his
private office to present it. I had been selected for spokesman,
and I made a little speech that I had been preparing for
a week.
It made a hit. It was full of puns and epigrams and funny
twists that brought down the house--which was a very solid
one in the wholesale hardware line. Old Marlowe himself
actually grinned, and the employees took their cue and roared.
My
reputation as a humorist dates from half-past nine o'clock
on that morning. For weeks afterward my fellow clerks fanned
the flame of my self-esteem. One by one they came to me,
saying what an awfully clever speech that was, old man,
and carefully explained to me the point of each one of my
jokes.
Gradually
I found that I was expected to keep it up. Others might
speak sanely on business matters and the day's topics, but
from me something gamesome and airy was required.
I
was expected to crack jokes about the crockery and lighten
up the granite ware with persiflage. I was second bookkeeper,
and if I failed to show up a balance sheet without something
comic about the footings or could find no cause for laughter
in an invoice of plows, the other clerks were disappointed.
By degrees my fame spread, and I became a local "character."
Our town was small enough to make this possible. The daily
newspaper quoted me. At social gatherings I was indispensable.
I
believe I did possess considerable wit and a facility for
quick and spontaneous repartee. This gift I cultivated and
improved by practice. And the nature of it was kindly and
genial, not running to sarcasm or offending others. People
began to smile when they saw me coming, and by the time
we had met I generally had the word ready to broaden the
smile into a laugh.
I
had married early. We had a charming boy of three and a
girl of five. Naturally, we lived in a vine-covered cottage,
and were happy. My salary as bookkeeper in the hardware
concern kept at a distance those ills attendant upon superfluous
wealth.
At
sundry times I had written out a few jokes and conceits
that I considered peculiarly happy, and had sent them to
certain periodicals that print such things. All of them
had been instantly accepted. Several of the editors had
written to request further contributions.
One
day I received a letter from the editor of a famous weekly
publication. He suggested that I submit to him a humorous
composition to fill a column of space; hinting that he would
make it a regular feature of each issue if the work proved
satisfactory. I did so, and at the end of two weeks he offered
to make a contract with me for a year at a figure that was
considerably higher than the amount paid me by the hardware
firm.
I
was filled with delight. My wife already crowned me in her
mind with the imperishable evergreens of literary success.
We had lobster croquettes and a bottle of blackberry wine
for supper that night. Here was the chance to liberate myself
from drudgery. I talked over the matter very seriously with
Louisa. We agreed that I must resign my place at the store
and devote myself to humor.
I
resigned. My fellow clerks gave me a farewell banquet. The
speech I made there coruscated. It was printed in full by
the Gazette. The next morning I awoke and looked at the
clock.
"Late,
by George!" I exclaimed, and grabbed for my clothes. Louisa
reminded me that I was no longer a slave to hardware and
contractors' supplies. I was now a professional humorist.
After
breakfast she proudly led me to the little room off the
kitchen. Dear girl! There was my table and chair, writing
pad, ink, and pipe tray. And all the author's trappings--the
celery stand full of fresh roses and honeysuckle, last year's
calendar on the wall, the dictionary, and a little bag of
chocolates to nibble between inspirations. Dear girl!
I
sat me to work. The wall paper is patterned with arabesques
or odalisks or--perhaps--it is trapezoids. Upon one of the
figures I fixed my eyes. I bethought me of humor.
A
voice startled me--Louisa's voice.
"If
you aren't too busy, dear," it said, "come to dinner."
I
looked at my watch. Yes, five hours had been gathered in
by the grim scytheman. I went to dinner.
"You
mustn't work too hard at first," said Louisa. "Goethe--or
was it Napoleon?--said five hours a day is enough for mental
labor. Couldn't you take me and the children to the woods
this afternoon?"
"I
am a little tired," I admitted. So we went to the woods.
But
I soon got the swing of it. Within a month I was turning
out copy as regular as shipments of hardware.
And
I had success. My column in the weekly made some stir, and
I was referred to in a gossipy way by the critics as something
fresh in the line of humorists. I augmented my income considerably
by contributing to other publications.
I
picked up the tricks of the trade. I could take a funny
idea and make a two-line joke of it, earning a dollar. With
false whiskers on, it would serve up cold as a quatrain,
doubling its producing value. By turning the skirt and adding
a ruffle of rhyme you would hardly recognize it as vers
de societe with neatly shod feet and a fashion-plate illustration.
I
began to save up money, and we had new carpets, and a parlor
organ. My townspeople began to look upon me as a citizen
of some consequence instead of the merry trifier I had been
when I clerked in the hardware store.
After
five or six months the spontaniety seemed to depart from
my humor. Quips and droll sayings no longer fell carelessly
from my lips. I was sometimes hard run for material. I found
myself listening to catch available ideas from the conversation
of my friends. Sometimes I chewed my pencil and gazed at
the wall paper for hours trying to build up some gay little
bubble of unstudied fun.
And
then I became a harpy, a Moloch, a Jonah, a vampire, to
my acquaintances. Anxious, haggard, greedy, I stood among
them like a veritable killjoy. Let a bright saying, a witty
comparison, a piquant phrase fall from their lips and I
was after it like a hound springing upon a bone. I dared
not trust my memory; but, turning aside guiltily and meanly,
I would make a note of it in my ever-present memorandum
book or upon my cuff for my own future use.
My
friends regarded me in sorrow and wonder. I was not the
same man. Where once I had furnished them entertainment
and jollity, I now preyed upon them. No jests from me ever
bid for their smiles now. They were too precious. I could
not afford to dispense gratuitously the means of my livelihood.
I
was a lugubrious fox praising the singing of my friends,
the crow's, that they might drop from their beaks the morsels
of wit that I coveted.
Nearly
every one began to avoid me. I even forgot how to smile,
not even paying that much for the sayings I appropriated.
No
persons, places, times, or subjects were exempt from my
plundering in search of material. Even in church my demoralized
fancy went hunting among the solemn aisles and pillars for
spoil.
Did
the minister give out the long-meter doxology, at once I
began: "Doxology --sockdology--sockdolager--meter--meet
her."
The
sermon ran through my mental sieve, its precepts filtering
unheeded, could I but glean a suggestion of a pun or a bon
mot. The solemnest anthems of the choir were but an accompaniment
to my thoughts as I conceived new changes to ring upon the
ancient comicalities concerning the jealousies of soprano,
tenor, and basso.
My
own home became a hunting ground. My wife is a singularly
feminine creature, candid, sympathetic, and impulsive. Once
her conversation was my delight, and her ideas a source
of unfailing pleasure. Now I worked her. She was a gold
mine of those amusing but lovable inconsistencies that distinguish
the female mind.
I
began to market those pearls of unwisdom and humor that
should have enriched only the sacred precincts of home.
With devilish cunning I encouraged her to talk. Unsuspecting,
she laid her heart bare. Upon the cold, conspicuous, common,
printed page I offered it to the public gaze.
A
literary Judas, I kissed her and betrayed her. For pieces
of silver I dressed her sweet confidences in the pantalettes
and frills of folly and made them dance in the market place.
Dear
Louisa! Of nights I have bent over her cruel as a wolf above
a tender lamb, hearkening even to her soft words murmured
in sleep, hoping to catch an idea for my next day's grind.
There is worse to come.
God
help me! Next my fangs were buried deep in the neck of the
fugitive sayings of my little children.
Guy
and Viola were two bright fountains of childish, quaint
thoughts and speeches. I found a ready sale for this kind
of humor, and was furnishing a regular department in a magazine
with "Funny Fancies of Childhood." I began to stalk them
as an Indian stalks the antelope. I would hide behind sofas
and doors, or crawl on my hands and knees among the bushes
in the yard to eavesdrop while they were at play. I had
all the qualities of a harpy except remorse.
Once,
when I was barren of ideas, and my copy must leave in the
next mail, I covered myself in a pile of autumn leaves in
the yard, where I knew they intended to come to play. I
cannot bring myself to believe that Guy was aware of my
hiding place, but even if he was, I would be loath to blame
him for his setting fire to the leaves, causing the destruction
of my new suit of clothes, and nearly cremating a parent.
Soon
my own children began to shun me as a pest. Often, when
I was creeping upon them like a melancholy ghoul, I would
hear them say to each other: "Here comes papa," and they
would gather their toys and scurry away to some safer hiding
place. Miserable wretch that I was!
And
yet I was doing well financially. Before the first year
had passed I had saved a thousand dollars, and we had lived
in comfort.
But
at what a cost! I am not quite clear as to what a pariah
is, but I was everything that it sounds like. I had no friends,
no amusements, no enjoyment of life. The happiness of my
family had been sacrificed. I was a bee, sucking sordid
honey from life's fairest flowers, dreaded and shunned on
account of my stingo.
One
day a man spoke to me, with a pleasant and friendly smile.
Not in months had the thing happened. I was passing the
undertaking establishment of Peter Heffelbower. Peter stood
in the door and saluted me. I stopped, strangely wrung in
my heart by his greeting. He asked me inside.
The
day was chill and rainy. We went into the back room, where
a fire burned, in a little stove. A customer came, and Peter
left me alone for a while. Presently I felt a new feeling
stealing over me --a sense of beautiful calm and content,
I looked around the place. There were rows of shining rosewood
caskets, black palls, trestles, hearse plumes, mourning
streamers, and all the paraphernalia of the solemn trade.
Here was peace, order, silence, the abode of grave and dignified
reflections. Here, on the brink of life, was a little niche
pervaded by the spirit of eternal rest.
When
I entered it, the follies of the world abandoned me at the
door. I felt no inclination to wrest a humorous idea from
those sombre and stately trappings. My mind seemed to stretch
itself to grateful repose upon a couch draped with gentle
thoughts.
A
quarter of an hour ago I was an abandoned humorist. Now
I was a philosopher, full of serenity and ease. I had found
a refuge from humor, from the hot chase of the shy quip,
from the degrading pursuit of the panting joke, from the
restless reach after the nimble repartee.
I
had not known Heffelbower well. When he came back, I let
him talk, fearful that he might prove to be a jarring note
in the sweet, dirgelike harmony of his establishment.
But,
no. He chimed truly. I gave a long sigh of happiness. Never
have I known a man's talk to be as magnificently dull as
Peter's was. Compared with it the Dead Sea is a geyser.
Never a sparkle or a glimmer of wit marred his words. Commonplaces
as trite and as plentiful as blackberries flowed from his
lips no more stirring in quality than a last week's tape
running from a ticker. Quaking a little, I tried upon him
one of my best pointed jokes. It fell back ineffectual,
with the point broken. I loved that man from then on.
Two
or three evenings each week I would steal down to Heffelbower's
and revel in his back room. That was my only joy. I began
to rise early and hurry through my work, that I might spend
more time in my haven. In no other place could I throw off
my habit of extracting humorous ideas from my surroundings.
Peter's talk left me no opening had I besieged it ever so
hard.
Under
this influence I began to improve in spirits. It was the
recreation from one's labor which every man needs. I surprised
one or two of my former friends by throwing them a smile
and a cheery word as I passed them on the streets. Several
times I dumfounded my family by relaxing long enough to
make a jocose remark in their presence.
I
had so long been ridden by the incubus of humor that I seized
my hours of holiday with a schoolboy's zest.
Mv
work began to suffer. It was not the pain and burden to
me that it had been. I often whistled at my desk, and wrote
with far more fluency than before. I accomplished my tasks
impatiently, as anxious to be off to my helpful retreat
as a drunkard is to get to his tavern.
My
wife had some anxious hours in conjecturing where I spent
my afternoons. I thought it best not to tell her; women
do not understand these things. Poor girl!--she had one
shock out of it.
One
day I brought home a silver coffin handle for a paper weight
and a fine, fluffy hearse plume to dust my papers with.
I
loved to see them on my desk, and think of the beloved back
room down at Heffelbower's. But Louisa found them, and she
shrieked with horror. I had to console her with some lame
excuse for having them, but I saw in her eyes that the prejudice
was not removed. I had to remove the articles, though, at
double-quick time.
One
day Peter Heffelbower laid before me a temptation that swept
me off my feet. In his sensible, uninspired way he showed
me his books, and explained that his profits and his business
were increasing rapidly. He had thought of taking in a partner
with some cash. He would rather have me than any one he
knew. When I left his place that afternoon Peter had my
check for the thousand dollars I had in the bank, and I
was a partner in his undertaking business.
I
went home with feelings of delirious joy, mingled with a
certain amount of doubt. I was dreading to tell my wife
about it. But I walked on air. To give up the writing of
humorous stuff, once more to enjoy the apples of life, instead
of squeezing them to a pulp for a few drops of hard cider
to make the pubic feel funny--what a boon that would be!
At
the supper table Louisa handed me some letters that had
come during my absence. Several of them contained rejected
manuscript. Ever since I first began going to Heffelbower's
my stuff had been coming back with alarming frequency. Lately
I had been dashing off my jokes and articles with the greatest
fluency. Previously I had labored like a bricklayer, slowly
and with agony.
Presently
I opened a letter from the editor of the weekly with which
I had a regular contract. The checks for that weekly article
were still our main dependence. The letter ran thus:
DEAR
SIR: As you are aware, our contract for the year expires
with the present month. While regretting the necessity for
so doing, we must say that we do not care to renew same
for the coming year. We were quite pleased with your style
of humor, which seems to have delighted quite a large proportion
of our readers. But for the past two months we have noticed
a decided falling off in its quality. Your earlier work
showed a spontaneous, easy, natural flow of fun and wit.
Of late it is labored, studied, and unconvincing, giving
painful evidence of hard toil and drudging mechanism. Again
regretting that we do not consider your contributions available
any longer, we are, yours sincerely, THE EDITOR. I handed
this letter to my wife. After she had read it her face grew
extremely long, and there were tears in her eyes.
"The
mean old thing!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I'm sure your
pieces are just as good as they ever were. And it doesn't
take you half as long to write them as it did." And then,
I suppose, Louisa thought of the checks that would cease
coming. "Oh, John," she wailed, "what will you do now?"
For
an answer I got up and began to do a polka step around the
supper table. I am sure Louisa thought the trouble had driven
me mad; and I think the children hoped it had, for they
tore after me, yelling with glee and emulating my steps.
I was now something like their old playmate as of yore.
"The
theatre for us to-night!" I shouted; "nothing less. And
a late, wild, disreputable supper for all of us at the Palace
Restaurant. Lumpty-diddle-de-dee-de-dum!"
And
then I explained my glee by declaring that I was now a partner
in a prosperous undertaking establishment, and that written
jokes might go hide their heads in sackcloth and ashes for
all me.
With
the editor's letter in her hand to justify the deed I had
done, my wife could advance no objections save a few mild
ones based on the feminine inability to appreciate a good
thing such as the little back room of Peter Hef--no, of
Heffelbower & Co's. undertaking establishment.
In
conclusion, I will say that to-day you will find no man
in our town as well liked, as jovial, and full of merry
sayings as I. My jokes are again noised about and quoted;
once more I take pleasure in my wife's confidential chatter
without a mercenary thought, while Guy and Viola play at
my feet distributing gems of childish humor without fear
of the ghastly tormentor who used to dog their steps, notebook
in hand.
Our
business has prospered finely. I keep the books and look
after the shop, while Peter attends to outside matters.
He says that my levity and high spirits would simply turn
any funeral into a regular Irish wake.
