"The nurses, cooks, kitchen-girls, laundresses, and chambermaids of Pointview were radiant in silk, lace, diamonds, pearls, and rubies.
The costumes were brilliant, but all in good taste. Alabaster? Why, my dear boy, they would have made the swell set resemble a convention of beanpoles. For the matter of busts, they busted the record!
"The only mishap occurred when Bertha Schimpfelheim--some call her Big Bertha--slipped and fell in a waltz, injuring the knee of her companion. To my surprise the brainiest of these working-folk saw the satire in which they were taking part, and entered into it with all the more spirit because they knew.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "RADIANT IN SILK, LACE, DIAMONDS, PEARLS, AND RUBIES"]
"The presence of Mr. Warburton, Mr. and Mrs. Delance, Marie, and the Reverend Robert Knowles on the floor insured proper decorum and lent an air of seriousness to the event. It proved an effective background for Marie. She shone like a pigeon-blood ruby among garnets. She wore no jewels, and was distinguished only by her beauty and the simplicity of her costume and the unmistakable evidence of good breeding in her face and manners.
"Harry sat with me in the gallery.
""She"s wonderful!" he exclaimed. "All this rococo ware simply emphasizes her charm. Only a girl of brains could carry it off as she does. She"s among them and yet apart. An old duke once told me that if you want to know the rank of a lady, observe how she treats an inferior. It"s quite true. By Jove! I"m in love with Marie, and I"m going to make her my wife if possible."
""That"s one really substantial result of the ball," I said.
""Do you think that she cares for Knowles--that minister chap?""
""I"m inclined to think that she likes you better," I said.
""Is your inclination encouraged by evidence?"
""That query I must decline to answer," said I.
""Well, you know, I"m not going to be long in doubt," the boy declared, as he left me.
"The event was an epoch-maker. Long reports of it appeared in the daily press and traveled far in a surge of thoughtful merriment. For instance: "Miss Mary Maginness, the accomplished lady-in-waiting of Mrs. William Warburton, of Warburton House, wore a coronet and a dog-collar of diamonds above a costume of white brocaded satin, trimmed with old d.u.c.h.esse lace and gold ornaments. Miss Maginness is a lineal descendant of Lord Rawdon Maginness, of Cork, who early in the seventeenth century commanded an army that drove the Italians out of Ireland."
"And so it went, with column after column of glittering detail. Since then the servants have enjoyed a monopoly in splendor--it"s been a kind of Standard Jewel Company, and certain rich men have boasted in my presence that they haven"t a jewel in their houses; and one added with quite unneeded emphasis: "Not a measly jewel. My wife says that they suggest dish-water and ap.r.o.ns."
""It is too funny!" said Mrs. Warburton. "You know those jewels at the ball were quite as real as many that are worn by ladies of fashion.
Most rich women who want to save themselves worry keep their jewels in the strong-box and wear replicas of paste and composition."
"The instalment jeweler has gone out of business, and half a dozen servant-girls have refused to make further payments on their solitaires and returned them.
"One singular thing happened. Nearly all those servants paid their bills to our store, and we closed out with an unexpected profit, while a number of stores who charged their goods to the n.o.ble band of employers have stopped for need of money."
X
IN WHICH SOCRATES BREAKS THE DRAG AND TANDEM MONOPOLY IN POINTVIEW
"Harry"s father came often for a smoke and talk with me after dinner, and his favorite subject was Harry. As a subject of conversation, Harry was more successful than the average crime. In this respect he resembled a divorce or a murder. That"s how it happened that Harry got on my mind. He is one of the most skilful riders of the human mind that I know of. He was wearing us out, and we were all bucking to get him off. Well, his father was thinking about him while I was thinking about the rest of Pointview. It was another case of Rome and Caesar.
Harry"s last achievement was to accuse his father of being the fossiliferous remnant of an ancient time.
""The truth is, Harry hasn"t enough compet.i.tion in his line," I suggested, one evening. "The other boys are doing well, but they don"t keep up with him.
""You know after I left college, in my youth, I spent a couple of years in Wyoming. Well, Mary Ann Crowder was the only single lady within a hundred miles, and she was the most obstreperous d.a.m.n critter that I ever saw. She had a monopoly an" knew it, an" wasn"t decently polite. Put on more style than a n.i.g.g.e.r at a cakewalk. Though she had red hair an" only one eye, some of the boys used to ride sixty miles for a visit with her. Then they had to swim the Snake River and maybe wrestle with a tame bear that was loose in the dooryard. By and by a man with two unmarried daughters moved on to a ranch near us, and then Mary Ann began to be polite. She suddenly became a human being, an"
killed the bear, an" moved across the river an" married the first man that proposed, and lived happily ever after.
""What we need here is another drag and tandem."
""Get what you need, and I"ll pay the bills," said Harry"s father.
"So I went to a sale in New York, bought my drag and tandem-cart, and had them shipped to Pointview. Our local sign-painter put a crest or, rather, a kind of royal hatchment, on the panels of both. Then I sold them for next to nothing to a local livery on conditions. Its new owner agreed to use the drag for chowder-parties, and to break the worst-looking nags in his stable to drive tandem on the cart.
"Tommy Ruggles, a smart-looking knight of the currycomb, whose first name was a kitchen word in Pointview, sprang to my a.s.sistance. He had curly hair, and a good deal of natural cuteness, and was, moreover, "a divvle with the girls." He contracted with me to take a selected list of female servants for an airing in the tandem-cart. He was to get a royalty of five dollars a head on every servant that was properly aired, with a small premium on red ones.
"He began with Big Bertha, our worthy German countess. Tommy had a playful humor, and cracked his long whip over the rough-harnessed nags and merrily tooted his horn as the rig lumbered along through the main streets of our village. Many laughed and many wondered, while an army of noisy kids followed and hung on behind.
"Tommy got his second girl, who was. .h.i.t on the head with a ripe tomato, and then it was all over. The girls wouldn"t stand for it. The sport had become too exciting. Tommy told me how he had invited Bridget Maloney, and she had said: "Na-a-ah! Do yez take me for an idiot? Sure every rotten egg in the town would be jumpin" at me."
"It suggested an idea. As the imitation idiots had given out, we would try the real thing. So I "phoned the manager of our thriving idiot asylum on the Post Road and arranged to have Tommy take one of his patients every day for a drive in the cart. Why shouldn"t all the idiots enjoy themselves? Fresh air would be good for them. It would turn the cart into a charity which would cover a part of my sins. I asked for the better cla.s.s of idiots--the quiet ones, who had sense enough to appreciate a good thing. The parade began and continued day after day.
"Harry had retired his tandem after Tom, with a stiff-backed idiot by his side, had clattered after him through the village behind the two spavined nags to the amus.e.m.e.nt of many people. He had kept up with Harry.
"Soon that kind of a rig was known as the Idiot Wagon. Then Tommy resigned; it was more than he could stand. He said he was willing to do any honest work for money, but not that. He said that the idiots imagined themselves rich, and put on so much style that it made the whole thing ridiculous.
""Never mind--it"s the habit of idiots," I said.
""One of "em thinks he"s Napoleon Bonaparte, an" calls me his man, and wears a plug hat and sits as straight as a ramrod, and bows to the people when they laugh at him," said Tommy. "Some of "em get stuck on the cart, and it"s a fight to get "em out of it. I tell ye, I"m sick o" the job. The sight o" that cart makes me feel nutty."
""Never mind, Tom," I said; "you"ve been a public benefactor, and you and the cart are ent.i.tled to an honorable discharge."
"Every bright day the drag was tooling over the road with picnic-parties on their way to one of the popular beaches. Our local lodges and political clubs, and now and then a load of Italians, were able to enjoy the luxury which had been the exclusive delight of Harry and the fluffy maidens of Pointview.
"Drags an" tandems are all right if you don"t go too far with "em. We were just in time to prevent them from becoming tools of degeneration in our village."
XI
IN WHICH SUNDRY PEOPLE MAKE GREAT DISCOVERIES
"There were many private panics in Pointview. It was my privilege to observe, under calm exteriors, a raging fever of excitement--characters going bankrupt, collectors wandering in a fruitless quest. One little rill that flowed into the swift river of national trouble issued from the bosom of my clerk, Mr. "Cub" Sayles. It had been one of the most placid bosoms in Pointview. Now it was in the midst of what I have since referred to as the "Violet and Supper Panic of 1907."
"Cub was a quiet, hard-working, serious-minded boy whose mother moved in the higher circles of Boston. He had a low, pleasant voice, a touch of Harry"s dialect, and a sad face. He had asked for a higher salary, and I had asked for information.
""You see every time I go to call on my girl I have to take a bunch of violets or a two-pound box of candy," he said. "Then if we go to the theater her chaperon has to be with us--don"t you know? She"s a stout lady who complains of faintness before the play ends, and I have to ask them out to supper. Then I am always greatly alarmed, for you never can tell what will happen, sir, with two ladies at supper and only twenty dollars in your pocket, and both ladies fond of game and crab-meat. It"s really very trying. I sit and tremble as I watch them, and go home with only a feeble remnant of my salary, and next day I have to p.a.w.n my diamond ring."
""All that isn"t honest," I said. "You"re getting her favor under false pretenses. You"re trying to make her believe that you are a sort of aristocrat with lots of money. Why don"t you tell her the truth--that you can"t afford violets, that the two-pound box is a burden that is breaking your back, and that every theater-supper sends you to the p.a.w.nbroker"s?"
""I can"t--she would throw me over," he explained. "The girls expect those things. They like to show and talk about them--don"t you know?
It"s the fashion. Our best young men do it, sir."
""Well, if you are willing to give up your honor for a lady"s smile you won"t do for me," I said. "You must not only tell the truth, but live it. You must be just what you are--a poor boy working for twenty dollars a week. If the girl doesn"t like it she"s unfit to a.s.sociate with honest men. If you don"t like it I don"t like you."