J}jagatdle:~empo !lBtjf antai~ie
BRUCE MORRISSETTE
S a shattered thin fragment of the high-set gleaming moon ..&"\ pierced the ancient windows of the Princess Iolanthe's apartments, distant chimes cried out the hour before midnight. Their haunting tinkling clutched at the leaded panes of glass and slipped trembling clown the sheer high wall beneath Inside the Princess stirs gently in her tumbled bed , and the embroidered strange design upon her quilt fidgets fretfully in the mottled light. When the chambermaid had awakened her, Iolanthe spoke.
"Is it you, Claire? Ah, yes, Claire, you are very efficient, dear."
For a long while after the girl had gone, the Princess Iolanthe lay in her puffed wide bed considering the still flame of the candle in the center of the quiet room; and then afterward she arose. Her body, naked beneath the thin fabric of her gown , shuddered as she stepped among the chill gusts lurking in the corridor outside her door. And the chill gusts were nimble fingers modelling distorted tall squinting shapes in the stuff of the candle-flame. Innumerable faint night-noises fled, piling over one another in a soft crescendo at the approach of light, and as the girl went on you knew that overhead a spinning-wheel whirled interminably in the stillness. A boy was singing in the ambiguous twilight at a spot a few paces farther on: the Princess Iolanthe paused. It was a silly song. The tremulous vibrations of his none-too-steady voice were incoherent and a trifle choked; the harmony which he tore from a small lute was not of the most perfect; and yet she listened as he sang illogically of tears shattering into a thin silver dust upon black marble, and of tinkling tear-silver hushed in black velvet, and of shimmering tear-tinsel in ink-drenched space, and of silver tear-noises caressing dark wild hair, and of perfumed tear-drink in cups of ebony, and of pleading tearincense burning upon an altar of jet.
"My mind is an ornate garish stack of Chinese playing cards," sang he, "which I deal out one by one. And now I have all the aces!"
And he sang m this wise for a time. The Princess coug-hed delicately.
"Iolanthe, treasure of all my dream-galleons," said this foolish youth as he placed his arms about her slender, submissive body, naked
beneath the thin fabric of her gown, "I have forced this thing which is I to be content with only a mad clutch at some small portion of your raiment as you glode among tall columns in the throne-room, and now you grant, ungrudgingly, in what we foolishly term real life the rendezvous that has been mine forever in the haunted Garden of Intangible Things. Ah, Thelanio, still my pounding heart!" he cried, and his voice broke. "O Mockery! the Fates are tricked: I have thrown open the portals of their workshop to wrest therefrom the treasure of all my dream-galleons. I thumb my nose at Atropos, and in that gesture I invite her machinations! For I have stolen the ledger of Ki smet, and until it i s regained, by all the Gods I swear to make such entries as I please!"
It seemed a glorious posture. His eyes were wildly dilated; and the light of the moon flickered in them. A leaf upon the ivydrenched casement at hand twitched and slipped to the floor.
Then the man went mad . With a hoarse yell he turned and beat his face and hands again st the jagged stone wall in a screech that careened down the corridor, and in the bedlam that ensued the Princess swooned.
Five men-at-arms had run through this lunatic who would have stolen the king's daughter before Iolanthe saw the heaving gory heap that had been the man Thelanio. The girl's face smiled as Claire led her back to her chamber and tucked her in her puffed wide tumbled bed. Iolanthe spoke.
"Claire? Ah, yes, you are very efficient, dear . . ."
The tinkling of the chimes again clutched at the ancient windows. The Princess Iolanthe was asleep.
R. C. DORSEY
.. ,hOLSWORTH," said the Chief, "there is a gang of safe·~ crackers here in the city that has been getting small town banks all over the State for more than a year now and we haven't been able to get them because they travel about too much. Do you know where Belaire is?"
Holsworth nodded.
"Well, they got the Belaire bank at midnight about three weeks ago, but I think they left a clue. When the job had been pulled and the rubes woke up a young fellow named Steadman, a lawyer I understand, was found dead in the street, shot through the heart. Everyone thinks that the bank busters did for him, but I don't think so. In the first place the murdered man was found a block from the bank, only half dressed, with his gun still in his hip-pocket. It had not been fired. Evidently someone wanted to get the young fell ow and used the bank business to cover tracks. \i\Thoever the murderer is, he must be clever but lacking in guts. He tipped the thugs offthat's certain because they hit the safe just at the right moment, when it was stocked.
"Now I figure that he must be the kind of a man who would talk a plenty if we could get him. It's the one chance we have of breaking up this series of robberies."
"When shall I leave?"
Holsworth was a man of few words.
"Tomorrow, Wednesday. And, Holsworth, you'll have to be very careful in a small town. Travel as a salesman or something of the kind."
"Yes, sir. Expect me back in three days unless you hear from me in the meantime. Good-day, sir."
Sitting on the porch of the Belaire hotel at 11 P. M. three days later Holsworth once more reviewed the circumstances of the case before him. He had arrived at no solution, but he did not consider that he had failed the case, because he was positive that the murderer was not in Belaire. Someone outside this quiet town; he had seen them all-he smiled faintly at the possibility of there being a killer in Belaire.
MESSENGER
He would sit there a few minutes more until he was sure that the streets were deserted and then go over the ground of the murder to make sure that the facts in the case proved his conclusion. Then he would go to bed.
Quite suddenly it occurred to the detective that it was Friday night and exactly three weeks since the night the whole thing had happened. Three weeks. The thought of a crime scarce three weeks old in this moonlit town seemed in itself an unreality. No one had crossed the town square facing the hotel for something over ten minutes. Holsworth saw only the deep shadows that stole menacingly forward as the chill November wind swung the hanging street-lamps in the opposite direction, and now and then an alley cat that would slink across the street and howl out from some new found retreat.
Suddenly the hotel porch door swung open and Holsworth arose from his seat as a small, rather handsome woman closed the door and walked toward him across the porch.
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Holsworth," she said, "I though you had retired."
"No, Mrs. Wal wood, I was just sitting here to catch a bit of fresh air. You know, the air in the country always seems fresher to a citybred man."
"Yes, I know, I enjoy it, too. Did you have a good day today, Mr. Holsworth?"
"Fairly," he replied, "and how is the hotel business?"
"Good enough to keep a woman busy all right."
"Yes, I suppose a hotel is right much of a job for a woman."
"Well, Mr. Walwood is here every week-end and he helps me out."
"Your husband is a traveling man himself, I believe."
"Yes. When we bought this place last year he intended to leave the 'road,' but he just hated to give it up so. . . . He's been at it all his life."
The detective wondered how it was that a traveling salesman happened to have such a pretty young wife.
"Well, I'll see you in the morning, Mr. Holsworth. Good-night."
Somewhere off down the street there came at the moment a loud laugh that arose piercingly and then shuffled off into the night and died away.
"Oh, Mrs. Walwood," Holsworth called after the hotel proprietress, "what is that queer sound I have heard around here so often?"
The woman stopped for a second and turned back to him. The detective could see that her eyes were shining.
"That's old man Diggins. The poor old fellow is crazy and he works by night and sleeps during the day-in a coffin, they say, so that they won't have to shroud him when he dies." She laughed a little hysterically, opened the door and was gone.
The detective went out into the night. Between the hotel and the adjacent building ran an alley, the alley in which Steadman's body had been found. Evidently the man had been shot where he stood, for there was no blood trail or other contrary indications, a circumstance that gave ri;,e to two questions in Holsworth's mind. Why had young Steadman been on the hotel side of the street when his rooms were on the opposite side, and how could he have been shot so fatally at a distance of fifty yards from the bank building and several yards down the alleyway?
Evidently the young lawyer had heard the explosion that blew open the safe and had hurried into the square, grasped the situation and sought a position of comparative safety where he could take a shot at the burglars. But why had he crossed the street? If the thugs had killed him they would have done it then because after they had pulled the job they had made their getaway down the street in the other direction.
Holsworth put himself over the spot where Steadman had been found and as he did so he heard someone come shuffling up the street from the direction of the bank. He stepped back into the shadows, but not in time to hide himself from the approaching figure, who stopped and peered cautiously at him, gesturing nervously with his hands. ·
"How yuh do, Mr. Steadman?" the figure spoke brokenly, "dat you, Mr. Steadman? ... Nah, Mr. Steadman dead, dead . dead . . dead . . ." Old man Diggins hurried on up the street, mumbling to himself.
Far up the R. & S. track the detective heard at that moment the whistle of the Florida Special as it blew for the Belaire station, and after a few minutes a grinding of brakes three blocks down the street told him that the train had stopped there. He glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes of twelve. He waited where he stood.
Presently he smiled ; a passenger from the train was coming up the street. As the heavy footfalls came opposite the alley entrance Holsworth stepped out into the street.
"Don't move except to put up your hands," he commanded. "Mr. Walwood, I think you will find your wife alone tonight, but I am sorry to have to detain you."
* * * * * * *
The next afternoon at three o'clock Holsworth was awaiting his chief in the city office. When the latter came he was all smiles and he shook Holsworth's hand, an unusual thing for the chief to do, the detective reflected with satisfaction.
"I got your telegram last night," he began, "and rounded up the bank burglars with the aid of your instructions. Tell me about it."
"Frankly, Chief, I was about to give the case up when a clue from an old crazy man made it easy. You see, Walwood is a man past middle age and his wife is young and good looking . She and this fellow Steadman must have been going it for some time because this village half-wit mistook me for the dead man coming out of the alley that leads to her rooms. Walwood usually comes to Belaire on Saturday, but just as I saw through the situation I heard that mid-night train stop at the station. As I figured, he took that train exactly as he had done the night he killed young Steadman and I got him."
"You took a pretty long chance at that. How did you get the story out of him without any evidence?" the chief questioned.
"Oh, I bluffed him over to the hotel and once Mrs. Walwood saw her husband ' s hands in irons she coughed up the whole story. Evidently he had bragged to her about how cleverly he had killed her lover because she told enough to put him behind the bars for life."
~ibliopbilt
I pity him. In dusty solitude Among old tomes he wastes away his days. Though he could laugh and sing in company, It is with ancient peoples that he stays. Shunning the color and motley whirl of life, He scorns the futile rush of modern ways.
I pity him. His love is Ariadne, Not living arms and lips and dancing eyes. Leaving the lovely froth of artless folly With Plato he sounds the depths that make men wise. He visions sees in a twilight of lavender mist, Blind to sunlight spilling from the skies.
I pity him, yet half believe life's cream ls found by him, for he can say: "I dream."
-HELEN COVEY.
,tlrobincetown,fflinutt
ELMER POTTER
CCORDING to the rules of decorum governing the Province..:\. town of 1728, she should have been in bed and asleep long ago, but just as the old clock on the mantelpiece downstairs solemnly clanged forth the hour of midnight, the Daughter of the House slipped fearfully out of her room and began to descend the wooden heavy staircase that led to the downstairs living room. The descent was frightfully tedious, for the Daughter of the House had to avoid those planks most likely to squeak; she had to silence the rustle of her skirts on the steps; and, most difficult of all, she had to suppress the extraordinary beating of her heart. That she should be discovered was unthinkable. Fully dressed and going downstairs .at midnight! To be so apprehended was tantamount to eternal disgrace in the Provincetown of 1728.
Halfway down, where the steps turned, was a window, and here the Daughter of the House paused and gazed out upon a moonlit night. Some hundred yards away a miniature grove of willows swayed fountain-like in the breeze. And beneath one of these-was it merely a moonbeam phantom, or did the Daughter of the House perceive a uniformed tall figure? At any rate, she quickly pressed a hand to her fluttering breast and, gathering her skirts about her, descended the rest of the way. She cautiously, cautiously opened the door to the living room and entered. The fire had not yet died down in the old enormous fireplace and the room was fitfully illuminated.
The Family permitted itself one vanity in the form of an imported tall pier glass. This pier glass was the pride of the Daughter's heart. It had told her long ago that she was pretty, and she loved the mirror for it. She noted, as she entered the living room, how its gilded old haughty frame gleamed in the reflected glory of the fire.
In private the Daughter gave herself certain airs which would have been severely frowned upon in public. And now she stepped before the mirror with what she conceived to be a queenly flourish. Yes, undoubtedly she was pretty with that soft curl of black hair draped so fetchingly over one shoulder. Her close-fitting bodice and wide skirts were gay. She tried to imagine them silk, but no one wore silks in the Provincetown of 1728. Such vanities were not tolerated.
With a vain little jerk of her head, the Daughter of the House tnrned away from her friend the mirror and started toward the door. She took three steps and stopped short in breathless amazement. In the darkest corner of the room in all his sombre dignity sat the Minister. Only the clock spoke for a full minute. They faced each other still as statues-the Daughter poised like a startled bird, the Minister sardonically inscrutible.
At last the Minister spoke in his most solemn, rasping tones.
"Why are you up at this hour, Daughter of the House?"
The Daughter swallowed drily, but said not a word. The Minister leaned forward.
"What if this were known to your neighbors, Mistress?" he con- ' tinued, "what if it were known to your parents?"
The Daughter managed at last to speak in a fluttering timid v01ce.
"Please, sir. I was only going to get a drink of water."
As she noticed a sneering smile play about his lips, she added quickly:
"Upon my word, I was!"
The Minister's sneer broadened, and the shadows thickened about him. His voice taunted.
"Going to get a drink of water, you say?"
"Yes, Pastor."
"At midnight, eh?"
"Yes, Pastor."
"And in your best dress, I take it?"
"I dressed in the first thing I put my hands on."
"I see, but what about your hair, Daughter of the House? If I am not greatly mistaken, your hair has always been remarkably straight until tonight. How, then, do you account for that curl?"
And he indicated that soft curl of black hair so fetchingly draped over one shoulder.
"I must remark, Mistress, you dress ~ith a taste entirely commensurate with so momentous an occasion-eh-getting yourself a glass of water, did you say?"
The Daughter hung her head.
"Woman!"
The Minister almost thundered.
"Please, sir," begged the Daughter, "not so loud."
"Not so loud? I quite understand," he continued with mock sympathy. "It would be highly embarrassing to you, would it not, for your parents to learn that you had risen to fetch yourself a drink?"
The Minister, man of God, moistened his lips and smiled deadlily. He rose from his chair and came into the firelight. He was a gaunt and cadaverous old beast with lean and hairy hands which hung like talons at his sides. His face was the hard and hungry face of a hypocritical man of the world forced by circumstances into an irksome asceticism. A defenseless woman to bully! He fairly licked his chops in anticipation.
"Woman !" he cried in righteous indignation. "Woman ! Leave off lying !"
He came closer and glared down upon her.
"Why do you suppose I am here?" he said. "Listen! It is because I know all, and every lie you have uttered tonight has served but to damn you further in my sight and in the sight of God! I stood within the shadow of your casement here and saw that rascal soldier slinking beneath the trees. It is he, woman, that you inte11ded to meet out there in blackness of night. You dare not deny it, but, hark ye, within an hour-I shall see to it-he shall be seized and thrown into gaol, and as for you, woman, your shame shall be made patent to the town. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord ; 'I will repay'!"
The Daughter uttered a soft cry and swayed a little.
The Minister stalked about clucking like a contented cock. He leaned against the mantel and with folded arms watched his victim.
"Daughter of the House," he said at length, "I have long suspected irregularities in your conduct. The unseemly fineness of your clothing, the haughtiness of your bearing, your shamefully evident consciousness of your beauty-all this, Mistress, bespeaketh a sinful soul, furthermore--"
And for twenty minutes, the Minister expatiated upon the wickedness of the poor creature who trembled before him. When he had finished, he turned his back upon her and warmed his hands over the fire.
"Daughter of the House," he continued at length, "you come of a proud family. No family in Provincetown is half so haughty. None other would dare be found with one of these"-here he turned
and approached the mirror-"in its possession. 'Pride,' saith the Lord, 'goeth before a fall.' "
The Daughter of the House did not notice that, curiously enough, though the minister stood directly in front of the mirror, he cast no reflection whatever therein.
As he turned back toward the fire, the Daughter placed a hand on his arm.
"Pastor,'' she said in a firm voice, "let me tell you the truth."
"Ah, yes. That you were only going to get a drink of water?" he mocked.
"No, Pastor, what you have said is true. I was on my way to keep a tryst with the young Officer who is waiting in the willow grove."
"A tryst-at midnight !"-the Minister glared at her with clenched fists-"Woman, can you look into my eyes and declare your infamy?"
The Daughter became deathly pale.
"Pastor, you must listen to what I have to say." Her voice had become resolute. "He who is waiting for me is leaving tomorrow for the Indian wars. Before God, Pastor, I swear I meant only to tell him good-bye. Only you could have misinterpreted our intention."
"Then, Daughter of the House, why could you not have bid him farewell in the daylight like a decent woman instead of slinking out at midnight?"
"You know very well, Pastor, that my family would never tolerate any relations with what they term a common soldier."
She added: "He is only a lieutenant now."
"You are doubtless very clever at subterfuges, Mistress, but what will the people of Provincetown say--"
A contemptuous glance from the Daughter of the House caused him suddenly to leave off speaking.
"The people of Provincetown, Pastor?" she said, advancing toward him. "Why should I bother myself about what the people of Provincetown will say? They are no longer human beings. You and your kind have seen to that. You have starved them-starved them, Pastor, of every scrap of emotion, of self-expression, of love until, now that Provincetown has had crushed out of it every vestige of humanity and feeling, they distrust all who have it left in them to be happy. And it is you, Pastor, who have crushed them with your foolish moralisms. You !"
And she pointed at him with such an imperial gesture that the Minister retreated hastily to his corner and dropped into his seat. She followed him up closely.
"And yet I pity you, Pastor, for I have heard your story." Her voice became soft and very grave. "Once, many years ago, you were a young officer like he who waits outside. And you waited as he is waiting, but she whom you loved failed to keep her tryst, and you went away with a heart full of blackness because you fancied she was untrue to you. Ah, I know. Thus are moralists made. Submerged and stifled in the bitter waters of their own sorrow must needs they seek to draw weaker souls down into the blackness that surrounds them."
There followed a long and mournful silence.
The Minister sat hunched forward staring at the floor. Suddenly his eye fell on the Daughter's slipper. This he regarded for a moment, and then his gaze shifted upward, and the Daughter found the staid Minister of Provincetown looking into her face with a broadly humorous grin upon his lips. More-there proceeded from this dark and hard-visaged man the mirthfulest and most musical of chuckles.
"Now that was really very fine," he said. "I daresay the readers will love you for it, but, now that we have kept them in suspense some four or five pages, allow me to propose a happy ending-the villain repents : the heroine keeps her tryst!"
The Daughter of the House clapped her hands in delight.
"Would you, Pastor?"
"With the sincerest pleasure. Were the story to end otherwise, our readers would lose half their enjoyment."
The Minister had altered perceptibly. His genial smile took ten years from the rugged old face : the hypocritical lines were smoothed into a not unpleasant shade of impishness. The Daughter regarded him with a puzzled expression.
"Before I go," she said, "tell me this. After all, why did you come into the story? You really weren't needed, you know."
"I came into the story, my dear lady, for the best of reasons, as any competent Professor of Composition will tell you," replied the Minister. "I came into the story to furnish those elements of plot, of setting, and of suspense so essential to good, well-rounded narrative. I have, furthermore, introduced into an otherwise barren
bit of fiction a character-a character in which, I flatter myself, the reader will discover some of those vibrant qualities of human nature which are calculated to arouse interest and hold attention. Indeed, my dear lady, you cannot guess what sorry stuff this story would have been had you not discovered your old friend, the Minister, ensconced in his corner by the fireplace."
"Undoubtedly, there's a great deal in what you say, Pastor. I should indeed have been at my wits' end to handle so long a story by myself. And now," she said, taking a step toward the door, "you will never reveal what has happened here tonight?"
The Minister swept into the most gallant of bows, and even as he did so one noted that his clothing which was surely sombre broadcloth a moment ago now flashed in the firelight like the costliest of silks. And that elfin humorous twinkle, so unseemly in the eye of a clergyman!
"Not for the world , dear lady! That I should do a such thing! I, who watched the dream-ridden moon arise tonight and not a pair of lovers in all Provincetown to hearken to the high melody of its celestial wanderings. I . . . ha!"
The Minister uttered a melancholy muffled sigh, and then suddenly:
"Listen!" he hissed.
The Daughter glanced about in terror.
"Nay, do not be afraid. It is only the snoring of our fellow townsmen who lie unconscious of the beauty that stalks abroad tonight."
The Minister sighed again and continued :
"Ah, they who totter with old men's steps from the cradle to the churchyard all unconscious that there is beauty in the world! They who bury their lustreless coins in the dank earth down under their cellars without ever knowing that the moon has turned their roofs to silver!"
The Minister paused, and one perceived that his hair was a black that glittered in the firelight like polished jet.
"I hear another sound," he said and stood poised as if listening. "It is the rattling of bones clown under the ground. They are very dry bones, and there is a protest in their rattlings. These are the Fathers of the village, Mistress, and they are protesting against your happiness. They who knew neither joy, nor freedom, nor love-
they protest very loudly. Ah, Mistress, 'tis ever the way of men to make a virtue of their poverties. Where man is weakest, there is he holiest."
The Minister paused again before continuing :
"And behold I hear a third sound. It is soft and vibrant-like the downy gentle flutterings of sleeping birds. Hist! Do you not hear how impatiently beats the heart of your young Officer out there beneath the undullating willow trees-and the moonlight! Come! Come! You must fly to him at once. Permit me!"
And with the princeliest of gestures, he that had been the Minister opened the door, and the Daughter of the House stepped forth into the night to keep her rendezvous.
The rest of this story is unbelievable, but this is exactly what happened: the young man chuckled the softest and merriest of chuckles; then, turning on his heel, he walked right into the cavernous old fireplace and disappeared into the flames
EUGENIA RIDDICK
7fN my opinion man has the advantage over woman in just one .2J respect. He can sit before a fire, prop his feet on a fender, and through himself blend it all into a most harmonious picture. Of all the many supposedly superior privileges of man this is the only which I, a woman, envy. Do I hear some supercilious modern asking me why a woman can't smoke a pipe if she wants to? No, I am quite sure I don't, for any true modern would see a striking discord in such a picture. There is something aesthetically wrong with it. If women must smoke, let them keep to their gold-tipped cigarettes, and leave the pipe to that realm sacred to man.
But to come back to my picture of a truly masculine type sitting before a fire smoking his pipe. The warm smoke gushing down his throat into his lungs and sending that tingling, floating sensation all through his body, must transport him on the very mist of that smoke up, up into the regions higher than human thought, so that he must come down again refreshed as though he had been reborn. Then, as he sits with the smoke curling out of the bowl of his pipe and the warm end of the stem biting the tip of his tongue ever so slightly, the pungent aroma of leather and tobacco blending just right rises to his nose. In the feminine imagination this tranquilizes his mind and clears his vision so that he sees in the licking flames the greatness and happiness of the future.
From the feminine viewpoint, it is a sensuous pleasure-this pleasure of smoking a pipe. One to be gloated over and not to be hurried. The rounded denseness of the smoke seems to shut him up in a space small enough to be cosy, yet large enough to be free. Perhaps he gets the feeling he used to have as a little boy when he would pull two chairs together, throw an overcoat over them and crawl under. It was so dark and warm and close. Everywhere he looked something was covering him, and he could poke his head out. It is a feeling of solitude unmixed with awe or fear, and it carries with it tranquility of body and soul.
I do not think a man can keep from becoming introspective in such a frame of mind. For once in his life he is all alone with himself, so he communes with his soul and comes nearer really knowing himself than at any other time. Now he can analyze his thoughts and feelings and his reaction toward life in general. He formulates
for himself a philosophy of !if e which is rather one of cynical acceptance. This means that for the moment he has seen beyond his everyday toiling, has seen the absurdity of all this struggle for life and has decided to rest as an onlooker and be happy. This feeling comes from his intoxication, however, and when this wears off he is once more a bewildered puppet pulled this way and that by the tangled threads of fate.
It seems to me that this is a chance for man to learn himself. The warmth of his soul, responding to the warmth of the fire and the smoke, must burn away all the superficialities of civilization and leave man to enjoy the content bred within himself put there by God and nature. When he comes back with that tantalizing odor of leather and staling tobaccco, his self must be exalted by his seance with his pipe in front of a fire with his feet propped on the fender.
Beseechment
"C).-
O mystery of all great mysteriesStark heritage for every human ageWilt thou always baffle the eager sage, And conquer blind men's pensive reveries? Relent for one brief instant when men ask A little help in putting into place The all-defying puzzle blocks. Erase Some written law and help men in their task. Must each succeeding age its answers find, And boast that all before its time are wrong? When will men solve the puzzle blocks-how long Amid such helplessness shall mankind be confined? Speak, speak, 0 mystery-for once, for all, Speak, that men may cease to grope and crawl!
~roping
DOROTHY GWALTNEY
i71"HE tap! tap! tap! of a blind man's stick came to Marya as she W stood on the corner of the street Traffic was heavy, but it did not dull the metallic sound of the cane upon the pavement. Tap! tap! tap! Mar ya turned h er eyes toward the sound. A fruit wagon stood against the curbing. Marya's little inquisitive no se turned up with a sniff of delight. Oranges. Apples. Delicious plump strawberries. 0-o-o-h !
The blind man w as there by the fruit wagon. He , too, sniffed eagerly.
"Smells good, doesn't it?" said Marya companionably.
The blind man smiled.
"Yes." Fingers groped for her. "Aren't there apples?" he asked. "And oranges?"
"And strawberries ," supplemented Marya, smiling into the gentle old face "Want one?" she glanced at the fruit vender. Then out went her quick fingers. Into his mouth popped a ripe berry.
"Um-m-m ! Thank you Is this in my way here?"
"This way." Marya led him around it. "Going across? So'm I. Live around here? Let me walk with you a bit. I've nothing to do, and it's lonesome doing it all alone."
"You're very young, aren't you? And you must be very beautiful, because your voice is beautiful."
"That's no sign." Marya put a guiding hand on his arm. "I'm eighteen, and my name is Marya Marya Wrenn."
He repeated it softly.
"Mine's Peter Driscoll ," he said. "And I'm very old, but I don't mind." He began to look a bit sheepish. "People are so nice to you when you are old," he added.
"Not mind?" wondered Marya. "But why do your folks let you go around alone?"
"I have no folks," said the old man, and he did not seem to mind that either. "There's nothing to hurt me. I'm taken care of."
"By whom?" asked Marya, reminded that she had no folks either.
"God," came the answer simply.
Marya did not want to laugh in the face of his apparent sincerity, so she said, "How do you know?"
"Because I pray to Him."
Marya heard the words, but she didn't pay much attention to them. The windows of a little coffee shop caught her eyes. The tantalizing aroma of cheese and olives and hot rolls and wafers drifted through the open door. Marya was hungry. She turned abruptly to Peter Driscoll.
"I don't believe in your God," she said. "He doesn't even feed us when we're hungry."
"Not believe!"
Then the old man's eyes shone with little mischievous lights. "Are you hungry?" he asked.
Tap, tap! It was his stick against the door. He led her in and Marya looked about. There were rows of white tables. Counters of good things. Hot coffee steaming in cups on the marble tops of the counters. Mingled odors of cheese and ham and good, fresh eggs.
The blind man sat down with her at one of the white tables.
"And now," he ordered happily, cheese, and coffee, and-and pie. Enough?"
"Oh, yes."
"we'll have ham, and rolls, and How's that, Marya Wrenn?
Marya's hands twitched nervously. This was one of those high-toned places, catering rather exclusively to the rich. There were even silver spoons on the tables. Silly extravagance! She handled one of them. Then she glanced at the unseeing eyes of Peter Driscoll, and slipped the spoon into her pocket.
"Waiter, I have no spoon!" It was that easy!
She ate hungrily.
"Well, Peter Driscoll," she said, as they rose, "I still don't believe in God, but I'll pray to you, if you want me to."
"No," said the blind man, smiling his beautiful smile. "You give Him an honest trial. He's a sportsman, and He won't fail you, Marya."
They walked on, and Marya guided him safely across each street until they reached the boarding house he called home.
"Thank you," he said, "for bringing me home. Won't you come to see me sometimes ?"
Marya's thoughts whirled back to the restuarant. "Yes," she said, "Gladly."
He turned to go in, tapping against the wall with his stick. And then Marya heard the rough-gentle voice of someone within.
"Comin' out, Padre. Hold hard there . I'll be out of your way in a jiff. It's this rotten narrow hall. There you are."
He emerged from the dimness of the hall-emerged, pulling on his coat. Then he stood before Marya, his feet apart, his arms akimbo.
"Well, little girl! Waitin' for someone?"
Here were seeing eyes ! And the voice ! Deep, resonant, and pleasingly rough. Hadn't she seen him before.
"I brought him home." But why should she explain? She seldom explained things.
"Well? What are you waitin' for? Are you comin' in?" He swallowed each word before it was out.
"No." Marya turned away. Who was this big, rough-gentle man? Surely she'd seen him before. She looked around, but there was only his retreating back disappearing in the crowd.
She stuck her hands into her pockets, and one of them encountered something hard and cold. The silver spoon! She fondled it.
Finally, when she was beginning to feel a little tired, she went home, strolling jauntily into the basement cafe that saw her most of her leisure time. She poured herself a drink-something alcoholicand stirred it with the silver spoon, till Nan saw it and came and took it away from her. It was Nan's cafe, she ran it and everything in it
Tap! tap! tap! There was a blind man passing on the street outside. Thinking of Peter Driscoll, Marya swept her glass aside. But then she laughed at herself , scornfully, bitterly, and turned toward the opening door with a defiant jerk of her head. Only Paul. Paul and Dope. Damon and Pythias. They were always around, under one's feet and on one's nerves. Dope was a shadow, and Paul was the object which cast that shadow.
Marya rose, shuddering a little.
Her room was just off that in which she stood, and she entered it now. Sitting at her window, she stared at the dark wall of the building opposite. How tired she was of the city lights, city streets, city walls. Over the transom came the drone of a phonograph. Her nose wrinkled at the offending odor of cabbage and onions. Vulgar laughter and drunken mutterings came to her harassed ears. Paul
THE MESSENGER
and Dope were singing. She could hear the dominant notes of Paul's shrill tenor and the uncertain shadow-tones of the Dope.
The drink had made her head ache. She sank on the bed, and as she closed her eyes, she thought of Peter Driscoll ....
Tap-tap, tap! Perhaps there was a blind man groping along on the street outside. No. Someone was knocking at her door.
"Ain't yer comin' out for no supper?" It was Nan's voice, rough, nasal. She thought of that other rough voice-the slightly, pleasingly rough one.
The tables here were not white. They annoyed her. Marya rested her elbows on one of them, and with her little pointed chin in her hands, she gazed rather hastily around the room.
Presently Paul came to her table. But he could not be long without Dope; so he came, too.
"Want ush to sing ta yuh ?" he asked drowsily.
Marya ignored him, shrugging him away with a cool little shoulder. Paul pleased her more. He was French, and he said things nicely, though his English was poor.
"Voila !" he murmured. "What would you? He is drunk, Ma'amselle. Me, I am not drunk. You will perhaps talk to meyes ?"
"I will," said Marya, "for lack of something to do."
The door opened again, but this time she did not turn to see who had entered. Paul was going to make love to her. She rather enjoyed that.
"You have ze wonnerful eyes," he murmured. hair. I love you, Ma'amselle, but I cannot marry you. Dope "
A big, deep-toned voice cut in. Marya started. "An' ze lovely My frien', ze "Coffee!" came a sharp command. "Lots of it. And hot."
Over her shoulder she saw him-the man with the deep, throaty v01ce. It came back to her then: He worked nearby, and he came here occasionally. She'd never particularly noticed him before. Now she watched him, perhaps rather long.
"Marya," Paul's soft murmuring trailed determinedly through her absorbed mind, "you do not listen. Me, I tell you of ze love of you in my heart, and you-do-not--" All thought of him trailed determinedly away.
The man did not look at her, but the strength in his face startled her. He seemed so out of place.
She stood up. Paul caught at her hand , but she jerked away. Very slowly she walked toward the man's table. He did not lift his eyes until she sat down beside him. Then his gaze came up searchingly.
"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "What are you <loin' here?"
"I live here."
A pause.
"How's Peter Driscoll?" she asked.
His face grew tender.
"There's a good sport for you!" he said.
A good sport. Yes, he was that.
"Do you live with him?" she asked.
"Same house. Have some coffee?"
She shook her head.
"No, thanks."
"What's your name?" he asked curiously.
"Marya Wrenn. What's yours?"
"Michael Neale. What are you lookin' so pale for?"
"Me? I'm not pale." Dear man!
"Yes, you are. Atmosphere, I guess. Well, I'll be trottin' on. So long."
Friendly-that was all he was or gave promise of being. Marya shrugged and went back to Paul.
The unwelcome sound of rain awaked her the next morning. It splashed against her window and ran down it in little dirty streams. Ugly rain!
She had to hunt a job. Not forever could she live on Nan, and there was little profit to be gained by her petty theft s . She was clever at the game, but she only resorted to it in earnest when circum stances demanded.
Jobs-there were hundreds of jobs, but what could she do? She had come from her poverty-stricken but scholarly father, at whose death she had been left in Nan's care.
Night found her at home again, jobless and hopeless. And several following nights found her in a similar condition and a similar state of mind.
One night she awoke and lay there in the darkness, listening. Tap, tap, tap! A blind man? Nan? No. It was the tread of
heavy feet. A raid! That's what it meant. Poor Nan and her liquor!
Men were running about in the next room, seeking escape like rats scurrying for cover. Well, she'd be one, too, in this case.
Dressing was only a matter of a few moments. Then she was out of her little side window, in the narrow little alley beneath it. Quietly, quickly, she crept out to the street back of Nan's. Safe! They wouldn't pinch her tonight.
There was nowhere to go, but that did not worry her. She felt her way along in the shadow of the buildings-groping-that was it.
"A good sport." Well, she wasn't one. She couldn't afford to be if she meant to keep out of jail. And she meant to.
A clock somewhere boomed two. A few varied stars twinkled dimly through the mists of gathering clouds. Those clouds meant more rain. Continuously it rained. Well, the park bench for her, whether it rained or not.
A drunken man lurched by. Marya was a bit afraid, but there were shadows to conceal her.
Suddenly she found herself in front of a little church, which loome~ darkly before her. Impulsively she went up to the door and tried it. It was unlocked. She went in. It was not much more comfortable than the park bench, but it offered shelter from the rain. Besides, there were little whispers in the night, and shadows that slunk about. Marya thanked the little church before she went to sleep on one of its hard benches.
Morning shone through the stained-glass windows upon her closed eyes, so that she opened them. And then there came to her the thought of Peter Driscoll.
It did not take her long to reach the brick house where Peter lived.
An untidy woman answered her ring.
"Mr. Peter Driscoll?" she said. "Lands an' what could ye be wantin' wit' him? Sure, an' he's here. Come in."
He was in his rooms on the ground floor. Marya knocked and went in.
His unseeing eyes turned toward her. His stick tapped the floor as he advanced a step to meet her.
"Yes?" he quavered in his lonely old voice.
"Mr. Peter Driscoll," said Marya, "I came to you because there's nowhere else to go. I'm Marya Wrenn."
"Why, little Marya Wrenn!" he said. "I thought perhaps you'd come soon, and I'm glad you did. But there's nothing wrong, is there?"
She told him.
"I'm looking for a job," she added. "But till I find it-well-I thought maybe--"
"You must stay here," he said. "Poor little girl! And you have no folks either, and no home."
He was as gentle as a lover or a dear, kind father. Marya choked back a sob.
So it was settled, and Marya came to live with Peter Driscoll. And on the second day she saw Michael.
"Well, the little wren!" he said. "Visitin' the pa?re ?"
"Living with him," said Marya.
He stared.
"How-nice?" he offered.
Then she told him.
"A good sport, that," he said.
"You set a lot of store by good sports, don't you?" she asked.
"Yes. He made me one," said Michael briefly, and went on past her up the stairs.
Still she looked for a job. And finally she got one as salesgirl in a cheap little store. Padre-she learned to call him that-didn't like the idea much, but there had to be something.
She turned one day to a newly arrived customer, and looked into familiar eyes. Paul stood there, staring at her.
"So? You leave us, Ma'mselle, an' you fin' a job! You scorn my love like zat !" He snapped his fingers. "But now I know again where to fin' you. I see you of ten-yes?"
And abruptly he turned away.
Dope was following in his wake.
A trifle bewildered, Marya turned back to her work. Malicious, that Paul. He meant no good. And he would be back often, she felt sure.
He was. Every day he came and leaned over her counter and talked, pleading with her to go out with him or to let him walk home with her. But she never consented.
She saw too little of Michael. Sometimes he met her in the hall and gave her friendly advice about rubber shoes or warm coats, and
he was always brotherly in a curiously tender little way. Marya didn't resent this attitude, but it made her sad.
Then Paul began to threaten.
"I tell ze management what you hav' been," he said. "Zen I walk home wiz you ze las' time you go."
That day Marya let him go. She couldn't lose her job, and she knew Paul would tell.
The Dope trailed behind.
"Marya," pleaded Paul, "I love you, Marya-Marya-little, lovely Marya--"
"Hush. There, we're here. You can't come in, Paul. No!" She gave him a little push.
Inside the hall was Michael, waiting.
"What're you goin' around with that man for? You know what he is ! ·what would Padre think?"
"Michael!" Marya's fingers clutched him. "Don't tell Padre. Michael-I-Michael-he-you know I don't like him, and Padre would worry."
Michael laughed at her then, and patted her hand.
"All right, honey. But he's not worthy of you. And I'm not goin' to have him hangin' around. Hear?"
Marya nodded, answering his smile with a tender, trembling one. Then she went slowly into Peter Driscoll's rooms.
"Hello, Marya." Such a beautiful old smile!
A pang of remorse shot through her. It wasn't fair to deceive him. He believed in her. Marya thought of the goody shop and the silver spoon. Nothing in her past haunted her except the stealing of the spoon in the very presence of his unseeing eyes.
Because she was haunted, she left in the night, without a word of good - bye. She couldn't stay on there and deceive him. And she couldn't tell him.
It was only ten-thirty. She walked on until she came to a house with "Rooms and Board." The woman gave her a little back room not half so nice as the one at Padre's.
Next day Paul came to her counter again.
"I've moved," she said briefly.
"I can come now to see you?" he asked. Well, he wasn't so bad. He was someone to talk to.
"Don't bring Dope," she warned.
The stout woman in front of her wanted gloves, and she had to fit the pudgy fingers. She watched Paul going away, and she thought of Michael , who was so dear and strong and clean.
"Well?" said the stout woman. "How much , I say?"
"Dollar and a half, ma'am."
"I'll take 'em." She reached for her purse.
"Oh!" she screamed. "I've been robbed! You thief, you!"
Thi ef! Well, she was, but she didn't have the stout woman's purse. She told her so.
"Yah ! I'll have you arrested. I'll have you fired. Dirty thief, you."
The floorwalkers had gathered and were trying to pacif y her. Then one of them picked up her pur se from among the glov es .
"She put it there!" cried the woman accusingly . "Fire her, I say."
"But--" protested someone.
"Oh, all right, I'll go," said Marya wearily , and she would have walked away from the detaining hands of the inquisitive manager, but he held her.
"There is no charge against you," he said. So Marya stayed.
But the rest of the clay they watched her. She saw them, and she was so very tired-so very enraged-that when she left she told the manager she would not be back. . . .
Paul came that night, and they sat on the porch. She was just six blocks from Peter Driscoll and Michael, and they did not know where she was.
"I lost my job," she told Paul sadly. "And I don't know what to do."
"Come away wiz me," suggested Paul insinuatingly. "We will be happy. Me, I am happy."
Marya didn't care if he was. The stout woman's accusation was ringing in her ears. A thief. Well? Was it not better to be one than to be falsely called one?
"Come away wiz me ."
She considered. He loved her, he was her kind; and Michael did not really care.
"We-ell--"
"Ah! Now you are ze good sport--"
Good sport!
She snatched her fingers out of Paul's.
"There's a good sport for you." She seemed to hear Michael's voice saying it of Peter.
She ran into the house-into her room. There on the little hard bed she thought and thought. Of Michael, with his searching eyes, deep, throaty voice, and beauty of strength. Then of Peter Driscoll, with his blind eyes and groping fingers-of Peter Driscoll and his God.
She crept out the next morning and went back, because she knew she couldn't stay away. Passing the goody shop, she went in and sought the kind-faced old proprietor.
"I stole one of your silver spoons," she said, "and I want to pay you for it."
He looked at her closely, and then he took her money and patted her arm.
"Thank you, dear," he said. And Marya bowed her head and went out.
At the door of the brick house she met Michael, whose face seemed rather haggard.
"We've been lookin' everywhere for you," he said, and took her arm roughly, leading her into the padre's rooms.
"Here she is , Padre," he said huskily.
"Marya! Little Marya!" Such a glad, beautiful smile.
"Padre," she said against his breast , "all your life you've been groping with your hands and your stick. But you haven't had to grope with your soul. I have. And now I've come back to find you" -her voice sank to a soft whisper-"and God"-it rose on a glad note-"and Michael!"
"We've been wantin' you," said Michael, simply, and he took her out of the padre's arms-out of the padre's arms, but into his own.
~pisobt
Lors McINTOSH
j7j' HE little, little cat lay curled up on the bottom step. His green \?I eyes stared endlessly down the garden path to the marble love temple. The hot sun stroked him, and his fat sides heaved as he purred in contented wheezes. He purred, but his eyes never left the love temple.
Clotilde, the queen of all cobras, slid furtively away through the garden. The depths of her dead, black eyes stirred with vindictive laughter. She had left something white and very still on the temple steps.
Later there was wailing and lamentation in the servants' quarters and whitelipped grief in the memsahib's room. The still white thing lay there-the still white thing that had been the baby sahib.
The little, little cat trotted pensively up and down the hall. Baby sahib was dead; he was sorry. But after all, what could he have done against Clotilde the Terrible?
And the sun had been so warm and comfortable. . . .
ELIZABETH JONES
i7r HERE is a huge, sticky mud puddle before which the obliging W, conductor conveniently stops the car of a rainy morning. In rainy weather a duck might swim in it; in mid-winter, anyone with a pair of skates and a sense of equilibrium might skate on it; otherwise, between rains and snows, it is just a good place for automobiles to get stuck. Street car passengers ( or patrons, as the modernist signs on futuristic trolleys ref er to them) generally wade, or glide, or slosh, according to the weather; but some do otherwise.
One dismal morning a pink and blue street car crashed through the downpour bearing passengers to the college at the encl of the line. It bore law students, and medical students, and engineering students, and ministerial students, and-just girls , getting B. A.'s or B. S.'s and majoring (horrid word!) in things too horrible to mention! Girls have more varied interests than boys at college, or more alien ( a concession to the men) ; they have class parties, and many forms of athletics in which all must indulge, and candy pulls, and weiner roasts, and athletic hikes and what-not - for shame-we can proclaim no more for the masculine mind to criticize. Some direct the candy pulls, others lead cheers, others manage hockey, others stand out for their great good sense and academic ambition. Sarah Snow was thinking about the athletic hike when she stepped off the trolley into the slough. Not being a cluck, she floundered and drew to herself a sympathetic mob for once, awakened by sympathy out of themselves and their worlds of hockey, and love, and what -not, not to mention Y. M. and Y. W. C. A., Pi Alpha and 0. D. K. The conductor was sorry, boys helped her up, and girls took off coats to wrap around her. One boy hailed an automobile and had her taken home.
The "all-around" girl knows that there are girls who are apparently narrower than she, and she does not realize that their scope is as large, or may some clay be as large as hers. Some encounter experiences of trial and error without seeing anything but the errors of others. And it is very odd that many of them seem to think that by hiding evidences of effort they may obliterate traces of failure. A failure which swamps a personality or which passes on as one more useless struggle is a failure indeed; but one which brings about greater realization and greater effort is just another step in the
pathway of achievement. It occasions a reconnoitering and retrospection. If one could touch the retrospection of another, there would be greater trust and understanding.
In this mob of people occupied with being true to their own ideals, fighting their own battles , and educating themselves, there is occasionally one who has time and tact to observe, and the will to understand. Such a girl was Sarah Snow. She was such a girl as one would meet walking to the car line, or standing in the hockey field, or going to biology class. She dealt in physics experiments and might be seen buying sandwiches in the tea room . Nobody cared what Sarah ate in the tea room , though she always offered some to everybody standing around. She was a town girl, or she would probably have become absorbed in some faction or roped into the upholding of a cause, to the obliteration of petty friendships. Sarah would never have been selected for her appearance; she was such a girl as one would not even have to bother to forget. She wore a stiff tan felt hat with a wired brim that covered up all but half of a very good nose, a nose which probably would have been noticed had anything been wrong with it. Around the classroom section Sarah was generally seen taking off or putting on a large, shapeless, furless gray coat. Once out of it or in it, she became unnoticeable. In classes she was good enough and ordinary enough to escape comment. Teachers always called on her in turn, gave her a good mark, and passed on to the next one. Her presence was never felt. Someone discovered once that Sarah prepared her lessons a day or so ahead, regularly, and for once she was the object of mild comment. And once she told a joke, but that is not worthy of note because no one could remember afterwards who told it. Whether Sarah was a blonde or a brunette did not matter. One only noticed that it was a mistake for her to wear yellow.
If we are going to notice Sarah, we must delve into her home background. She was the oldest of three children and had always helped in the mental , upbringing of the two younger ones. She was well brought up herself, and she merely passed on to her brother and sister the words of her mother. She was a person of some importance at home. Her brother thought she was beautiful, and her sister looked up to her as an authority on all subjects, and as a bridge to the outside world. Her mother used to say, "Sarah is a good girl. She is a great help to me. I sometimes think she might be neater, but--." She classed neatness as a minor achievement. Sarah worked every night on her lessons because there was nothing else for her to do. She was not ordered to do so, but it had never been suggested that she do otherwise. And for about two hours
every night after she had helped the others with their lessons, she was very considerately left to hers. She had a mild aversion for much tedious reading, but that was not a serious bar to progress. A hard problem solved gave her a mild thrill, yet she was never anxious to show it in class.
There were several girls in college that Sarah liked, and these were just the ones that she knew. She admired unusual or attractive girls from a distance and liked those she really came in contact with. She had no antipathies, because she simply did not value girls in relation to herself. She never resented the fact that a girl who never had made an attempt to be friendly should want to study with her. It was perfectly natural for the girl to study with her, and that girl, though she did not realize it, was Sarah's friend. Though Sarah had never even been asked to help clean up after a party or decorate the ·gymnasium for a reception, or paint hockey balls, or make speeches, she was as vitally interested in class activities as a cheer leader or the assistant hockey manager. She was always at class parties and hockey games, and she never did realize that no one else made an effort to be there. It was no effort for her. She would have been the best sport in the college if anyone had ever demanded it of her, but no one ever had, and so far as she knew, no one ever would. She knew, but she did not blame them, because why should they bother with her? Indeed, why should they?
In a crowd Sarah searched out the beautiful and the unusual, and tried to discover in what ways they differed from others around them. Sarah would have liked to be as attractive as the best o! them, but she did not envy anyone, because she could not find one that she wanted to be like. She did not want to give up any of her good points in exchange for what someone else had. Nothing so far as she could discover was wrong with her. She seemed to compare very favorably with the other girls. She was even better dressed than many who were talked about all the time. It occurred to her that perhaps if she had some glaring fault she might be noticed, or at least evoke enough criticism to start her on the right track. She wondered if she would be able to stand criticism, she who had always been the ideal of her sister and brother. Neatness is a minor achievement, and lack of it is a minor fault. She must do something wrong -not just have some glaring fault-do it and take the consequences! Maybe she would be ridiculed. Wasn't it always the laugh of the campus when some nonentity did something bad? But what she would do must be something original-something that everyone would
have to admit, on consideration, was exactly what Sarah Snow would have to do in a certain situation. But what situation? Something terrible, gripping, appalling-something muddy? She remembered the time she fell off the street car into a big mud puddle, and the attention and sympathy she had received. No, she could do without sympathy and attention. What she wanted was shock, surprise, excitement, caused by Sarah Snow. And if she just knew what kind of a dress to wear for the occasion! But there was no one to ask.
If someone would just demand something big of her, or if she could only get into a situation! No one will ever know what Sarah would have done, and what she would have become had she done it, because nothing ever happened to Sarah. She was probably saved a great denouement of trial and error. But she was just a little bit changed-shall we say for the worst ?-by such a trend of thought, though nobody noticed. And maybe some day the great situation that Sarah is ready to grasp will rise and loom up big before her, and she will throw herself into it and do something noticeable, whether good, bad, or just striking, and Sarah Snow's name will be known to the posterity of one small college or one small town. In the meantime Sarah enjoys her walks to and from the car line and values at their worth her occasional contacts with class activities.
Sarah Snow's world was all-important to her, and yet she knew there were other worlds that she could not visit nor communicate with in her present state; and though she was content to sit for a while in the inner circle of her own world with only a glimpse at the stars on a clear night, she knew that they contained beauties and concepts that she could enjoy. A cocoon of experience woven about one may remain just a cocoon excluding one from the world and its creatures; thus the poor worm will be killed by its own inertia. But the cocoon will be woven into a wonderful cloth, to the weaver a source of pride, to the wearer a source of warmth.
jiook Rtbitwts
Meanwhile (The Picture of a Lady.) By H. G. Wells, Geo. Doran Co., N. Y., 1927.
Meanwhile is the somewhat subtle title H. G. Wells has given to his latest book. The content of the volume is as indefinable as the name would imply. Perhaps, the work would come in the category of a romantic novel, or perhaps, under the heading of Treatise. Meanwhile is a hybrid of doubtful literary genus.
This specimen is interesting for its own individuality, and for its merit of being well-intentioned and well-written. Although, at times it is harshly didactic and over instructive, yet it contains, as a sort of sop thrown to those who like the love interest, a very delicately presented love story.
Through the medium of a young man and his wife, Wells gives his resume of the coal situation in England which runs the entire gamut of sociological questioning. Mrs. Rylands, wife of the rich young Philip, has as guests in her villa near Monte Carlo "a houseful of Stupids," as she terms them. There are a few who rise above this class in scintillating spots of character study: Mr. PlantagenetBuchan, who gives the book its name by saying brilliantly, "I perceive I have been meanwhiling all my life"; Lady Catherine, a beautiful uncertain-aged "tester of men," who tests Mr. Sempach, an eminent philosophic author. Besides, there is Miss Puppy Clarges, who furnishes the sex-problem. She is, in the words of the venerable Sempach, ·one "who disavows all accessories of sex-and is simply sexual."
After the inevitable episode between Philip Rylands and Miss Clarges, Sempach writes to Mrs. Rylands, who has confided her trouble to him and advises her to send her husband to study the coal strike then in progress in England, and so find vent for his surplus energies.
The husband departs, and from his observations extracts a philosophy of social relations, as well as one of love. His letters to Mrs. Rylands are pamphlets containing the latest Wells' propaganda set forth in the form of love-letters.
Nevertheless, Meanwhile is good reading and probably one of the best of contemporary British novels. The romance is a real suggestion to those within or without the matrimonial state. The sociological study is too British for our provincial minds, but the problems
presented are worthy of consideration, even though the chaos of the world and its thinking may not be restored to order through the efforts of Mr. Wells.
The novel is satisfying to the optimistic reader because the final outlook is cheerful, and also to the pessimist who may see there the perpetually unsolved problem of all times.
Trader Horn. By Alfred
Aloysius Horn and Ethelreda Lewis. Simon & Schuster, publishers, New York. 1927.
Here we have an excellent example of the non-fiction book; a travelogue, quaintly delicious in its telling and abounding with local color. What seems to us to be an almost religious fervor for frankness is the outstanding feature of this, the book of the day most deserving of exploitation. We can say that for it at least.
Much skepticism has been evinced as to the authenticity of this tale and even to the actual existence of its supposed author. Whether the story or the author is real matters little, since any fallacy on the part of either can surely do but little harm to anyone. Meanwhile, we have an interesting account.
There is a laudable foreword by none other than the estimable John Galsworthy who highly recommends the book and serves up to us a few hors d'oeuvres, as he calls them: "What is poetry but the leavings of superstition?" "Big game hunters-an equatorial gang of cut throats, wasting wild life to make what they call a bag." "An elephant hunt makes a pretty splash of activity."
In an introduction by Ethelreda Lewis we are made acquainted with Aloysius Horn, peddlar of tin ware, who one day in the course of conversation begins to tell of some of his strange adventures on the African coast. Mrs. Lewis recognizes the gold mine of facts and persuades "Trader" Horn to come to her house regularly and bring her an· account of his thrilling trips up the African rivers and his escapades with the cannibals. This part of the book is written in the old trader's own words, and at the end of each chapter there is a supplement by Mrs. Lewis, giving extremely interesting sidelights on Horn's simple and unique philosophy about various subjects. For example:
"It's our custom to give a lad two names. One to make his way through life with and the other to be bugled out when he knocks at
ELINOR PHYSIOC.
Heaven's gates," said Horn when asked about his pseudonym, "Trader."
This book deals intimately with cannibal life in Africa, and the author seems to know his subject thoroughly. One is horrified at the cruelty of the natives, but one is amazed at their high standards of morality and the punishments meted out for the breach thereof. A species of Oslerism seems to be prevalent with the larger majority of the tribes . This at first might seem a cruel custom, but in the eyes of the young, strong , well built natives, decrepit old age is more to be dreaded than death.
We are allowed to penetrate into the innermost religious circles, where no other white man has been, and glimpse the strange ritual performed by the head men. Our human interest is aroused by the discovery of an English girl serving as a goddess in one of the josh houses. Several of the final chapters are given over to the subsequent rescue of Nina T--, as she is called quite interesting, whether true or not.
The greater part of the book, however, is given over to accounts of hunting trips for many familiar and some unfamiliar animals. That "an elephan t hunt makes a pretty splash of activity," using one of Mr. Galsworthy's hors d' oeuvres, is quite true. The killing or capturing of these massive beasts is a monument to man's ingenuity. Without any modern implements and with the crudest means the natives succeed in capturing a large herd of elephants and by their cleverness prevent a stampede, since the concerted effort of these beasts could have easily broken the barriers which held them and snuffed out the life of the comparatively puny natives.
Horn's relations with, and his knowledge of, the two explorers, Livingstone and Stanley, and the sportsman, Cecil Rhodes, fill several chapters and throw light on some of the actions of at least one of the above.
We can see nothing in this book that would warrant the abnormal publicity that it has received except that it is assuredly something new and well told in excellently poor English.
LAWRENCE N. BLOOMBERG.
RICHMOND COLLEGE
M. S. SHOCKLEY, Editor-in-Chief
WELLFORD TAYLOR, Business Manager
ELMER POTTER, Assistant Editor H. G. KINCHELOE, Assistant Editor
LLOYD CASTER, Staff Artist
WESTHAMPTON COLLEGE
ELINOR PHYSIOC, Editor-in-Chief
CATHERINE BRANCH, Ass't Editor MILDRED ANDERSON, Business Mgr
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iC:
DITO RIALS are tricky things to play with . Particularly so when you don't have anything to say; and we must confess that just now we have no burning urge driving us on to save civilization in general and the University of Richmond in particular from perdition or socialism or jasperism or any other such evil fate.
We might fill these two pages with a discussion of any one of numerous subjects For instance, we could write sonorously about our football team; we could intersperse several delightful phrases such as "gallant defense," "overwhelming odds," and "moral victory." But these platitudes are fast becoming monotonous from patriotic repetition. It's all been said before, anyhow. Then again we might talk of the growth of our university. We could quote a half page of statistics from the Dean's office showing that the University of Richmond is inevitably coming to be the foremost university in the South It would be as uninteresting and as unimportant as Dr. Coolidge's recent message to Congress. If our fingers failed us we could rely upon the old favorite plaint of the Lack of Culture in College Life. We really should denounce free verse and futuristic art.
Now that we are on the subject we might write a very fine article on the lack of literary interest and appreciation on the campus of the University of Richmond. We should say the same things that have been said before, but there are several different ways of saying such things. It just happens that we don't need to deplore the dearth of material for our magazine. Such as it is, we have plenty of it.
Indeed, we have even accumulated quite an impressive supply of reserve material. So, after all, we don't really need to write that sort of an editorial. Notwithstanding all this there are still some other matters crying for our attention.
But somehow we can't get all worked up over the Tendencies of College Youth. If they are going down the Primrose Path to Hell they are doing it of their own accord and we should be intruding uselessly if we were to thunder fire and brimstone down upon their heads. To tell the sorry truth primrose paths and rose gardens always did lure us strangely. There is, too, some unaccountable attraction in a thin moon and a bright star or in heavy gray skies and a whistling wind. We don't know just exactly what this has to do with primrose paths, but we meant well anyway.
What we should do with THE MESSENGERis to adopt an Editorial Policy. Then we could amuse ourselves interminably writing about Proposed Reforms and Budget Fees and Political Scruples. Not that anyone would ever heed it. But then there are so many nice things that can be said when one has an Editorial Policy. We assure you that we shall put some thought on the matter when we can get around to it. In the meantime we have shamefully squandered these two pages. We'll try to do better next time.
SIGMA UPSILON CONTEST
The Sigma Upsilon Short Story Contest has already been announced. For some years this contest has been an established precedent. It has always attracted considerable interest among students of literary inclinations. Sigma Upsilon is the ultimate aim of most collegiate writers, and the Sigma Upsilon Short Story Contest is generally regarded as a most excellent opportunity for the aspiring litterateur. A handsome prize is awarded the winner and the best story is published in THE MESSENGER.
The conditions of the contest are simple. The story must not exceed three thousand words in length. The story must be submitted under a nom de plume and accompanied by a sealed envelope on which is written the nom de plume, and inside of which is the author's real name. The contest closes February 15th. Professors Goode and Handy, of Richmond College, and Miss Lutz, of Westhampton College, will act as judges. The contest is open to all students of the University of Richmond, not already members of Sigma Upsilon or the Writers' Club. The results of the content will be announced in The Collegian.
University of Richmond Students Cordially Invited to
