Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 121
“How do they do that?” I asked.
“Why, they look at it. Suppose, for example, they come to a stream or a pond or anything—”
“Yes—”
“Well, they look at it.”
“Had they never done that before?” I asked.
“Ah, but they look at it as a Nature Unit. Each girl must take forty units in the course. I think we only do one unit each day we go out.”
“It must,” I said, “be pretty fatiguing work, and what about the Excursion?”
“That’s every Saturday. We go out with Miss Stalk, the professor of Ambulation.”
“And where do you go?”
“Oh, anywhere. One day we go perhaps for a trip on a steamer and another Saturday somewhere in motors, and so on.”
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Field Work. The aim of the course — I’m afraid I’m quoting Miss Stalk but I don’t mind, she’s really fine — is to break nature into its elements—”
“I see—”
“So as to view it as the external structure of Society and make deductions from it.”
“Have you made any?” I asked.
“Oh, no” — she laughed— “I’m only starting the work this term. But, of course, I shall have to. Each girl makes at least one deduction at the end of the course. Some of the seniors make two or three. But you have to make one.”
“It’s a great course,” I said. “No wonder you are going to be busy; and, as you say, how much better than loafing round here doing nothing.”
“Isn’t it?” said the girl student with enthusiasm in her eyes. “It gives one such a sense of purpose, such a feeling of doing something.”
“It must,” I answered.
“Oh, goodness,” she exclaimed, “there’s the lunch bell. I must skip and get ready.”
She was just vanishing from my side when the Burly Male Student, who was also staying in the hotel, came puffing up after his five-mile run. He was getting himself into trim for enlistment, so he told me. He noted the retreating form of the college girl as he sat down.
“I’ve just been talking to her,” I said, “about her college work. She seems to be studying a queer lot of stuff — Social Endeavour and all that!”
“Awful piffle,” said the young man. “But the girls naturally run to all that sort of rot, you know.”
“Now, your work,” I went on, “is no doubt very different. I mean what you were taking before the war came along. I suppose you fellows have an awful dose of mathematics and philology and so on just as I did in my college days?”
Something like a blush came across the face of the handsome youth.
“Well, no,” he said, “I didn’t co-opt mathematics. At our college, you know, we co-opt two majors and two minors.”
“I see,” I said, “and what were you co-opting?”
“I co-opted Turkish, Music, and Religion,” he answered.
“Oh, yes,” I said with a sort of reverential respect, “fitting yourself for a position of choir-master in a Turkish cathedral, no doubt.”
“No, no,” he said, “I’m going into insurance; but, you see, those subjects fitted in better than anything else.”
“Fitted in?”
“Yes. Turkish comes at nine, music at ten and religion at eleven. So they make a good combination; they leave a man free to—”
“To develop his mind,” I said. “We used to find in my college days that lectures interfered with it badly. But now, Turkish, that must be an interesting language, eh?”
“Search me!” said the student. “All you have to do is answer the roll and go out. Forty roll-calls give you one Turkish unit — but, say, I must get on, I’ve got to change. So long.”
I could not help reflecting, as the young man left me, on the great changes that have come over our college education. It was a relief to me later in the day to talk with a quiet, sombre man, himself a graduate student in philosophy, on this topic. He agreed with me that the old strenuous studies seem to be very largely abandoned.
I looked at the sombre man with respect.
“Now your work,” I said, “is very different from what these young people are doing — hard, solid, definite effort. What a relief it must be to you to get a brief vacation up here. I couldn’t help thinking to-day, as I watched you moving round doing nothing, how fine it must feel for you to come up here after your hard work and put in a month of out-and-out loafing.”
“Loafing!” he said indignantly. “I’m not loafing. I’m putting in a half summer course in Introspection. That’s why I’m here. I get credit for two majors for my time here.”
“Ah,” I said, as gently as I could, “you get credit here.”
He left me. I am still pondering over our new education. Meantime I think I shall enter my little boy’s name on the books of Tuskegee College where the education is still old-fashioned.
The Errors of Santa Claus
IT WAS CHRISTMAS Eve.
The Browns, who lived in the adjoining house, had been dining with the Joneses.
Brown and Jones were sitting over wine and walnuts at the table. The others had gone upstairs.
“What are you giving to your boy for Christmas?” asked Brown.
“A train,” said Jones, “new kind of thing — automatic.”
“Let’s have a look at it,” said Brown.
Jones fetched a parcel from the sideboard and began unwrapping it.
“Ingenious thing, isn’t it?” he said. “Goes on its own rails. Queer how kids love to play with trains, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” assented Brown. “How are the rails fixed?”
“Wait, I’ll show you,” said Jones. “Just help me to shove these dinner things aside and roll back the cloth. There! See! You lay the rails like that and fasten them at the ends, so—”
“Oh, yes, I catch on, makes a grade, doesn’t it? Just the thing to amuse a child, isn’t it? I got Willy a toy aeroplane.”
“I know, they’re great. I got Edwin one on his birthday. But I thought I’d get him a train this time. I told him Santa Claus was going to bring him something altogether new this time. Edwin, of course, believes in Santa Claus absolutely. Say, look at this locomotive, would you? It has a spring coiled up inside the fire box.”
“Wind her up,” said Brown with great interest. “Let’s see her go.”
“All right,” said Jones. “Just pile up two or three plates or something to lean the end of the rails on. There, notice the way it buzzes before it starts. Isn’t that a great thing for a kid, eh?”
“Yes,” said Brown. “And say, see this little string to pull the whistle! By Gad, it toots, eh? Just like real?”
“Now then, Brown,” Jones went on, “you hitch on those cars and I’ll start her. I’ll be engineer, eh!”
Half an hour later Brown and Jones were still playing trains on the dining-room table.
But their wives upstairs in the drawing-room hardly noticed their absence. They were too much interested.
“Oh, I think it’s perfectly sweet,” said Mrs. Brown. “Just the loveliest doll I’ve seen in years. I must get one like it for Ulvina. Won’t Clarisse be perfectly enchanted?”
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Jones, “and then she’ll have all the fun of arranging the dresses. Children love that so much. Look, there are three little dresses with the doll, aren’t they cute? All cut out and ready to stitch together.”
“Oh, how perfectly lovely!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. “I think the mauve one would suit the doll best, don’t you, with such golden hair? Only don’t you think it would make it much nicer to turn back the collar, so, and to put a little band — so?”
“What a good idea!” said Mrs. Jones. “Do let’s try it. Just wait, I’ll get a needle in a minute. I’ll tell Clarisse that Santa Claus sewed it himself. The child believes in Santa Claus absolutely.”
And half an hour later Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Brown were so busy stitching dolls’ clothes that they could not hear the roaring of the little train up and down the dining table, and had no idea what the four children were doing.
Nor did the children miss their mothers.
“Dandy, aren’t they?” Edwin Jones was saying to little Willie Brown, as they sat in Edwin’s bedroom. “A hundred in a box, with cork tips, and see, an amber mouthpiece that fits into a little case at the side. Good present for Dad, eh?”
“Fine!” said Willie appreciatively. “I’m giving Father cigars.”
“I know, I thought of cigars too. Men always like cigars and cigarettes. You can’t go wrong on them. Say, would you like to try one or two of these cigarettes? We can take them from the bottom. You’ll like them, they’re Russian — away ahead of Egyptian.”
“Thanks,” answered Willie. “I’d like one immensely. I only started smoking last spring — on my twelfth birthday. I think a feller’s a fool to begin smoking cigarettes too soon, don’t you? It stunts him. I waited till I was twelve.”
“Me too,” said Edwin, as they lighted their cigarettes. “In fact, I wouldn’t buy them now if it weren’t for Dad. I simply had to give him something from Santa Claus. He believes in Santa Claus absolutely, you know.”
And, while this was going on, Clarisse was showing little Ulvina the absolutely lovely little bridge set that she got for her mother.
“Aren’t these markers perfectly charming?” said Ulvina. “And don’t you love this little Dutch design — or is it Flemish, darling?”
“Dutch,” said Clarisse. “Isn’t it quaint? And aren’t these the dearest little things, for putting the money in when you play. I needn’t have got them with it — they’d have sold the rest separately — but I think it’s too utterly slow playing without money, don’t you?”
“Oh, abominable,” shuddered Ulvina. “But your mamma never plays for money, does she?”
“Mamma! Oh, gracious, no. Mamma’s far too slow for that. But I shall tell her that Santa Claus insisted on putting in the little money boxes.”
“I suppose she believes in Santa Claus, just as my mamma does.”
“Oh, absolutely,” said Clarisse, and added, “What if we play a little game! With a double dummy, the French way, or Norwegian Skat, if you like. That only needs two.”
“All right,” agreed Ulvina, and in a few minutes they were deep in a game of cards with a little pile of pocket money beside them.
About half an hour later, all the members of the two families were again in the drawing-room. But of course nobody said anything about the presents. In any case they were all too busy looking at the beautiful big Bible, with maps in it, that the Joneses had brought to give to Grandfather. They all agreed that, with the help of it, Grandfather could hunt up any place in Palestine in a moment, day or night.
But upstairs, away upstairs in a sitting-room of his own Grandfather Jones was looking with an affectionate eye at the presents that stood beside him. There was a beautiful whisky decanter, with silver filigree outside (and whiskey inside) for Jones, and for the little boy a big nickel-plated Jew’s harp.
Later on, far in the night, the person, or the influence, or whatever it is called Santa Claus, took all the presents and placed them in the people’s stockings.
And, being blind as he always has been, he gave the wrong things to the wrong people — in fact, he gave them just as indicated above.
But the next day, in the course of Christmas morning, the situation straightened itself out, just as it always does.
Indeed, by ten o’clock, Brown and Jones were playing with the train, and Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Jones were making dolls’ clothes, and the boys were smoking cigarettes, and Clarisse and Ulvina were playing cards for their pocket-money.
And upstairs — away up — Grandfather was drinking whisky and playing the Jew’s harp.
And so Christmas, just as it always does, turned out all right after all.
Lost in New York
A VISITOR’S SOLILOQUY
WELL! WELL!
Whatever has been happening to this place, to New York? Changed? Changed since I was here in ‘86? Well, I should say so.
The hack-driver of the old days that I used to find waiting for me at the station curb, with that impossible horse of his — the hack-driver with his bulbous red face, and the nice smell of rye whisky all ‘round him for yards — gone, so it seems, for ever.
And in place of him this — what is it they call it? — taxi, with a clean-shaven cut-throat steering it. “Get in,” he says, Just that. He doesn’t offer to help me or lift my satchel. All right, young man, I’m crawling in.
That’s the machine that marks it, eh? I suppose they have them rigged up so they can punch up anything they like. I thought so — he hits it up to fifty cents before we start. But I saw him do it. Well, I can stand for it this time. I’ll not be caught in one of these again.
The hotel? All right, I’m getting out. My hotel? But what is it they have done to it? They must have added ten stories to it. It reaches to the sky. But I’ll not try to look to the top of it. Not with this satchel in my hand: no, sir! I’ll wait till I’m safe inside. In there I’ll feel all right. They’ll know me in there. They’ll remember right away my visit in the fall of ‘86. They won’t easily have forgotten that big dinner I gave — nine people at a dollar fifty a plate, with the cigars extra. The clerk will remember me, all right.
Know me? Not they. The clerk know me! How could he? For it seems now there isn’t any clerk, or not as there used to be. They have subdivided him somehow into five or six. There is a man behind a desk, a majestic sort of man, waving his hand. It would be sheer madness to claim acquaintance with him. There is another with a great book, adjusting cards in it; and another, behind glass labelled “Cashier,” and busy as a bank; there are two with mail and telegrams. They are all too busy to know me.
Shall I sneak up near to them, keeping my satchel in my hand? I wonder, do they see me? Can they see me, a mere thing like me? I am within ten feet of them, but I am certain that they cannot see me. I am, and I feel it, absolutely invisible.
Ha! One has seen me. He turns to me, or rather he rounds upon me, with the words “Well, sir?” That, and nothing else, sharp and hard. There is none of the ancient kindly pretence of knowing my name, no reaching out a welcome hand and calling me Mr. Er — Er — till he has read my name upside down while I am writing it and can address me as a familiar friend. No friendly questioning about the crops in my part of the country. The crops, forsooth! What do these young men know about crops?
A room? Had I any reservation? Any which? Any reservation. Oh, I see, had I written down from home to say that I was coming? No, I had not because the truth is I came at very short notice. I didn’t know till a week before that my brother-in-law — He is not listening. He has moved away. I will stand and wait till he comes back. I am intruding here; I had no right to disturb these people like this.
Oh, I can have a room at eleven o’clock. When it is which? — is vacated. Oh, yes, I see, when the man in it gets up and goes away. I didn’t for the minute catch on to what the word — He has stopped listening.
Never mind, I can wait. From eight to eleven is only three hours, anyway. I will move about here and look at things. If I keep moving they will notice me less. Ha! books and news papers and magazines — what a stack of them! Like a regular book-store. I will stand here and take a look at some of them. Eh! what’s that? Did I want to buy anything? Well, no, I hadn’t exactly — I was just — Oh, I see, they’re on sale. All right, yes, give me this one — fifty cents — all right — and this and these others. That’s all right, miss, I’m not stingy. They always say of me up in our town that when I — She has stopped listening.
Never mind. I will walk up and down again with the magazines under my arm. That will make people think I live here. Better still if I could put the magazines in my satchel. But how? There is no way to set it down and undo the straps. I wonder if I could dare put it for a minute on that table, the polished one — ? Or no, they wouldn’t likely allow a man to put a bag there.
Well, I can wait. Anyway, it’s eight o’clock and soon, surely, breakfast will be ready. As soon as I hear the gong I can go in there. I wonder if I could find out first where the dining-room is. It used always to be marked across the door, but I don’t seem to see it. Darn it, I’ll ask that man in uniform. If I’m here prepared to spend my good money to get breakfast I guess I’m not scared to ask a simple question of a man in uniform. Or no, I’ll not ask him. I’ll try this one — or no, he’s busy. I’ll ask this other boy. Say, would you mind, if you please, telling me, please, which way the dining-room — Eh, what? Do I want which? The grill room or the palm room? Why, I tell you, young man, I just wanted to get some breakfast if it’s — what? Do I want what? I didn’t quite get that — a la carte? No, thanks — and, what’s that? table de what? in the palm room? No, I just wanted — but it doesn’t matter. I’ll wait ‘round here and look about till I hear the gong. Don’t worry about me.
What’s that? What’s that boy shouting out — that boy with the tray? A call for Mr. Something or Other — say, must be something happened pretty serious! A call for Mr. — why, that’s for me! Hullo! Here I am! Here, it’s Me! Here I am — wanted at the desk? all right, I’m coming, I’m hurrying. I guess something’s wrong at home, eh! Here I am. That’s my name. I’m ready.
Oh, a room. You’ve got a room for me. All right. The fifteenth floor! Good heavens! Away up there! Never mind, I’ll take it. Can’t give me a bath? That’s all right. I had one.
Elevator over this way? All right, I’ll come along. Thanks, I can carry it. But I don’t see any elevator? Oh, this door in the wall? Well! I’m hanged. This the elevator! It certainly has changed. The elevator that I remember had a rope in the middle of it, and you pulled the rope up as you went, wheezing and clanking all the way to the fifth floor. But this looks a queer sort of machine. How do you do — Oh, I beg your pardon. I was in the road of the door, I guess. Excuse me, I’m afraid I got in the way of your elbow. It’s all right, you didn’t hurt — or, not bad.
