Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Of course, there are the presents to be distributed, but that takes on much the same aspect as the same ceremony in the new-fashioned Christmas, except that in the really old-fashioned Christmas the presents weren’t so tricky. Children got mostly mittens and shoes, with a sled thrown in sometimes for dissipation. Where a boy today is bored by three o’clock in the afternoon with his electric grain-elevator and miniature pond with real perch in it, the old-fashioned boy was lucky if he got a copy of “Naval Battles of the War of 1812” and an orange. Now this feature is often brought up in praise of the old way of doing things. “I tell you,” says Uncle Gyp, “the children in my time never got such presents as you get today.” And he seems proud of the fact, as if there were some virtue accruing to him for it. If the children of today can get electric grain-elevators and tin automobiles for Christmas, why aren’t they that much better off than their grandfathers who got only wristlets? Learning the value of money, which seems to be the only argument of the stand-patters, doesn’t hold very much water as a Christmas slogan. The value of money can be learned in just about five minutes when the time comes, but Christmas is not the season.

But to return to the farm, where you and the kiddies and Gramp’ are killing time. You can either bring in wood from the woodshed, or thaw out the pump, or read the books in the bookcase over the writing-desk. Of the three, bringing in the wood will probably be the most fun, as you are likely to burn yourself thawing out the pump, and the list of reading matter on hand includes “The Life and Deeds of General Grant,” “Our First Century,” “Andy’s Trip to Portland,” bound volumes of the Jersey Cattle Breeders’ Gazette and “Diseases of the Horse.” Then there are some old copies of “Round the Lamp” for the years 1850-54 and some colored plates showing plans for the approaching World’s Fair at Chicago.

Thus the time passes, in one round of gayety after another, until you are summoned to dinner. Here all caviling must cease. The dinner lives up to the advertising. If an old-fashioned Christmas could consist entirely of dinner without the old-fashioned bedrooms, the old-fashioned pitcher, and the old-fashioned entertainments, we professional pessimists wouldn’t have a turkey-leg left to stand on. But, as has been pointed out, it is possible to get a good dinner without going up to East Russet, Vt., or, if it isn’t, then our civilization has been a failure.

And the dinner only makes the aftermath seem worse. According to an old custom of the human race, everyone overeats. Deliberately and with considerable gusto you sit at the table and say pleasantly: “My, but I won’t be able to walk after this. Just a little more of the dark meat, please, Grandpa, just a dab of stuffing. Oh, dear, that’s too much!” You haven’t the excuse of the drunkard, who becomes oblivious to his excesses after several drinks. You know what you are doing, and yet you make light of it and even laugh about it as long as you _can_ laugh without splitting out a seam.

And then you sit and moan. If you were having a good new-fashioned Christmas you could go out to the movies or take a walk, or a ride, but to be really old-fashioned you must stick close to the house, for in the old days there were no movies and no automobiles and if you wanted to take a walk you had to have the hired man go ahead of you with a snow-shovel and make a tunnel. There are probably plenty of things to do in the country today, and just as many automobiles and electric lights as there are in the city, but you can’t call Christmas with all these improvements “an old-fashioned Christmas.” That’s cheating.

If you are going through with the thing right, you have got to retire to the sitting-room after dinner and _sit_. Of course, you can go out and play in the snow if you want to, but you know as well as I do that this playing in the snow is all right when you are small but a bit trying on anyone over thirty. And anyway, it always began to snow along about three in the afternoon an old-fashioned Christmas day, with a cheery old leaden sky overhead and a jolly old gale sweeping around the corners of the house.

No, you simply must sit indoors, in front of a fire if you insist, but nevertheless with nothing much to do. The children are sleepy and snarling. Grandpa is just sleepy. Someone tries to start the conversation, but everyone else is too gorged with food to be able to move the lower jaw sufficiently to articulate. It develops that the family is in possession of the loudest-ticking clock in the world and along about four o’clock it begins to break its own record. A stenographic report of the proceedings would read as follows:

“Ho-hum! I’m sleepy! I shouldn’t have eaten so much.”

“Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock--”

“It seems just like Sunday, doesn’t it?”

“Look at Grandpa! He’s asleep.”

“Here, Junior! Don’t plague Grandpa. Let him sleep.”

“Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock--”

“Junior! Let Grandpa alone! Do you want Mamma to take you upstairs?”

“Ho-hum!”

“Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock--”

Louder and louder the clock ticks, until something snaps in your brain and you give a sudden leap into the air with a scream, finally descending to strangle each of the family in turn, and Grandpa as he sleeps. Then, as you feel your end is near, all the warm things you have ever known come back to you, in a flash. You remember the hot Sunday subway to Coney, your trip to Mexico, the bull-fighters of Spain.

You dash out into the snowdrifts and plunge along until you sink exhausted. Only the fact that this article ends here keeps you from freezing to death, with an obituary the next day reading:

“DIED suddenly, at East Russet, Vt., of an old-fashioned Christmas.”

LIFE IN THE RITZ TENEMENT

[A recent ruling of the Tenement House Commission places all of New York’s new apartment-houses in the technical classification of “tenements” for the enforcement of certain clauses of the Tenement House Law.]

SCENE: _The rear of Mr. Brisbane’s new apartment palace--the Ritz
Tower. It is Monday morning and the tenants are seen hanging out
their wash from the kitchen windows._

TWENTY-FIRST FLOOR BACK: Good morning to you, Mrs. Van Cleve! A charming day, isn’t it?

TWENTY-SECOND FLOOR BACK: The same to you, Mrs. Thornton-Martin. And too charming a day to be cooped up inside like this.

TWENTY-FIRST FLOOR: My _dear_, the killingest thing! Speaking of being cooped up--did you hear that (_lowering the voice_) Freddie Welt was arrested Saturday?

TWENTY-SECOND FLOOR: The Welts on the thirty-fifth floor! My _dear_, how frightful! What for?

TWENTY-FIRST: Well, it seems that Freddie and some of the boys from the Linx Club had been playing polo--

(_A delivery boy from Cartier’s clatters up the back stairway._)

BOY: Van Buren live here?

THIRTIETH FLOOR: Two flights up. They’re out now. You can leave the stuff here.

BOY: Three thousand dollars collect on it.

THIRTIETH FLOOR: Go on up and tuck it under the door.

TWENTY-NINTH FLOOR: I’m going to speak to the janitor about those folks on the twenty-eighth.

THIRTIETH FLOOR: A lot of good it will do. They’re his cousins. What have they done now?

TWENTY-NINTH FLOOR: All their empty champagne bottles out by the back door where Reggie stumbles over them going to work in the morning! They had a lot of Roumanians up there last night till four in the morning.

THIRTIETH FLOOR: Roumanians, eh? Why don’t those people go back where they came from if they don’t like it here?

TWENTY-NINTH FLOOR: That’s what I’d like to know. I said to Reggie last night, I said, “Reggie, if you were half a man you’d go down there and tell them that if they can’t behave themselves why don’t they go over to the Racquet Club where they belong.”

TWENTY-EIGHTH FLOOR (_flinging open her window_): Oh, is that so?

TWENTY-NINTH FLOOR: Yes, that’s so!

TWENTY-EIGHTH FLOOR: Well, if you’d keep that person with the fiddle quiet once in a while the rest of us might get some rest.

TWENTY-NINTH FLOOR (_to the shaft in general_): She calls Jascha Heifetz “that person with a fiddle!”

TWENTY-EIGHTH FLOOR: Jascha Heifetz or Mischa Elman--it’s all the same to me. Don’t he get enough money playing in concerts that he should come around playing at people’s tenements all the time?

THIRTY-FOURTH FLOOR (_slamming open the window_): Shut up below there, will you! (_Throws out a pan full of alligator pear rinds._)

THE POLICEMAN ON THE BEAT (_from below_): Come on up there, cut that out or I’ll run yez all in!

(_All the heads are drawn in and the windows slammed shut._)

A VOICE ON THE STAIRS WITH BELL ACCOMPANIMENT: Oyster-forks sharpened! Oyster-forks sharpened!

OLD PROGRAM FROM THE BENCHLEY COLLECTION

_A Glance Backward in the Manner of the Authors of Theatrical Reminiscences_

Few, probably, of my readers, will remember the time when the old Forrest Theater stood where the Central Park Reservoir now is. In those days, Central Park was considered ’way downtown, or “crosstown,” as they called it then, and one of the larks of the period was going “down to Central Park to see the turtles.” There was a large turtle farm in the Park at that time, run by Anderson M. Ferderber, and it was this turtle farm, expanding and growing as the turtles became more venturesome, which later became the Zoological Exhibit.

I remember very well the night when it was announced at the Forrest Theater that the building was to be torn down to make way for the new Reservoir. It was, as I recall, H. M. Ramus (“Henry” Ramus) who made the announcement. He was playing _Laertes_ at the time (_Laertes_ was played with the deuces wild and a ten-cent limit) when the manager of the theater (Arthur Semden, who later became Harrison Blashforth) came into the dressing-room and said: “Well, boys, it’s all over. They’re going to build the Reservoir here!” There was a silence for a full minute--probably more, for the manager had come into the wrong dressing-room and there was nobody there.

At any rate, “Henry” Ramus was selected to go out and tell the audience. He did it with infinite tact, explaining that there was no need for alarm or panic, as the water could not possibly be let in until the theater was down and the Reservoir constructed, but the audience was evidently taking no chances on being drowned, for within three minutes from the time Ramus began speaking everyone in the theater was outdoors and in a hansom cab. Audience psychology is a queer thing, and possibly this audience knew best. At any rate, the old Forrest Theater is no more.

Speaking of “Henry” Ramus, an amusing anecdote is told of Whitney Hersh. Hersh was playing with Booth in Philadelphia at the time, and was well known for his ability to catch cold, a characteristic which won him many new friends but lost him several old ones. The theater where Booth was playing in _The Queen’s Quandary, or What’s Open Can’t Be Shut_, was the old Chestnut Street Opera House which stood at the corner of what was then Arch, Chestnut, Spruce, Pine and Curly Maple Streets. This theater was noted in the profession for its slanting stage, so much so, in fact, that Booth, on hearing that they were to play there, is said to have remarked: “The Chestnut Street, eh?” On being assured that he had heard correctly, Booth simply smiled. He later founded the Player’s Club.

UP AND AWAY

OR NOBODY KNOWS BUT NERO

OR THREE TIMES SIX IS EIGHTEEN

(_Choice of any two titles_)

Jonathan Henchman, father of
Ralph Henchman and Mother
of Men, Old Yale MR. MACREADY

Ralph Henchman, father of
Jonathan Henchman and a
rather wild young chap MR. JUNIUS BOOTH

Jack Wyman, M.D., a doctor
who has more “patience”
than “patients” MR. EDMUND KEENE

Professor Hawksworth, an
irascible old fellow who specializes
in bird troubles MR. HORNBLOW

Professor Hawksworth, an
irascible old fellow who specializes
in bird troubles MR. JUNIUS BOOTH

Meeker, a party who lives by
his wits and not much of
that. MR. JONATHAN EDWARDS

Eugenia, daughter of Jonathan
Henchman MRS. SIDDONS

Mlle. de Bon-Ton, a young
lady who is not above drinking
a little champagne now
and then. MISS CUSHMAN

Eliza, maid at the Nortons. BY HERSELF

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark MR. WILLIAM A. BRADY
]

In _The Queen’s Quandary, or What’s Open Can’t Be Shut_, Hersh had to play the part of _Rodney Ransome_, the father of several people. In the second act there was a scene in which _Rodney_ had to say to _Marian_:

“But I thought you said the Duke _had_ no moustache!”

To which _Marian_ was supposed to reply: “I never was more serious in all my life.”

On the night of the opening performance Hersh was, as usual, very nervous. He got through the first act all right, with the aid of several promptings from his mother who was sitting in the balcony. But when the second act came along, it was evident to the other members of the company that Hersh could not be relied upon. This feeling was strengthened by the fact that he was nowhere to be found. They searched high and low for him but, like the sword of Damocles, he had disappeared. At the curtain to the second act, however, he was discovered sitting out front in D-113 applauding loudly and calling out: “Hersh! We-want-Hersh!” The only way they could get him back on the stage was a ruse which was not without its pathetic side. The manager of the house stepped out in front of the curtain and asked if any member of the audience would volunteer to come upon the stage and be hypnotized. Hersh, who had always wanted to go on the stage, was one of the first to push his way up. Once behind the footlights again his nervousness left him and he went on with his part where he had left off. It did not fit in with the rest of the play, but they were all so glad to have him back in the cast again that they said nothing about it to him, and whenever, in later years, he himself mentioned the affair, it was always as “that time in Philadelphia when I was so nervous.”... And that little girl was Charlotte Cushman.

It was at this time that Stopford’s _A New Way With Old Husbands, or The Mysterious Drummer-Boy_, was given its first performance at the old Garrick Theater in New York. The old Garrick Theater was torn down in 1878 to make way for the new Garrick Theater, which, in its turn, was torn down in 1880 to make way for the old Garrick again. It is the old, or new, Garrick which now stands at Broadway and Tenth Street on the spot known to passers-by as “Wanamaker’s.” Thus is the silver cord loosed and the pitcher broken at the well.

_A New Way With Old Husbands, or The Mysterious Drummer-Boy_ was written for Ada Rehan, but she was in Fall River at the time; so the part was given to a young woman who had come to the theater that morning asking if a Mr. Wasserman lived there. On being told that it was not a private dwelling and that there was no one there named Wasserman, she had said:

“Well, then, does anyone here want to subscribe to the _Saturday Evening Post_?”

Those members of the cast who had gathered on the bare stage for rehearsal were so impressed by the young woman’s courage that a purse was taken up for her children in case she had any and, in case she had no children, for her next of kin.

“I do not want money,” she said, taking it. “All I want is a chance to prove my ability on the stage.”

“Can you make the sound of crashing glass?” asked Arthur Reese, the stage manager.

“I think so,” replied the young woman without looking up.

Reese looked at Meany, the assistant stage manager. “She is the one we want,” he said quietly.

So the young woman was engaged.... Some thirty years later the Empire Theater in New York was aglow with lights on the occasion of the opening of _Call the Doctor_. Gay ladies, bejeweled and bejabbered, were running back and forth in the lobby, holding court, while tall, dark gentlemen in evening dress danced attendance. Those who couldn’t dance sat it out. It was the metropolitan season at its height.

Suddenly a man burst excitedly through the crowd and made his way to the box-office.

“This seat is ridiculous,” he exclaimed to the Treasurer of the theater (Roger M. Wakle, at the time). “I can’t even see the stage from it.”

“That is not so strange as it may seem to you at first,” replied Wakle, “for the curtain is not up yet.”

A hush fell over the crowded lobby. This was followed somewhat later by a buzz of excitement. This, in turn, was followed by a detail of mounted police. Men looked at women and at each other.... For that young man was Charlotte Cushman.

It was about this time, as I remember it (or maybe later) that the old Augustin Daly Stock Company was at the top of its popularity and everyone was excited over the forthcoming production of _Up and Away_. It had been in rehearsal for several weeks when Tom Nevers asked Daly how much longer they were going to rehearse.

“Oh, about another week,” replied Daly, with that old hat which later made him famous.

You can imagine Nevers’ feelings!

A glance at the cast assembled for this production might be of interest in the light of subsequent events (the completion of the vehicular tunnel and the Centennial Exposition). So anyway it is in the middle of page 57 to look at if you want to.

As it turned out, _Up and Away_ was never produced, as it was found to be too much trouble. But the old Augustin Daly Stock Company will not soon be forgotten.

My memories of St. Louis are of the pleasantest. We played there in Dante’s _Really Mrs. Warrington_--and _Twelfth Night_. The _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_, on the morning following our opening, said:

“It is quite probable that before the end of the year we shall see the beginning of the end of the work on the McNaffen Dam. The project has been under construction now for three years and while there can be no suspicion thrown on the awarding of the contracts, nevertheless we must say that the work has progressed but slowly.”

It was while we were playing in St. Louis that the news came of the capture of J. Wilkes Booth. A performance of _Richelieu_ was in progress, in which I was playing _Rafferty_, and Fanny Davenport the _Queen_. In the second act there is a scene in which _Rafferty_ says to _La Pouce_:

“_I can not, tho’ my tongue were free,
Repeat the message that my liege inspires,
And tho’ you ask it, were it mine,
And hope you’ll be my Valentine._”

Following this speech, _Rafferty_ falls down and opens up a bad gash in his forehead.

We had come to this scene on the night I mention, when I noticed that the audience was tittering. I could not imagine what the matter was, and naturally thought of all kinds of things--sheep jumping over a fence--anything. But strange as it may seem, the tittering continued, and I have never found out, from that day to this what amused them so.... This was in 1878.

And now we come to the final curtain. For, after all, I sometimes think that Life is like a stage itself. The curtain rises on our little scene; we have our exits and our entrances, and each man in his time plays many parts. I must work this simile up sometime.

Life and the Theater. Who knows? _Selah._

WHAT COLLEGE DID TO ME

_An Outline of Education_

My college education was no haphazard affair. My courses were all selected with a very definite aim in view, with a serious purpose in mind--no classes before eleven in the morning or after two-thirty in the afternoon, and nothing on Saturday at all. That was my slogan. On that rock was my education built.

As what is known as the Classical Course involved practically no afternoon laboratory work, whereas in the Scientific Course a man’s time was never his own until four p. m. anyway, I went in for the classic. But only such classics as allowed for a good sleep in the morning. A man has his health to think of. There is such a thing as being a studying fool.

In my days (I was a classmate of the founder of the college) a student could elect to take any courses in the catalogue, provided no two of his choices came at the same hour. The only things he was not supposed to mix were Scotch and gin. This was known as the Elective System. Now I understand that the boys have to have, during the four years, at least three courses beginning with the same letter. This probably makes it very awkward for those who like to get away of a Friday afternoon for the week-end.

Under the Elective System my schedule was somewhat as follows:

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11:00:

Botany 2a (The History of Flowers and Their Meaning)

Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:00:

English 26 (The Social Life of the Minor Sixteenth Century Poets)

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 12:00:

Music 9 (History and Appreciation of the Clavichord)

Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12:00:

German 12b (Early Minnesingers--Walter von Vogelweider, Ulric
Glannsdorf and Freimann von Stremhofen. Their Songs and Times)

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 1:30:

Fine Arts 6 (Doric Columns: Their Uses, History and Various Heights)

Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1:30:

French 1c (Exceptions to the verb _être_)

This was, of course, just one year’s work. The next year I followed these courses up with supplementary courses in the history of lace-making, Russian taxation systems before Catharine the Great, North American glacial deposits and Early Renaissance etchers.

This gave me a general idea of the progress of civilization and a certain practical knowledge which has stood me in good stead in thousands of ways since my graduation.

My system of studying was no less strict. In lecture courses I had my notebooks so arranged that one-half of the page could be devoted to drawings of five-pointed stars (exquisitely shaded), girls’ heads, and tick-tack-toe. Some of the drawings in my economics notebook in the course on Early English Trade Winds were the finest things I have ever done. One of them was a whole tree (an oak) with every leaf in perfect detail. Several instructors commented on my work in this field.

These notes I would take home after the lecture, together with whatever supplementary reading the course called for. Notes and textbooks would then be placed on a table under a strong lamplight. Next came the sharpening of pencils, which would take perhaps fifteen minutes. I had some of the best sharpened pencils in college. These I placed on the table beside the notes and books.

At this point it was necessary to light a pipe, which involved going to the table where the tobacco was. As it so happened, on the same table was a poker hand, all dealt, lying in front of a vacant chair. Four other chairs were oddly enough occupied by students, also preparing to study. It therefore resolved itself into something of a seminar, or group conference, on the courses under discussion. For example, the first student would say:

“I can’t open.”

The second student would perhaps say the same thing.

The third student would say: “I’ll open for fifty cents.”

And the seminar would be on.

At the end of the seminar, I would go back to my desk, pile the notes and books on top of each other, put the light out, and go to bed, tired but happy in the realization that I had not only spent the evening busily but had helped put four of my friends through college.

An inventory of stock acquired at college discloses the following bits of culture and erudition which have nestled in my mind after all these years.

THINGS I LEARNED FRESHMAN YEAR

1. Charlemagne either died or was born or did something with the Holy
Roman Empire in 800.

2. By placing one paper bag inside another paper bag you can carry
home a milk shake in it.

3. There is a double l in the middle of “parallel.”

4. Powder rubbed on the chin will take the place of a shave if the
room isn’t very light.

5. French nouns ending in “aison” are feminine.

6. Almost everything you need to know about a subject is in the
encyclopedia.

7. A tasty sandwich can be made by spreading peanut butter on raisin
bread.

8. A floating body displaces its own weight in the liquid in which it
floats.

9. A sock with a hole in the toe can be worn inside out with
comparative comfort.

10. The chances are against filling an inside straight.

11. There is a law in economics called _The Law of Diminishing
Returns_, which means that after a certain margin is reached returns
begin to diminish. This may not be correctly stated, but there _is_ a
law by that name.

12. You begin tuning a mandolin with A and tune the other strings
from that.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

1. A good imitation of measles rash can be effected by stabbing the
forearm with a stiff whiskbroom.

2. Queen Elizabeth was not above suspicion.

3. In Spanish you pronounce z like th.

4. Nine-tenths of the girls in a girls’ college are not pretty.

5. You can sleep undetected in a lecture course by resting the head
on the hand as if shading the eyes.

6. Weakness in drawing technique can be hidden by using a wash
instead of black and white line.

7. Quite a respectable bun can be acquired by smoking three or four
pipefuls of strong tobacco when you have no food in your stomach.

8. The ancient Phœnicians were really Jews, and got as far north as
England where they operated tin mines.

9. You can get dressed much quicker in the morning if the night
before when you are going to bed you take off your trousers and
underdrawers at once, leaving the latter inside the former.

JUNIOR YEAR

1. Emerson left his pastorate because he had some argument about
communion.

2. All women are untrustworthy.

3. Pushing your arms back as far as they will go fifty times each day
increases your chest measurement.

4. Marcus Aurelius had a son who turned out to be a bad boy.

5. Eight hours of sleep are not necessary.

6. Heraclitus believed that fire was the basis of all life.

7. A good way to keep your trousers pressed is to hang them from the
bureau drawer.

8. The chances are that you will never fill an inside straight.

9. The Republicans believe in a centralized government, the Democrats
in a de-centralized one.

10. It is not necessarily effeminate to drink tea.

SENIOR YEAR

1. A dinner coat looks better than full dress.

2. There is as yet no law determining what constitutes trespass in an
airplane.

3. Six hours of sleep are not necessary.

4. Bicarbonate of soda taken before retiring makes you feel better
the next day.

5. You needn’t be fully dressed if you wear a cap and gown to a
nine-o’clock recitation.

6. Theater tickets may be charged.

7. Flowers may be charged.

8. May is the shortest month in the year.

The foregoing outline of my education is true enough in its way, and is what people like to think about a college course. It has become quite the cynical thing to admit laughingly that college did one no good. It is part of the American Credo that all that the college student learns is to catch punts and dance. I had to write something like that to satisfy the editors. As a matter of fact, I learned a great deal in college and have those four years to thank for whatever I know today.

* * * * *

(The above note was written to satisfy those of my instructors and financial backers who may read this. As a matter of fact, the original outline is true, and I had to look up the date about Charlemagne at that.)

AN INTERVIEW WITH THEODORE DREISER

I found the author of “An American Tragedy” reading a large volume of law reports.

“Working on a new book?” I asked.

“It’s a new book to me,” replied Dreiser. “I don’t know about you.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” I retorted. “A little dizzy when I stand up--but then, one doesn’t have to stand up much, does one?”

“Does two, does three, does four,” sallied the author, up to one hundred.

I could see that we were treading on dangerous ground and, fearful lest the interview be ruined, I continued, wetting my thumb:

“Do you get around to the night clubs much?”

“Much more than what?” asked Mr. Dreiser.

“I didn’t say ‘much more than’ anything. I just said ‘much.’”

“Well, you took a very funny way of saying it,” said the pioneer. And added, “I _must_ say.”

Things had reached an _impasse_. The storm which had been gathering for centuries between Church and State was about to break, and with it the temporal power of Rome.

“Let’s get out of here!” I said, taking Dreiser by the arm. “I don’t like the looks of things.”

“Someone was saying that very thing to me only yesterday,” said the author of “The Genius.” “Now who was it?”

“George Erlich?” I suggested.

“No,” said Dreiser.

“Roger Hatney?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Federber?”

“No, no! For God’s sake, man, try and _think_!”

“Wentworth Whamer?”

“No.”

“Ernst Timmerley?”

“That’s who it was! Ernst Timmerley! How stupid of me not to remember. Ernst Timmerley, that’s who it was.”

“I thought of suggesting him at first,” I said, “but it slipped my mind.”

“You can’t tell me that was just a coincidence,” said the author of “Sister Carrie.”

“Oh, I can’t, can’t I?” I retorted, not a little piqued. “Well, _it was just a coincidence_.”

Dreiser looked at me half quizzically.

“You win,” he said simply.

Outside the snow was blowing down the street like an army of fireflies, but inside, by the fire, it was warm.

FASCINATING CRIMES

_II. The Wallack Disappearances_

Shortly after the Civil War the residents of Wallack, Connecticut, were awakened by the barking of a dog belonging to James Lenn, a visiting farmer. The dog was an old one, so they thought nothing of it, and went back to sleep again.

Later it was discovered that James Lenn was missing, and that the dog also had disappeared, but in the opposite direction. A search of the countryside was instituted which resulted in the finding of twenty-five empty tins, several old brooms, enough newspapers to make a fair-sized bale, and one old buggy top. None of these seemed to have any value as clews in the mysterious disappearance of James Lenn. Some importance was attached to the discovery of the buggy-top until it was found that the missing farmer was not hiding under it.

The police, however, were not satisfied. There had been several violations of the State Fishing and Gaming ordinances in and around Wallack and public censure of the police was at its height. Chief of Police Walter M. Turbot determined to carry this case through to a finish. Thus it was that the search for Farmer James Lenn was begun afresh, a search which was destined to end in Innsbruck, Austria.

In the little town of Innsbruck there had been living an old garbler named Leon Nabgratz, a sort of town character, if such a thing were possible. Nabgratz had never been to America, but his young nephew, Gurling Nabgratz, son of Leon’s brother Meff, was born in that country and had lived there all his life. Late in December, 1867, he had moved to Wallack, Connecticut, where he was sold as a slave to one James Lenn.

--_Courtesy of John Held, Jr., and Life._
]

One day, while reading the newspaper, Gurling Nabgratz came across an item indicating that slavery had been abolished four years previously and figured out that he was just a sap to be working for James Lenn for nothing. He mentioned the matter to his master, but Lenn maintained that it was only the Negro slaves who had been freed, and that Lincoln was no longer President anyway.

Nabgratz went away grumbling but did his chores that day as usual. He was seen late in the evening of April 17 in the poolroom of the village, where he is said to have made _sotto-voce_ remarks and sung several slave songs of the ante-bellum South with such inflammatory refrains as “We’se all gwine ter be free!”

That night Gurling Nabgratz disappeared and was never seen again in Wallack.

This having preceded the disappearance of James Lenn by about two years, nothing was thought of it at the time. During the search for Lenn, however, the incident was recalled, and a search for Nabgratz was instituted. This made two searches going on at once in the little town of Wallack, and resulted in considerable hard feeling between the rival searching-parties. The town was divided into two camps, the “Find Lenn” faction and the “Find Nabgratz” faction, and on at least one occasion shots were exchanged.

In the meantime, in Innsbruck, Austria, Leon Nabgratz, the old garbler, was quietly pursuing his way, quite unconscious of the stir that he was causing four thousand miles away. His brother Meff had written him about Gurling’s disappearance, but, as the old man never bothered to read his brother’s letters, he was just as much in the dark as he had been before. More so, in fact, because he was older.

His surprise can well be imagined, therefore, when one day in the spring of 1869 the police entered his house in the Schmalzgasse and began a search for James Lenn of Wallack, Connecticut, U. S. A. In vain Nabgratz protested that he had never heard the name of Lenn and that, even if he had, it was not interesting to him. The arm of the law reaching across the Atlantic was inexorable. Leon Nabgratz’s house was searched and in it was found an old trunk of suspiciously large proportions. In spite of the fact that this trunk was labeled “_Weihnachtsgeschenke_” (“Christmas presents”) it was opened, and in it were found James Lenn _and_ Gurling Nabgratz, together with a copy of the New York _Times_ of October 12, 1868.

The mysterious Wallack disappearances were thus explained, and Leon Nabgratz was arrested for having in his possession a trunk with a misleading label on it.

Art is long and time is fleeting.

LOUIS DOT DOPE

On his recent return from France, Mr. Robert Benchley gave the following statement to reporters who met him at Quarantine with bail.

“Things in France are in a deplorable condition,” said Mr. Benchley. “If Louis XVI keeps on as he has been going for the past few years, I predict a revolution. I can give you no idea of the licentiousness and waste of the French Court at Versailles or of the pitiable state of the common people in Paris. Yes, I can too give you _some_ idea, and, what is more, I _will_.

“This Louis XVI is nothing but a wastrel. He drinks a great deal, too. And he has gathered about him at Versailles (where he lives) a group of sycophants who are just as bad as he is, according to all reports. I am not one to retail gossip, but I could tell you some of the things that go on out there at Versailles that would make your hair stand on end. And, in the meantime, the people in Paris are actually starving. You can’t get an oyster stew in Paris for love or money, and I have seen the _canaille_ (as the log-rolling wits of the Court call the citizenry) standing in line for hours for something, I couldn’t quite make out what.

“One little incident that I heard of from a pretty good source (Carlyle: page 375) may serve to illustrate the way the wind is blowing. It seems that Louis (as his toadiers call him) was out driving through Paris with his--pardon me--mistress (I mention no names) when the people began crying out for bread. The ‘lady’ in question, who can read French and speak it but who has difficulty in understanding it when it is spoken fast, asked what it was that they were yelling. Louis told her that they said they had no more bread. ‘Let them eat cake then,’ said this certain party. ‘And how about us taking a look in at Cartier’s window?’

“I don’t know how true this is, but I got it from someone on the inside and it shows pretty well the attitude of the nobles towards the common people.

“But there is an undercurrent of discontent which I predict will make itself felt before many months. I happened to go to lunch with a couple of chaps whose names, for obvious reasons, I promised not to mention in this connection, and there was a great deal of talk about how easy it would be to burn down the Bastille (the government jail over there). ‘A couple of good pushes and the Bastille would fall,’ said one of them jokingly. But behind all their joking there was a note of seriousness, and I would recommend that you send a good man over to Paris pretty soon to cover the story, for when it breaks it is going to be a hot one. This is just a tip.

“But, as I was saying, it is out there at Versailles that the big doings go on. I took a trip out there with a letter from Whitney Warren, but they were all out at Chantilly at the races that day and I didn’t see anyone but the Head Guide. He said that if I wanted to come back Sunday the fountains would be playing, but unfortunately I had to sail on Saturday. I did get some inside dope on the situation out there, however, and let me tell you that what goes on out there on a good night is nobody’s business. All these people, it seems, live right out there in the palace together and carry on some pretty rough stuff, I gather. Drinking, gambling, necking, _everything_. A lot of the married men are out there without their wives, and _vice versa_. Some nights the parties don’t break up until two and three o’clock. No wonder the taxpayers in Paris are sore. You can mark my words, there will be a reaction.

“I myself didn’t have time to get around much. I was over on business and I like to keep my head clear when I have business to attend to. Summer is when I have my fun. I did go to the theater a couple of times, but everything was in French. And then, too, the coffee is so bad there. The trip back was pretty rough. One day the waves were mountain-high. It certainly seems good to be back in the U. S. A. again.”

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CHRISTMAS CARD

Twenty-five years ago (December 21, 1685, to be exact) a man named Ferderber awoke after a week’s business trip and realized that he hadn’t bought any Christmas presents for his relatives and friends. Furthermore, all he had left from the business trip was eighty cents, two theater-ticket stubs, and a right shoe.

So he cut up some cardboard to fit envelopes and on each card wrote some little thought for the season. Being still a trifle groggy, he thought that it would be nice to make them rhyme although, as he expressed it, with a modest smile, “I am no poet.”

The one to his aunt read as follows:

“_Just a little thought of cheer,
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year._”

He liked this one so well that he just copied it on all the others. Then he got excited about the thing and drew a sprig of holly on each card. He mailed them on Christmas Eve and discovered that he still had twenty-eight cents left.

This man Ferderber is now wanted in thirty-two states on the same charge: Starting the Christmas Card Menace. His idea immediately took hold of the public imagination and the next Christmas all his friends and relatives sent cards to their friends and relatives, for, taking the old lie that “it isn’t so much the gift as the spirit i.w.i.i.g.” at its face value, they felt that people would be much better pleased with a friendly greeting than with a nasty old gift. And, for a while, the custom really was quite a relief.

Then the thing began to get out of hand. Big Christmas card manufacturing concerns sprang up all over the country and factory sites adjacent to freight sidings were at a premium. Millions and millions of cards were printed and millions and millions of people began sending them to each other. Along about December 15, the blight began and, like locusts, the envelopes started drifting in from the mail. Seventy-five thousand extra mail carriers were drafted into service and finally the Government was forced to commandeer all males under 25 who did not have flat feet. Even at that, all the Christmas cards couldn’t be delivered until the first of the year, and by that time the flood of New Year’s cards had begun, for everyone who received Christmas cards from people to whom they had sent none rushed out and bought New Year’s cards to send them the next week just as if that was what they had intended to do all along.

It became impossible to read all these cards, and finally even to open them. Great stacks of unopened envelopes covered desks and hall tables throughout the country. Some of the wealthier citizens had chutes built on the outside of their houses into which the post men dumped the cards and by means of which they were conveyed direct to the furnace. The poorer people, unable to convert their mail matter into fuel in this manner, unable sometimes to clear away a path from their front door to the street, often starved to death before their provisions could be got to them. The winter of 1927 was known as the Winter of the Red Death, for all over the country families were snowed in with envelopes and perished before help could be brought to them. In some towns fires were accidentally started with results too horrible to relate.

UNEARTH VALUABLE SCIENTIFIC DATA

Excavators who have recently been at work in the Middle West digging through mounds of petrified envelopes have furnished valuable data on the nature of these _objets d’art_. The most popular design seems to have been that involving a fireplace with stockings hanging from it, with the slogan, evidently satirical, “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” Candles were also highly considered as decoration; candles and bells. When human figures were introduced, they were of the most unpleasant types: short, fat, bearded men dressed in red, offensively gay little children in pajamas carrying lighted candles, stagecoaches filled with steaming travelers, sleigh rides and coasting parties, and street musicians annoying householders with Christmas carols. The text was usually in Old English type, so that fortunately it was difficult, if not impossible, to read.

Evidently the tide began to turn when some one, perhaps a descendant of the very Ferderber who had brought all this distress on the land, thought of the idea of venting his personal spleen in his Christmas cards. He thought that, since no one read them anyway, he might as well say what he really felt, so long as he said it in Old English type. It would be a satisfaction to him, anyway. So near the top of these mounds of Early Twentieth Century cards we find some on this order:

A picture of a holly wreath with a large hammer stuck through it and the following legend:

“_Just to Wish You the Measles.
Christmas 1931._”

Another showed a little cottage on the brow of a snow-covered hill with the sun setting behind it. On the cottage was a sign: “For Sale.” The sentiment underneath was:

“_Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men;
Heh! Heh!_”

A New Year’s card, with “Greetings” embossed at the top, read:

“_If I don’t see you in 1933
1934 will be soon enough for me._”

As soon as this fad caught on, the pendulum swung the other way. The sentiments, beginning with the mildly abusive, gradually became actually vicious.

We find one, dated 1938, which says:

“_This Christmas Eve I want you to know,
That if you don’t leave $50,000 in Box 115 before
New Year’s, I’ll sell your letters, you crook, you._”

Another, in a wreath of mistletoe, bore the following explicit legend:

“_Watch Your Wife._”

It was naturally but a step from these to downright obscene vituperation, and at this point, the reform societies stepped in. A campaign was carried on throughout the country, which, unlike other reform campaigns, had the backing of a majority of the public. It was but the work of a year or so to induce the necessary two-thirds of the state legislatures to consent to an amendment to the constitution forbidding the manufacture and sale of Christmas cards. Naturally this was followed by a period of widespread bootlegging, but it was half-heartedly supported and soon collapsed.

All of which is merely a historical summary of what has been done in the past, preliminary to launching a campaign against the sale and manufacture of all Christmas presents, with the exception of toys. What our fathers did, we can do.

THE HENNA DECADE

_What May Happen to Our Age When Thomas Beer Catches Up to It_

1

They put William Anderson in jail and Suzanne Lenglen tottered into the club-house with a heart-attack.

There was a pistol shot in 1922 and across silver screens from Hollywood to Lynn, Massachusetts, a resentful wraith barred attachable curls snuggling on movie lapels. “William D. Taylor has been killed,” a young detective announced to his lavender mother at their California supper. And his mother smiled, for she was to hear Marion Talley before nervous wreckers dragged to earth the old Metropolitan, like avid vultures of architectural progress.

On the same border of the Pacific a blue-eyed foreman said, “Not guilty,” and Roscoe Arbuckle walked out into obese freedom, cleansed with hyssop by two words from a drowsy jurist on a stool by his predecessor’s desk.

2

A little boy, stooping on Central Park West, pressed cracked knuckles into creole mud and snapped roseate marbles in what passed for straight lines, while across the country in Dayton men slid against turbid waters and the National Cash Register served corporate coffee to clammy survivors. The little boy’s knuckle-pressing ceased, like young leaves which refuse to burn. His father raised brown glove to lift soft fedora. “Put away your marbles,” he said to the little boy, “Warren Harding has been nominated.”

3

Through easy October the short French statesman in silk gloves forgot the late war in onion soup for breakfast. A very large peanut crackled in the Southern fist of Irvin Cobb and his bearded companion hailed a brown-and-white taxi. Together they swept the folio-studded Brentano’s, discussing Twenty-third Street. The clerk smiled. His father had been mayor of Seattle. Would Twenty-third Street ever reach to Seattle? But Cobb had lost the large peanut and his bearded companion had lost his garter, and they left Brentano’s to stand in dual proximity watching the slightly paralytic progress of a Number 8 Fifth Avenue bus. In the distance, the verdant blob of Thorley’s hung like a mossy acorn--green sin on a purple republic.

4

Milt Gross stood talking with Ring Lardner and another on the steps of the American Indian Museum. He had under his arm a bulbous bundle and this dropped incontinently to the granite pedestal as he shrugged his shoulders. “A peckage skelps,” he said. “Heendian skelps, witt blad.” Lardner raised a thermal eyebrow. “What of it?” he asked, and in Chicago two young Jewish psychopathics drew up to the curb in a Dodge looking for someone to give a ride to. That night the Alabama delegation in the steaming reaches of Madison Square Garden threw twenty-five dogged votes for Oscar Underwood.

5

Standing, occasionally sitting, Lutitia lay in the window seat of the Colony Club.... A blonde reticence sat beside her. In the right hand of the blonde reticence swirled a cup of tea. In her left, a copy of November’s _American Mercury_. From its greenish covers H. L. Mencken spoke impatiently of the native _Americanus_, while George Nathan dug sadistic pins into American colleagues. Herbert Parrish disparaged the American God and words of bile were Leland H. Jenks’s dole for the American Constitution and its interpreters. Fiction jetted from between these cynical rocks with gloomy disclosures of American small-town unpleasantries. Yes, Lutitia, or rather....

So while Irving Berlin, a wispy figure fingering the black notes on a piano in West 46th Street, sang “Not for just a year, but always,” the tugboat, crazily bearing Mayor Hylan’s Welcoming Committee, pugged to greet, with beaver boisterousness, the New Year, a rough beard swinging low over rhinestone studs.

A PLAN TO STABILIZE THE FRANC

To the Members of the Paris Bourse (of whom it has been said, “Bourse Will Be Bourse”), Monsieur Poincare, and Fellow Guests:

I have been asked by a deputation from your delightful country to present a plan for stabilizing the franc. I feel in this connection like the three men who found themselves in a row-boat in the middle of the ocean. One was a Frenchman, one an Irishman, and one a Scotchman.

But, seriously, the problem of the franc is a vital one. And I know of no better way to handle it than the way in which we, in my household, have handled the problem of the American dollar, an even more vital problem to us, as you may well imagine. There are, at this writing, approximately twenty-five francs to each American dollar. There are also, to each American dollar, thirty-one hungry mouths. Three times six is eighteen and one to carry, six times seven is forty-two and one is forty-three and four to carry, giving a result of four hundred and sixty-one.... No, that can’t be right.... Well, anyway, the life of one American dollar has been estimated at one-third that of a sugar lozenge under a faucet. This estimate gives the dollar the breaks.

Now, it was only through the most rigid household economy that we were able to stabilize the dollar in our family. Several of the older and more infirm members of the family died from under-nourishment and exposure, being unable to fight for the food or bed-clothing. But that is the Law of the Tribe, that the weaker shall give way to the stronger and those with protective coloring survive the assaults of the predatory land animals and the constant action of the tides. “Easy come, easy go,” is what the old folks must remember.

Our first move toward putting our household on a gold basis was to make out a budget, and that is what you dear people of France must do, too. It is much simpler for a nation to go on a budget than for a private family, because a nation never uses real money anyway. A nation says, “Here are twenty million francs,” or “Give me a hundred million dollars’ worth of chips,” and, if you push right up close to the counter and ask to _see_ it, what do you find? A couple of theater-ticket stubs, a right-hand glove, and a piece of paper saying, “I.O.U. $100,000,000.... A. Mellon.” There probably isn’t $125 in actual cash in the whole United States Treasury at this very minute. And $45 of that belongs by rights to me, on account of the Government having disallowed my deduction for hotel expenses in my 1925 income tax. I’ll get that back yet, you wait and see. The big bullies!