Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 231
“Nevertheless, I’m going to ask,” replied the senior partner. “Some people will say yes to anything if you let them go back to bed.”
Followed by Mr. Owen, the senior partner approached the house and rang the bell resoundingly. Presently a man appeared to them with an expression of great annoyance on his face.
“Good-evening,” said Mr. Owen easily. “We thought that perhaps you might like a whale.”
“It’s a sperm,” added Mr. Larkin.
“What would I want a whale for?” asked the man in a harsh voice.
“We don’t know,” came the hopeless voice of the senior partner. “What do people want whales for, anyway? They must be good for something.”
“A whale is good for nothing,” growled the man.
“Hen!” called a woman’s voice from the darkness of the hall. “What do those men want?”
“I can’t make out,” replied Hen over his shoulder. “One of them seems to want to give me a whale.”
“Tell them we don’t want a whale,” came the woman’s voice meditatively. “We already have a canary.”
“Madam,” called Mr. Larkin. “Why not have a whale and a canary, too? They don’t clash, you know.”
“What do you say, Father?” said the slow voice of the hidden speaker. “Do you think we should have a whale?”
“It would make an imposing lawn decoration,” put in Mr. Owen.
“Say, mister,” called the woman. “Do whales eat grass?”
“She wants to know if whales eat grass,” said Mr. Larkin to his partner in a low, nervous voice. “I haven’t the vaguest idea what the horrible creatures eat. You tell her something, like a good fellow.”
“Not this one, madam,” replied Mr. Owen. “This whale has been preserved.”
“I do very well with peaches,” the voice of the woman informed them, “but I’d hate to try a whale. I don’t think we would like a preserved whale, Father, do you?”
“I’d hate one,” he replied. “I’m dead set against that whale, Mother. You’ve enough things to dust off already.”
“Guess you’re right, Hen,” replied the woman. “Dusting all day long. Just tell the gentlemen we’re not fixed for whales and shut the door. It’s draughty in the hall.”
“We’re not fixed for whales,” said Hen, and slammed the door in the partners’ faces.
“Who is?” asked Mr. Owen bluntly, scanning the closed door.
“We’re not,” said Mr. Larkin. “Offhand, I can’t think of anyone who is fixed for whales. That’s just the trouble. Whales are so unexpected.”
They returned to the truck and bade the driver to move on. In one corner Mr. Dinner, his small body curled like a dog’s, was sleeping gently. The Major was nodding, his back against the side of the truck. Mr. Owen sat down, and Satin put her head on his knee. She looked up at him dreamily out of her great, deep eyes; then lashes slowly fringed them.
“I don’t care where I am,” she murmured, “as long as I’m with you.”
After that effort she slept. Mr. Owen gazed down at the girl’s face and felt himself compensated for the presence of the whale. Then he raised his eyes and gazed at the whale’s face. It was remarkable, he reflected, how different faces could be. He wondered who thought them up. He glanced at Mr. Larkin. That gentleman was standing with arms folded across his chest. About him hung the brooding dignity of Napoleon.
“If I don’t get rid of that whale soon,” he said, “I think I’ll go mad and fling myself upon it the way you did to that bear.”
“That’s an idea, too,” remarked Mr. Owen. “We might have to dismantle Minnie. Take her apart rib by rib.”
“It would be better to blow her up,” commented Mr. Larkin. “More fun.”
The truck was now rolling along through the spreading dawn. They were in open country with the sea only a mile or so away. Through the fresh morning air, birds flew down to look at Minnie. Some of the more daring perched upon the whale and made up songs about her. The road was steadily winding upward. An unusually enterprising farmer, his small truck laden with vegetables, tried to pass, then thought better of it. Throwing his gears into reverse he backed through a fence with the utmost expedition. With his eyes still riveted to the great fish on the trailer, he continued on backward down the field. The last glimpse they caught of him he was crashing through a corn field in the direction of a small forest.
“Probably,” observed Mr. Owen, “that man will never get up early again for the remainder of his days.”
“He certainly didn’t want a whale,” replied the senior partner. “I can understand that, though. It must be frightfully discouraging to see so much of anything at this time of day.”
A man with a hoe hailed them from the roadside.
“Hi, mister,” he called, “what you got there?”
“A very nice whale,” Mr. Larkin told him, a spark of hope in his voice. “Would you like it?”
“Nope,” replied the man. “I don’t hold with whales, but it sure is a dandy. It’s a big whale, ain’t it?”
“Whales are big,” said Mr. Larkin wearily.
“Yes,” agreed the farmer cheerfully. “Seems like they run to flesh. Well, so long. I’ve got some pertaters to hoe for Mrs. Mumpford. This is her farm. I only work here.”
“It’s amazing how much personal information one can pick up,” observed the senior partner, “when one really doesn’t want it.”
“You know,” replied Mr. Owen, “if we didn’t want to give this whale away, if we had our hearts set on this whale, people would beg us for it with tears in their eyes.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” commented Mr. Larkin, “but I’m so fed up with that whale I’d cross the street to avoid her.”
Gradually they approached the sea. The road was now sloping steeply. Less than a quarter of a mile away a white beach lay gleaming beneath the slanting sun. Suddenly Mr. Larkin clutched his partner’s arm.
“I have it!” he cried. “I have it! We’ll launch this infernal whale back into the deep.”
He shouted to the driver to stop. Everyone woke up and swarmed out of the truck. Stones were placed under the wheels of the trailer until the truck could draw out of the way. Ahead of them the road ran straight to the sea. A small wooden house was the only dwelling in sight. It stood by the roadside. There was a feeling of tenseness in the air as the partners rolled the stones away from the wheels of the trailer.
“Good-bye, Minnie,” murmured Satin, and waved a crumpled handkerchief.
The trailer gathered headway and rumbled down the road. Straight to its course it held, until it came to the house. Here it swerved horrifyingly from the road and bounded forward. There was the crash of snapping timber, and Minnie’s great head disappeared from view through the walls of the frail structure.
“It veered, my God, it veered!” sobbed the senior partner on Mr. Owen’s chest. “Oh, what a whale! I’d like to take a stick and beat it within an inch of its life.”
“What’s that?” asked the voice of a sleepy woman within the wooden house.
Her husband opened his eyes, then snapped them shut with a click.
“Don’t say a word,” he whispered. “Perhaps it hasn’t seen us.”
“What hasn’t?” asked the woman.
“The whale,” replied the man, his head buried under his pillow.
“The whale,” replied the woman. “Since when have whales taken to prowling round the countryside? Something’s got to be done about all this.”
“Well, don’t ask me to do it,” same the muffled voice of the man. “One look at that face and all ambition fades.”
“Just to think of it,” continued the woman. “Whales bounding about on land and visiting decent people in their beds. It’s an outrage.”
“It wouldn’t be any less surprising,” replied her husband, “if they bounded about the country and visited indecent people in their beds.”
The woman opened her eyes and looked reprovingly at Minnie.
“It’s a whale all right,” she said at last. “A great huge whale, but the blow must have killed it. There’s a glassy look in its eyes.”
“That whale has nothing on me,” replied her husband. “My eyes are burned out like a couple of bulbs, and it took only one good look to do it.”
“To be awakened at dawn by a whale,” mused the woman. “Who says that all the novelty has gone out of life?”
“You seem to take that whale with the utmost equanimity,” remarked the man, nerving himself to withdraw from his place of concealment beneath the pillow. “What are we going to do with the brute? Is it going to become a member of the household? Is it going to remain in our bedroom, watching our lyings down and gettings up? I’d hate like hell to undress myself before the critical gaze of those glazed eyes.”
“If we remove the whale,” said the woman, “we remove one side of our little home. Our bedroom stands disclosed to the world. The general public will be able to bear witness to our habits.”
“That would be almost preferable to the scrutiny of that monster of the deep,” observed the man.
“We could hang a sheet over its face,” suggested his wife.
“Two sheets,” amplified the husband. “One on either side.”
“There’s another thing to be said in favor of that whale,” went on the lady on the bed. “It will effectively keep from the house our old and rare relations.”
“I wish we could have Uncle Alfred down here and show him to that horrible head,” the man advanced suggestively. “One look, I think, would do the trick. His heart isn’t strong. We’d be on easy street then.”
“And it wouldn’t quite be murder,” added the woman. “Not quite.”
“Exactly,” agreed the husband. “All the old boy needs is a bit of a shove. That whale would do the trick.”
“One man’s whale is another man’s poison,” observed the woman, yawning daintily. “The wonder of it all, if not the beauty.”
“I fear we won’t sleep very soundly under the prow of that monster,” remarked the husband. “Our dreams won’t be so fragrant.”
“No,” replied the woman. “I must confess I hardly admire the perfume it is using.”
“I dare say,” her husband remarked, turning over on his side, “that one grows accustomed to almost anything in time.”
From the crest of a distant hill came the chanting of several voices. It was the triumphal song of the partners, reinforced by Satin. Farmers in the field paused at their honest labors as the truck rolled along in the direction of the town.
“You must all dine at my house tonight,” Mr. Larkin was saying in his great-hearted manner. “We want you to meet our wives.”
“Didn’t know you had wives,” replied Mr. Owen. “You act less married than any men I ever knew.”
“Isn’t it awful?” agreed the senior partner in a voice touched with sorrow. “From one excess to another — bounding always. The truth is, we’re miserable with our wives. How glad we would be to change them. You see, they don’t understand us, especially when we relax.”
“With a crash,” added Mr. Owen.
The senior partner endeavored to look pained.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Too Many Wives in a Bed
THAT SAME EVENING at nine Satin and Hector Owen had the somewhat dubious pleasure of meeting the wives of the partners. Mr. Larkin’s town house stood in a side street only a few yards removed from one of the main thoroughfares of the city. It was difficult to distinguish it from the neighborhood cafés, the senior partner having conceived the quaint idea of placing tables before his front door and shielding them from the sun with parasols of startling floridity. A waiter stood in attendance. The same festive atmosphere was maintained within the house itself, the dining room having all the earmarks of a first-class barroom.
In the hall a check girl was waiting to relieve the callers of anything with which they cared to part. She gave Mr. Owen a check and an after-hours smile. He felt at home immediately.
The reception room was wildly luxurious. It gave the impression of veering like its owner. In it awaited the wives. The introductions were almost touchingly simple.
“This is Nana,” said Mr. Larkin, indicating a small, dark woman of middle years with youthfully wicked eyes.
“Shall I kiss him on the lips,” asked Nana, removing a cocktail glass from hers, “or shake him by the hand?”
“Why not bite him on the ear?” suggested Mr. Larkin.
Nana looked for a moment into Satin’s glittering eyes. One look was sufficient. She shook Mr. Owen’s hand.
Dinner’s wife was tall and rawboned in a good-looking way. Although no longer in her first blooming, she was still in full possession of her sex and wore her blonde dye recklessly. She was referred to as the Kitten, for no reasonable reason at all. The Major’s source of dissatisfaction was undeniably plump. Snow-white hair fell round a pink, youthful face. There were dimples in the face. Her name was Aggie, and like Nana and the Kitten, she too, was a little drunk. The partners were surprisingly sober, a social error they made haste to rectify.
The party came to rest against the bar in the dining room. It occupied one entire wall. Behind it were two red-faced, benevolent individuals with the most meticulously brushed and parted hair Mr. Owen had ever seen.
“We’ve been running these poor men ragged,” the Kitten explained, “all day long. They’re exhausted mentally as well as physically. Can’t think up any more drinks. We’ve tried them all.”
“You know,” put in Nana, trying to look naïve and failing most lamentably, “we get so lonely when our husbands are away — —”
“As they always are,” put in Aggie.
“ — that the only thing left to do is to drink like fish,” Nana concluded.
“Please don’t, my dear,” said the senior partner hastily. “Don’t mention fish in my presence. We had such an unfortunate time with a whale only last night. Stayed up with the monster till dawn. You can’t imagine how troublesome a whale can be until you’ve actually met one.”
“Good!” exclaimed Nana. “I like that better and better. One can hardly go to bed with a whale.”
“But if anyone could go to bed with a whale,” quoth Aggie, “those three men would be the ones.”
The partners looked distressed.
“Would it be possible to veer this conversation into more savory channels?” suggested the senior partner with a delicate lift of his eyebrows. “The mere idea of going to bed with a whale makes my reason totter. Harry, a triple Martini, if you please. Serve it in a stein.”
“And what do you do at the store, my dear?” asked Nana, turning to Satin. “Are you a model?”
“I sell dirty books,” said Satin, and Mr. Owen thanked his God she did not add, “lady.”
“Marvelous,” cried the Kitten. “Simply marvelous. And you go around with a lot of dirty men — our husbands.”
“Come, come,” put in Major Barney. “Take us off the pan for a while. There are worse husbands than we are knocking about this town.”
“A depressing thought,” said Aggie.
“Incredible,” added Nana. “Say something, Mr. Owen. We’ve hardly heard your voice. Do you lech, too?”
“Do I what?” asked Mr. Owen, shrinking a little at the very sound of the word.
“What I meant was,” explained Nana, “are you a lecherous man?”
“May heaven turn my toe nails blue,” exploded the senior partner. “What a question to ask a guest! Do you lech? Hold me before I begin to careen all over the room.”
“I wouldn’t call him overly lecherous,” answered Satin for the stunned Mr. Owen.
“Then you know, my dear. You’ve found out,” said the Kitten in tones of delight. “I do hope he’s promiscuous, at least. There are so few fresh faces. His is not unattractive.”
The three wives looked closely into Mr. Owen’s face, then nodded significantly at each other. Mr. Owen drank steadily and endeavored to appear at ease. Presently he succeeded far better than he had intended.
By the time they had finished with the bar the dinner was in even a worse condition than the diners, yet no one seemed to mind, as the courses were snapped through and set aside in favor of wine.
“He bit a bear yesterday,” Mr. Larkin announced, pointing at the guest of honor, “and the bear swooned.”
“If he bit me,” retorted Aggie, “I think I’d swoon, too — right in his arms. Will you bite me sometime, Mr. Owen?”
“Try not to be so mollish,” interposed the Major.
“And he saved our three lives,” put in the small Dinner from behind a large glass. “We were drowning and he saved our lives. All three of them.”
The wives looked reproachfully at Mr. Owen.
“Why did you do that?” demanded Nana. “Have you no consideration for us?”
“But my dear lady,” protested Mr. Owen, “I couldn’t let my partners drown right before my eyes.”
“We could,” said the Kitten. “We could even go so far as to help them to drown.”
“Pay no attention to them, my boy,” Mr. Larkin called out from the end of the table. “Our wives have a sense of horror instead of humor. If you want to make a hit with them, although I can’t understand why you should, just take them to the morgue for an outing. They’d love it dearly.” He glanced at his watch, and uttered an exclamation. “What do we do with time?” he said. “It’s eleven o’clock already.”
“We tossed time over the bar in great handfuls,” his wife told him, “and besides, we didn’t begin operations until well after nine o’clock.”
“I must get in touch with the Mayor,” continued Mr. Larkin. “Something has just occurred to me. Owen, I loathe policemen. They’re always under one’s feet. I feel so splendidly now I’d like to assault a cop.”
“It’s been a dream of mine,” replied Mr. Owen, “a beautiful dream unfulfilled.”
“Well,” said the senior partner, “it’s become a mania with me. Therefore, I suggest that by way of entertainment we indulge in a little concentrated cop baiting. The Mayor is my brother-in-law. He is putty in my hands as well as in those of his bosses. I must make some arrangements with him for the protection of our various bodies and persons.”
