Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 261
“Nothing should be too shocking for a bloodhound to smell,” remarked Spray Summers. “That’s their sole purpose in life — to take it on the nose, so to speak.”
“Not when babe of pup,” said Nocka. “When smell is too awful young nose declines to play part. It withers like delicate flower beneath blast of sun.”
“That’s the way I like to have things put,” declared Mr. Pebble, pouring himself another drink. “Fine poetic frenzy evoked by a dog’s nose.”
“Well, I’ve lived with that dog and that Jap for five long years,” said Spray, “and I defy William Shakespeare to do as much and retain one whiff of poetry in his soul.”
She too poured herself another cocktail, and looked defiantly about her. Mr. Henry, as if sensing his defective part was under discussion, put an end to a trying situation by taking the slippers in his mouth and stalking from the room. With a quick bow Nokashima followed the dog.
“Exit three unsightly objects,” said Spray with satisfaction, “but of the three those slippers are the worst.”
“Sue can think up some dirty tricks,” observed Mr. Pebble. “She has a perverted sense of humor.”
“I don’t mind an occasional dirty trick,” replied Spray. “I’ve pulled a few myself in my time, but those slippers were wicked. It’s the first time in twenty-five years she has ever got the better of me.”
“Wish I could say the same,” responded Mr. Pebble. “She’s got the better of me more than once — both of you have.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Spray. “You haven’t been so desperately treated, considering the chances you took. You’ve had more than most men — two lovely homes with a lovely woman in each. In addition, you’ve had the privilege of bringing up another man’s daughter and of making a home for your nephew. What more could you ask?”
“I’ve had more than enough,” was Mr. Pebble’s enigmatic rejoinder. “Lots more.”
“How is Kippie, by the way?” Spray wanted to know. “Haven’t seen him for some time.”
“He’s growing more divertingly worthless every day,” said Mr. Pebble. “He’s twenty-six now, and in the three years since he left college he hasn’t earned an honest dime. As a matter of fact, he’s virtually ruined that advertising agency of mine.”
“If he ruins only advertising agencies,” remarked Spray, “no great harm will be done. Does he stop there?”
“I fear not,” said Mr. Pebble. “The other morning I took one of the cars out for an early spin and found myself sitting on a pair of so-called step- ins.” He paused and sighed a little wistfully. “Women’s undergarments have taken vast strides since our day. There’s nothing to them at all now except speed. They’re very nice.”
“I wear all the latest things,” said Spray Summers. “For all the good it does me.”
“Or me,” added Mr. Pebble.
He rose and, taking up the shaker, went in search of Nokashima. In the kitchen he discovered the Japanese engaged in an odd ceremony. With the slippers in one hand and a large steak in the other he was endeavoring to instruct Mr. Henry in the fine art of smelling. From the tense attitude of the bloodhound’s rump Mr. Pebble could see that the dog was taking the situation seriously.
“Sniff hard, Mist’ Henry,” Nokashima was saying. “Which smell more better, steak or slips? Take good sniff now.” Here the little man first passed the steak across the dog’s nose and then did the same with the slippers. “Which you like,” he demanded, “nice steak or delightful slips?” Apparently Mr. Henry had little preference, or perhaps both steak and slippers were equally revolting to him. With a puzzled expression in his limpid eyes he looked adoringly up at the Jap. “Ha!” cried Nokashima, refusing to be discouraged. “Hard to make up mind, eh? Both so good. Take deep whiff now, then wag for favorite.”
Once more the steak and slippers were offered to the dog’s nose. The sight was too much for Mr. Pebble.
“Oh, I say,” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t do that. Don’t let him smell the steak.”
Nokashima glanced up with innocent concentration. “Mist’ Henry,” he said somewhat sadly, “him can’t smell steak, I don’t fancy.”
“Well, I don’t fancy him getting his great nose all over it,” Mr. Pebble protested.
“Mist’ Henry’s nose is all right outside,” explained the Jap. “Inside not so good.”
“Nokashima,” said Mr. Pebble severely, “I’m not out here to argue with you about the relative merits of the inside and outside of Mr. Henry’s nose. No side of that hound’s nose belongs on a steak. I don’t even care to discuss it. It’s not fitting for animals to smell people’s food.”
“He can’t smell anybody’s food,” replied Nocka with increasing sadness. “Not even his own food.”
“Whether or not that dog can smell his own food is a matter of indifference to me,” said Mr. Pebble. “That’s his hard luck, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow him even to try to smell mine.”
“I let him smell my food,” said Nokashima gently.
“I don’t care if he eats your food,” replied Mr. Pebble. “You keep that dog’s nose in one place and that steak in another.”
“Where’s good place for dog’s nose?” the little man wanted to know.
“What?” asked Mr. Pebble, a little mystified.
“Where I keep Mist’ Henry’s nose?” replied the Japanese.
“I don’t see why either of us should be concerned where Mr. Henry keeps his nose,” declared Mr. Pebble, “so long as he keeps it entirely to himself. Furthermore, I’m getting fed up with Mr. Henry’s nose.”
“You feed on dog’s nose, boss?” asked Nokashima, with an expression of horror on his wrinkled face.
“Oh, God!” exclaimed Mr. Pebble. “Don’t be a fool, Nokashima. I never ate a dog’s nose in my life.”
“That’s nice,” said Nocka approvingly. “That’s very good. Tough on dog to feed on nose. I take care of Mist’ Henry’s nose if you not eat.”
“I don’t have to promise you not to eat that blood-hound’s nose,” retorted Mr. Pebble. “More for my sake than his, I wouldn’t touch his nose. I have a nose of my own.”
“And you eat that?” asked Nokashima, now thoroughly interested.
“Certainly not,” snapped Mr. Pebble. “Are you deliberately trying to infuriate me?”
“That’s nice,” said the Jap. “That’s very good.”
“Are you telling me it’s nice that I don’t eat my own nose?” demanded Mr. Pebble, his consumption of cocktails having made him a little childish.
“Don’t you think so?” asked the guileless servant.
“I don’t even have to think about it,” replied Mr. Pebble. “How can a man eat his own nose?”
“With his teeth,” said Nokashima quite reasonably, and Mr. Pebble was undone.
He began to tremble so violently that the few remaining ice cubes in the shaker tinkled pleasantly against its sides. The sound automatically attracted Nokashima’s attention.
“More cocktails, boss?” he inquired.
Once more the servant’s question had been happily timed.
“For God’s sake, yes,” gasped Mr. Pebble. “Don’t say anything more to me. Just make the cocktails, then bring them in. That’s all. Just make them and bring them in. No more talk about my nose, or that dog’s nose, or of any nose in all the world. Understand that. Just make them and bring them in. That’s all.”
Still mumbling to himself about what Nokashima should and should not do, Mr. Pebble tottered from the room and sank wearily down on the divan beside his mistress.
“What kept you?” she inquired.
“I think,” said Mr. Pebble, “that Nokashima was put on this earth just to torture my soul. He has noses on the brain.”
“How do you mean?” asked Spray. “How on earth can a person have a nose on the brain, even such an original type as Nokashima?”
“Are you starting in, too ?” demanded Mr. Pebble. “Or is it a plot to drive me mad?”
Before Spray could answer, the small man entered triumphantly. He was carrying a fresh shaker of cocktails.
“Mist’ Henry knows difference now,” he announced, happily. “He can smell like regular dog.”
“How do you know that?” asked Mr. Pebble, intrigued in spite of his determination never again to discuss any subject with this mad Oriental.
“I taught him,” said Nocka proudly.
“Still I don’t understand,” pursued Mr. Pebble. “He ate steak all up,” said Nokashima.
Both Spray and Mr. Pebble gazed in blank astonishment at the Japanese servant. This was indeed a stunning piece of information.
“What?” said Mr. Pebble after a dazed silence. “He ate steak all up?”
“Every bit,” replied Nocka in a pleased voice. “All. But not these.”
He set the shaker on the table and produced the slippers from his pocket. These he extended to Spray. With a choking sound, she covered her face with her hands.
“Take them away,” she moaned.
Mr. Pebble was too stunned to speak. His poise was shot full of holes. With fascinated eyes he watched the Japanese pour two cocktails. What manner of man could this be? Mr. Pebble wondered vaguely. Why did God permit the little man to live? Perhaps there was no God. Perhaps life was just one long dirty trick.
“Mist’ Henry knows difference now all right,” continued Nokashima cheerfully. “He crunch into steak with great enjoyment, but not slips. They’re not so good.”
3. BAGGAGE CHECKS OUT
NEITHER MR. PEBBLE nor his mistress felt in the least inclined to discuss any subject with Nokashima. Time passed in brooding silence which Rex Pebble devoted to the restoration of his cherished poise through the consumption of numerous cocktails. Feeling considerably fortified, he rose at last, and placed a friendly arm round the happy little servant’s shoulder.
“How can you bring yourself to touch the vile body of that misbegotten little monstrosity?” Spray Summers demanded.
“Oh well,” said Mr. Pebble, none too definitely, then added, for lack of anything more adequate to say, another “Oh well.”
“Our dinner has gone to the dog,” Spray continued bitterly, “and you more than shake the hand of the telephoning drunkard who fed it to him. You actually caress the withered marmoset.”
“I know,” said Mr. Pebble with alcoholic tolerance, “but you still have your slippers, and you must admit the marmoset can shake a two-fisted cocktail.”
“Get out of my sight, you soiled camels!” the irascible woman exclaimed, “and take these damn slippers with you. Mr. Henry might like them for a little goûter, the dirty dog.”
This time it was the rear of Mr. Pebble that received the slippers instead of the stomach. He accepted them there with unflinching heroism, thanking his lucky stars he had been fortunate enough to escape a frontal attack.
“You should join a major league,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “Remarkable control.”
Gently but firmly he propelled Nokashima from the room.
“Madam no like Mist’ Henry to eat steak all up?” the small Jap inquired when safely out of earshot.
“Not all up, Nocka,” Mr. Pebble explained. “She’s funny that way. Madam likes it better to eat her own steak. I’ll telephone for another one.”
“Let me telephone, boss,” said Nokashima quickly. “I get a steak of most rarefied succulence plenty quick.”
Remembering the servant’s passion for the telephone, Mr. Pebble interposed no objection, feeling that as long as the Japanese was having such a thoroughly good time he might as well make a night of it. Accordingly, he abandoned Nokashima to the telephone, then quit the kitchen and the house by a side door. It would be just as well, he reflected, to let Spray simmer for a while.
Blending the fragrance of moist herbage with the scent of cocktails, Rex Pebble bore his sixty years along an uneven brick wall that led to a walled garden at the back of the house. And the moment he entered this quiet place the summer twilight claimed him. It was a spacious garden with fine turf pierced by the trunks of trees, and it sloped gently to the brow of a hill which lay without the walls, thus giving the spot a fair, broad view of the valley below and the villages nestling in it. A long green pool, now glowing in the sunset, dreamed tranquilly within the garden and all day long reflected the changing moods of the sky. In the middle of the pool the statue of a naiad stood lightly poised on the surface of the water. A border of flagstones circled the pool, converging at the steps of a little white pavilion which stood partly hidden among the trees. This small but luxuriously appointed structure had been built essentially for privacy, which was just as well, for it had been the scene of full many a revel in those days when sixty years were an inconceivable distance off to Rex Pebble. He gazed at the pavilion now, then certain memories forced him politely to avert his eyes. They rested on the statue of the naiad, and Mr. Pebble seated himself on a bench beside the pool the better to contemplate this wild nude figure.
For many years Rex Pebble had been contemplating this naiad, and for many years the naiad had been contemplating him with the same provocative smile on her half-parted lips. He had given her the name of Baggage because he was fully convinced she was both saucy and promiscuous. And he liked her the better for it, although in his heart he chided her gently for her folly.
Baggage was a lush figure of a wench, the creation of vanished hands that either had known women too well or else had been deprived of them entirely. Certainly the stone had been caressed with desire and fashioned with a hungry ruthlessness that had left it a brazen challenge to the eyes of man. Yet there was something refreshingly honest and direct in Baggage’s lack of modesty. Her seeming depravity sprang not so much from weakness or viciousness as from an ordered philosophy of existence — a desire to share with others the good things of life of which she herself was one of the best. If endowed with life Baggage would never be one of those women who tearfully proclaim, “I didn’t mean to do it.” Not Baggage. She would say instead, “Sure I did it, and if you don’t watch out I’ll go and do it again.” Also, one would always know where to find Baggage. One would only have to look for the nearest man, and if there were two men, no doubt the other one would be waiting for her as patiently as possible.
These unedifying reflections upon the probable character of Baggage passed through Mr. Pebble’s mind as his eyes dwelt on the lithe, lovely lines of the full-blown figure.
He had found Baggage in a storage warehouse. She had been sold in default of payment for her keep. Yet even the dusty mantle gathered from her long incarceration had failed to rob her body of its wild pagan grace. Mr. Pebble had an eye that automatically discounted the outer draperies of women in favor of what lay beneath. He had bought her on the spot.
“Wouldn’t you like a sheet about her?” the man had asked when Baggage had been deposited in the back of the open motor.
“I might,” Mr. Pebble had told the man. In fact, I’m sure I would, but I doubt if the lady would like it.”
Leaving the man a little shocked, Mr. Pebble had driven off with Baggage. Later he had presented her to his mistress. Since then she had become a part of the establishment, like Nokashima and the bloodhound, Mr. Henry.
With a slight start Mr. Pebble raised his snow-white head, then shrugged his shoulders as if remonstrating with himself. Had those cocktails made him drowsy, and had his thoughts gone straying into the realms of pure fancy? Surely he had imagined he had seen the tawny, voluptuous form of Baggage step down from her little pedestal and come gliding towards him across the path of the slanting sun now flickering on the still waters of the pool. Surely he had imagined this, and yet — Mr. Pebble half rose from the bench and looked at the spot where the statue had been but where it was no more.
“My god!” he muttered. “Did the poor girl fall in? This is indeed a night of catastrophe.”
“Sit down, old man,” said a low voice beside him. “I didn’t fall in the pool. I have come to pay you a long deferred visit.”
Mr. Pebble resumed his seat. Quite calmly he accepted the situation.
“Hello, Baggage,” he said. “I’m afraid you’ve come too late. I’m an old man now, as you have just reminded me.”
He glanced at the beautiful figure beside him, then savored as if on the tip of his tongue the full bitterness of his years. There was something so imperatively urgent in the sleek young body of the girl sitting so close to him on the bench, Mr. Pebble felt that a just God should do a little something about it. Either the cocktails or the animal magnetism of his companion was making him a bit dizzy. His old, tired heart was thumping dangerously against his vest. What was it the doctor had told him about that heart — no excitement? That was it, no excitement. How absurd. If the doctor himself were here he would be fit to be tied. In fact, he would have to be tied if only for the sake of propriety. The low voice was speaking again. “You were too busy when you were young to pay any attention to me,” said Baggage. “What were you always doing in that little pavilion down there?”
“You know all the answers,” Mr. Pebble told her. “Hadn’t you better let me get you some clothes?”
“And you know me better than that,” said the girl, with a mocking laugh. “I never wore a stitch of clothes in my life. Why should I begin now?”
“Well, times are not what they were, my child,” Mr. Pebble answered feebly. “Women wear clothes nowadays — not much of them, I’ll admit, but still they wear a few.”
“I wish you were young again,” said the girl, fixing Mr. Pebble with a pair of wickedly disturbing eyes.
“Oh, how I do,” muttered Mr. Pebble. “Don’t look at me like that. It won’t do you a bit of good, and it’s upsetting me terribly. After all, I did you a good turn once. What’s the idea now? Why are you trying to torment me?”
“I’m jealous,” replied Baggage, “jealous of the youth you’ve lost. I want you back again.”
“Listen, Baggage,” Rex Pebble said earnestly. “Nobody wants to get back more passionately than I do, but you can see for yourself, my child, it just can’t be done. There’s no going back for me. I’m an old man now, with a heart too weak to hold its memories.”
