Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 205
Mr. Jones, his eyes flashing with the consciousness of duty well done, sat down amid wild applause. Already men and women were beginning to size one another up.
“My dear sir,” said Bishop Waller in a low voice to Peter, “I never heard anything like it. Why, one would think he was addressing a meeting of Rotarians or the members of a college football team instead of a group of eternally damned souls. Jaegers or no jaegers, accompanied or single-handed, I intend to make my escape tonight. I am determined to shake from my feet the dust of this terrible place.”
The excellent Bishop was not alone in this determination. When the small band of castaways foregathered some time later in a secluded part of the lawn, they were joined by the philosopher, who frankly stated his case and asked to be admitted to their number.
“I have finished my investigations here,” he said with a shrug of his fine shoulders. “All this forgetfulness stuff is an old story to me. And the way they go about it is far too collegiate for one of my temperament. Some still seem to enjoy it, but frankly I don’t. I am by nature an unmoral non-conformist. I can’t stand mob righteousness any more than mob depravity. I suggest we finish with them before they finish us. I say, clear out naked as we are and take a chance on finding something to drape over our bodies.”
“Listen,” put in Little Arthur. “I gotter pick up the lawn today, and that means sticking trash and papers in a bag. When they’re all down at the beach prancing, or in eating dinner, I’ll sneak some sheets inter the bag and drag ’em out to the woods. What do you say about that?”
“Merely this,” replied Bishop Waller. “It strikes me that we must all be saved from Sodom through the stealth of a converted pickpocket. In the light of this I feel that it would be difficult to accuse God of being altogether lacking in a slightly ironical vein of humor.”
“I trust you will use your influence,” remarked Mr. Horace Sampson, “to see that the situation does not become too funny.”
“If I ever get a sheet over my nakedness,” said Peter, “you can laugh yourself sick for all I care.”
“No doubt we will,” declared Jo. “I’m going to make a hole in mine and stick my head through.”
“I think I will swathe mine round the upper half of my body,” said the good Bishop reflectively. “The lower half still seems able to hold its own.”
“Oh, quite,” replied Peter, looking sharply at the Bishop.
“If we ever get back to civilization, Bishop Waller,” Aspirin Liz put in, “you should send those drawers to the Smithsonian Institution.”
“I wish you would give them their proper name,” Bishop Waller protested. “This garment is known as jaegers.”
“Don’t care whether they’re jaegers, jumpers, or jiggers,” the ex-model replied. “You’re wearing whatever they are where most men wear their drawers.”
Of all the party Yolanda alone remained silent. Why should she accompany a number of sheet-clad figures back to civilization? There would surely be a scandal.
“At nine o’clock in the woods,” said Horace Sampson. “Come singly or in pairs.”
The party then broke up, and for the remainder of the day its members went innocently about their separate ways. At dusk Little Arthur could have been seen, had anyone cared to look at Little Arthur, dragging an old potato sack disconsolately in the direction of the woods. But from a distance the observer would not have known that petty thief was sweating from his efforts to look as if he were not there at all.
At nine o’clock that night Yolanda was a greatly worried young lady. The spirit of the approaching festivities had entered into her blood. She felt that she deserved one Season of Forgetfulness. All her life she had been remembering herself. Now for once she would like to forget and to find out what happened. Yet she hated to admit this fact to the members of the party. She was standing deep in the woods with Peter and Josephine. The others had not yet arrived.
“Listen, Peter,” she began in an agitated voice. “I can get out at any time I want. Don’t you think it would be a good idea for me to return and cover your retreat in case you should be missed?”
“Do you want to go back?” he asked her.
Yolanda nodded her head in the darkness. She could not say it in so many words. When she spoke, her voice no longer carried its old imperious note.
“He comes of a fine old family, Peter,” she said.
“Would you like to increase it?” asked Peter.
“Don’t be common,” she retorted with a small show of spirit.
Josephine put her arm round the girl.
“Do you care for the suave Mr. Jones?” asked Jo.
For a moment Yolanda was suspicious, then she capitulated to the red-haired girl.
“You know how it is,” she murmured. “I — I think so now.”
“Then go back and land him,” said Jo, “but for the love of Mike keep your head.”
Yolanda squeezed Jo’s hand.
“I never knew life was so different,” she offered rather timidly. “So much better and so much worse. Good-bye, Peter. Do you mind?”
For answer, Peter tilted up her chin and kissed her lightly on the lips.
“It was a nice long engagement,” he said. “You deserve some compensation. Good luck, Yolanda.”
The next moment his one-time fiancée was slipping among the trees on her way back to Mr. Jones and the Season of Forgetfulness.
On the outer edge of the woods a high wall confronted the escaping party, all members of which were present with the exception of Yolanda, whose absence remained tactfully unobserved. As the six sheet-draped figures stood considering this obstruction, the scolding voice of a duck churning up last year’s leaves with its wings fired them into sudden action.
“My God,” said Peter. “Havelock Ellis is with us.”
“But not for long,” said Horace Sampson, scooping the bird from the leaves. “I’m going to wring her neck.”
Jo snatched the duck from the philosopher and thrust its jeering head under a wing.
“No bloodshed,” she whispered. “Get me over the wall, Peter. I’ll take care of Ellis.”
“Are there glass or spikes?” asked the Bishop when Jo had reached the top.
“The former,” replied Jo. “I am trying to sit as lightly as a feather.”
Little Arthur looked at Liz and tittered behind his hand.
“What a break,” he said, “for a fat lady.”
“If any glass gets into me,” she muttered, “you’re going to pick it out.”
“May my fingers wither first,” Little Arthur said in an awed voice. “They’ve picked a lot in their day, but they’ll never pick that.”
Aspirin Liz’s difficulty was obviated by the employment of a sheet as a buffer between herself and the glass. Soon the party was standing, a trifle torn and disheveled, on the other side of the wall.
“There is no doubt now,” said the Bishop, “about there being holes in my jaegers. I can feel them quite distinctly.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” said Mr. Sampson.
“Pardon an old man’s curiosity,” replied the Bishop. “These jaegers have served me well.”
A winding tree-fringed road lay in front of them. An occasional light shining through the branches marked the habitations of man. The moon was not yet risen, and the way was dark. From time to time a sleepy clucking issued from Havelock Ellis resting comfortably in Jo’s left arm. She had refused to abandon the duck. In this Peter had supported her.
“I suggest,” said the tall philosopher, “that we set off at a brisk trot. Mr. Jones’s attendants are many, and they are strong, rough men. At any moment we might be yanked back over that wall by a dozen or more ruthless hands.”
Accordingly the party set itself in motion, the philosopher setting the pace. Aspirin Liz and Bishop Waller brought up the rear, the Bishop being slightly in advance. He seemed to be experiencing considerable difficulty with his jaegers. His efforts to keep them from falling off impeded his own as well as his companion’s progress. The suspense was beginning to wear on the fat lady’s nerves.
“Bishop,” she panted at last, “you’ll have to do something about those drawers. Either take them off or keep them on. I can’t stand the strain.”
“After all the turmoil they’ve been through,” retorted the Bishop, “these jaegers stay on. It is the will of God.”
“He doesn’t seem to have quite made up His mind,” said Liz, “from the way those drawers are behaving.”
“Nevertheless,” replied the Bishop, giving the garment a violent tug, “at this late date you cannot expect me to abandon them.”
“From several views I got,” said Liz, “they seemed to be abandoning you.”
“Madam,” admonished the Bishop, “we’re in an extremely tough spot, as the saying goes. We have no time to discuss whether I am abandoning my jaegers or they are abandoning me.”
Liz heaved a vast sigh and paddled after the Bishop through the night. Suddenly the headlights of an approaching automobile threw the party into sharp relief. Without a moment’s hesitation the philosopher, Sampson, turned off the road and led his followers behind a billboard.
“This is the first time,” he told them, “I ever saw any good reason for a billboard. Usually I consider them the most insulting form of advertising.”
“It would be pretty,” observed the Bishop, “if those motorists happened to be among my parishioners. The headlights caught my jaegers at a rather daring angle.”
“One moment,” whispered Peter, holding up an arresting hand. “Those motorists have stopped to investigate.”
Silence behind the billboard. Voices from the road.
“But if you do find a lot of naked bodies,” the party heard a woman say, “what on earth are you going to do with them? Can’t ask them to take a ride.”
“I can ask them to go home,” came the voice of the woman’s companion. “Don’t know what this part of the world is coming to if a man can’t go driving without running into a flock of nudes.”
“You’re not so upset as you’d have me believe,” sniffed the lady. “You’re looking for that girl.”
“Nonsense,” retorted the man. “She was nearly wearing a sheet. All of them were, in fact.”
“Sure,” scoffed the lady. “Nearly but not quite.”
The man disappeared behind the billboard, and in a surprisingly short time reappeared totally naked save for his shoes and socks. The philosopher was a fast worker. With the assistance of Bishop Waller they rapidly stripped the man and distributed his garments among them. To Peter’s lot fell a shirt and vest. The philosopher got the trousers, which first had been unsuccessfully attempted by Aspirin Liz. Little Arthur fell heir to a pair of shorts, and Jo to the man’s coat. Bishop Waller dragged a sleeveless undershirt over the upper half of his body. The frail garment came to about his fifth rib before it split up the middle. The Bishop looked disappointed.
“If we had to strip a fellow creature,” he observed, “and send him back naked into the world, I wish God had seen fit to make him several sizes larger.”
“He must be quite the smallest man in the world,” replied Mr. Sampson. “These trousers haven’t the slightest intention of meeting in the front. Just take a look at them.”
“If you please,” protested Bishop Waller, “my eyes have seen enough. The attempts of Liz to squeeze into them took ten years off my life.”
“The seat of those pants is no bigger than a dime,” Aspirin Liz put in. “Never knew they came so small. Let’s take a look at the little shaver.”
The assaulted motorist could not stand for this. He tore off the sheet which had been wrapped round his head by the astute Sampson, and dashed back to the car. A slight scream greeted his appearance.
“Give me the lap robe, quick!” cried the man. “They’ve taken all my clothes.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” said the lady. “If you get in this car, I get out.”
“But I can’t stand here naked in the middle of the road,” he protested.
“Neither can I go driving on a public highway with a stark naked man,” came the reasonable reply.
“But aren’t we engaged?” the naked man pleaded.
“I wouldn’t even do it,” he was firmly assured, “if we were married by the Pope.”
“Catholics,” reflected the Bishop, finding comfort in the thought. “Just the same, I hope God in His wisdom will be able to find some slight justification for my ruthless conduct tonight.”
It will never be known how the naked motorist and his fiancée settled their little difficulty. He may be standing there yet trying to persuade her to let him get into the car. The fugitives did not linger to listen to the discussion. Down the road they swarmed in the wake of the sprinting philosopher.
“The way that shirt flares out from your little vest,” observed Jo, “is a sight to behold. You should be jumping through hoops.”
“Glad you find it amusing,” said Peter. “You are protruding in various spots yourself, my sweet.”
“Bishop,” remarked Aspirin Liz, “I’m afraid you are not improved. That shirt does no earthly good.”
Little Arthur dropped back behind them.
“What do you think of the drawers, Liz?” he panted.
“Too athletic for words,” said the lady. “How did you manage to get inside them?”
At that moment they caught up with the grotesque figures ahead of them. Jo, Peter, and the philosopher were peering into the back of an empty truck. Peter climbed quickly in and helped Jo to follow him. Darkness swallowed them. The philosopher sprang aboard. Rather than be left behind, the Bishop, Liz, and Little Arthur scrambled into the truck. Two men tramped from the woods and, mounting to the front seat, set the truck in motion.
“This will give us a breathing spell,” Horace Sampson whispered.
“We will need it,” replied the Bishop, “when those gentlemen ahead discover what they have behind.”
“I have nothing behind,” muttered Peter. “Forgot my sheet.”
For a quarter of an hour they bumped along in silence. Suddenly and to their great consternation the truck shot through a high gate and they found themselves looking out on a brightly lighted street. The transition was so startling that even the duck awoke and began to squawk a volley of evil language.
“What’s wrong with your horn, Bill?” asked the man sitting beside the driver. “Sounds sort of strange to me.”
“That ain’t my horn,” said Bill. “Must be some guy behind us.”
The squawking continued in a hoarse but muffled voice.
“Damned if that ain’t the queerest horn I ever did hear,” remarked Bill’s companion.
“I’m going to get out and knock the block off whoever’s blowing the thing at me,” declared Bill with determination.
The truck drew up, and the two gentlemen descended to the street. No other car was following. Bill’s friend listened intently.
“It’s coming from inside,” he said in a low voice.
“From inside who?” asked Bill, somewhat startled.
“From inside us,” replied the other.
“Not from inside me,” declared Bill. “I couldn’t make sounds like them even if I did my best.”
“I mean inside the truck,” said the other man.
“Oh,” replied Bill. “That won’t be hard to find out.”
They approached the back of the truck, and Bill thrust in a grasping hand.
“I’ve got hold of a leg,” he cried in a shocked voice.
“You’ve got hold of mine,” came the voice of Aspirin Liz. “Is that any way to act?”
“Golly,” said the friend. “The whole truck is full of them — a lot of funny people.”
“Get out of there,” roared Bill, who at heart was not a kind man. “Get out or I’ll call a cop.”
“If we get out you won’t have to call a cop,” said Peter bitterly. “Any number of cops will come of their own accord.”
“Let us depart in peace,” said the Bishop in a hollow voice, “and put our trust in God.”
“I’ll never put my trust in a duck again,” Josephine told the world as she followed the others into the light of the street from the comfortable darkness of the truck.
Bill and his friend stood speechless. This moment was one of the really few high spots in their lives, one which they realized at the time would never grow stale or lose its wonder.
“Shouldn’t we call the cops anyway?” the friend at length found words to ask.
Bill shook his head.
“That guy without the pants said it,” he replied. “They’ll get plenty of cops without our help.”
As the fugitives, now a compact mass, trotted fearfully down the street, several policemen were already following them unbelievingly. As accustomed as they were to the strange sights of Coney Island, they were nevertheless shocked by this one. Some side show had gone mad or was openly defying the law. Whistles sounded, and pedestrians stopped in their tracks. Traffic became snarled, and two automobiles collided owing to the preoccupation of their drivers.
“We are being followed,” gasped the Bishop.
“I’d be amazed if we weren’t,” Josephine replied.
“Turn in here,” commanded Mr. Horace Sampson. “And stick together. We might find some place of concealment.”
But the amusement park into which the party dashed over the prostrate body of the ticket collector offered no place of concealment, although for a moment several of its members disappeared from view down the smooth, steeply slanting sides of a wooden bowl.
“I have never been able to see the fun in this sort of thing,” observed Mr. Horace Sampson as he painfully collected his scattered limbs.
“What sort of thing is it?” groaned the Bishop. “And how does one ever get out of it?”
“One claws one’s way up the sides,” Jo remarked, “only to be hurled back by some sportive reveler, several of whom are already peering down at us and waiting for the kill. Anyone seen a duck, and where might Peter be?”
A long arm with a torn shirt sleeve reached down as the girl spoke, and pulled her up the side of the pit.
