Chapter 4

"Thanks," returned the Idiot. "I wish you were an editor. I wrote that last spring, and it has been coming back to me at the rate of once a week ever since."

"It is too short," said the Bibliomaniac.

"It's an epigram," said the Idiot. "How many yards long do you think epigrams should be?"

The Bibliomaniac scorned to reply.

"I agree with the Bibliomaniac," said the School-master. "It is too short. People want greater quantity."

"Well, here is quantity for you," said the Idiot. "Quantity as she is not wanted by nine comic papers I wot of. This poem is called:

"THE TURNING OF THE WORM.

"'How hard my fate perhaps you'll gather in, My dearest reader, when I tell you that I entered into this fair world a twin-- The one was spare enough, the other fat.

"'I was, of course, the lean one of the two, The homelier as well, and consequently In ecstasy o'er Jim my parents flew, And good of me was spoken accident'ly.

"'As boys, we went to school, and Jim, of course, Was e'er his teacher's favorite, and ranked Among the lads renowned for moral force, Whilst I was every day right soundly spanked.

"'Jim had an angel face, but there he stopped. I never knew a lad who'd sin so oft And look so like a branch of heaven lopped From off the parent trunk that grows aloft.

"'I seemed an imp--indeed 'twas often said That I resembled much Beelzebub. My face was freckled and my hair was red-- The kind of looking boy that men call scrub.

"'Kind deeds, however, were my constant thought; In everything I did the best I could; I said my prayers thrice daily, and I sought In all my ways to do the right and good.

"'On Saturdays I'd do my Monday's sums, While Jim would spend the day in search of fun; He'd sneak away and steal the neighbors' plums, And, strange to say, to earth was never run.

"'Whilst I, when study-time was haply through, Would seek my brother in the neighbor's orchard; Would find the neighbor there with anger blue, And as the thieving culprit would be tortured.

"'The sums I'd done he'd steal, this lad forsaken, Then change my work, so that a paltry four Would be my mark, whilst he had overtaken The maximum and all the prizes bore.

"'In later years we loved the self-same maid; We sent her little presents, sweets, bouquets, For which, alas! 'twas I that always paid; And Jim the maid now honors and obeys.

"'We entered politics--in different roles, And for a minor office each did run. 'Twas I was left--left badly at the polls, Because of fishy things that Jim had done.

"'When Jim went into business and failed, I signed his notes and freed him from the strife Which bankruptcy and ruin hath entailed On them that lead a queer financial life.

"'Then, penniless, I learned that Jim had set Aside before his failure--hard to tell!-- A half a million dollars on his pet-- His Mrs. Jim--the former lovely Nell.

"'That wearied me of Jim. It may be right For one to bear another's cross, but I Quite fail to see it in its proper light, If that's the rule man should be guided by.

"'And since a fate perverse has had the wit To mix us up so that the one's deserts Upon the shoulders of the other sit, No matter how the other one it hurts,

"'I am resolved to take some mortal's life; Just when, or where, or how, I do not reck, So long as law will end this horrid strife And twist my dear twin brother's sinful neck.'"

"There," said the Idiot, putting down the manuscript. "How's that?"

"I don't like it," said Mr. Whitechoker. "It is immoral and vindictive. You should accept the hardships of life, no matter how unjust. The conclusion of your poem horrifies me, sir. I--"

"Have you tried your hand at dialect poetry?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes; once," said the Idiot. "I sent it to the _Great Western Weekly_. Oh yes. Here it is. Sent back with thanks. It's an octette written in cigar-box dialect."

"In wh-a-at?" asked the Poet.

"Cigar-box dialect. Here it is:

"'O Manuel garcia alonzo, Colorado especial H. Clay, Invincible flora alphonzo, Cigarette panatella el rey, Victoria Reina selectas-- O twofer madura grandé-- O conchas oscuro perfectas, You drive all my sorrows away.'"

"Ingenious, but vicious," said the School-master, who does not smoke.

"Again thanks. How is this for a sonnet?" said the Idiot:

"'When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancel'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I now pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think of thee, dear friend! All losses are restored and sorrows end.'"

"It is bosh!" said the School-master. The Poet smiled quietly.

"Perfect bosh!" repeated the School-master. "And only shows how in weak hands so beautiful a thing as the sonnet can be made ridiculous."

"What's wrong with it?" asked the Idiot.

"It doesn't contain any thought--or if it does, no one can tell what the thought is. Your rhymes are atrocious. Your phraseology is ridiculous. The whole thing is bad. You'll never get anybody to print it."

"I do not intend to try," said the Idiot, meekly.

"You are wise," said the School-master, "to take my advice for once."

"No, it is not your advice that restrains me," said the Idiot, dryly. "It is the fact that this sonnet has already been printed."

"In the name of Letters, where?" cried the School-master.

"In the collected works of William Shakespeare," replied the Idiot, quietly.

The Poet laughed; Mrs. Smithers's eyes filled with tears; and the School-master for once had absolutely nothing to say.

XI

"Do you believe, Mr. Whitechoker," said the Idiot, taking his place at the table, and holding his plate up to the light, apparently to see whether or not it was immaculate, whereat the landlady sniffed contemptuously--"do you believe that the love of money is the root of all evil?"

"I have always been of that impression," returned Mr. Whitechoker, pleasantly. "In fact, I am sure of it," he added. "There is no evil thing in this world, sir, that cannot be traced back to a point where greed is found to be its main-spring and the source of its strength."

"Then how do you reconcile this with the scriptural story of the forbidden fruit? Do you think the apples referred to were figures of speech, the true import of which was that Adam and Eve had their eyes on the original surplus?"

"Well, of course, there you begin to--ah--you seem to me to be going back to the--er--the--ah--"

"Original root of all evil," prompted the Idiot, calmly.

"Precisely," returned Mr. Whitechoker, with a sigh of relief. "Mrs. Smithers, I think I'll have a dash of hot-water in my coffee this morning." Then, with a nervous glance towards the Idiot, he added, addressing the Bibliomaniac, "I think it looks like rain."

"Referring to the coffee, Mr. Whitechoker?" queried the Idiot, not disposed to let go of his victim quite so easily.

"Ah--I don't quite follow you," replied the Minister, with some annoyance.

"You said something looked like rain, and I asked you if the thing you referred to was the coffee, for I was disposed to agree with you," said the Idiot.

"I am sure," put in Mrs. Smithers, "that a gentleman of Mr. Whitechoker's refinement would not make any such insinuation, sir. He is not the man to quarrel with what is set before him."

"I ask your pardon, madam," returned the Idiot, politely. "I hope that I am not the man to quarrel with my food, either. Indeed, I make it a rule to avoid unpleasantness of all sorts, particularly with the weak, under which category we find your coffee. I simply wish to know to what Mr. Whitechoker refers when he says 'it looks like rain.'"

"I mean, of course," said the Minister, with as much calmness as he could command--and that was not much--"I mean the day. The day looks as if it might be rainy."

"Any one with a modicum of brain knows what you meant, Mr. Whitechoker," volunteered the School-master.

"Certainly," observed the Idiot, scraping the butter from his toast; "but to those who have more than a modicum of brains my reverend friend's remark was not entirely clear. If I am talking of cotton, and a gentleman chooses to state that it looks like snow, I know exactly what he means. He doesn't mean that the day looks like snow, however; he refers to the cotton. Mr. Whitechoker, talking about coffee, chooses to state that it looks like rain, which it undoubtedly does. I, realizing that, as Mrs. Smithers says, it is not the gentleman's habit to attack too violently the food which is set before him, manifest some surprise, and, giving the gentleman the benefit of the doubt, afford him an opportunity to set himself right."

"Change the subject," said the Bibliomaniac, curtly.

"With pleasure," answered the Idiot, filling his glass with cream. "We'll change the subject, or the object, or anything you choose. We'll have another breakfast, or another variety of biscuits _frappé_--anything, in short, to keep peace at the table. Tell me, Mr. Pedagog," he added, "is the use of the word 'it,' in the sentence 'it looks like rain,' perfectly correct?"

"I don't know why it is not," returned the School-master, uneasily. He was not at all desirous of parleying with the Idiot.

"And is it correct to suppose that 'it' refers to the day--is the day supposed to look like rain?--or do we simply use 'it' to express a condition which confronts us?"

"It refers to the latter, of course."

"Then the full text of Mr. Whitechoker's remark is, I suppose, that 'the rainy condition of the atmosphere which confronts us looks like rain?'"

"Oh, I suppose so," sighed the School-master, wearily.

"Rather an unnecessary sort of statement that!" continued the Idiot. "It's something like asserting that a man looks like himself, or, as in the case of a child's primer--

"'See the cat?'

"'Yes, I see the cat.'

"'What is the cat?'

"'The cat is a cat. Scat cat!'"

At this even Mrs. Smithers smiled.

"I don't agree with Mr. Pedagog," put in the Bibliomaniac, after a pause.

Here the School-master shook his head warningly at the Bibliomaniac, as if to indicate that he was not in good form.

"So I observe," remarked the Idiot. "You have upset him completely. See how Mr. Pedagog trembles?" he added, addressing the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed.

"I don't mean that way," sneered the Bibliomaniac, bound to set Mr. Whitechoker straight. "I mean that the word 'it,' as employed in that sentence, stands for day. The day looks like rain."

"Did you ever see a day?" queried the Idiot.

"Certainly I have," returned the Bibliomaniac.

"What does it look like?" was the calmly put question.

The Bibliomaniac's impatience was here almost too great for safety, and the manner in which his face colored aroused considerable interest in the breast of the Doctor, who was a good deal of a specialist in apoplexy.

"Was it a whole day you saw, or only a half-day?" persisted the Idiot.

"You may think you are very funny," retorted the Bibliomaniac. "I think you are--"

"Now don't get angry," returned the Idiot. "There are two or three things I do not know, and I'm anxious to learn. I'd like to know how a day looks to one to whom it is a visible object. If it is visible, is it tangible? and, if so, how does it feel?"

"The visible is always tangible," asserted the School-master, recklessly.

"How about a red-hot stove, or manifest indignation, or a view from a mountain-top, or, as in the case of the young man in the novel who 'suddenly waked,' and, 'looking anxiously about him, saw no one?'" returned the Idiot, imperturbably.

"Tut!" ejaculated the Bibliomaniac. "If I had brains like yours, I'd blow them out."

"Yes, I think you would," observed the Idiot, folding up his napkin. "You're just the man to do a thing like that. I believe you'd blow out the gas in your bedroom if there wasn't a sign over it requesting you not to." And filling his match-box from the landlady's mantel supply, the Idiot hurried from the room, and soon after left the house.

XII

"If my father hadn't met with reverses--" the Idiot began.

"Did you really have a father?" interrupted the School-master. "I thought you were one of these self-made Idiots. How terrible it must be for a man to think that he is responsible for you!"

"Yes," rejoined the Idiot; "my father finds it rather hard to stand up under his responsibility for me; but he is a brave old gentleman, and he manages to bear the burden very well with the aid of my mother--for I have a mother, too, Mr. Pedagog. A womanly mother she is, too, with all the natural follies, such as fondness for and belief in her boy. Why, it would soften your heart to see how she looks on me. She thinks I am the most everlastingly brilliant man she ever knew--excepting father, of course, who has always been a hero of heroes in her eyes, because he never rails at misfortune, never spoke an unkind word to her in his life, and just lives gently along and waiting for the end of all things."

"Do you think it is right in you to deceive your mother in this way--making her think you a young Napoleon of intellect when you know you are an Idiot?" observed the Bibliomaniac, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Why certainly I do," returned the Idiot, calmly. "It's my place to make the old folks happy if I can; and if thinking me nineteen different kinds of a genius is going to fill my mother's heart with happiness, I'm going to let her think it. What's the use of destroying other people's idols even if we do know them to be hollow mockeries? Do you think you do a praiseworthy act, for instance, when you kick over the heathen's stone gods and leave him without any at all? You may not have noticed it, but I have--that it is easier to pull down an idol than it is to rear an ideal. I have had idols shattered myself, and I haven't found that the pedestals they used to occupy have been rented since. They are there yet and empty--standing as monuments to what once seemed good to me--and I'm no happier nor no better for being disillusioned. So it is with my mother. I let her go on and think me perfect. It does her good, and it does me good because it makes me try to live up to that idea of hers as to what I am. If she had the same opinion of me that we all have she'd be the most miserable woman in the world."

"We don't all think so badly of you," said the Doctor, rather softened by the Idiot's remarks.

"No," put in the Bibliomaniac. "You are all right. You breathe normally, and you have nice blue eyes. You are graceful and pleasant to look upon, and if you'd been born dumb we'd esteem you very highly. It is only your manners and your theories that we don't like; but even in these we are disposed to believe that you are a well-meaning child."

"That is precisely the way to put it," assented the School-master. "You are harmless even when most annoying. For my own part, I think the most objectionable feature about you is that you suffer from that unfortunately not uncommon malady, extreme youth. You are young for your age, and if you only wouldn't talk, I think we should get on famously together."

"You overwhelm me with your compliments," said the Idiot. "I am sorry I am so young, but I cannot be brought to believe that that is my own fault. One must live to attain age, and how the deuce can one live when one boards?"

As no one ventured to reply to this question, the force of which very evidently, however, was fully appreciated by Mrs. Smithers, the Idiot continued:

"Youth is thrust upon us in our infancy, and must be endured until such a time as Fate permits us to account ourselves cured. It swoops down upon us when we have neither the strength nor the brains to resent it. Of course there are some superior persons in this world who never were young. Mr. Pedagog, I doubt not, was ushered into this world with all three sets of teeth cut, and not wailing as most infants are, but discussing the most abstruse philosophical problems. His fairy stories were told him, if ever, in words of ten syllables; and his father's first remark to him was doubtless an inquiry as to his opinion on the subject of Latin and Greek in our colleges. It's all right to be this kind of a baby if you like that sort of thing. For my part, I rejoice to think that there was once a day when I thought my father a mean-spirited assassin, because he wouldn't tie a string to the moon and let me make it rise and set as suited my sweet will. Babies of Mr. Pedagog's sort are fortunately like angel's visits, few and far between. In spite of his stand in the matter, though, I can't help thinking there was a great deal of truth in a rhyme a friend of mine got off on Youth. It fits the case. He said:

"'Youth is a state of being we attain In early years; to some 'tis but a crime-- And, like the mumps, most agèd men complain, It can't be caught, alas! a second time."'

"Your rhymes are interesting, and your reasoning, as usual, is faulty," said the School-master. "I passed a very pleasant childhood, though it was a childhood devoted, as you have insinuated, to serious rather than to flippant pursuits. I wasn't particularly fond of tag and hide-and-seek, nor do I think that even as an infant I ever cried for the moon."

"It would have expanded your chest if you had, Mr. Pedagog," observed the Idiot, quietly.

"So it would, but I never found myself short-winded, sir," retorted the School-master, with some acerbity.

"That is evident; but go on," said the Idiot. "You never passed a childish youth nor a youthful childhood, and therefore what?"

"Therefore, in my present condition, I am normally contented. I have no youthful follies to look back upon, no indiscretions to regret; I never knowingly told a lie, and--"

"All of which proves that you never were young," put in the Idiot; "and you will excuse me if I say it, but my father is the model for me rather than so exalted a personage as yourself. He is still young, though turned seventy, and I don't believe on his own account there ever was a boy who played hookey more, who prevaricated oftener, who purloined others' fruits with greater frequency than he. He was guilty of every crime in the calendar of youth; and if there is one thing that delights him more than another, it is to sit on a winter's night before the crackling log and tell us yarns about his youthful follies and his boyhood indiscretions."

"But is he normally a happy man?" queried the School-master.

"No."

"Ah!"

"No. He's an _ab_normally happy man, because he's got his follies and indiscretions to look back upon and not forward to."

"Ahem!" said Mrs. Smithers.

"Dear me!" ejaculated Mr. Whitechoker.

Mr. Pedagog said nothing, and the breakfast-room was soon deserted.

XIII

There was an air of suppressed excitement about Mrs. Smithers and Mr. Pedagog as they sat down to breakfast. Something had happened, but just what that something was no one as yet knew, although the genial old gentleman had a sort of notion as to what it was.

"Pedagog has been good-natured enough for an engaged man for nearly a week now," he whispered to the Idiot, who had asked him what he supposed was up, "and I have a half idea that Mrs. S. has at last brought him to the point of proposing."

"It's the other way, I imagine," returned the Idiot.

"You don't really think she has rejected him, do you?" queried the genial old gentleman.

"Oh no; not by a great deal. I mean that I think it very likely that he has brought her to the point. This is leap-year, you know," said the Idiot.

"Well, if I were a betting man, which I haven't been since night before last, I'd lay you a wager that they're engaged," said the old gentleman.

"I'm glad you've given up betting," rejoined the Idiot, "because I'm sure I'd take the bet if you offered it--and then I believe I'd lose."

"We are to have Philadelphia spring chickens this morning, gentlemen," said Mrs. Smithers, beaming upon all at the table. "It's a special treat."

"Which we all appreciate, my dear Mrs. Smithers," observed the Idiot, with a courteous bow to his landlady. "And, by the way, why is it that Philadelphia spring chickens do not appear until autumn, do you suppose? Is it because Philadelphia spring doesn't come around until it is autumn everywhere else?"

"No, I think not," said the Doctor. "I think it is because Philadelphia spring chickens are not sufficiently hardened to be able to stand the strain of exportation much before September, or else Philadelphia people do not get so sated with such delicacies as to permit any of the crop to go into other than Philadelphia markets before that period. For my part, I simply love them."

"So do I," said the Idiot; "and if Mrs. Smithers will pardon me for expressing a preference for any especial part of the _pièce de résistance_, I will state to her that if, in helping me, she will give me two drumsticks, a pair of second joints, and plenty of the white meat, I shall be very happy."

"You ought to have said so yesterday," said the School-master, with a surprisingly genial laugh. "Then Mrs. Smithers could have prepared an individual chicken for you."

"That would be too much," returned the Idiot, "and I should really hesitate to eat too much spring chicken. I never did it in my life, and don't know what the effect would be. Would it be harmful, Doctor?"

"I really do not know how it would be," answered the Doctor. "In all my wide experience I have never found a case of the kind."

"It's very rarely that one gets too much spring chicken," said Mr. Whitechoker. "I haven't had any experience with patients, as my friend the Doctor has; but I have lived in many boarding-houses, and I have never yet known of any one even getting enough."

"Well, perhaps we shall have all we want this morning," said Mrs. Smithers. "I hope so, at any rate, for I wish this day to be a memorable one in our house. Mr. Pedagog has something to tell you. John, will you announce it now?"

"Did you hear that?" whispered the Idiot. "She called him 'John.'"

"Yes," said the genial old gentleman. "I didn't know Pedagog had a first name before."

"Certainly, my dear--that is, my very dear Mrs. Smithers," stammered the School-master, getting red in the face. "The fact is, gentlemen--ahem!--I--er--we--er--that is, of course--er--Mrs. Smithers has er--ahem!--Mrs. Smithers has asked me to be her--I--er--I should say I have asked Mrs. Smithers to be my husb--my wife, and--er--she--"

"Hoorah!" cried the Idiot, jumping up from the table and grasping Mr. Pedagog by the hand. "Hoorah! You've got in ahead of us, old man, but we are just as glad when we think of your good-fortune. Your gain may be our loss--but what of that where the happiness of our dear landlady is at stake?"

Mrs. Smithers glanced coyly at the Idiot and smiled.

"Thank you," said the School-master.