"Sarcasm?" said the Doctor in a surprised tone. "Why, my dear fellow, I wasn"t sarcastic, was I? I am sure I didn"t mean to be."
"To the listener"s ear it seemed so," said the Idiot. "There seemed to me to be traces of the alkali of irony mixed in with the tincture of derision in that question of yours. When you ask a Wall Street man who declines to carry speculation accounts these days if he isn"t going to take a vacation shortly, it is like asking a resident of the Desert of Sahara why he doesn"t sprinkle a little sand around his place.
"Life on Wall Street for my kind, my good sir, of late has been just one darned vacation after another. The only business I have done in three months was to lend one of our customers a nickel, taking a subway ticket and a baseball rain check as collateral security."
The Idiot shook his head ruefully and heaved a heart-rending sigh.
"What we cautious Wall Street fellows need," said he, "is not a VA-cation, but a VO-cation."
"Oh, well, a man of your fertility of invention ought not to have any trouble about that," said Mr. Brief. "You should be able without killing yourself to think up some new kind of trade that will keep you busy until the snow-shoveling season begins anyhow."
"Yes," said the Idiot. "Ordinary by the exercise of some ingenuity and the use of these two brazen cheeks with which nature has endowed me, I can always manage to pull something resembling a living out of a reluctant earth. If a man slips up on being a Captain of Industry he can lecture on a sight-seeing coach, or if that fails him under present conditions in this old town, by a little economy he can live on his tips."
"And at the worst," said the Bibliomaniac, "you always have Mrs. Pedagog to fall back on."
"Yes," said the Idiot. "The state of my bill at this very moment shows that I have credit enough with Mrs. Pedagog to start three national banks and a trust company. But, fortunately for me, I don"t have to do either. I have found my opportunity lying before me in the daily newspapers, and I am about to start a new enterprise which is not only going to pull a large and elegant series of chestnuts out of the fire for me but for all my subscribers as well. If I can find a good lawyer somewhere to draw up the papers of incorporation for my United States Telephonic Aid Society, I"ll start in business this very morning at the nearest pay station."
"If you want a good lawyer, what"s the matter with me?" asked Mr. Brief.
"I never was any good at riddles," said the Idiot, "and that one is too subtle for me. If I want a good lawyer, what is the matter with you? Ha!
Hum! Well, I give it up, but I"m willing to be what the ancients used to call the Goat. If I want a good lawyer, Brudder Bones, what IS the matter with you? I ask the question--what"s the answer?"
"I don"t know," grinned the Lawyer.
"Well, I guess that"s it," said the Idiot. "If I want a good lawyer I want one who does know."
"But what"s this new society going to do?" interrupted the Poet. "I am particularly interested in any sort of a scheme that is going to make you rich without forgetting me. If there"s any pipe-line to prosperity, hurry up and let me know before it is too late."
"Why, it is simplicity itself," said the Idiot. "The U. S. Telephonic Aid Society is designed to carry First Aid to the Professionally Injured. You have doubtless read recently in the newspapers how Damon, a retired financier, desirous of helping his old friend Pythias, an equally retired attorney, back into his quondam practice--please excuse that word quondam, Mrs. Pedagog; it isn"t half as profane as it sounds--went to the telephone and impersonating J. Mulligatawny Solon, Member of Congress from the Chillicothe District, rang up Midas, Croesus, and Dives, the eminent bankers, and recommended Pythias as the only man this side of the planet Mars who could stave off the ruthless destruction of their interests by an uncontrolled body of lawmakers."
"Yes," said Mr. Brief. "I read all that, and it was almost as unreal as a page out of the Arabian Nights."
"Wasn"t it!" said the Idiot. "And yet how simple! Well, that"s my scheme in a nutsh.e.l.l, only I am going to do the thing as a pure matter of business, and not merely to show the purity of my affection for any Pythian dependent.
"To show just how the plan will work under my supervision let us take your case first, Mr. Poet. Here you are this morning with your board bill already pa.s.sed to its third reading, with Mrs. Pedagog tacking amendments on to the end of it with every pa.s.sing day. Unfortunately for you in your emergent hour, the editors either view your ma.n.u.scripts with suspicion or, what is more likely, refuse to look at them at all. They care nothing for your aspirations or your inspirations.
"Your immediate prospect holds nothing in sight save the weary parcel postman, with his bent form, delivering daily at your door eleven-pound packages of unappreciated sonnets. You do not dare think on the morrow, what ye shall eat, and wherewithal shall ye be clothed, because no man liveth who can purchase the necessities of life with rejection slips--those checks on the Banks of Ambition, payable in the editors"
regrets."
"By George," blurted the Poet feelingly, "you"re dead right about that, old man. If editors" regrets were legal tender, I could pay off the national debt."
"Precisely," said the Idiot. "And it is just here, my dear friend, that the U. S. Telephonic Aid Society rushes to your a.s.sistance. Your case is brought to the society"s attention, and I, as President, Secretary, Treasurer, and General Manager of the inst.i.tution, look into the matter at once.
"I find your work meritorious. No editor has ever rejected it because it lacked literary merit. He even goes so far as to print a statement of that fact upon the slip he sends back with it on its homeward journey.
Like most other poets you need a little food once in awhile. A roof to cover your head is essential to your health, and under the existing laws of society you simply must wear clothes when you appear in public, and it becomes the Society"s worthy job to aid you in getting all these things.
"So we close a contract providing that for ten dollars down and fifteen per cent. of the gross future receipts, I, or the Society, agree to secure the publication of your sonnets, rondeaux, limericks, and triolets in the Hyperion Magazine."
"That would be bully if you could only pull it off," said the Poet, falling naturally into the terminology of Milton. "But I don"t just see how you"re going to turn the trick."
"On the regular "Damon and Pythias" principle, as set forth in the newspapers," said the Idiot. "Immediately the contract between us is signed, I rush to the nearest pay station and ring up the editor of the Hyperion Magazine, and when I get him on the line we converse as follows:
"Me--Is this the editor of the Hyperion Magazine?
"Editor--Ubetcha. Who are you?
"Me--I"m President Wilson, down at the White House.
"Editor--Glad to hear from you, Mr. President. Got any more of that new Freedom stuff on hand? We are thinking of running a Department of Humor in the Hyperion, and with a little editing I think we could use a couple of carloads of it.
"Me--Why, yes, Mr. Bluepencil. I think I have a bale or two of remnants in cold storage down at Trenton. But really that isn"t what I am after this morning. I wanted to say to you officially, but confidentially, of course, that my Amba.s.sador to Great Britain has just cabled his resignation to the State Department. What with a little breakfast he gave last week to the President of France and his tips at his own presentation to the King, he has already spent four years" salary, and he does not feel that he can afford to stay over there much after the first of September.
"Editor--I"m on. I getcha.
"Me--Now, of course, I"ve got to fill his place right away, and it struck me that you were just the man for the job. In the first place you are tolerably familiar with the language they speak in and about the Court of St. James"s. I am told by mutual friends that you eat peas with a fork, can use a knife without cutting your lip, and have an intuitive apprehension of the subtle distinctions between a finger-bowl and a sauterne gla.s.s. It has also been brought to my attention that your advertising pages have for years been consistent advocates, in season and out, of the use of grape juice as a refreshing beverage for nervous Amba.s.sadors.
"Editor--That"s right, Mr. President.
"Me--Well, of course, all of this makes you unquestionably _persona grata_ to us, and I think it should make you a novel and interesting feature of diplomatic life along Piccadilly.
"Editor--It sounds good to me, Mr. President.
"Me--Now to come to the difficulties in our way--and that is what I have rung you up to talk about. There seems to be but one serious objection to your appointment, Mr. Bluepencil.
At a Cabinet meeting called yesterday to discuss the matter, Mr. McAdoo expressed the fear that if you go away for four years the quality of the poetry in the Hyperion Magazine will fall off. In this contention, Mr. McAdoo was supported by the Secretary of Agriculture, whose name escapes me at this moment, with the Postmaster General and the Secretary of War on the fence. Mr. Daniels was not present, having gone West to launch a battleship at Omaha. But in any event there is where the matter rests at this moment.
"For my own part, however, after giving the matter prayerful consideration, I think I can see a way out. The whole Cabinet is very much interested in the poems of Willie Wimpleton Spondy, the boy Watson. McAdoo is constantly quoting from him. The Postmaster General has even gone so far as to advocate the extension of the franking privilege to him, and as for myself, I have made it a practice for the last five years to begin every day by reciting one of his limericks before my a.s.sembled family.
"Editor--I never heard of the b.o.o.b.
"Me--Well, you hear of him now, and the whole thing comes down to this: Mr. Spondy will call at your office with a couple of bales of his stuff at ten o"clock to-morrow morning, and you might have something besides a pink rejection slip dripping with regrets ready for him. I don"t know what his rates are, but his stuff runs about ninety pounds to the bale, and what that comes to at fifty per you can figure out for yourself.
"Editor--How does Champ Clark stand on this thing?
"Me--He and Tommie Marshall are with us to the last tintinnabulation of the gong.
"Editor--Then I am to understand just what, Mr. President?
"Me--That you don"t go to England on our account until we are absolutely a.s.sured beyond peradvanture that there will be no deterioration in the quality of Hyperion poetry during your absence.
"Editor--All right. Send the guy around this afternoon. He can send the bale by slow freight. We always pay in advance anyhow."
The Idiot paused to take breath.
"Then what?" asked the Poet dubiously.
"You go around and get what"s coming to you," said the Idiot. "Or perhaps it would be better to send a messenger boy for it. The more impersonal we make this business the better."
"I see," said the Poet dejectedly. "But even at that, Mr. Idiot, when the Hyperion man doesn"t get the Amba.s.sadorship, won"t he sue me to recover?"