Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 229
“I’m an awful ass in the water,” he cried. “You’ll have to do — —”
Down went Mr. Larkin, for once unable to have his say.
Under ordinary circumstances the rescue of the senior partner would have presented little difficulty. In his present condition of exhaustion Mr. Owen was taxed up to and beyond his capacity. Nevertheless, he went for Mr. Larkin and seized him by his hair.
The space separating them from the side of the pool was not great, but to the spent Owen it seemed leagues long. At last, with the assistance of Satin, he got his burden out of the water.
“Any more?” he croaked, grinning ironically up at the girl.
Instead of answering, she reached down and pulled him over the side of the pool. He collapsed by Mr. Larkin, who had collapsed by Mr. Dinner. Several yards away the Major had collapsed by himself.
“Can you swim?” Mr. Owen asked Satin wearily.
The girl nodded.
“Well, will you please dive in there,” he went on, “and swim about a bit? Sort of represent the firm. I’m hors de combat.”
While Satin sported in the water the partners lay crumpled grotesquely round the edge of the pool. “A hell of a way to go swimming,” Mr. Owen kept saying to himself. He was bitter about it. Presently the senior partner weakly raised his head.
“The only way,” he said, “to rid ourselves of the memory of this horrid debacle is to have an excellent luncheon. At least we know how to eat.”
“And drink,” added Dinner faintly.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Partners Purchase a Whale
THE PARTY HAD now been augmented by the presence of two contortionists and one snake charmer. The contortionists were man and wife. The snake charmer was just man and snake, but that was enough. By his side was an old potato sack which Mr. Owen regarded with the deepest mistrust. He could not help wondering how the senior partner ever managed to meet such odd characters. Then he thought of the senior partner and ceased to wonder. The man himself was an odd character. They did not come any odder.
They were gathered round a large table in a large café. This festive establishment was situated in an amusement resort contiguous to the park. Merry-go-round music droned and shrieked through the air. The energetic voices of barkers, proclaiming the allurements of their respective attractions, could be heard. Occasionally the shattering sound of a scenic railway broke in upon them as the cars hurtled round the sharp curves. Everyone was apparently having a good time in a vigorous sort of way, but no one was having a better time than the partners themselves. Mr. Owen marveled at their recuperative powers. He was exhausted beyond measure, while they seemed as fresh as the dawn.
“See over there?” said the Major to Mr. Owen, pointing to a high wall in the distance. “Well, that’s where the bears live.”
“In happy amity with their trainer of sterling character,” Mr. Owen replied with a grin.
The Major thought this over.
“No,” he said at last. “They hate him. They even hate themselves, those bears.”
Mr. Larkin got up from his chair and raised his glass.
“To our savior!” he cried, indicating Mr. Owen. “Without him we would have been full of pool water instead of champagne.”
Everyone at the table save Mr. Owen arose and drank the toast. He regarded them with a caustic smile.
“I wonder,” he said when they had reseated themselves, “just what is going to happen next. This is supposed to be a holiday, and yet all we do is to punish ourselves almost beyond endurance. That lascivious dancing was a dangerous riot. The pool was a downright disaster. Are we going to settle down now and have a nice quiet time?”
As he spoke he glanced about the table, then became rigid in his chair. A six-foot snake was peering deeply into his eyes. Honor Knightly gave a small shriek and put her napkin over her head. Mr. Owen, considering it a wise idea, falteringly did likewise. The snake charmer was laughing heartily and with truly disgusting oiliness.
“Kim is hungry,” he gurgled. “Poor Kim.”
“Tell Kim he can have my steak,” replied Mr. Owen in tremulous tones, “if he’ll only go away.”
“But, my dear sir, Kim is quite harmless,” explained its owner. “He merely wants to play.”
“He isn’t harmless to me,” Mr. Owen assured the man, “and I’m far from feeling playful. I’ve been unhappy before in my life, but never quite as unhappy as I am at this moment.”
In a burst of affection Kim curled himself gently round Mr. Owen’s neck. The snake charmer roared his approval. Mr. Owen sat very still in his chair.
“Listen,” he said in a low voice, “I believe I’m going to die.”
“What’s it doing to you?” came Satin’s muffled voice.
“More than flesh can bear,” Mr. Owen answered, then laughed crazily. “Luncheon!” he said in a bitter voice. “A nice quiet luncheon.”
Kim, disturbed by the laughter, slowly uncoiled himself and returned to his master, who dropped him carelessly back in the sack.
“Has Kim gone away yet?” asked Satin in a hushed voice.
“Entirely,” Mr. Larkin assured her. “To the last inch. You may come out from under your napkin.”
Pale and wan, Mr. Owen’s face reappeared. He regarded the table feverishly, then gulped down a glass of wine.
“I hope that exhibition failed to amuse you,” he said to his partners. “You weren’t convulsed with mirth?”
“Not with mirth,” put in Mr. Dinner. “Kim did me little good.”
“I agree,” said the senior partner. “A mere fraction of Kim goes a long, long way.”
Mr. Owen returned to his plate and manfully endeavored to eat. He felt that he owed his stomach a little solid food. As he raised his fork to his mouth he chanced to glance across the table at the lady contortionist. His mouth remained open, but the fork refused to enter. In some weird manner the woman had contrived to dislocate her neck so that her head was hanging down between her side and her left arm. In this inverted position she was daintily sipping champagne while gazing unwinkingly at Mr. Owen. That gentleman was fit for the madhouse. His eyes bulged in his head. Never in all his life had he been so shockingly revolted. He tried to speak, but no words came. At last his tongue obeyed the dictates of his tortured mind.
“Is she going to be like that,” he quavered, “throughout the rest of the meal?”
“Why not?” inquired her husband.
“Can’t you see that for yourself?” muttered Mr. Owen. “Do you expect me to swallow food with that head dangling there before my eyes?”
“They feel that they owe us something for their luncheon,” soothingly explained Mr. Larkin.
“Her debt is paid with interest,” Mr. Owen replied. “Tell her she’s too kind. Tell her I’d be more than satisfied if she’d stick to cracking her knuckles or dislocating her thumbs. It takes so little to amuse me.”
The contortionist spoke to his wife in a low voice. The lady angrily shook her head. This gesture of negation had a devastating effect on Mr. Owen. He closed his eyes and clung to the table.
“She says,” came the voice of the contortionist, “that she intends to stay that way. She gets double the effect from the champagne with her head hanging down.”
“So do I,” muttered Mr. Owen. “In fact, I don’t have to drink at all.”
“Perhaps this will take your mind off the head,” suggested the contortionist. “It’s one of my favorite stunts.”
“What is?” asked Mr. Owen, clinging to a straw.
He opened his eyes, then almost fell from his chair. With unhurried efficiency the contortionist was feeding himself with his feet. The daintiness with which he did this only added to Mr. Owen’s feeling of horror and revulsion.
“My word!” Mr. Larkin exclaimed in a voice of awe. “That’s enough to take one’s mind off everything. I’m actually rotating in my chair.”
“If they’ll only stop what they’re doing,” said Mr. Owen, “I’ll let that snake sit on my lap.”
“Why, this is a cinch to do,” the contortionist proclaimed. “I can keep it up all day.”
“It must be easier to do than to look at,” Mr. Owen told him. “If you enjoy your food that way, won’t you eat it at another table? — at some table far back of me.”
“Nonsense,” scoffed the contortionist, deftly spearing a piece of steak with a fork held in his left foot.
With fascinated eyes Mr. Owen watched the leg as it conveyed the fork to its owner’s mouth. Then he looked at Mr. Larkin, who was feeling no little disturbed himself.
“Did I understand you to say,” asked Mr. Owen distinctly, “that we must all relax, that the strain has been terrific, and that we needed a bit of a holiday?”
Mr. Larkin met his partner’s cold eyes apologetically.
“Well, you see,” he began lamely, “I’m always hoping things will turn out for the best. It’s my nature.”
“If this keeps up much longer,” announced Mr. Dinner, “I’m going to put my plate on the floor and gnash my food like a beast.”
“The trouble is,” said Major Barney, “they get me all mixed up. I can no longer coordinate my movements. Only a moment ago I was deliberately trying to sip champagne with my ear.”
“I was searching for my mouth,” put in Satin, “and I jabbed myself an awful crack in the stomach. Bet you it left marks. Shall I look?” Here she glanced at Mr. Owen.
“Don’t begin!” he admonished her. “Don’t begin! We’ll take those marks for granted. There are enough public exhibitions going on as it is.”
At this moment Kim’s malevolent head slid stealthily between Mr. Owen’s frozen limbs and appeared at the table. For a long minute, during which the man was too petrified to breathe, the snake examined the contents of his plate. At length, having come to a decision, Kim selected the steak, snapped it up with a hiss of pleasure, and started to withdraw. Mr. Owen sucked in his stomach as the snake slid down the front of him. His eyes were tightly shut, and there was a prayer in his heart.
“Ah, what a pity,” came the solicitous voice of the snake charmer. “He has taken the gentleman’s steak. He must put it right back.”
“Oh, no, he mustn’t,” cried Mr. Owen with all possible haste. “Kim can have the steak. He’s entirely welcome to it. In fact, I’d buy Kim a cow if he’d keep away from me.”
A sudden burst of clapping startled his eyes wide open. Satin and the partners were also looking about with expressions of consternation. Mistaking the events taking place at the table for a public exhibition, the public had responded as only the public can. The party was surrounded by a wall of peering faces. Mr. Owen felt sorely tempted to hide his head once more beneath his napkin.
“Honor,” he said to the girl, “will you hold a glass of wine to my lips? My hand is shaking like a shuttle.”
As Mr. Owen was drinking his wine, a little boy pointed an unclean finger at him.
“Mom,” shrilled the little boy, “that must be the Bloodless Man. Take a look at his face. There ain’t nothing in it.”
“Guess you’re right,” agreed Mom. “And look at the other little feller.” Here Mom indicated Mr. Dinner. “He’s what they call a midget,” Mom explained, “and I guess the other one’s a jint. They always look so stupid, them jints.”
The Major looked at Mr. Dinner, and Mr. Dinner looked at the Major, then both of them looked at Mr. Owen. Across the table Mr. Larkin sat convulsed. Tears were streaming down his face.
“Oh, God,” he howled, “to think I have such peculiar partners.”
His voice broke on a high contralto note.
“What’s wrong with that guy?” a spectator wanted to know.
“I guess he’s what they call a half-and-half,” somebody suggested. “A weird sort of freak, he is.”
“What’s a half-and-half?” Mr. Larkin quickly asked Satin, his laughter stricken mute on his lips.
“I don’t know,” she told him, “but it must be pretty awful. Whatever it is, you’re it.”
Mr. Larkin looked dismayed, and for the first time in years, it seemed to him, Mr. Owen grinned maliciously.
“Go on, lady,” a coarse voice called out. “Give us a bit of the kooch.”
All four partners raised their heads at this insulting request. Without a word they rose from the table, singled out the speaker — a large, bull-faced individual — and knocked a hole through the crowd with him. Through this hole passed Satin. When the man was ready to rise she kicked him with brutal directness. The gross object doubled up in pain.
“I owed that to my sex,” she explained to the partners as they walked towards the place where the bears lived, “as well as to my self-esteem.” Then she added irrelevantly, “I can do the kooch.”
“A highly successful luncheon,” said Mr. Owen tonelessly. “Not a scrap of food passed my lips.”
“The contortionists and the charmer seemed to enjoy it,” remarked the senior partner, making an effort to glean comfort from something.
This unfortunate remark almost did for the Bloodless Man. Raising his clenched hands to heaven he confronted the senior partner, who stood regarding him with innocent interest. Sighing deeply, Mr. Owen let his hands fall to his sides. What was the use? He might as well strike an idiot child. The man knew no better.
“Holiday,” he muttered. “A good time was had by all.”
“Show him some bears,” said Mr. Larkin to Major Barney. “He’s all unstrung. Bears go very well when one is all unstrung.”
They found the bear trainer of sterling character, and they found him exceedingly drunk. He too seemed to be unstrung. He declared himself to be bored to tears by bears.
“It’s bears, bears, bears,” wailed the man, “morning, noon, and night. Great shaggy beasts. Loafers. They get treated better than I do.”
“May we look at some of your better class of bears?” asked the senior partner humbly.
“You may look at the whole damn lot,” the trainer replied, fumbling with a locked gate. “Not out there where all those people are, but in here where you can get a better view.”
With childlike confidence the partners followed the trainer and Satin through the barred gate, which locked itself behind them. The keeper, apparently losing interest, wandered off somewhere on his own affairs. The partners looked at a huge rock and beheld more bears than they had ever seen before or cared to see again. The bears in turn looked disagreeably down on Satin and the partners. Thus matters stood for a moment; then suddenly the air became charged with electricity.
“There’s nothing,” said Mr. Larkin vaguely. “Just nothing — nothing at all between us and all those bears.”
“What!” cried Major Barney. “Has that drunken sot locked us in with his vile beasts?”
Mr. Dinner tried the gate. It stoutly refused to open.
“He has,” he announced with the utmost simplicity. “They won’t get much off me. What little there was left I’ve lost during this day of giddy pleasure.”
“Dear considerate God,” murmured Mr. Larkin piously. “He might as well have let us drown if we’re going to be consumed by those shaggy monsters.”
“It’s a holiday,” observed Mr. Owen. “A feast day for the bears.”
“Didn’t the early martyrs do something in the line of song?” Satin asked coolly. “Who can dig up a snatch of a hymn? My business is pornography.”
“You can’t very well tell an infuriated bear a dirty story,” observed Mr. Larkin. “And as for those early martyrs, I don’t know how they did it. Why, I can’t even shout for that drunken trainer, much less sing a hymn.”
Apparently the bears had grown weary of watching this huddled conference. Behind their mighty leader they came lumbering down from the rocks. On the outside of the enclosure women were screaming frantically above the hoarse shouts of men. Looking decidedly sloppy, the bears lurched forward.
“Aren’t they untidy in their appearance?” observed Mr. Larkin.
“All except their teeth,” replied Mr. Owen. “They seem to be in perfect order.”
Major Barney lighted a cigarette, then tossed the match aside.
“We should stick closer to business,” he remarked. “All this gadding about doesn’t get us anywhere.”
“It has now,” replied Mr. Larkin. “Don’t be silly, my dear chap. It’s got us in a terrible place, and it’s going to get us into a worse one — inside those bears, you know.”
Satin pressed Mr. Owen’s arm as the bears came on. When she looked up at his thin, unremarkable face she did not feel afraid. She could see no sign of fear written on his features. He looked like a man who had been annoyed beyond endurance. And that was exactly how Mr. Owen felt as he stood there eyeing the bears with cynical animosity. To him they were not so much bears as fresh sources of irritation. And then an amazing thing happened — something that made the spectators gasp and the partners rub their eyes. Mr. Owen completely lost his temper, also his poise.
“I’m sick and tired of all this,” he exclaimed. “You all wait here. I’ll be back in half a moment.”
He took a few rapid strides forward, filling the air with sizzling obscenities, and with the heavy end of his walking stick struck the horrified leader a vicious blow across his nose. The great beast uttered a gasp of dismay and sat down stupidly. His followers did likewise. They had never heard of such a thing. Were they not bears? Certainly. This madman did not seem to realize it. Blow after blow from the heavy stick descended upon the unfortunate beast. Mr. Owen’s temper was far out of control.
“Heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Larkin. “My heart actually bleeds for that poor animal I disliked so greatly only a few minutes ago.”
“I hope he gets his temper back,” said Mr. Dinner, “after he polishes off that bear. If he doesn’t, he’ll disjoint us on our feet.”
With squeals of pain and anguish the stricken leader turned and lumbered off in the direction of his less enterprising associates. It was at this point that Mr. Owen really outdid himself. In the bitterness of his heart he made a dive after the retreating animal and seized him by one of his hind legs. This he proceeded to bite with the utmost ferocity. It is difficult to say whether the bear was more pained than surprised. He cast one frightened glance over his shoulder, made a pitiful noise deep in his throat, then fell swooning to the rock, his paws pressed against his eyes. At this stage of the game the drunken keeper came staggering up to Mr. Owen.
