CHAPTER XXXI

_Mr. Mudison is Uncomfortable but Happy_

Curious! If anybody had told me a year ago that to-day I should be living at Lexington Avenue and Seventy-ninth Street, I would have laughed at them. Now I am laughing at myself, for while I am terribly uncomfortable all the time--or ought to be so--I am ridiculously happy. Gladys says things will look up with us financially after a while, as she has a rich old aunt somewhere, and we may be able to move west a block or two. But I don't indulge much in dreams. I try to take things as they come, and find solace in the fact that the only time in my life that I was ever stirred by ambition I lost a quarter of my capital. Yet I can hardly call it ambition, but rather necessity, for, confronted with the problem of supporting my suddenly acquired family, I bought stocks heavily on a rising market, with the inevitable result; so now we have only $15,000 a year. Of course Joshua pays ten thousand annually for the children's board, but Gladys has nobly refused her allowance from him.

There must be lots of people who get along on less than we do; but if they are anybody, it requires scrimping. Surely, I had to give up enough. Gastly has my car, as he sold stocks on the bulge; Duff has my saddle-horses, and Jangle has been turned into a general man about the house--a combination butler, footman, and furnace-tender. Doing without Jangle is not so hard, as I have to economize on clothes, and they are learning to take care of themselves, but I do feel the need of more clubs than the Cholmondeley, alone. Of course no man could live without the Cholmondeley. When I walk by the Ticktock and the Ping-pong, all those favorite old haunts of mine, I think of Enoch Arden or Rip Van Winkle, whoever the fellow was that stayed away from home so long. When I see the men in the windows looking bored, how I long to join them!

Belonging to one club is like having a port to clear from, but no destination. There is little pleasure in strolling down the avenue when there is no place for you to drop in, so I have been keeping close to home, though my reading had given me the idea that it was the last place anyone would want to be. Yet it is quite endurable. I suppose this is because Mrs. Mudison understands me so well. There are discomforts. I have to take breakfast much earlier, but you don't really mind getting up at nine o'clock when you have not been out late the night before. There are long hours when there is nothing to do, hours when in the old days I could ride, but which now must be filled in with pictorial papers. I do miss that daily canter, but Gladys had to have a pair for her brougham, so I take my exercise by walking in the park with the children. Rather amusing they are too.

The other morning I was watching Devereux and Maltravers racing around on the grass, when along the bridle-path came Cecil Hash on his smart piebald pony. Pulling up in front of me he shouted, "Lord! Mudison, you are not going to throw yourself in the reservoir?"

Really, I was feeling very cheerful, but my meditative attitude misled him.

"I am just taking the children for a walk," said I, pointing to the small pair.

Cecil kind of stared at the boys. His expression nettled me.

"They are Mrs. Mudison's," said I, rather sharply. "Perhaps you remember that she was Mrs. Joshua Underbunk."

"Oh, yes," cried Hash, his face clearing, "I do remember, now. Come to think of it, I ran across Underbunk in the Ticktock Club, just yesterday."

Up ran that confounded little Maltravers and shouted, "Come along, dad."

Now I do not object to that appellation in the privacy of our home, for the lad is very fond of me, but I do wish he would not be so demonstrative in public. Still, it is simply extra pay for the amusement I have had taking him on tours of exploration through the toy-stores. It is well for Cecil Hash that he never saw me in a toy-store, judging from the effect of our present meeting, for he had to push his crop down his throat to save himself from choking to death. I wanted to wipe up the bridle-path with him, but controlled myself, and said, in a dignified way, "Come along, children."

As I began to move away, with one in each hand, Cecil asked me to join him at the Ping-pong Club at three, for billiards. It was hard to have to own up that I had resigned, but there was nothing else to do. He was astonished, tremendously astonished, but was too well-bred to show it other than by staring at me with wide-open eyes.

"Well?" said I.

That aroused him. "We'll miss you, old man; miss you terribly," said he, as if he meant it. "Thank Heaven, we can still meet at the Cholmondeley and cut each other's throats at bridge."

He quite touched me. "We can meet," said I, "but not at bridge, unless you care to play a penny a point. I only play for a penny a point now."

Even the pony jumped, but I suppose that was because his rider gave such a long whistle.

"Mudison," said Cecil, "you don't mean to tell me that you have stopped playing for money?"

"Yes, Cecil," I answered frankly. "You must remember that to only a few people in this world is it given to be happy and also have pleasure."

With that I marched away. I heard the wild clatter of the pony's hoofs as he galloped off, so I turned for a covert look at him, not in envy, but thinking perhaps of the days we used to canter along together. Suddenly he drew rein and turned in the saddle. I saw him smile.

For that moment, that smile put me all out of gear, and I sat down on a bench to think things over. In a little while the piebald pony flashed by again, and I summed up the situation thus:

There goes Cecil Hash, bachelor. He has everything to make a single life worth living. He thinks he is happy because he has an airy, roomy apartment, an ammonia refrigerator, a full sideboard, and a man; because he belongs to a half-dozen clubs, keeps a car, and a few hunters and polo ponies; because he need not worry about money-matters so long as he adheres to his simple life and limits his wants; because he does not have to learn anything, as he is already smart. He thinks he is happy. He pities me. Let him smile. Really, he is only comfortable, thoroughly comfortable.

"Come boys!" said I, rising. "Mamma says we must be home in time for luncheon to-day."

"What are you laughing at, dad?" Devereux inquired.

And, hang it! I could not have told him whether it was Cecil Hash or J. Madison Mudison.

Somehow my meeting with Cecil made me a little discontented for the time being. It did seem that so long as I had not enough millions to be a really smart married man, I should do something to save the name of Mudison from social oblivion in the next generation, become a captain of industry and buy back what I had lost when I ceased to be a well-known bachelor and became just a well-to-do husband. My suggestion almost killed Gladys at luncheon that day.

"But, my dear Muddy," she said kindly, when she had recovered her breath, "you are absolutely unqualified to earn a living in any way."

"Are you sure?" I returned, a trifle put out.

"Of course you are a Harvard man," she went on, "but I should not say that you were very well educated."

"Simply because I had to play in the team," I snapped.

"And Muddy," said she, as sweetly as only Gladys can, "while you have a certain peculiar kind of intelligence, I should hardly say that you had brains."

"I know all that," said I. "And for that very reason I am thinking of becoming a stock broker."

"Oh, you might do that," said she pensively.

My wife was quite taken with the idea until she heard that I should have to be downtown at ten o'clock every morning and stand around on my feet till three, yelling continually. Down went her little foot, as only Gladys Mudison's can, and she declared that it was not a dignified business at all.

"You would only be a respectable auctioneer," she declared.

"But I should make a lot of money," I pleaded.

"I would rather have you do without a few things," she retorted, "than send you down to that bear-garden every day."

So my dreams of great wealth have fled me, and I cannot say that I am wholly sorry. I did suggest becoming a corporation lawyer, but Gladys has the European idea of being satisfied with what you have, and she does not realize that in this city you must keep on piling up more and more or you will become a Knickerbocker. She told me she would think it over a while, and she has been thinking ever since, very quietly.

Meantime I am finding consolation in chickens, and am looking forward to good sport next summer at the little box we have just bought down on the Wheatley Hills. The study of incubators alone is a life-task, and my mind is not quite made up as to what kind we shall get, but all my other plans have been secretly laid. Only Devereux, the eldest boy, knows about it, and we slipped down to the country day before yesterday on a prospecting tour. We were standing at the stable with the local carpenter, making estimates on the lumber needed for the hennery, when in rode Gastly and Timpey Duff, the latter on my old roan hunter, the homeliest and fastest brute that ever followed a big pack of hounds and a diminutive fox over Hempstead Plain. The sight of a red coat did stir my blood, and though I cannot say that I looked at them with envy, yet it occurred to me that it would be mighty pleasant to be astride old Christopher again, bound for the meet, as they were. Surely there is no sight so inspiring as a company of daring fellows, with the pack in full cry, running a ferocious animal from Dan to Beersheba. A noble sport!

"Saw you in here," said Gastly, in that jerky way of his. "Thought you might be coming over for the fun."

Now, of course, I did not intend to tell them my real business, that my fun in the future would be found in the humble and ignoble occupation of incubating Plymouth Rocks, but Devereux had to speak up and give it all away.

"Huh!" said Gastly.

"Ye gods!" said Timpey Duff.

So they rode away, and as they turned through the gate Horatio leaned over and slapped his companion on the back. It seemed they would both roll out of their saddles.

So I am getting accustomed to being regarded as one dead. But there is one consoling thing in this unfortunately fortunate situation. Gladys seems confoundedly satisfied. When I see her happy I feel that I should not growl because I have had to give up comfort and pleasure for her sake. She says she was thoroughly tired of being the late Mrs. Underbunk, and having people, who did not know, condole with her as though she were a widow; as long as she can have two comfortable houses, her carriage, plenty of clothes, and a husband who does not drink too much, she thinks she should consider herself a lucky woman. I suppose I should consider myself a lucky man, if all my old friends did not treat me as though I were a bore.

For instance, we dined at the Garishes last night, a formal affair of twenty-four covers, and instead of my taking in Evelyn, as of old, she had Cecil Hash on one side, and on the other, Winthrop Jumpkin, 7th, whom I made. Gladys was at the other end with a jolly crowd--Gastly, Garish, and the Countess of Less, who was Evangeline Very, and has just returned alone to this country from England for a prolonged stay. As for me, I took in old Mrs. Handy, somebody's poor relative, and had on my left Timpey Duff's deaf-and-dumb sister--I think she was deaf and dumb, for she only spoke once all evening. It was positively the only night in my life that I have eaten anything at a formal dinner, and the single time I attracted the slightest attention was when I almost choked to death on a lot of terrapin bone that got crosswise in my throat. Afterward, in the smoking-room, Garish, Gastly, Hash, and Jumpkin, the only interesting men there, got off in a corner and talked nothing but stocks. Since my last flyer, that has been a delicate subject with me, and I sought peace basking in the benign smile of old Bishop Bumble, who, over his cognac, discoursed, at great length, on his new scheme for a church race-track. He argued that as long as people had to have racing, it would be best to place the control of the sport in proper hands. The present odds were manifestly unfair, he declared, and with upright bookies in the ring, the public could have an honest run for its money, which would make the track immensely popular and insure its success as a business proposition. He would allow only ten-per-cent. dividends on the stock of the operating company, and all over that would be set aside as a fund with which to start new church tracks in different parts of the country. An interesting idea, indeed. There were one or two points about which I wanted to take issue with the distinguished divine, but Garish began to lead the way to the drawing-room.

So I was mighty glad, after I had stood around for ten minutes, looking at the women, to feel Gladys tugging at my sleeve; to be able to tell our hostess what a charming evening I had had; to be able to go home.

As Shakespeare or Milton, or whoever it was, said, "There is no place like home."

From this period of his life on, Mr. Mudison seems to devote much less of his time than formerly to writing down his experiences, impressions, and thoughts. His diary, if such it could be called, becomes more fragmentary than ever. Particularly is he silent regarding the summer at Wheatley Hills. There is one mention of his having purchased an incubator, and a few thoughts on the annual nuisance of moving from town to country. When he picks up his life-narrative again, he is back on Lexington Avenue, and beyond a hint that he is looking forward to breeding Irish terriers next year, there is no clew to the events of his rural life.

The latest papers are rather disjointed. Mr. Mudison seems to have settled down to the placid existence of a well-to-do married man with no vocation. He has ceased either to act or to think. We do learn in one place, however, that Julius Hogginson Fairfield wed an actress, settled in Sioux City, and is writing two historical novels, yearly. We read in another place that Winthrop Jumpkin, 7th, has married the youngest Twitter girl, and become president of one of the Twitter railroads. There is a touch of romance in the disappearance of Cecil Hash, who in an evil moment fell in love with a poor beauty, married, and moved to Morristown, so is known no more in the world. Again, there is pathos in this note, almost lost in a page of argument with Gladys on the foreign-mission question: "I see by the morning paper that Horatio Gastly led the cotillon at Mrs. Twitter's small dance last night--a spirited cotillon--dancing with the beautiful Miss Constance Twitter." It calls to mind the poor rector, but our momentary sympathy for him disappears when we learn later that he has gone to a broader field, and is comfortably settled in the Garish chair of moral philosophy at Hale University. With these facts we have taken the grain from a considerable mass of chaff, so it is hardly worth while to continue working over Mr. Mudison's papers unless some upheaval occurs to shake him out of the groove down which he seems to be comfortably sliding to actual as well as social oblivion. Some day we shall see the flag of the Cholmondeley Club flying at half-mast; some day we shall miss the familiar figure, the dingy old man with a rusty silk hat, asleep in his window, the third window from the corner. Then perhaps we shall agree with him that, after all, it is just as well to be smart as it is to be famous.

By NELSON Lloyd

THE SOLDIER OF THE VALLEY

ILLUSTRATED BY A.B. FROST

12mo, $1.50

"A story full of artistic quality, a story of genuine feeling and quiet humor, pervaded by that repose which is so painfully lacking in current fiction, and written in a style the ease and charm of which tempts one, when he has finished the tale, to-read it for sheer pleasure in its form."--_Hamilton W. Mabie._

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CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, New York

By NELSON Lloyd

THE SOLDIER OF THE VALLEY

ILLUSTRATED BY A.B. FROST

12mo, $1.50

"Abounding in humor and pathos."--_Pittsburg Chronicle._

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