The next day I was riding downtown on the end seat with my mind made up to stay there and keep the harbor open for commerce.
"Never," I said to myself, "never will anyone become a human Merrimac to bottle up the seating capacity of this particular bench while the blood flows through these veins and the flag of freedom waves above me."
At the next corner a very thin little gentleman squeezed by me with a look of reproach on his face the like of which I hope never to see again, but I was Charles J. Glue and firm in the end seat.
Then a couple of Italy"s sunny sons by the names of Microbeini and Germicide crawled over me and kicked their initials on my knee-cap and then sat down to enjoy a smoke of domestic rope which fell across my nostrils and remained there in bitterness.
After I had been stepped on, sat on, clawed at and scowled at for twenty minutes, I began to discuss myself to myself.
"Peter," I whispered, "do you really think that the general public appreciates your efforts to keep the Harbor open?"
And then myself replied to myself with a sigh of exhaustion, "I don"t think!"
"Peter," I said to myself, "no matter what your motives may be the other fellow will always believe you are trying to get the best of it.
If you move over and give the end seat to another gentleman he will consider it only what is his right. If you don"t move over he will think you are a Hog for keeping that which is as much yours as his."
I began to grow confidential with myself.
"Civilization is a fine idea, but Human Nature can give it cards and spades and then beat it out!" I told myself. "The Human Hog was invented long before the open-face street car began to stop for him, and there isn"t anybody living who should stop to throw stones at him, because selfishness is like the measles, it breaks out in unexpected places. All of us may not be Hogs, but there is a moment in the life of every man when he gets near enough to it to be called a Ham Sandwich."
Just then the Disinfecti Brothers, Microbeini and Germicide, walked over me backward and I had a short but exciting visit to the slums.
Since that eventful day I have moved over 36 times, and out of the 36 people I gave the end seat to all but three of them belonged to the Mucilage Family, and stayed there.
Thereafter I made myself a severe promise not to worry any more about my Hog qualifications when movable or immovable on an open-face car.
I will do as my conscience dictates and walk downtown as much as possible.
And speaking of street cars, John, Uncle Peter resumed after a long pause, I was in one of those cities recently where some of the cars stop on the near side of some of the streets and some stop on the far side of some of the streets.
Honestly, John, they had me up in the air.
I left the hotel to attend to some business downtown and went over on the near side of the street to wait for a car.
When the car came along I held my thumb out in the atmosphere warningly, but the motorman kept on to the far side and stopped.
By the time I ran over to the far side he was gone again and another car had stopped at the near side.
When I rushed back to the near side the car pa.s.sed me going to the far side, and now the near side looked so much like the far side that I went back to the other side, which should have been the near side, but how could it be the near side when the car was on the far side and I could not get near the near side in time to catch the car before it was far away on the far side?
Just as I rushed back again to the far side the near side became the nearer side to catch the car, and when I rushed over again from the far side to the near side the nearer I got to the near side the clearer I could see that while the far side was far away it was nearer than the near side, which was always on the far side when I hoped to take a car on the near side.
Then I began to grit my teeth and made up my mind to antic.i.p.ate the action of the next car by standing half way between the near side and the far side, so that I could run to either side the emergency called for.
I was standing there about a minute much pleased with the idea, because the near side was now about as far away as the far side, when just then an automobile sneaked up behind me and one of the forward turrets struck me on my own personal far side and hoisted me over to the near side just as a car left for the far side.
I reached out my hand to grasp the far side of the step, but I missed it and caught the near side, and by this time the car was on the far side and the motorman grabbed the near side of the electric controller and pushed it over to the far side, whereupon the car started for El Paso, Texas, at a speed of about 3,000 miles a minute, and there I was with the near side of four fingers holding on to the far side of the step and the rest of my body sticking straight out in s.p.a.ce like a pair of trousers on a clothes-line in a gale of wind.
Then suddenly the near side of my fingers refused to hold on to the far side of the step, and with the near side of my face I struck the far side of the tracks, and the near side of my brain saw every individual star on the far side of the universe.
Then I went back to the hotel and crawled into the far side of the bed while my wife sent for a near side doctor who lived on the far side of the block.
That will be about all for Uncle Peter.
CHAPTER VI
JOHN HENRY ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS
Last year Bunch and Alice spent several weeks doing the society stunt at the fashionable seaside resorts.
I must put you next to a letter Bunch wrote me from Newport:
Dear John:
With a party of our society friends we have been Newporting all this week.
Next week I hope to Bar Harbor for a few days, and the week after that I hope to Narragansett for a short period.
In the party with us here are Clarence Fussyface, Llewellyn Shortbrow, Harry Pifflemind, Cecil Vanwigglevandoozen, Mrs. George Plentycash and Miss Clorinda Fritters.
Mrs. Plentycash is accompanied by a friend of her husband"s by the name of Murgatroyd Mutt; and Mr. Harry Pifflemind has his own private bartender, so there is nothing to mar the beauty of the visit.
During our first day at Newport we played bridge until two o"clock, then we jumped in our automobiles to see if we could run across a few friends.
Llewellyn Shortbrow made a mistake with his machine and ran across a stranger, hitting him just between the wish-bone and the Casino.
The stranger"s leg was broken, which put the laugh on Llewellyn.
The next evening Cecil Vanwigglevandoozen gave us one of the most delightful experiences I have ever known.
It was a monkey dinner.
A monkey dinner consists of a happy mixture of Society and monkey--with just a trifle more Society than monkey to give it the proper flavor.
The idea of the monkey dinner originated in a fertile spot in the southeastern part of Vanwigglevandoozen"s brain, which up to then was supposed to be extinct.
The eruption of such a gigantic idea from a brain supposed to be extinct came as a great but pleasant shock to Society.
Originally it was Vanwigglevandoozen"s idea to have Clarence Fussyface play the monkey, because Clarence"s intelligence is built on a plan to suggest such mimicry, but a hand-organ proprietor by the name of Guissepi, who is summering at Newport, came to the rescue with a real monkey by the name of Claude.
Claude has acted for many years as a second-story man for Guissepi, and is one of the very best ice-cutters in the whole monkey business.