Literary Lapses (9 page)

 

INSURANCE UP TO DATE

A
man called on me the other day with the idea of insuring my life. Now, I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so. I have been insured a great many times, for about a month at a time, but have had no luck with it at all.

So I made up my mind that I would outwit this man at his own game. I let him talk straight ahead and encouraged him all I could, until he finally left me with a sheet of questions which I was to answer as an applicant. Now this was what I was waiting for; I had decided that, if the company wanted information about me, they should have it, and have the very best quality I could supply. So I spread the sheet of questions before me, and drew up a set of answers for them, which, I hoped, would settle for ever all doubts to my eligibility for insurance.

Question. –What is your age?

Answer. –I can't think.

Q. –What is your chest measurement?

A. –Nineteen inches.

Q. –What is your chest expansion?

A. –Half an inch.

Q. –What is your height?

A. –Six feet five, if erect, but less when I walk on all fours.

Q. –Is your grandfather dead?

A. –Practically.

Q. –Cause of death, if dead?

A. –Dipsomania, if dead.

Q. –Is your father dead?

A. –To the world.

Q. –Cause of death?

A. –Hydrophobia.

Q. –Place of father's residence?

A. –Kentucky.

Q. –What illnesses have you had?

A. –As a child, consumption, leprosy, and water on the knee. As a man, whooping-cough, stomach-ache, and water on the brain.

Q. –Have you any brothers?

A. –Thirteen; all nearly dead.

Q. –Are you aware of any habits or tendencies which might be expected to shorten your life?

A. –I am aware. I drink, I smoke, I take morphine and vaseline. I swallow grape seeds and I hate exercise.

I thought when I had come to the end of that list that I had made a dead sure thing of it, and I posted the paper with a cheque for three months' payment, feeling pretty confident of having the cheque sent back to me. I was a good deal surprised a few days later to receive the following letter from the company:

“D
EAR
S
IR
,–We beg to acknowledge your letter of application and cheque for fifteen dollars. After a careful comparison of your case with the average modern standard, we are pleased to accept you as a first-class risk.”

 

BORROWING A MATCH

Y
ou might think that borrowing a match upon the street is a simple thing. But any man who has ever tried it will assure you that it is not, and will be prepared to swear on oath to the truth of my experience of the other evening.

I was standing on the corner of the street with a cigar that I wanted to light. I had no match. I waited till a decent, ordinary man came along. Then I said:

“Excuse me, sir, but could you oblige me with the loan of a match?”

“A match?” he said, “why, certainly.” Then he unbuttoned his overcoat and put his hand in the pocket of his waistcoat. “I know I have one,” he went on, “and I'd almost swear it's in the bottom pocket–or, hold on, though, I guess it may be in the top–just wait till I put these parcels down on the sidewalk.”

“Oh, don't trouble,” I said, “it's really of no consequence.”

“Oh, it's no trouble, I'll have it in a minute; I know there must be one in here somewhere”–he was digging his fingers into his pockets as he spoke– “but you see this isn't the waistcoat I generally…”

I saw that the man was getting excited about it. “Well, never mind,” I protested; “if that isn't the waistcoat that you generally–why, it doesn't matter.”

“Hold on, now, hold on!” the man said, “I've got one of the cursed things in here somewhere. I guess it must be in with my watch. No, it's not there either. Wait till I try my coat. If that confounded tailor only knew enough to make a pocket so that a man could get at it!”

He was getting pretty well worked up now. He had thrown down his walking-stick and was plunging at his pockets with his teeth set. “It's that cursed young boy of mine,” he hissed; “this comes of his fooling in my pockets. By Gad! perhaps I won't warm him up when I get home. Say, I'll bet that it's in my hip-pocket. You just hold up the tail of my overcoat a second till I…”

“No, no,” I protested again, “please don't take all this trouble, it really doesn't matter. I'm sure you needn't take off your overcoat, and oh, pray don't throw away your letters and things in the snow like that, and tear out your pockets by the roots! Please, please don't trample over your overcoat and put your feet through the parcels. I do hate to hear you swearing at your little boy, with that peculiar whine in your voice. Don't–please don't tear your clothes so savagely.”

Suddenly the man gave a grunt of exultation, and drew his hand up from inside the lining of his coat.

“I've got it,” he cried. “Here you are!” Then he brought it out under the light.

It was a toothpick.

Yielding to the impulse of the moment I pushed him under the wheels of a trolley-car and ran.

 

A LESSON IN FICTION

S
uppose that in the opening pages of the modern melodramatic novel you find some such situation as the following, in which is depicted the terrific combat between Gaspard de Vaux, the boy lieutenant, and Hairy Hank, the chief of the Italian banditti:

“The inequality of the contest was apparent. With a mingled yell of rage and contempt, his sword brandished above his head and his dirk between his teeth, the enormous bandit rushed upon his intrepid opponent. De Vaux seemed scarce more than a stripling, but he stood his ground and faced his hitherto invincible assailant. ‘Mong Dieu,' cried De Smythe, ‘he is lost!'”

Question.
–On which of the parties to the above contest do you honestly feel inclined to put your money?

Answer.
–On De Vaux. He'll win. Hairy Hank will force him down to one knee and with a brutal cry of “Har! har!” will be about to dirk him, when De Vaux will make a sudden lunge (one he had learnt at home out of a book of lunges) and–

Very good. You have answered correctly. Now, suppose you find, a little later in the book, that the killing of Hairy
Hank has compelled De Vaux to flee from his native land to the East. Are you not fearful for his safety in the desert?

Answer.
–Frankly, I am not. De Vaux is all right. His name is on the title page, and you can't kill him.

Question.
–Listen to this, then: “The sun of Ethiopia beat fiercely upon the desert as De Vaux, mounted upon his faithful elephant, pursued his lonely way. Seated in his lofty hoo-doo, his eye scoured the waste. Suddenly a solitary horseman appeared on the horizon, then another, and another, and then six. In a few moments a whole crowd of solitary horse-men swooped down upon him. There was a fierce shout of ‘Allah!' a rattle of firearms. De Vaux sank from his hoo-doo on to the sands, while the affrighted elephant dashed off in all directions. The bullet had struck him in the heart.”

There now, what do you think of that? Isn't De Vaux killed now?

Answer.
–I am sorry. De Vaux is not dead. True, the ball had hit him, oh yes, it had hit him, but it had glanced off against a family Bible, which he carried in his waistcoat in case of illness, struck some hymns that he had in his hip-pocket, and, glancing off again, had flattened itself against De Vaux's diary of his life in the desert, which was in his knapsack.

Question.
–But even if this doesn't kill him, you must admit that he is near death when he is bitten in the jungle by the deadly dongola?

Answer.
–That's all right. A kindly Arab will take De Vaux to the Sheik's tent.

Question.
–What will De Vaux remind the Sheik of?

Answer.
–Too easy. Of his long-lost son who disappeared years ago.

Question.
–Was this son Hairy Hank?

Answer.
–Of course he was. Anyone could see that but the Sheik never suspects it, and heals De Vaux. He heals him with an herb, a thing called a simple, an amazingly simple, known only to the Sheik. Since using this herb, the Sheik has used no other.

Question.
–The Sheik will recognise an overcoat that De Vaux is wearing, and complications will arise in the matter of Hairy Hank deceased. Will this result in the death of the boy lieutenant?

Answer.
–No. By this time De Vaux has realised that the reader knows he won't die, and resolves to quit the desert. The thought of his mother keeps recurring to him, and of his father, too, the grey, stooping old man–does he stoop still or has he stopped stooping? At times, too, there comes the thought of another, a fairer than his father; she whose–but enough, De Vaux returns to the old homestead in Piccadilly.

Question.
–When De Vaux returns to England, what will happen?

Answer.
–This will happen: “He who left England ten years before a raw boy, has returned a sunburnt soldierly man. But who is this that advances smilingly to meet him? Can the mere girl, the bright child that shared his hours of play, can she have grown into this peerless, graceful girl, at whose feet half the noble suitors of England are kneeling? ‘Can this be her?' he asks himself in amazement.”

Question.
–Is it her?

Answer.
–Oh, it's her all right. It is her, and it is him, and it is them. That girl hasn't waited fifty pages for nothing.

Question.
–You evidently guess that a love affair will ensue between the boy lieutenant and the peerless girl with the broad feet. Do you imagine, however, that its course will run smoothly and leave nothing to record?

Answer.
–Not at all. I feel certain that the scene of the novel having edged itself around to London, the writer will not feel satisfied unless he introduces the following famous scene:

“Stunned by the cruel revelation which he had received, unconscious of whither his steps were taking him, Gaspard de Vaux wandered on in the darkness from street to street until he found himself upon London Bridge. He leaned over the parapet and looked down upon the whirling stream below. There was something in the still, swift rush of it that seemed to beckon, to allure him. After all, why not? What was life now that he should prize it? For a moment De Vaux paused irresolute.”

Question.
–Will he throw himself in?

Answer.
–Well, say you don't know Gaspard. He will pause irresolute up to the limit, then, with a fierce struggle, will recall his courage and hasten from the Bridge.

Question.
–This struggle not to throw oneself in must be dreadfully difficult?

Answer.
–Oh! dreadfully! Most of us are so frail we should jump in at once. But Gaspard has the knack of it. Besides he still has some of the Sheik's herb; he chews it.

Question.
–What has happened to De Vaux anyway? Is it anything he has eaten?

Answer.
–No, it is nothing that he has eaten. It's about her. The blow has come. She has no use for sunburn, doesn't care for tan; she is going to marry a duke and the boy lieutenant is no longer in it. The real trouble is that the modern novelist has got beyond the happy marriage mode of ending. He wants tragedy and a blighted life to wind up with.

Question.
–How will the book conclude?

Answer.
–Oh, De Vaux will go back to the desert, fall upon the Sheik's neck, and swear to be a second Hairy Hank
to him. There will be a final panorama of the desert, the Sheik and his newly found son at the door of the tent, the sun setting behind a pyramid, and De Vaux's faithful elephant crouched at his feet and gazing up at him with dumb affection.

 

HELPING THE ARMENIANS

T
he financial affairs of the parish church up at Doogalville have been getting rather into a tangle in the last six months. The people of the church were specially anxious to do something toward the general public subscription of the town on behalf of the unhappy Armenians, and to that purpose they determined to devote the collections taken up at a series of special evening services. To give the right sort of swing to the services and to stimulate generous giving, they put a new pipe organ into the church. In order to make a preliminary payment on the organ, it was decided to raise a mortgage on the parsonage.

To pay the interest on the mortgage, the choir of the church got up a sacred concert in the town hall.

To pay for the town hall, the Willing Workers' Guild held a social in the Sunday school. To pay the expenses of the social, the rector delivered a public lecture on “Italy and Her Past,” illustrated by a magic lantern. To pay for the magic lantern, the curate and the ladies of the church got up some amateur theatricals.

Finally, to pay for the costumes for the theatricals, the rector felt it his duty to dispense with the curate.

So that is where the church stands just at present. What they chiefly want to do, is to raise enough money to buy a suitable gold watch as a testimonial to the curate. After that they hope to be able to do something for the Armenians. Meantime, of course, the Armenians, the ones right there in the town, are getting very troublesome. To begin with, there is the Armenian who rented the costumes for the theatricals: he has to be squared. Then there is the Armenian organ dealer, and the Armenian who owned the magic lantern. They want relief badly.

The most urgent case is that of the Armenian who holds the mortgage on the parsonage; indeed it is generally felt in the congregation, when the rector makes his impassioned appeals at the special services on behalf of the suffering cause, that it is to this man that he has special reference.

In the meanwhile, the general public subscription is not getting along very fast; but the proprietor of the big saloon further down the street and the man with the short cigar that runs the Doogalville Midway Plaisance have been most liberal in their contributions.