Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 381
“Yes, he’s the head of the Criminal Lunatic Asylum . . . He’s a member here; comes in every night; in fact, he goes back and forward between this and the Asylum. He says he’s making comparative studies. Check.”
The alienist caught sight of Letherby and came to our table. Letherby introduced me. Dr. Allard looked me hard and straight in the eyes; he paused before he spoke. “Your first visit here?” he said.
“Yes . . .” I murmured, “that is, yes.”
“I hope it won’t be the last,” he said. Now what did he mean by that?
Then he turned to Letherby.
“Fred came over to see me today,” he said. “Came of his own volition . . . I’m not quite sure . . . We may not have been quite wise.” The doctor seemed thinking . . . “However, no doubt he’s all right for awhile apart from sudden shock . . . just keep an eye . . . But what I really came to ask is, has Joel Linton been in tonight?”
“No . . .”
“I hope he doesn’t come. He’d better not . . . If he does, get someone to telephone to me.” And with that the doctor was gone.
“Joel Linton.” I said, “Why he’s arrested.”
“Not yet . . . they’re looking for him. You’re in check.”
“I beg your pardon,” I said. Of course I’d read — everybody had — about the embezzlement. But I’d no idea that a man like Joel Linton could be a member of the Chess Club — I always thought, I mean people said, that he was the sort of desperado type.
“He’s a member?” I said, my hand on the pieces.
“You can’t move that, you’re still in check. Yes, he’s a member though he likes mostly to stand and watch. Comes every night. Somebody said he was coming here tonight just the same. He says he’s not going to be taken alive. He comes round half past ten. It’s about his time . . . that looks like mate in two moves.”
My hands shook on the pieces. I felt that I was done with the Chess Club . . . Anyway I like to get home early . . . so I was just starting to say . . . that I’d abandon the game, when what happened happened so quickly that I’d no more choice about it.
“That’s Joel Linton now,” said Letherby, and in he came through the swing doors, a hard-looking man, but mighty determined . . . He hung his overcoat on a peg, and as he did so, I was sure I saw something bulging in his coat pocket — eh? He nodded casually about the room. And then started moving among the tables, edging his way toward ours.
“I guess, if you don’t mind,” I began . . . But that is as far as I got. That was when the police came in, two constables and an inspector.
I saw Linton dive his hand towards his pocket.
“Stand where you are, Linton,” the inspector called . . . Then right at that moment I saw the waiter, Fred, seize the hand-grip of the poker . . .
“Don’t move, Linton,” called the inspector; he never saw Fred moving toward him . . .
Linton didn’t move. But I did. I made a quick back bolt for the little door behind me . . . down the little stairway . . . and down the other little staircase, and along the corridor and back into the brightly lighted hotel rotunda, just the same as when I left it — noise and light and bellboys, and girls at the newsstand selling tobacco and evening papers . . . just the same, but oh, how different! For peace of mind, for the joy of life — give me a rotunda, and make it as noisy as ever you like.
I read all about it next morning in the newspapers. Things always sound so different in the newspaper, beside a coffee pot and a boiled egg. Tumults, murders, floods — all smoothed out. So was this. Arrest Made Quietly at Chess Club, it said. Linton Offers No Resistance . . . Members Continue Game Undisturbed. Yes, they would, the damned old gravestones . . . Of Fred it said nothing . . .
A few days later I happened to meet Letherby. “Your application is all right,” he said. “They’re going to hurry it through. You’ll get in next year . . .”
But I’ve sent a resignation in advance; I’m joining the Badminton Club and I want to see if I can’t get into the Boy Scouts or be a Girl Guide.
IMPERVIOUS TO WOMEN
“I LOOK ON myself,” said Baffy Sims, “as a man impervious to women.” He wasn’t really a man; he was a fourth year undergraduate. But it’s often hard to tell them apart.
He said this to me one afternoon on the campus just after lectures, but of course I’d heard Baffy Sims say it ever so many times before. Indeed, it was part of a set of fixed ideas; that he was impervious to women; that women were after him; but that they couldn’t get him. He always felt and said that a fellow had to be pretty careful. He kept away from clergymen’s houses, full of daughters, and never went to teas, lawn parties, nor any fool stuff of that sort. No, sir! Not for him. In fact, that was why we called him “Baffy” Sims, because he used to say that he wished he could go up and live in Baffin Land where there were no women.
All men, as they get old, say things over and over. Sims started young. So we called him “Baffinland” Sims, and then just “Baffy.” You know how names get stuck on a fellow at college and stay there. No, no, never mind telling me about the funny ones you remember from your own college. Keep that for another treat.
At any rate this was the afternoon of the evening when Baffy was to read his paper to the Physico-Mathematical Society on the Natural Inferiority of Women.
“Be sure to come,” he said. “I’ve got the paper nearly finished. It’s a corker. I may give it to the Atlantic.”
“Oh, don’t give it,” I said. “Make them pay for it.”
“Well, anyway,” he said, “it’s a corker.”
Just then there came scurrying to us such a pretty girl, with a great armful of books tied up with a string. You and I would have noticed at once her beautiful violet eyes, but of course a fellow like Baffy wouldn’t see them.
“Baffy!” she said, “I’ve just caught you in time! Look, I’m going out with Walter to play golf, so you take these books and sling them in at my house as you go by. Tell mother I’ll be late . . . If mother’s not there, go round to the back door and knock twice and Dinah’ll come . . . That’s good of you, Baffy.”
She was off, leaving Baffy standing there with the armful of books.
“Who,” I said with enthusiasm, “is that beautiful girl? Did you notice her eyes—”
“Eyes, hell,” he said. “I’m impervious to that sort of thing. That’s Pinkie Mordaunt, and I don’t go past her house and she knows it. It’s half a mile across the park. I told Mrs. Mordaunt last week to tell Pinkie I wouldn’t take her books home any more.”
“And what did she say?”
“I don’t think she quite understood. She said to just give them to Dinah without coming to the front door at all . . . and look now today, with my paper to finish . . . Oh, well, come along . . .”
We had hardly got started when another college girl came fluttering to him. “Baffy,” she said, “didn’t you hear me call? I was hunting you all over the campus.” She handed him a long envelope or rather she stuffed it under the string of Pinkie’s books. “Here they are,” she said. “I can’t work the damn things.”
“Quadratics, Dulcie?” said Baffy. Of course he was a real mathematician and could sense an equation even through an envelope.
“I don’t know what the hell they are,” Dulcie said. “They’re what he gave us today.”
A college girl always calls her professor simply “he.” Some of them are not, but that’s what they call them.
“I’ve got to hand them in at nine tomorrow. You’re certainly a real sport, Baffy.” “I’m not,” Baffy began angrily, but she was gone.
Things never happen singly, or even doubly. So I knew that when I saw a third girl with a bulldog on a leash that there was still more coming for Baffy.
“Lucky meeting you, Baffy,” she said.
“I can’t take him, Anastasia,” he said.
“Yes, you can,” she protested. “I want to play tennis with Billy Hyde and I’ve just no time to take Churchill home . . .”
“Look here, Anastasia, the last time I took Churchill . . .”
“Don’t be silly. Last time he hadn’t been fed properly — no wonder he bit that boy — anyway Churchill’s like that . . . Take him!” she said. And he did.
So that was that.
I’m not awfully keen on bulldogs. Oh, they’re faithful! I admit it — and quiet; a bulldog never bites. Oh, no — but I had to go another way anyway so I left Baffy with the dog.
But Baffy got even with them that night at the Physico-Mathematical Society when he read his paper on the Natural Inferiority of Women. They said it was a scorcher; and, mind you, they’re accustomed in that society to scorch something every week — Monarchy, Christianity, God — things like that. I understand that Baffy showed that women lacked not only brains, but also leadership. In fact he didn’t leave them a leg to — or, well, no, that’s not exactly the metaphor. I won’t say that.
Such was Baffy Sims’ path at college, impervious, as he said, to women. Not that there was anything mean-spirited about him. I don’t imply that for a minute . . . And, of course, he couldn’t help it if he knew a lot of girls and if they all called him Baffy. You see, his family had been in the city for ever so long and were well off and knew everybody. So of course the girls paid no attention to Baffy being impervious to women. To them he was just Baffy Sims.
Being well off, life was easy for Baffy in the material sense. He slid easily through Arts and through Law, a subject beyond the range of women, and slid easily as a barrister into a law business, since there was enough family and estate business to start it anyway . . .
But his views never changed . . .
“I’ve always felt impervious to women,” he would say, “ever since I was a boy at college.” He’d forgotten about being a man there . . .
But he was a pleasant fellow and life used him easily. Some people, clergymen’s wives, said that it was a pity he hadn’t married and that they must ask him up to tea . . . So you see there was something in his apprehension after all.
Anyway, his law practice opened out in pleasant and comfortable surroundings as I can testify.
“Come down and see my new offices some day,” he said. “I’ve got everything running fine.”
“It’ll have to be early in the morning,” I said.
“Early as you like,” he answered, “or come down with me at nine-thirty.”
So the next morning we arrived at the office — a pretty handsome place, I could see at the first glimpse through the open door — at 9:30 a.m. But Mrs. Murphy was still there. You know who Mrs. Murphy is — she’s that big woman with the scrubbing pail and brush who is always in a law office before it opens — at her biggest because she’s always on all fours and seen from the southwest . . .
“I can’t let yez in yet, Mr. Sims,” she said. “I’ve another half hour before I can let you have the office . . . Such a litter, such a dust. Now yous wait outside, half an hour, mebbe . . .
“No, no, Mrs. Murphy,” said Baffy, “never mind it now. It’ll do fine as it is . . .”
“I might give the offices a touch-up after five,” suggested Mrs. Murphy.
“Yes,” said Baffy, “that’s the idea,” and I heard the rustle of a dollar bill passing to Mrs. Murphy, where all rustle ended . . .
“Yes, five o’clock.”
“A fine woman,” said Baffy as we went into his luxurious offices and sat down. “A fine woman — devoted to her work. Do you know that this is the third morning running that she’s been working away over time like that . . . of course, a woman in that class accepts leadership. That woman looks to me . . .”
“She does,” I said.
Baffy had hardly begun to show me the office fittings, the law books all in a row — the charm which even law has when young — when the new telephone sounded on the new desk . . .
“Yes, Miss Macarty,” said Baffy . . .
“Yes . . . can’t come to the office this morning, yes . . .”
“Why, certainly, Miss Macarty; yes . . .”
“Yes . . .”
“Your father’s foot? Miss Macarty, why, yes, Miss Macarty . . .”
“Much wiser, yes — take him to Muskoka, yes . . .”
“No, Miss Macarty . . .”
“Back Monday, yes, Miss Macarty, yes . . .”
“Your golf kit? . . . Get it at your house, yes, and send it to Muskoka . . . I prepay it? Yes, yes. See you Monday — good.”
“Miss Macarty,” he explained, “my secretary. It’s her father’s gout again. He’s a martyr to it. She won’t be down this morning because of it. I’m sorry; I’d like you to have met her. A fine girl, and I will say, devoted to her work, never misses — except of course for a thing like this . . . She’s her father’s sole support outside of what he has of his own.”
“And what about his gout?”
“Wretched business, isn’t it? Ever had it? Terribly painful . . . comes in sudden attacks . . .”
“And he’s got it again?”
“No,” said Baffy, “not yet. She wants to forestall it, but its coming on; she feels it. Often she knows it before he does. Two weeks ago she had to rush him to Preston Springs for the week-end. Last week she rushed him to the Buffalo Races, just in time to ward off an attack. Today she’s going to try to make Muskoka — the new hotel there — just in time. That’s why she wants me to get her golf kit and send it by express . . . I must remember . . .”
Mrs. Murphy appeared at the door.
“Them ladies,” she said, “is downstairs . . .”
“Tell them I’ll come and bring them up,” said Baffy hurriedly. “Now I’m sorry,—”
“Clients?” I said. “I’ll get right out.”
“No,” he answered, “not exactly . . . It’s the Women’s Auxiliary Bazaar . . . they’re bringing tickets . . . They want me to take a block of two hundred . . . women always imagine that men have more leadership in getting tickets — in fact they said so yesterday . . . Perhaps you’ll buy one . . .”
“What’s it for?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Some damn thing.”
I saw quite a lot of Baffinland Sims that winter. He was prospering, as he deserved to do, good fellow, and life, except for his silly “impervious” fad, was all bright in front of him. He went out quite a lot into society. I’ll never forget the speech he made at Pinkie Mordaunt’s wedding, a speech on behalf of bachelors — I wish I could remember it; it was darned good . . . But mostly he went to bachelor gatherings, stag parties. In fact, that was when he founded the U.B.F., the United Bachelors Front, for resisting to the last man. The girls called it — or, well, you can’t repeat what girls call that sort of thing.
So there was Baffinland Sims all headed straight for everlasting bachelordom. To think how easily such things end and break! Who could have imagined it all over by that next June? You could? Well, yes, but I mean who else but yourself?
Anyway, you know what the month of June is — all green and soft, all trees and garden and flowers — and every city suburb as fresh as a leafy forest . . . You know what June is; now take a June garden party, under the trees out on a big lawn . . . in one of those lovely big houses where the city ends and the country begins. Fill in tables scattered over the grass and sandwiches and jellies, and ices and drinks and bottles . . . and bevies of girls in all the colours of the flowers . . . and men in soft flannels — if you want a man to look a real man put him in soft flannel, or loose wool — people moving about in little knots and then untieing the knots to move somewhere else. By that means, you see, you get a drink here and then another drink there . . . and nobody counts them . . . Put in, of course — I was forgetting it — a band, seated around under a big tree and playing while the people move round and have drinks, and then the people stop moving and the band have drinks, and so on. You know what a garden party is on a lawn in June! Does a chicken sandwich ever taste so well? Does a cut of cold ham ever look more enticing? Pop! Bang! God bless me! Champagne! Well! Here’s luck!
And mind you it wasn’t in aid of anything either . . . No, sir.
Well, Baffinland Sims was at the garden party, because he liked to go to that sort of thing. Just to laugh at it . . . It amused him.
So while he was at the height of his amusement at it, I was walking with him through the grounds, and he stopped all of a sudden and clutched my arm and said,
“Who is that marvellous looking girl?”
I didn’t see any marvellous looking girl so I said, “Where?”
“There, in white, beside the end of that table!”
I looked and there wasn’t any marvellous looking girl. I mean, there was only Molly Sheppardson. I’m not saying anything against Molly but you’ll understand what I mean when I say that that’s what it was, just Molly Sheppardson; only her. Molly’s all right; a little large, you might say and, at a guess, going to be larger — you know the kind, the girls I mean. So I said,
“It’s Molly Sheppardson.” Of course, I didn’t “only” to him. “I’ll introduce you if you like.”
“Do,” he said, and then, “just a minute,” and he began to fumble with his tie, and dust crumbs off himself that weren’t there . . .
So I took Baffy over and I introduced him . . .
“How do you do?” Molly said; she speaks easily, I will say. “How do you do? Isn’t everything beautifully green?”
I could see that Baffinland was impressed. Here was a girl with a real reach of intellect! Her apprehension of greenness was wonderful.
I left them and wandered on to another table, where a girl I knew said, “How beautifully green everything is,” and the man with her murmured “Spring . . .” He was a college man and had just come out first at graduation, so he knew. We had a drink together and then some more people came floating along and saying, “How beautifully green everything is, isn’t it?”
