Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 211
“You mean-spirited, over-stuffed, blue-faced old baboon, you wicked-hearted old cow walrus,” said the salesgirl, “take that and that and that.”
The that and that and that designated three separate and distinct tweaks administered to the nose of the customer. Mr. Owen was faintly surprised and not a little relieved that the appendage did not come away in the salesgirl’s fingers. He turned to his companion, and was even more surprised to find him murmuring delightedly to himself.
“Good!” the gentleman was ejaculating under his breath. “Oh, very, very good, in fact, capital. Titanic tweaks. By gad, sir, they fairly sizzle.”
He smiled upon Mr. Owen, who stood regarding him with dazed eyes.
“Are we both seeing the same thing?” Mr. Owen asked somewhat timidly. “A lady being assaulted by one of your salesgirls?”
“The same thing, my dear sir,” replied the man proudly in a voice of polished courtesy. “The same thing exactly. Isn’t she doing splendidly?”
“Splendidly!” gasped Mr. Owen. “She’s doing it brutally. Nearly murdering the woman.”
The gentleman regarded the tweaking scene with an air of professional detachment.
“But not quite,” he commented. “Do you see the woman whose nose is being tweaked? Well, she’s a most pestiferous old bitch.” Mr. Owen drew a sharp breath. “Yes, yes,” the gentleman went on almost gayly, “most pestiferous old bitch describes her nicely — a regular she-dragon. And a bully. Attend a moment and you will see something amusing. Watch how she gets hers.”
To the accompaniment of chuckles and muttered exclamations of encouragement from his strange companion, such as, “Boost the old bird in the bottom,” and “I fancy that old fright will never show up here any more,” Mr. Owen watched the she-dragon literally get hers. And he was forced to admit to himself that from the looks of the lady she was getting no more than she deserved. From all directions sales attendants were rushing down the aisles, converging en masse on the assaulted woman and showering her with a deluge of violent language. Everyone who could find space on her person to grab laid violent hands on it, whatever it chanced to be, and the lady was hurtled through the store and hurled out upon the street. Upon the completion of this apparently popular task the group of attendants broke up into individual units and returned quietly to their places as if nothing had occurred. The salesgirl who had started the trouble, now all smiles and helpfulness, promptly began to assist another lady, whose gentle manner, Mr. Owen decided, belied an intrepid spirit, to match a length of ribbon.
Turning once more to his companion, Mr. Owen was momentarily upset to find himself being happily beamed upon from that direction. What manner of man was he, Mr. Owen found himself wondering? Externally, the man appeared to be a person of refinement, not to say distinction. He was no taller than Mr. Owen himself, and of the same general physique, although he carried himself far more debonairly than Mr. Owen had ever dreamed of attempting at his most heady moments.
The gentleman’s complexion, Mr. Owen noted, was darkly olive and smooth. Two brown eyes of a subtly insinuating cast, but now eloquent with well being, sparkled and snapped beneath fine, graceful eyebrows. About the man there seemed to hover a faint suggestion of danger, recklessness, and unscrupulous enterprise. Behind the brown eyes glittered, or seemed to glitter, an inner preoccupation with affairs not generally considered nice. The man’s hair was smooth, like the rest of him, smooth and black. There was just a touch of scent — not bad — and at the temples a sprinkling of gray. Two rows of white, even teeth formed a background for a pair of firm lips which to Mr. Owen seemed capable of uttering the most hair-raising blasphemies with all the unconscious charm of a child murmuring to itself in its sleep. He was faultlessly attired in a morning coat and striped trousers. There were spats. This last item strengthened Mr. Owen’s conviction that he was standing in the presence of a person whom one should meet with reservation and follow with the utmost caution. The gentleman now addressed Mr. Owen in an engaging tone of voice.
“You are, my friend, I see,” he said, “somewhat puzzled by the little affair you have just witnessed?”
Catching the rising inflection in the other’s voice Mr. Owen assumed his words to be couched in the form of a polite but superfluous inquiry.
“Quite naturally,” he replied a little sharply. “I am not accustomed to seeing respectable-looking ladies set upon by a howling mob, and violently flung out of doors. Who wouldn’t be surprised?”
“I wouldn’t, for one,” the gentleman answered equably. “And I could name thousands of others. We’re quite used to that sort of thing here.”
“Do you mean to say,” demanded Mr. Owen, “that you permit your sales people to toss perfectly respectable customers out ad lib?”
“More at random,” the gentleman decided, eyeing Mr. Owen with an amused smile, “although your ad lib is pretty close to the mark. Furthermore, respectability doesn’t count with us here. We find it exceedingly trying.” With a shocked feeling Mr. Owen found himself unconsciously agreeing with the speaker. Respectability could be trying. “And anyway,” the gentleman was running on, “that old devil wasn’t really respectable, not honestly so. She derives her income from some of the most unentertaining resorts — you get what I mean (Mr. Owen was afraid he did) — in town, or rather I should say from some of the least entertaining, for none of them is really unentertaining. Like whiskies, some are merely better than others. I never visit hers myself, but I’ll take you to some dandy ones I’ve recently discovered.”
“Aren’t we getting a little off the point?” Mr. Owen hastily put in. “We were talking about the lady.”
“What?” said the gentleman. “Oh, yes, I forgot. Well, remind me about the other things. We’ll take those up later together with several other delightfully vicious resorts you’ll find amusing. Now, about that old sea cow — that walrus woman. We simply loathe her. On and off, she’s been annoying us for years.”
“I doubt if she does any more,” commented Mr. Owen, smiling in spite of himself.
“I hope, I hope most sincerely, she does not,” the man continued quite seriously. “You see, my dear sir, it is an old trade custom of ours — a tradition, in fact — that whenever customers become unendurably overbearing with any member of our sales force we throw ’em out on their ear regardless of the sex of the ear. It makes no difference with us whether it’s a man’s ear, a woman’s, or a child’s. I’m told my clerks call it the ‘bum’s rush,’ but of course I make it a point to frown on the use of such expressions. I find them unnecessarily crude.”
“But scarcely any cruder than the actual deed itself,” Mr. Owen observed.
“My dear fellow,” the other hastened to explain, “that’s where you err. That’s exactly where you err, if you will forgive my saying so. The action itself was justified. Neither my partners nor I can stand having our store cluttered up with a lot of rattle-brained, vacillating, self-important time wasters and ill-mannered bullies such as, unfortunately, so many persons are who habitually frequent department stores. You must be familiar with the sort I mean,” the man went on. “She bustles into the store with seventy-nine cents in her purse and a parcel of goods to exchange and thinks she’s God Almighty’s social arbiter in the presence of a group of slaves. We chuck ’em out here before they can upset our salesgirls. We don’t like upset salesgirls unless upset in the right way and in the right place.”
“What’s the right way to upset one of these salesgirls?” asked Mr. Owen.
“How charmingly put!” the other exclaimed. “I see you’re a bit of a one yourself. Frankly, though, you don’t need to upset most of our salesgirls. They seem quite willing to upset themselves with the most alarming alacrity. If anything, they’re a little too eager, let us say, for the lack of a better word, to upset.”
“I should think,” interjected Mr. Owen in an attempt to change the subject, “you’d lose a lot of customers by such drastic methods.”
“Oh, we do!” the gentleman exclaimed enthusiastically. “You have no idea. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons we’re tearing along into bankruptcy. I don’t quite know. On the other hand, we believe in giving our customers an even break. We always inform them that they are at liberty to hit any member of our sales force with any object handy whenever the sales person shows the slightest inclination to gratuitous incivility, stupidity, or lack of interest. Whenever we find that a clerk has been knocked cold by several customers in the course of a few days we naturally decide that the clerk is not qualified to deal with the public and so, accordingly, we chuck the clerk out, too. We find it much more natural and efficacious to allow our clerks and customers to settle their little difficulties and differences among themselves. Besides, I find it rather amusing. I do so loathe monotony, don’t you, Mr. — er — —”
“Mr. Owen,” the other replied hesitantly. “At least, I think it is — Hector Owen it was or used to be.”
“Well, it really doesn’t make a great deal of difference,” said the other. “Nevertheless, it’s convenient to know. Now, unlike you, I’m almost certain that my name is Horace Larkin — Horace and Hector, quite a coincidence, what? Oh, very good. Am I veering?”
Mr. Owen was looking at his companion with growing alarm and suspicion. The man was giving signs of mental instability which, added to his obvious moral looseness, did not make an admirable combination. Before he could find a suitable reply to Mr. Larkin’s childish inanity his attention was diverted by the sight of a large, sinister, wild-eyed individual rushing down one of the aisles in the direction of the nearest doorway.
“Yes, yes,” Mr. Larkin was murmuring contentedly, “I do so hate monotony. Now, what can this be about? That desperate-looking chap seems to be in a great hurry to get somewhere else.”
The desperate-looking chap was, and as he dashed past the spot where they were standing a glittering object, falling from his pocket, rolled up to their feet. Quickly Mr. Owen’s companion stooped and picked it up.
“Dear me,” he said in a distressed voice, “someone’s been stealing diamonds again. Now, isn’t that too bad. No wonder we’re going bankrupt. Diamonds are very valuable, you know. The things cost no end of money. Why can’t they steal something else for a change — groceries, for instance?”
A large blond gentleman wearing heavy black eyebrows and a fashionably tailored suit of tweeds, and a small, meek-looking individual who in spite of his faultlessly cut morning attire impressed Mr. Owen as being a trifle drunk, appeared in the open plaza and, spying Mr. Horace Larkin, marched up to him with gestures of agitation. Following them was a clerk who appeared totally disinterested.
“I know,” began Mr. Larkin without giving the others an opportunity to speak. “And here I was just saying how I loathed monotony. Don’t tell me about it. I also loathe being upset and I am going to be upset whether I loathe it or not. You know — that luncheon. Presently we all must go to it. All of us. Even you must go to that luncheon, Dinner.” Here Mr. Larkin pointed to the smaller of the two men and added parenthetically for the benefit of Mr. Owen, “His name is Dinner. It really is. Makes things confusing when luncheon comes before or after it, but I can’t help that now. Don’t tell me,” he went on to the others. “We’ve been robbed again, haven’t we? Thieves shouldn’t take diamonds. It’s not at all sporting. They’re too damn easy to carry.”
“But don’t you think we should induce someone to pursue this beggar?” the large blond gentleman mumbled. “Offer a sort of a bonus thing?”
“Yes,” piped up Mr. Dinner, producing a gold flask of beautiful design and helping himself to its contents. “Yes,” he continued over the crest of a slight huskiness. “Shouldn’t we send somebody after this beggar to shout out in a great voice, ‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ and act excited and all?”
Mr. Larkin gazed at the little gentleman with pity and affection, then his expression became serious.
“Why do both of you keep on calling this chap a beggar,” he asked irritably, “when most obviously he’s a thief of the worst character? Let’s get this straight — did he ask for the diamonds, or did he take them without asking?”
“He took ’em without a word,” said the clerk in a bored voice.
“There,” resumed Mr. Larkin after a thoughtful pause, “the man must have stolen the diamonds. He’s not a beggar.”
“He certainly did,” owlishly proclaimed the one known as Dinner, once more producing the flask. “And I think someone should scream about it.”
“I very much feel like screaming about it myself,” observed Mr. Larkin. “I really do. Anyway, we haven’t anybody who is especially good at doing that sort of thing — screaming, you know. This chap was running very fast, very fast indeed — tiresomely so. None of us can run very fast, and we all loathe running.”
Although the sensation of freedom and well being still persisted with Mr. Owen, he felt, nevertheless, as he listened to all this, that he was going not a little but definitely and completely mad. And the strange part of it was he did not seem to care, rather enjoyed it, in fact. However, he did think it time to interpose a slight suggestion.
“How about the police?” he asked. “Shouldn’t someone scream after them?”
Mr. Horace Larkin hopelessly shook his head.
“We also loathe the police,” he replied. “In all probability that chap was the police. By this time he has tucked those diamonds in the safe at headquarters. Did he steal many of them?”
“Almost a handful,” answered the clerk. “Big ones.”
“That’s a lot of diamonds,” Mr. Larkin murmured regretfully. “I feel very low about losing so many. They were good big diamonds. Is anyone minding the rest of the jewelry?”
“Not a living soul,” breathed Mr. Dinner, his eyes growing large. “The counter is all alone. You see, we brought George, here, along to tell you all about it.”
Mr. Owen was frankly stunned. These three men must be figments of his own disordered mind. Such simplicity was impossible.
“Dinner, put that flask back or we’ll have to carry you to luncheon,” Mr. Larkin commanded, then fell silent to ponder upon this fresh problem. “Well,” he resumed at last, “that’s not at all right. That’s almost sheer carelessness. If someone doesn’t watch all those precious stones we won’t have any left, and that wouldn’t look at all well for a big store like this.” He turned to the clerk. “George,” he said briskly, “you’d better hurry back to those jewels, what there is left of them, and make out a claim for the insurance company. Add as much as you think is safe to the value of the stuff stolen. Don’t scrimp. I can’t stand scrimping. We may be able to make a not inconsiderable piece of change out of this regrettable incident after all. Waste not, want not. You get what I mean.”
Mr. Owen was appalled by the callous dishonesty of Mr. Horace Larkin. Up to this point he had looked upon him as something extra special in the line of lunatics. Now he regarded him in the light of a menace to society in general and to insurance companies in particular. Once more he felt himself called upon to project his greater wisdom and ethics into this mad discussion.
“But such an action,” he protested, “would not be at all right.”
The suavely polished Mr. Larkin nodded a reluctant agreement.
“It’s not right, I know,” he said. “I think it’s simply terrible myself, but you know how it is. Everybody does it, almost, literally everybody — really nice people. You’d be surprised.” In spite of his legal experience, Mr. Owen confessed he was. “And then again,” Mr. Larkin added confidentially, “none of us likes insurance companies very much. It’s such a bother to pay their premiums, and they get so annoyingly stuffy about it when you don’t. You can see for yourself, if we don’t cheat the insurance company, we won’t make any money on all those lovely diamonds, and that wouldn’t be so good for us, would it?”
“But wouldn’t it be better,” pursued Mr. Owen, “to arrange things so that your lovely diamonds wouldn’t be stolen?”
“That’s an idea worth thinking about,” the gentleman in tweeds put in, his deep voice carrying a serious, labored note. “How about shooting a couple of customers suddenly just as a bit of a warning?”
Once more Mr. Owen was unpleasantly impressed with his company. Were all these gentlemen dangerous maniacs?
“If we did that,” Mr. Dinner objected, “we might find it difficult to induce any of our customers to go near the diamond counter at all. I wouldn’t go myself. People don’t like to be shot for no reason.”
“People don’t like to be shot for any reason,” Horace Larkin corrected, as if depressed by the unreasonableness of the human race.
“Why shoot ’em, then?” continued Mr. Dinner triumphantly. “Especially since they don’t like it.”
“But,” contributed the blond gentleman, “it wouldn’t do any good to shoot them if they did like it.”
“It seems,” observed Mr. Larkin, “that somebody has to be shot at some time, but don’t ask me why. I don’t know, and I don’t like revolvers. In fact, I simply — —”
“Loathe them,” Mr. Owen supplied, in spite of himself.
“Yes,” continued Mr. Larkin, “I loathe a lot of revolvers knocking about the store. Dinner, here, might take it into his head to shoot up the place during one of his drunken orgies. He’s like that.” Mr. Owen gazed at the meek Dinner with increased alarm and respect. “How’s this for an idea?” Larkin went on, and at this point he fastidiously shot his white cuffs, waved delicately to a passing salesgirl, then turned briskly to his companions. “Suppose,” he said, “we run a full-page advertisement in all of the better newspapers stating in bold face type that our diamonds and other precious stones are false as hell and hardly worth the effort to carry away. Someone can think up the right words. This gentleman here, perhaps,” he indicated Mr. Owen. “He looks as if he knew a lot of words.”
