"Oh, that"s impossible," she would answer. "There"s some mistake about it. I"ll never O.K. such a bill. It"s an outrage!" But the bill was always right.
""I didn"t suppose you would know the lady--I haven"t mentioned her name," said the Doctor.
""I know her, but don"t worry--I shall not betray your confidence. I knew her husband. It wore him out looking after the charge-it department. Now she"s trying to get Harry Delance for his job."
""She"s badly in need of a clerk," said the Doctor, "and I hope she gets one. He could look after the pimples as well as I can."
"Many were getting ready for the ball, but this lady was the only one I knew of who had spent a hundred dollars for facial improvement.
Harry, however, was about to spend a thousand dollars for the improvement of his conscience. It was one of the necessary expenses and it came about in this way:
"The day of the ball had arrived. Harry came to see me about noon. He said that he had been busy all the morning with preparations for the ball, but--
"He showed me a telegram. It was from Roger Daniels, and it said:
""The recent slump in the market has put me in h.e.l.l"s hole. Please wire one thousand dollars to Bridgeport, where I am hung up. If you do, I shall give you good collateral and eternal grat.i.tude. If you don"t, we shall have to miss the ball. Please remember that I am waiting at the other end of the wire like a hungry cat at a mouse-hole."
"Harry looked worried. The ball must come off, and, without Roger, it would be like Hamlet minus the melancholy Dane. It was a special compliment to Roger.
""What do you advise me to do?" he asked.
""Pay it."
""It will probably be a dead loss."
""Probably, but it"s plainly up to you. He"s got in trouble keeping your pace. To tell the honest truth, you"re responsible for it, and the public will charge it to your account. You must pay the bill or suffer moral bankruptcy."
"Harry was taken by surprise.
""But I can pay for _my_ folly," he said.
""Yes; but when it becomes another man"s folly it"s stolen property, and as much yours as ever. The goods have your mark on "em, and, by and by, they"re dumped at your door. They may be damaged by dirt and vermin, but you"ve got to take "em.
""After all, Harry, why should a young man whose education has cost a hundred thousand dollars, if a cent, be giving up his life to folly? You"re too smart to spend the most of your time looking beautiful--trying to excite the admiration of women and the envy of men. That might do in some of the old countries where the people are as dumb as cattle and are capable only of the emotion of awe and need professional gentlemen to excite it, and to feed upon their substance. Here the people have their moments of weakness, but mostly they are pretty level-headed. They judge men by what they do, not by what they look like. The professional gentleman is first an object of curiosity and then an object of scorn. He"s not for us.
Young man, I knew your father and your grandfather. I like you and want you to know that I am speaking kindly, but you ought to go to work."
""Mr. Potter, he said, "upon my word, sir, I"m going to work one of these days--at something--I don"t know what."
""The sooner the better," I said. "Work is the thing that makes men--nothing else. In Pointview everybody used to work. Now here are some facts for your genealogy that you haven"t discovered. Your grandfather and grandmother raised a family of nine children and never had a servant--think of that. Your grandmother made clothes for the family and did all the work of the house. She was a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a spinner, a weaver, a knitter, a sewer, a cook, a washerwoman, a gentle and tender mother. Now we are beginning to rot with idleness.
""Let me tell you a story of a modern lady of Pointview."
"Then I told him of the Doctor"s call on the pimpled queen at midnight, and added:
""Think of that! Think of the fathomless depths of vanity and selfishness that lie under that pimple. It"s a monument more sublime than the Matterhorn. Think of the poor fellow that has to marry that human millstone, and be the clerk of her charge-it department."
""I can think of no worse luck, really," said he. "I wonder who it is!"
""Doctors never give names," I said. "But you might look for the little black square of court-plaster."
""By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I shall look with interest."
"The ball came off, and Roger got there, and so did the lady and the square of black court-plaster; and that night Harry began a new stage in his career.
"After all, Harry was no dunce, but he was not yet convinced."
IV
IN WHICH SOCRATES ENCOUNTERS "NEW THOUGHT" AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HAIR
"When people have little to do they go back to childishness. They long for novelty--new playthings, new adventures, new sensations, new friends. So our upper cla.s.ses are utterly restless. Every old pleasure is a slough of despond. The ladies have tried jewels, laces, crests, t.i.tled husbands, divorces, gambling, c.o.c.ktails, cigarettes, and other branches of exhilaration. They have pa.s.sed through the slums of literature and of the East Side of Gotham. The gentlemen have shown them the way and smiled with amus.e.m.e.nt and gone on to greater triumphs. To these people every old idea is "bromide." It bores them.
They scoff at men "who take themselves seriously." In a word, Moses and the Prophets are so much "dope." And they are excellent people who really want to make the world better, but the childish craze for novelty is upon them. Mrs. Revere-Chalmers was one of this kind. Harry came to me next day at my house and said:
""By Jove! you know, it was my friend Mrs. R.-C. who wore the black square. But she is really a charming woman--not at all a bad sort. I want you to know her better. She made me promise to bring you over to-morrow afternoon if you would come."
"We went. It was a "new-thought" tea--a deep, brain-racking, forefinger-on-the-brow function. You could see the thoughts of the ladies and sometimes hear them as a "professor" with long hair and smiles of fathomless inspiration wrapped himself in obscurity and called unto them out of the depths. He was all depth. They gazed at his soulful eyes and plunged into deep thought, catching at straws, and he returned to New York by the next train and probably made another payment, on account, to his landlady. Tea and conversation followed his departure.
"I had observed that Mrs. Revere-Chalmers had undergone a singular change of aspect, but failed to locate the point of difference until a sister had said to her in a tone of honeyed deviltry:
""My dear, you are growing younger--quite surely younger, and your hair is so lovely and so--different! You know what I mean--it has the l.u.s.ter of youth, and the shade is adorable without a trace of gray in it."
"This last phrase was the point of the dagger, and Mrs. Chalmers felt it. Sure enough, her hair had changed its hue, and was undeniably fuller and younger.
"Then our hostess gave out a confession which has made some history and is fully qualified to make more. It is a curious fact that one who is abnormal enough to commit a crime is apt to have poor caution.
""I have been taking lessons of the Professor, and have produced this hair by concentration," said she. "It is a creation of the new thought and so wonderful I could almost forgive one for not believing me."
""A gem of thought--a hair poem!" I could not help exclaiming. "Did it come all at once, in a flood of inspiration, or hair by hair?"
""All at once," she answered.
"I charged it and went on as if nothing great had happened.
""Considered as a work of the imagination, it is wonderful, and should rank with the best of Shakespeare"s," I a.s.sured her. "But it will subject you to unsuspected perils, for your footstool will be the shrine of the hairless and you shall see the top of every bald head in America."
"Another lady sprang to her a.s.sistance by telling how she had extracted a pearl necklace from an unwilling husband who had said that he couldn"t afford it, by concentration. The new thought had fetched him.
"The n.o.ble unselfishness with which they had used this miraculous gift of the spirit appealed to Harry and to me.
"In that brilliant company was a slim woman of the armored cruiser type, who had come to Betsey one day and said:
""You"re spoiling your husband. You make too much of him. You don"t seem to know how to manage a husband, and the husbands of Pointview are being ruined by your example. They expect too much of us. We women have got to stand together. Don"t you read the _Female Gazette_?"
""No--I have been waiting till I could get a rubber-plant and other accessories," said Betsey.
""Well, it may not be _en regle_, but it is full of good sense," said the lady. "I"ve brought an article with me that I wish you would read."