Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 73
Here Yarner paused and took a long, hissing drink of whiskey and soda: and then as the malignity died out of his face —
“I should explain,” he went on, very quietly, “that Gallon was not one of our original party. We had come down to Colombo from Mongolia, going by the Pekin Hankow and the Nippon Yushen Keisha.”
“That, I suppose, is the best way?” I said.
“Yes. And oddly enough but for the accident of Gallon joining us, we should have gone by the Amoy, Cochin, Singapore route, which was our first plan. In fact, but for Gallon we should hardly have got through China at all. The Boxer insurrection had taken place only fourteen years before our visit, so you can imagine the awful state of the country.
“Our meeting with Gallon was thus absolutely providential. Looking back on it, I think it perhaps saved our lives. We were in Mongolia (this, you understand, was before we reached China), and had spent the night at a small Yak about four versts from Kharbin, when all of a sudden, just outside the miserable hut that we were in, we heard a perfect fusillade of shots followed immediately afterwards by one of the most blood-curdling and terrifying screams I have ever imagined—”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “and that was how you met Gallon. Well, I must be off.”
And as I happened at that very moment to be rescued by an incoming friend, who took but little interest in lions, and even less in Yarner, I have still to learn why the lion howled so when it met Yarner. But surely the lion had reason enough.
4. — The Spiritual Outlook of Mr. Doomer
One generally saw old Mr. Doomer looking gloomily out of the windows of the library of the club. If not there, he was to be found staring sadly into the embers of a dying fire in a deserted sitting-room.
His gloom always appeared out of place as he was one of the richest of the members.
But the cause of it, — as I came to know, — was that he was perpetually concerned with thinking about the next world. In fact he spent his whole time brooding over it.
I discovered this accidentally by happening to speak to him of the recent death of Podge, one of our fellow members.
“Very sad,” I said, “Podge’s death.”
“Ah,” returned Mr. Doomer, “very shocking. He was quite unprepared to die.”
“Do you think so?” I said, “I’m awfully sorry to hear it.”
“Quite unprepared,” he answered. “I had reason to know it as one of his executors, — everything is confusion, — nothing signed, — no proper power of attorney, — codicils drawn up in blank and never witnessed, — in short, sir, no sense apparently of the nearness of his death and of his duty to be prepared.
“I suppose,” I said, “poor Podge didn’t realise that he was going to die.”
“Ah, that’s just it,” resumed Mr. Doomer with something like sternness, “a man OUGHT to realise it. Every man ought to feel that at any moment, — one can’t tell when, — day or night, — he may be called upon to meet his,” — Mr. Doomer paused here as if seeking a phrase— “to meet his Financial Obligations, face to face. At any time, sir, he may be hurried before the Judge, — or rather his estate may be, — before the Judge of the probate court. It is a solemn thought, sir. And yet when I come here I see about me men laughing, talking, and playing billiards, as if there would never be a day when their estate would pass into the hands of their administrators and an account must be given of every cent.”
“But after all,” I said, trying to fall in with his mood, “death and dissolution must come to all of us.”
“That’s just it,” he said solemnly. “They’ve dissolved the tobacco people, and they’ve dissolved the oil people and you can’t tell whose turn it may be next.”
Mr. Doomer was silent a moment and then resumed, speaking in a tone of humility that was almost reverential.
“And yet there is a certain preparedness for death, a certain fitness to die that we ought all to aim at. Any man can at least think solemnly of the Inheritance Tax, and reflect whether by a contract inter vivos drawn in blank he may not obtain redemption; any man if he thinks death is near may at least divest himself of his purely speculative securities and trust himself entirely to those gold bearing bonds of the great industrial corporations whose value will not readily diminish or pass away.” Mr. Doomer was speaking with something like religious rapture.
“And yet what does one see?” he continued. “Men affected with fatal illness and men stricken in years occupied still with idle talk and amusements instead of reading the financial newspapers, — and at the last carried away with scarcely time perhaps to send for their brokers when it is already too late.”
“It is very sad,” I said.
“Very,” he repeated, “and saddest of all, perhaps, is the sense of the irrevocability of death and the changes that must come after it.”
We were silent a moment.
“You think of these things a great deal, Mr. Doomer?” I said.
“I do,” he answered. “It may be that it is something in my temperament, I suppose one would call it a sort of spiritual mindedness. But I think of it all constantly. Often as I stand here beside the window and see these cars go by” — he indicated a passing street car— “I cannot but realise that the time will come when I am no longer a managing director and wonder whether they will keep on trying to hold the dividend down by improving the rolling stock or will declare profits to inflate the securities. These mysteries beyond the grave fascinate me, sir. Death is a mysterious thing. Who for example will take my seat on the Exchange? What will happen to my majority control of the power company? I shudder to think of the changes that may happen after death in the assessment of my real estate.”
“Yes,” I said, “it is all beyond our control, isn’t it?”
“Quite,” answered Mr. Doomer; “especially of late years one feels that, all said and done, we are in the hands of a Higher Power, and that the State Legislature is after all supreme. It gives one a sense of smallness. It makes one feel that in these days of drastic legislation with all one’s efforts the individual is lost and absorbed in the controlling power of the state legislature. Consider the words that are used in the text of the Income Tax Case, Folio Two, or the text of the Trans-Missouri Freight Decision, and think of the revelation they contain.”
I left Mr. Doomer still standing beside the window, musing on the vanity of life and on things, such as the future control of freight rates, that lay beyond the grave.
I noticed as I left him how broken and aged he had come to look. It seemed as if the chafings of the spirit were wearing the body that harboured it.
It was about a month later that I learned of Mr. Doomer’s death.
Dr. Slyder told me of it in the club one afternoon, over two cocktails in the sitting-room.
“A beautiful bedside,” he said, “one of the most edifying that I have ever attended. I knew that Doomer was failing and of course the time came when I had to tell him.
“‘Mr. Doomer,’ I said, ‘all that I, all that any medical can do for you is done; you are going to die. I have to warn you that it is time for other ministrations than mine.’
“‘Very good,’ he said faintly but firmly, ‘send for my broker.’
“They sent out and fetched Jarvis, — you know him I think, — most sympathetic man and yet most business-like — he does all the firm’s business with the dying, — and we two sat beside Doomer holding him up while he signed stock transfers and blank certificates.
“Once he paused and turned his eyes on Jarvis. ‘Read me from the text of the State Inheritance Tax Statute,’ he said. Jarvis took the book and read aloud very quietly and simply the part at the beginning— ‘Whenever and wheresoever it shall appear,’ down to the words, ‘shall be no longer a subject of judgment or appeal but shall remain in perpetual possession.’
“Doomer listened with his eyes closed. The reading seemed to bring him great comfort. When Jarvis ended he said with a sign, ‘That covers it. I’ll put my faith in that.’ After that he was silent a moment and then said: ‘I wish I had already crossed the river. Oh, to have already crossed the river and be safe on the other side.’ We knew what he meant. He had always planned to move over to New Jersey. The inheritance tax is so much more liberal.
“Presently it was all done.
“‘There,’ I said, ‘it is finished now.’
“‘No,’ he answered, ‘there is still one thing. Doctor, you’ve been very good to me. I should like to pay your account now without it being a charge on the estate. I will pay it as’ — he paused for a moment and a fit of coughing seized him, but by an effort of will he found the power to say— ‘cash.’
“I took the account from my pocket (I had it with me, fearing the worst), and we laid his cheque-book before him on the bed. Jarvis thinking him too faint to write tried to guide his hand as he filled in the sum. But he shook his head.
“‘The room is getting dim,’ he said. ‘I can see nothing but the figures.’
“‘Never mind,’ said Jarvis, — much moved, ‘that’s enough.’
“‘Is it four hundred and thirty?’ he asked faintly.
“‘Yes,’ I said, and I could feel the tears rising in my eyes, ‘and fifty cents.’
“After signing the cheque his mind wandered for a moment and he fell to talking, with his eyes closed, of the new federal banking law, and of the prospect of the reserve associations being able to maintain an adequate gold supply.
“Just at the last he rallied.
“‘I want,’ he said in quite a firm voice, ‘to do something for both of you before I die.’
“‘Yes, yes,’ we said.
“‘You are both interested, are you not,’ he murmured, in City Traction?’
“‘Yes, yes,’ we said. We knew of course that he was the managing director.
“He looked at us faintly and tried to speak.
“‘Give him a cordial,’ said Jarvis. But he found his voice.
“‘The value of that stock,’ he said, ’is going to take a sudden—’
“His voice grew faint.
“‘Yes, yes,’ I whispered, bending over him (there were tears in both our eyes), ‘tell me is it going up, or going down?’
“‘It is going’ — he murmured, — then his eyes closed— ‘it is going—’
“‘Yes, yes,’ I said, ‘which?’
“‘It is going’ — he repeated feebly and then, quite suddenly he fell back on the pillows and his soul passed. And we never knew which way it was going. It was very sad. Later on, of course, after he was dead, we knew, as everybody knew, that it went down.”
5. — The Reminiscences of Mr. Apricot
“Rather a cold day, isn’t it?” I said as I entered the club.
The man I addressed popped his head out from behind a newspaper and I saw it was old Mr. Apricot. So I was sorry that I had spoken.
“Not so cold as the winter of 1866,” he said, beaming with benevolence.
He had an egg-shaped head, bald, with some white hair fluffed about the sides of it. He had a pink face with large blue eyes, behind his spectacles, benevolent to the verge of imbecility.
“Was that a cold winter?” I asked.
“Bitter cold,” he said. “I have never told you, have I, of my early experiences in life?”
“I think I have heard you mention them,” I murmured, but he had already placed a detaining hand on my sleeve. “Sit down,” he said. Then he continued: “Yes, it was a cold winter. I was going to say that it was the coldest I have ever experienced, but that might be an exaggeration. But it was certainly colder than any winter that YOU have ever seen, or that we ever have now, or are likely to have. In fact the winters NOW are a mere nothing,” — here Mr. Apricot looked toward the club window where the driven snow was beating in eddies against the panes,— “simply nothing. One doesn’t feel them at all,” — here he turned his eyes towards the glowing fire that flamed in the open fireplace. “But when I was a boy things were very different. I have probably never mentioned to you, have I, the circumstances of my early life?”
He had, many times. But he had turned upon me the full beam of his benevolent spectacles and I was too weak to interrupt.
“My father,” went on Mr. Apricot, settling back in his chair and speaking with a far-away look in his eyes, “had settled on the banks of the Wabash River—”
“Oh, yes, I know it well,” I interjected.
“Not as it was THEN,” said Mr. Apricot very quickly. “At present as you, or any other thoughtless tourist sees it, it appears a broad river pouring its vast flood in all directions. At the time I speak of it was a mere stream scarcely more than a few feet in circumference. The life we led there was one of rugged isolation and of sturdy self-reliance and effort such as it is, of course, quite impossible for YOU, or any other member of this club to understand, — I may give you some idea of what I mean when I say that at that time there was no town nearer to Pittsburgh than Chicago, or to St. Paul than Minneapolis—”
“Impossible!” I said.
Mr. Apricot seemed not to notice the interruption.
“There was no place nearer to Springfield than St. Louis,” he went on in a peculiar singsong voice, “and there was nothing nearer to Denver than San Francisco, nor to New Orleans than Rio Janeiro—”
He seemed as if he would go on indefinitely.
“You were speaking of your father?” I interrupted.
“My father,” said Mr. Apricot, “had settled on the banks, both banks, of the Wabash. He was like so many other men of his time, a disbanded soldier, a veteran—”
“Of the Mexican War or of the Civil War?” I asked.
“Exactly,” answered Mr. Apricot, hardly heeding the question,— “of the Mexican Civil War.”
“Was he under Lincoln?” I asked.
“OVER Lincoln,” corrected Mr. Apricot gravely. And he added,— “It is always strange to me the way in which the present generation regards Abraham Lincoln. To us, of course, at the time of which I speak, Lincoln was simply one of ourselves.”
“In 1866?” I asked.
“This was 1856,” said Mr. Apricot. “He came often to my father’s cabin, sitting down with us to our humble meal of potatoes and whiskey (we lived with a simplicity which of course you could not possibly understand), and would spend the evening talking with my father over the interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. We children used to stand beside them listening open-mouthed beside the fire in our plain leather night-gowns. I shall never forget how I was thrilled when I first heard Lincoln lay down his famous theory of the territorial jurisdiction of Congress as affected by the Supreme Court decision of 1857. I was only nine years old at the time, but it thrilled me!”
“Is it possible!” I exclaimed, “how ever could you understand it?”
“Ah! my friend,” said Mr. Apricot, almost sadly, “in THOSE days the youth of the United States were EDUCATED in the real sense of the word. We children followed the decisions of the Supreme Court with breathless interest. Our books were few but they were GOOD. We had nothing to read but the law reports, the agriculture reports, the weather bulletins and the almanacs. But we read them carefully from cover to cover. How few boys have the industry to do so now, and yet how many of our greatest men were educated on practically nothing else except the law reports and the almanacs. Franklin, Jefferson, Jackson, Johnson,” — Mr. Apricot had relapsed into his sing-song voice, and his eye had a sort of misty perplexity in it as he went on,— “Harrison, Thomson, Peterson, Emerson—”
I thought it better to stop him.
“But you were speaking,” I said, “of the winter of eighteen fifty-six.”
“Of eighteen forty-six,” corrected Mr. Apricot. “I shall never forget it. How distinctly I remember, — I was only a boy then, in fact a mere lad, — fighting my way to school. The snow lay in some places as deep as ten feet” — Mr. Apricot paused— “and in others twenty. But we made our way to school in spite of it. No boys of to-day, — nor, for the matter of that, even men such as you, — would think of attempting it. But we were keen, anxious to learn. Our school was our delight. Our teacher was our friend. Our books were our companions. We gladly trudged five miles to school every morning and seven miles back at night, did chores till midnight, studied algebra by candlelight” — here Mr. Apricot’s voice had fallen into its characteristic sing-song, and his eyes were vacant— “rose before daylight, dressed by lamplight, fed the hogs by lantern-light, fetched the cows by twilight—”
I thought it best to stop him.
“But you did eventually get off the farm, did you not?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered, “my opportunity presently came to me as it came in those days to any boy of industry and intelligence who knocked at the door of fortune till it opened. I shall never forget how my first chance in life came to me. A man, an entire stranger, struck no doubt with the fact that I looked industrious and willing, offered me a dollar to drive a load of tan bark to the nearest market—”
“Where was that?” I asked.
“Minneapolis, seven hundred miles. But I did it. I shall never forget my feelings when I found myself in Minneapolis with one dollar in my pocket and with the world all before me.”
“What did you do?” I said.
“First,” said Mr. Apricot, “I laid out seventy-five cents for a suit of clothes (things were cheap in those days); for fifty cents I bought an overcoat, for twenty-five I got a hat, for ten cents a pair of boots, and with the rest of my money I took a room for a month with a Swedish family, paid a month’s board with a German family, arranged to have my washing done by an Irish family, and—”
“But surely, Mr. Apricot—” I began.
But at this point the young man who is generally in attendance on old Mr. Apricot when he comes to the club, appeared on the scene.
“I am afraid,” he said to me aside as Mr. Apricot was gathering up his newspapers and his belongings, “that my uncle has been rather boring you with his reminiscences.”
