Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 120
“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Meg. “Do you mean to imply I’ve soiled him?”
“I hope so, Miss Meg,” answered Betts. “I hope you’ve blackened him. You see, I don’t hold with overclean living. I think it sort of paralyzes one’s moral sense. Morals should be kept in a state of constant circulation to be healthy. All progress is due to unmoral persons turning over new leaves.”
“That observation is especially applicable to my time when people wore hardly anything else,” put in Mercury. “Turning over new leaves in my day was of all sports the most popular.”
Betts and Meg laughed politely at this little sally of the nimble-witted god.
“Sin,” continued Betts, not to be deflected from his train of thoughts, “that is, so-called sin, is the working capital of religion — all religion. It would sound very presumptuous, wouldn’t it, to assure some god every morning and night in your prayers that you were every bit as good as he was? No. The whole system works on sin, and I haven’t done enough of it.”
“Well, if stealing’s a sin and it goes by size, you’ve made up for a lot of lost ground,” Meg told the old man encouragingly.
“I certainly hope so, Miss Meg,” he replied seriously. “I want it chalked up against me.”
Thus philosophically conversing, the little party came to Broadway. There was not much traffic here at this hour, but there was too much for the cow. In the middle of the crossing she sat down behind a policeman and gave vent to a plaintive moo. Interested to see the automobile that carried such an unusual horn, the policeman turned round and found himself looking into two preternaturally large, humid eyes. He jumped back several feet and startled the cow nearly out of her wits.
“Sweet St. Patrick!” breathed the policeman. “What are you doing with that, lady?”
“That’s a cow,” Meg informed the officer.
“I know, I know,” said the policeman impatiently.
“You didn’t seem to when you first saw her,” the girl replied accusingly.
“Well,” admitted the officer, “I did get quite a start, but you’ve got to admit, lady, a cow is a queer thing to come staring you in the face at this time of the morning on Broadway.”
“What is the most popular cow hour on Broadway?” Meg inquired.
“Any hour but this, lady,” the officer replied wearily.
“Okay, officer,” said Meg snappily; “then we’ll come back some other time. Tweak her tail, Betts.”
The cow responded to the tweaking, and before the policeman had the time to formulate any convincing objection the cow and its three escorts had crossed the wide thoroughfare and were heading towards Sixth Avenue. At Fifth they were once more checked. Mercury had come to know well and hate heartily the uniform of the law. He decided to outface this one.
“Now, no questions, officer,” he said in a voice of extreme annoyance. “We’re very busy.”
“I’m not going to ask any questions,” replied the officer, looking the party over with an unfriendly eye. “I’m going to do things and issue orders. The first one is that you can’t cross Fifth Avenue with that cow.”
“Why not?” demanded Meg. “They let us cross every other avenue.”
“Fifth Avenue’s different,” the officer replied boastfully. “Better.”
“Oh, come now, officer,” Meg continued sweetly. “If you’d say that about Park Avenue we might agree with you, but not Fifth. You know yourself that Fifth Avenue is nothing more than a vulgar commercial racket. It’s just a great gully, officer, filled with envious and acquisitive humanity.”
“Well, it ain’t going to be filled with cows,” replied the officer, “and that’s flat.”
“Just one cow, Mr. Policeman?” said Meg, her smile fairly dazzling the man. “Just one little girl cow who doesn’t know her way about?”
The officer began to grin.
“You see,” put in Betts respectfully, “my mistress just got this cow from the slaughter house.”
“Snatched it from under the blade of the knife,” added Meg.
“And it’s going to be raffled off this evening at a charity bazaar,” continued Betts. “A very fashionable function.”
“So you see, officer,” said Meg with sweet simplicity, “we have to get this cow across the Avenue. Both she and myself are losing our beauty sleep as it is.”
“All right, lady,” replied the officer. “Things can’t be much worse than they are. Take your cow and raffle her off.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Meg. “You startled me. I thought you were going to tell us to do something entirely different with our cow.”
With a coy laugh she bade the puzzled policeman good-bye and the party continued on.
It was fortunate for the success of the expedition that the private entrance provided by the hotel for the exclusive use of Mr. Hawk and his guests was situated on an unfrequented, narrow side street and involved no traversings of halls or reception rooms. A small door gave directly to the elevator, and in the elevator dwelt a youth who apparently had no interests in life, not even in his elevator. When a full-grown cow was tightly wedged into it he looked away as if to rest his eyes. And when Meg, Mercury, and Betts filled in the chinks not taken up by cow he closed the cage doors and informed them dispassionately that in all likelihood the elevator would refuse to lift. It did not quite refuse, but its ascent was of a hesitating, uncertain nature.
“It will probably drop,” said the boy as they passed the tenth floor.
“You waited for the right time to tell us,” replied Meg. “This is just a nice height for a perfect open break.”
At the fifteenth floor they pried the cow loose and Mercury gave the boy much stolen money for his silence.
“I never say anything, anyway,” said the boy, “to anybody. A cow more or less makes no difference after all the queer things you people have brought up.”
And this was how it came about that a cow was brought to call on Mr. Hawk between five and six in the morning.
“I’m very much obliged,” he said at last, looking up from his thoughts, “for thinking of me in connection with this cow. Did you happen to find out her name?”
“No,” replied Meg, “but I think she would like Dora.”
“Very good,” continued Hawk. “The cow’s name is Dora. Pour some drinks, Betts, and tell me, Betts, do cows lie down?”
“Well, yes and no, sir,” the old man answered.
“Not yes and no, Betts,” the scientist objected. “It has to be either yes or no.”
“I mean,” said the servant, looking up from the glasses, “they don’t rightly lie down like a dog. You can’t just tell ’em to lie down and expect to be obeyed. It has to come to them, sort of.”
“I have a dog,” observed Hawk, “who has never lain down once when I’ve asked him to during the course of our long years of association. He doesn’t seem able to get those two words through his brain.”
“He’s very much like a cow in that,” commented Betts with a wise shake of his head.
“Perhaps he was already lying down when you first told him to lie down and he mistook it for get up,” said Mercury. “I did that once to a dog and forever after I had to tell him to get up whenever I wanted him to lie down.”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Hawk. “Let’s get back to this cow, Dora. She’ll have to stay here until more suitable arrangements can be made for her. We’ll keep this room locked to prevent the chambermaid from finding out.”
“She has a key,” said Mercury.
“Then we’ll tell her to stay out,” replied Mr. Hawk, “and later we’ll padlock her in her own room. Do you think you could make her lie down now? We should all be getting some sleep. Not much, but some.”
“Why don’t you petrify her?” Meg suggested.
“A good idea,” said the scientist, “but she’s only just come. Doesn’t seem very hospitable, and it might sour her milk.”
“We can make her lie down,” declared Mercury. “I’ll take her back legs, and, Betts, you take her front, and, Meg, you and Mr. Hawk can push. She’ll topple over very nicely.”
“Sounds rather brutal,” remarked Mr. Hawk, “but the damn fool should lie down. I suspect she’s been traveling for several days and stands in need of a rest.”
Dora, with a look of mild astonishment on her kindly face, allowed herself to be assaulted and toppled over. Once lying comfortably on her broad side she wondered why someone had not thought of it before. With a deep sigh, she fell asleep and dreamed fitfully of slums.
Half an hour later, after the consumption of several more than enough highballs, Meg and Mr. Hawk flung themselves down on their beds. Mercury and Mr. Betts were already slumbering peacefully, their heads cushioned on Dora’s tan-and-white flank. It was a scene of happy domesticity not usually to be found in a bedroom of a New York hotel.
Meg rolled out of her bed and, slipping off her excuse for a dress, curled up beside Mr. Hawk.
“I never could understand the reason for twin beds,” she murmured.
“Suppose you had an enemy or a girl friend?” asked Mr. Hawk, sleepily speculative.
“That,” she replied, “would be a horse of another color.”
He dropped an arm across her and whispered, “Sleep.”
Betts and Dora contested bitterly for the audible sleeping honors.
CHAPTER XVIII
A Demoralizing Tank Party
NEPTUNE HAD BEEN drinking heavily all morning and had eaten up all the goldfish. He was now ranging through the rooms making himself a general nuisance. Venus had caught him at a bottle of her most dependable perfume. After she had driven him off with the aid of a long nail file the thwarted god had sneaked into Apollo’s room and finished off that immaculate Olympian’s hair tonic.
“How do you expect your nieces and nephews to respect you,” Mr. Hawk had asked him, “if you make a practice of drinking up their toilet preparations?”
“I only wanted a little sip,” Neptune had defended himself, “but they had to get stuffy about it. And besides, my nieces and nephews have no respect for anyone. They’re hard, Mr. Hawk. They’re hard. Like that,” and Neptune extended a huge clenched fist. “Like that, Mr. Hawk,” he repeated.
“But why don’t you stick to whisky?” asked Mr. Hawk. “Isn’t that strong enough?”
“It is, my dear sir. It is,” the god assured him. “I am very fond of whisky. I might say I love it. It was merely a passing whim. The stuff smelled so damned good. But to return to whisky. Where is some?”
Mr. Hawk provided him with a bottle, and Neptune retired with it to his room where he could drink in peace and security.
“They get that way,” Mr. Betts sympathetically observed, looking after the huge figure of the bearded god. “It’s this stuff — the official poison of a free country. It’s so bad that those who drink it begin to experiment after awhile, because they feel that nothing could be worse. These gods of yours are not used to the idea. They keep on hoping.”
“It’s worse for Neptune than for the rest of them,” said the scientist. “He’s more out of his element. A man who’s been used to taking his morning dip in any one of the seven seas can hardly be expected to adapt himself overnight to a tub.”
Betts nodded wisely and placed a cool shakerful of cocktails on the table beside his master. Mr. Hawk swallowed one of them and returned to his morning paper. He was interested to find out the latest news from the Metropolitan. At first the amazing disappearance of the statues had been withheld from the press, but after the museum had been inexplicably closed for several days the truth had leaked out and an official statement had been issued. Mr. Hawk had been relieved to find that his name was not mentioned in connection with the case. Apparently the guard who had visited him in the lower corridor and the man to whom the guard had shown Mr. Hawk’s cards had decided that safety lay in silence. A world-wide search for the lost gods was already under way. Thousands and thousands of persons who previously had felt no qualms from their inability to tell one god from another were to-day discussing with intense interest the removal of the statues from one of the world’s most scientifically protected treasure houses of art. Mr. Hawk had contributed this much to the advancement of learning, at any rate. He had furnished the world with a pretty problem.
He poured himself another drink, and after sitting quite motionless for a few moments decided he was feeling a little better. It had been a hard night and an irritating morning. Neptune was not the only god who was acting up. The whole disorderly lot of them had gotten out of the wrong side of the bed. Diana’s transient guest had departed screaming down the hall with one of her arrows planted firmly between the tails of his hastily donned dress suit. Venus had loudly refused to take her shower unless Mr. Hawk turned it on for her. When finally he had consented to do so for the sake of peace and quiet, she had pulled him under the downpour and playfully mauled him about. In addition to this he had been unable to dislodge Mercury from the flank of the recumbent Dora, although Betts had responded at the first summons. It had been a morning of constant interruptions through which Meg, cuddled up like an abandoned doll, had slept quite undisturbed. Even Perseus, who usually was rather quiet and self-satisfied in the morning, had made himself particularly disagreeable because he had been unable to find any soap sufficiently gritty with which to wash Medusa’s face.
Mr. Hawk looked enviously at the peacefully slumbering Meg and felt the need of privacy.
“I might as well be the purser on a ship full of lunatics,” he mused. “Why do they have to drag me into all their arguments and expect me to humor their every damn whim? Olympus must have been a madhouse.”
At this moment Dora decided to call it a sleep and managed to get herself to her hoofs by a series of heaves and jerks. Mercury remained behind her, sprawled on the floor. The cow greeted her host with a low moo. Mr. Hawk returned the greeting with a thoughtful gaze.
“Betts,” he asked, “what do cows usually have for breakfast?”
“About ten square feet of meadow,” Mr. Betts replied promptly.
Mr. Hawk considered this in silence. “That would be hard to arrange,” he said at length. “Don’t they ever vary their diet?”
“We might give her some Puffed Rice or Shredded Wheat, sir.”
“A good idea, Betts. Telephone down for a dozen orders of each and take the tray from the waiter yourself outside. Don’t let him come in.”
While Mr. Betts was telephoning Hebe tripped rosily into the room. She gazed at the cow in delighted surprise.
“What a sweet cow!” she exclaimed. “Why, the poor thing needs to be milked. It’s ‘way past her time.”
“Do you expect me to take up cow milking in my old age?” Mr. Hawk demanded. “And besides, she hasn’t had her breakfast yet.”
“Of course not, silly,” laughed Hebe. “You’re not expected to milk her. Cows are always milked before they’ve breakfasted.”
This struck Mr. Hawk as being another example of man’s inhumanity to beast.
“Damned if I’d go through such an ordeal on an empty stomach,” he said.
“You’ll never be called upon to do so,” the cup-bearing goddess assured him, whereat Mr. Betts barked sharply into the mouth of the telephone.
“And if you’d like to know,” continued Hebe, “cows like to be milked before breakfast.”
“Did anyone ever hear a cow put herself on record to that effect?” asked Mr. Hawk. The cocktails were taking effect.
“No, but — —” Hebe began.
“I knew it,” Hawk interrupted. “You can’t name one cow. It’s all a piece of propaganda gotten up by farmers to excuse their unchivalrous conduct.”
“Be that as it may,” replied Hebe with a determined light in her young eyes. “I’m going to milk this cow right here and now. She needs it. May I use that large cup you didn’t want me to bear?”
“Oh, certainly,” replied Mr. Hawk with a broad grin. “I don’t like milk anyway. The cow’s name is Dora. I think you should know at least that much, if you are going to become so intimate with her.”
Hebe became busy and efficient. In a short time the sound of milking could be heard. Dora still holds the unique distinction of being the only cow that was ever milked in a hotel bedroom. Whether the cow considers this an honor or a matter to be hushed up is not known.
In the midst of the milking Meg awoke and sat up in bed, her eyes gradually growing larger and rounder as the true importance of what she was witnessing dawned upon her.
“A person has to get used to some weird and incredible awakenings,” she said, “to live at all comfortably with the gods. What’s happened to Mercury? Did he die?”
“Not quite,” came feebly from the floor. “If someone will provide me with a strong, chilled drink, I’ll make a game attempt to lift my head off the spot where I was under the impression a cow by the name of Dora used to live.”
The news of the milking of the cow spread rapidly through the apartment, and the Olympians, forgetting their various grievances and quarrels, dropped everything and hastened to the spot. They seemed to be the sort of people who hate to miss anything, even though they find no enjoyment in whatever it is.
The milking finished, Hebe generously passed the cup and was greatly disappointed to be met with polite but emphatic refusals from all present.
“Perhaps Dora might like some milk,” suggested Mr. Hawk.
“Cows don’t drink milk,” was Hebe’s scornful reply.
“This one might,” said Megaera. “She seems to stand for anything.”
“If a cow drank milk,” the scientist advanced thoughtfully, “it would be something like discovering perpetual motion.”
“But what earthly use would a cow be if she drank her own milk?” asked Bacchus.
“She could pose for the news reels,” said Mr. Hawk, “or go into vaudeville, maybe.”
“Not a constructive sort of a life for a cow,” put in Mercury from the floor, reaching out a hand for the cocktail shaker.
