Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 296
“Almost after wanting,” I replied, nodding my head hopefully.
“Why, it’s a bathroom door you’re blinking at way down yonder at the end of the hall,” says he greatly surprised.
For a long time I gazed at the door for which I had searched so courageously.
“It’s too far,” I replied at last.
“It’s not at all,” answered the man.
“Then why don’t you bathe there?” I asked.
“Oh, I can’t bathe there,” replied the man, “I’m the porter,”
“Well,” I said, after having considered the proposition in all its unappealing aspects, “if this young man will bellboy me on one side and if you will porter me on the other perhaps together we might stagger far enough to be able to crawl the remaining distance,”
“Come along,” said the old man, “well take you there,” and the two of them began leading me down the hall. We had not proceeded far on our way before we met a young lady in riding breeches and the rest of the stuff that goes with it. She was a pretty young lady to whom my heart went out, but seeing me thus under guard she evidently thought that I was either very sick or else dangerously insane. As a matter of fact I looked both.
At the door of the bathroom I shook hands with both of my rescuers, urging them not to forget me if they saw me no more and begging the old man to guide from his vast experience the young man to some point of safety. With friendly words they left me and I bathed myself much in the same manner as other human animals who are forced to confine their ablutions to so small a space as a tub.
Arising later from this with my eyes full of soap and my heart full of confidence, greatly refreshed from the benign influences of lots of cold water, I collected my razor, toilet water, tooth-brush and other well- advertised and familiar implements of culture and once again launched myself into the perilous mazes of the passageways, this time in the direction of my room. The return trip was surprisingly short and successful Even with my eyes still dim with soap I was able to recognise my door at once, and it was with a sigh of profound relief that I entered my room and began to arrange my shaving things tastefully upon my dresser, humming the while a bit of a cheerful song.
“Oh Gawd,” I heard someone breathe back of me. Ah, thought I, the maid. I failed to notice her because of the soap, no doubt.
“It’s all right,” I answered without troubling to turn around, “you may return at some later time. I shall soon be dressed.”
“What?” went on this voice, this time taking on a quality of horror. “What — what — what—”
Even then I failed to turn around. My attention was arrested by a silver- backed mirror which I was weighing absent-mindedly in my hand. In doing this I became vaguely aware of the fact that I had never in the entire course of my misspent days possessed such a thing as a silver-backed mirror. Still I failed to connect this fact in any way with the voice behind me. All men after bathing as a rule are cheerfully preoccupied with petty details and I was no exception. At that moment all I cared much about doing was to put on one sock and to continue to hum my little song. However, the unexpected presence of the mirror was a fact to be considered. I raised the mirror and gazed into it In doing this I was enabled to catch over my shoulder the reflection of my bed and also the reflection of someone in my bed. This someone was a woman. This was apparent, It had long hair and the nose, which was all that I could see, had cold cream on it, an unmistakable sign.
My preoccupation left me immediately. I became unnerved. Panic took possession of me. I turned around as if on a spring.
“Where did you come from?” I gasped.
“From the South,” said a startled voice from the bed.
For a moment I pondered over the answer. I had apparently surprised the truth out of her.
“Well, I wish you had stayed there,” I replied bitterly. “Aren’t there any other beds save mine between here and the South?”
‘Aren’t there any beds save mine between here and the South?’
“This is my bed,” came the voice defiantly from beneath the blankets, “and if you don’t leave this room instantly I shall begin to scream.”
I looked around the room — She was apparently right. It did not appear to be my room. Whether it was her room or not I wasn’t certain. I wasn’t interested. I was convinced it wasn’t my room. That was enough. With nerveless fingers I began gathering up the toilet articles I had so tastefully arranged on the dresser,
“A terrible mistake,” I muttered thickly. “You must permit me to apologize. I must apologize. I shall never be through apologizing.”
“If you’re not through apologizing and out of this room in ten seconds I shall begin to scream,” said the bed.
“I hurry, I flee, I depart,” I whispered reaching for the door knob.
“Stop!” commanded the bed tragically.
“What is it?” I replied with an equal amount of tragedy in my voice.
“If you open that door one inch I shall scream,” continued the bed.
“Your scream seems to go both ways,” I remarked over my shoulder.
“Open the door and I scream,” came the voice.
“But, madam,” I expostulated, “I’m not Houdini. I can’t under the force of the most pressing circumstances possibly worm myself through the keyhole,”
This time the voice spoke more clearly, more rapidly; there was fear in it — positive terror.
“My husband,” it said, “will be here at any moment. He always comes up for a moment after breakfast. He is probably walking down the hall at this instant. He will not believe me and he will kill you. You must get under the bed. Quick, quick, under the bed! For God’s sake, under the bed! There will be a tragedy.”
“It will be more than a tragedy,” I managed to gasp. “It will be a total loss.”
“The bed, the bed, under it!” she urged.
“Does he, too, come from the South?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered, “from the South.”
“Probably believes in the ‘unwritten law.’” I muttered, beginning in the anguish of my soul to prance around the room.
“I hear his step!” she cried. “Avoid a murder and get under that bed.”
My presence of mind left me. I had seen too many Keystone comedies, however, to permit myself to get under the? bed.
“Cleanliness is not next to godliness,” I remember thinking at that terrible moment, “it is next to madness.”
An idea seized me. I remembered a friend of mine who in a similar position had escaped detection by sitting on the ledge of the window sill.
“Pull the shade down after me!” I cried, opening the window and climbing through.
The shade and the window came down with a snap, I heard a door open, a heavy tread in the room behind me, and I found myself sitting in God’s bright sunlight gazing down on the main thoroughfare of the town and one of the most popular of the hotel’s many sun porches.
Already I was attracting attention. Several embattled dowagers were gazing up at me. They had not yet come to the believing stage. With bejeweled hands they rubbed their eyes. It was horrible. One of my slippers fell heavily through the New York Times held above the nose of a fat old man of unmistakably conservative leanings. He spluttered and glared up at me. I did my best even at that moment to smile a polite smile of apology down upon the old gentleman. Several people had stopped on the street and were pointing up at me. An automobile party came to a dead stop and traffic began to pile up behind it. Several people ran out on the porch with their morning papers grasped in their hands, and through the bright, sweet air of this day rode in upon this scene the girl I had encountered in the hall. She stopped in the driveway and looked up. Her eyes met mine and she smiled. For a moment all was forgotten, even Polly. I smiled back in my imbecile way. The voices in the room behind me were growing louder and more excited.
I cannot go on. I am far too unnerved to write into my diary the subsequent events which took place on this ghastly day. It is too horrible to dwell on. I must have rest. I shall take it.
(Later). — I realized that my position was not an enviable one.
I realized that my position was not an enviable one.
To sit in one’s pajamas on the extreme edge of a window sill, particularly if the window happens to be closed behind one, is not a position likely to arouse the envy of the average beholder. Some bird might enjoy it, but very few men. When I say I was not happy on my lofty pinnacle I am saying it merely because I have no adequate way of expressing how extremely unhappy I was. At any moment I feared I would follow my slipper down upon the billowy paunch of the convalescent stand-patter below me. If I did I felt sure that I would rebound into eternity, probably ending my wretched days on the chilly obscurity of some isolated star. I do not know whether it was because of my unusual appearance before the general public of that quiet town or because of the hour that the High School suddenly disgorged its brood. The result was the same. Several hundred youths piled out into the street below me and proceeded to hoot and jeer at me with all the detached cruelty of a savage race. The old gentleman was shaking his fist at me. Rage rendered him inarticulate, and I remember thinking at the time that it would be a blessing to humanity if it could be arranged always to keep him angry. The girl on the horse was still regarding me with amused eyes. Presently the horse itself raised its head and gazed up at me. I seemed to detect an expression of annoyance in his patient countenance. This is not right, he was evidently thinking to himself. If men take to conducting themselves in this strange manner what is a horse to expect? If this practice grows popular it will be extremely difficult for a horse to distinguish men from wild birds.
I felt sorry for the horse. In spite of the insecurity of my position I took a chance and waved down to the old gentleman. This gesture of good will succeeded in increasing his rage to the bursting point. I followed my friendly wave with an ingratiating smile. The good man choked and hurried off to the bar. The orchestra, finding itself bereft of an audience, had abandoned its music and followed the entire personnel of the establishment to the porch. One man, as if fearing I was not already sufficiently conspicuous, pointed to me with the long bow of his fiddle. From all sides came the excited twittering of women, the disturbed voices of men and the delighted cries of boys. Behind me, in the room, the angry exclamations of the husband mingled themselves with the pleading tones of the wife. Suddenly the window went up with a bang and with great speed I disappeared before the astounding eyes of the assembled throng as a powerful arm seized me around my middle and deposited me without further ceremony upon the Boor. In a position such as I found myself it was well-nigh impossible to draw upon one’s dignity. This man was saying unpleasant things to me and about me. I hardly understood what they were. The events of the morning had so beclouded my faculties that a numbing lassitude had overcome my brain. A man can stand only so much desperation, after which he finds his spirit plunged into a profound indifference. It was because of this strange mental condition that I found myself tracing the pattern in the rug with absorbed interest while this wild man fumed and raged above my bowed head and called upon every god south of the Mason-Dixon line to bear him witness that he intended to have my blood. His wife seemed to be so distracted that she was unable to decide whether to get under the bed or in it. For some minutes a cold object had been annoying my shrinking flesh. I had been brushing this object away petulantly objecting to the interruption in my intriguing pursuit of tracing the rug’s intricate diagrams. Presently I looked up in annoyance, and discovered that the object I had so carelessly been brushing aside was nothing less than a well- developed 48 Colt revolver. This discovery in no way served to bring back my good spirits; neither did it make the room any more comfortable. I immediately lost all interest in the rug. A revolver has a way of holding the eye. This one held mine. In fact, it claimed my entire attention.
“What do you mean by coming into my wife’s room?” grated the man.
“I only wanted to take a bath,” I answered in a dull voice, addressing myself directly to the gun.
“What?” he bowled. “You wanted to take a bath in my wife’s room?”
“Not particularly in your wife’s room,” I replied, “but In any room. Just a bath, that was all I wanted.”
“Liar!” shouted the man. “Home-breaker.”
“Sir,” I said, and this time with feeling, “I have never been in a less homelike place.”
“How long has this been going on?” he demanded, making little, cold rings on my neck with the gun.
“For years and years,” I muttered in a low voice.
“O, no, oh, no,” came the agonized voice of the wife who had at length decided to get behind the trunk. “My God; don’t say that!”
“Ha!” cried the husband, in triumph. “He admits it. He confesses. I am dishonored.”
“Is that the only gun you have?” I asked suddenly,
“No,” he said, “there is still another.”
“Then why do you all the time keep showing it to me?” I continued. “I believe you.”
“You are in love with ray wife,” said the man, at if reading the lines from a book, “and one of us must die.”
“Sir,” I replied, completely forgetting my chivalry, “not only am I not in love with your wife, but I don’t even fancy her.”
“Shoot him, James,” came an indignant voice from the trunk. “He’s insulting me.”
“That sounds love-like, doesn’t it?” said I, bitterly, to James.
“Lies! Lies! Lies!” cried James. “You love her.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“Don’t.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“It is.”
“It must be settled.”
He hurried over to the bureau and returned with another gun.
“This is the way we shall settle it,” he said, displaying the gun in all its splendor. “A duel.”
“You mean shooting at each other?” I gasped.
“To the end,” he replied.
“I won’t do it,” I replied with finality.
“Then I’ll shoot you down like a dog in cold blood,” he answered.
“Don’t talk that way,” I cried, “about blood and shooting down and all that, I don’t like it.” He cocked one of the guns.
“Do you agree?” he said. It seemed to me that the end of the gun was already smoking.
“How about a game of ping-pong?” I suggested desperately. “They have a dandy table here.”
“Have you any friends in the hotel?” he asked, stepping back and leveling the gun. The trunk seemed to be having a convulsion.
“Don’t do it!” I cried. “Don’t do it. I don’t want to be shot!”
“Then do you agree to a duel?” he said, lowering the gun.
“Sure,” said I, greatly relieved, “let’s have a flock of them.”
“Very well, then,” he said, “we shall arrange it now. You have no friends. Neither have I. We must use two of the bellboys as seconds. I shall talk with them and arrange everything. To-morrow at daybreak you shall be called. Good day, suh.”
At the door I stopped.
“Say,” said I entreatingly, “won’t you cut out all this Kentucky Colonel stuff and be reasonable?”
“It is arranged,” said be, closing the door.
Half-way down the hall I turned back, remembering I had left my shaving things.
“What!” he cried, when I had knocked and the door was opened to roe. “Back again? Have you no shame? Shall I shoot you now?”
“No, don’t shoot me now,” I said, in a tired voice, “shoot me to-morrow. Just reach me out my shaving things now so that I can be all pretty.”
Somehow I got back to my room. Every door along the long halls presented itself to me as a possible duel. I stood outside my own room for fully fifteen minutes nerving myself to take the chance. At last I closed my eyes and entered. I was safe. All the day I stayed in my room. A bellboy brought me my meals, my slipper and a request from the management please not to sit on the window sill any more. Evidently they think that I was doing it through preference. And to-morrow I die. Well, thank God, at any rate I had my bath. There is probably some comfort in this but I have not as yet been able to find it
Dec 21st. (After the duel). — I don’t at all object to duels; in fact, I rather fancy them — when they are all over. Here I sit, a man who has both shot and been shot at; a man who has stood gallantly on the field of honor in order to defend his sacred rights to take a bath; a man who has proved his courage and magnanimity in a moment of greet danger; and yet here I am, healthy and unscratched and sharing a dark secret with the man who only this morning was thirsting for my blood.
For the sake of posterity, personal or otherwise, I shall proceed to relate a few of the highlights of this singular affair.
At five o’clock a bellboy presented himself before me and said in a solemn voice: “It is time, sir.”
“Time for what?” says I.
“For the dool, sir,” says he. “Will you have a bath, sir?”
“Little bellboy,” says I, turning over on my side, “if you love Charlie Chaplin and ever hope to sit in the bleachers at a world series again, don’t, don’t for the love of all you hold sacred in your bellboy’s soul mention bath to me. I have taken my last bath in this world. To that spot whither I am about to wend my way it is my hope that there will be no spirit tubs in which the shades that dwell in that place will be forced to immerse their spirit bodies. However, convention is strong and I can only with the greatest difficulty imagine a British ghost having anything like a contented time of it if he should happen to be deprived of his morning tub.”
During the course of this speech, which left the bellboy in a perplexed frame of mind, I had taken the occasion to arise and prepare myself for my undertaker.
“It’s going to be in the Cathedral Pines,” whispered the boy gleefully to me as we picked our way through the woods a few minutes later.
