the matter?"
"""Don"t know, sir, but it is serious."
"""All right," I said.
""My chauffeur was off for the night, so I "phoned to the stable and got Patrick and told him to hitch up the black mare at once, dressed, and took everything that I was likely to need in an emergency, got into the wagon, and hurried away in the darkness. After all, I thought, it is something to have one"s skill so much in request by the rich and the powerful. It was a long ride with one horse-power, but we got there.
""Many windows of the great house were aglow. The first butler met me in the hall and took me to my lady"s chamber--an immense room finished in the style of the First Empire. She was half reclining and playing solitaire as she smoked a cigarette on a divan that occupied a dais overhung with rare tapestries on a side of the room. The effect of the whole thing was queenly--_a la_ Recamier. She greeted me wearily and without rising.
"""Sit down," said she, and I did so.
""She turned to a good-looking maid who timidly stood near the divan.
"""My dear little woman, you weary me--please go," she said.
""The maid went.
"""Dawctah," the lady said to me, "I have a nahsty little pimple on my right cheek, and I really cahn"t go to the ball, you know, unless it is cuahed. Won"t you kindly--ah--see what can be done?"
"""A pimple! G.o.d prosper it!" I said to myself. "Has the great M.D.
become a P.D.--a mere doctor of pimples?"
""I inspected the pimple--a very slight affair.
"""Why, if I were you, I"d just cover the pimple with a little square of court-plaster," I said. "It would become you."
"""What a pretty idea! That"s just what I will do," she exclaimed.
"""Please charge it, Dawctah," she said, wearily, as she resumed her solitaire.
""I charged a hundred dollars, but nothing could pay me for the humiliation I suffered. Going home, I pounded the mare shamefully."
""You charged a good price," I said.
""Yes; but it"s like pulling teeth to get any money out of her. One has to earn it twice. Worth a million, and hangs everybody up. Some have to sue."
""Does nothing to-day that can be done to-morrow," I said.
""True," said he; "she don"t look after her business, and thinks that every one is trying to cheat her."
""Same old story," was my remark. I was her husband"s lawyer. "Well, dear, how much do you suppose McCrory"s bill is for the last month?"
he would ask her. She would look thoughtful and say: "Oh, about fifteen hundred dollars." "My dear," he would go on, "it is ten thousand six hundred and forty-three dollars and twenty-four cents."