Part 2

You can't always tell what kind of a day you are going to have in town in October just because you happen to have been in town on previous October days, and Van Squibber, for that reason, was not surprised when his man, on waking him, informed him that it was cold out. Even if he had been surprised he would not have shown it, for fear of demoralizing his man by setting him a bad example. "We must take things as they come," Van Squibber had said to the fellow when he engaged him, "and I shall expect you to be ready always for any emergency that may arise. If on waking in the morning I call for a camel's-hair shawl and a bottle of Nepaul pepper, it will be your duty to see that I get them without manifesting the slightest surprise or asking any questions. Here is your next year's salary in advance. Get my Melton overcoat and my box, and have them at the Rahway station at 7.15 to-morrow morning. If I am not there, don't wait for me, but come back here and boil my egg at once."

This small bit of a lecture had had its effect on the man, to whom thenceforth nothing was impossible; indeed, upon this very occasion he demonstrated to his employer his sterling worth, for when, on looking over Van Squibber's wardrobe, he discovered that his master had no Melton overcoat, he telegraphed to his tailor's and had one made from his previous measure in time to have it with Van Squibber's box at the Rahway station at the stipulated hour the following morning. Of course Van Squibber was not there. He had instructed his man as he had simply to test him, and, furthermore, the egg was boiled to perfection. The test cost Van Squibber about $150, but it was successful, and it was really worth the money to know that his man was all that he should be.

"He's not half bad," said Van Squibber, as he cracked the egg.

"It's wintry," said Van Squibber's man on the morning of the 5th of October.

"Well," Van Squibber said, sleepily, "what of that? You have your instructions as to the bodily temperature I desire to maintain. Select my clothing, as usual--and mark you, man, yesterday was springy, and you let me go to the club in summery attire. I was two and a half degrees too warm. You are getting careless. What are my engagements to-day?"

"University settlement at eleven, luncheon at the Actors' at one, drive with the cynical Miss Netherwood at three, five-o'clock tea at four--"

"What?" cried Van Squibber, sharply.

"At fuf--five, I should say, sir," stammered the embarrassed man.

"Thought so," said Van Squibber. "Proceed, and be more careful. The very idea of five-o'clock tea at four is shocking."

"Dinner with the Austrian ambassador at eight, opera at eleven--"

"In October? Opera?" cried Van Squibber.

"Comic," said the man. "It is Flopper's last night, sir, and you are to ring down the curtain."

"True," said Van Squibber, meditatively--"true; I'd forgotten. And then?"

"At midnight you are to meet Red Mike at Cherry Street and Broadway to accompany him to see how he robs national banks, for the _Sunday Whirald_."

"What bank is it to be?"

"The Seventeenth National."

"Gad!" cried Van Squibber, "that's hard luck. It's my bank. Wire Red Mike and ask him to make it the Sixteenth National, at once. Bring me my smoking-jacket and a boiled soda mint drop. I don't care for any breakfast this morning. And, by-the-way, I feel a little chilly. Take a quinine pill for me."

"Your egg is ready, sir," said the man, tremulously.

"Eat it," said Van Squibber, tersely, "and deduct the Cafe Savarin price of a boiled egg from your salary. How often must I tell you not to have my breakfast boiled until I am boil--I mean ready until I am ready for it?"

The man departed silently, and Van Squibber turned over and went to sleep.

An hour later, having waited for his soda mint drop as long as his dignity would permit, Van Squibber arose and dressed and went for a walk in Central Park. It was eccentric of him to do this, but he did it nevertheless.

"How Travers would laugh if he saw me walking in Central Park!" he thought. "He'd probably ask me when I'd come over from Germany," he added. And then, looking ahead, a thing Van Squibber rarely did, by-the-way--for you can't always tell by looking ahead what may happen to you--his eyes were confronted by a more or less familiar back.

"Dear me!" he said. "If that isn't Eleanor Huyler's back, whose back is it, by Jove?"

Insensibly Van Squibber quickened his pace. This was also a thing he rarely did. "Haste is bad form," he had once said to Travers, who, on leaving Delmonico's at 7.20, seemed anxious to catch the 7.10 train for Riverdale. Insensibly quickening his pace, he soon found himself beside the owner of the back, and, as his premonitions had told him, it was Eleanor Huyler.

"Good-morning," he said.

"Why, Mr. Van Squibber!" she replied, with a terrified smile. "You here?"

"Well," returned Van Squibber, not anxious to commit himself, "I think so, though I assure you, Miss Huyler, I am not at all certain. I seem to be here, but I must confess I am not quite myself this morning. My man--"

"Yes--I know," returned the girl, hastily. "I've heard of him. He is your _alter ego_."

"I had not noticed it," said Van Squibber, somewhat nonplussed. "I think he is English, though he may be Italian, as you suggest. But," he added, to change the subject, "you seem disturbed. Your smile is a terrified smile, as has been already noted."

"It is," said Miss Huyler, looking anxiously about her.

"And may I ask why?" asked Van Squibber, politely--for to do things politely was Van Squibber's ambition.

"I--I--well, really, Mr. Van Squibber," the girl replied, "I am always anxious when you are about. The fact is, you know, the things that happen when you are around are always so very extraordinary. I came here for a quiet walk, but now that you have appeared I am quite certain that something dramatic is about to occur. You see--you--you have turned up so often at the--what I may properly call, I think, the nick of time, and so rarely at any other time, that I feel as though some disaster were impending which you alone can avert."

"And what then?" said Van Squibber, proudly. "If I am here, what bodes disaster?"

"That is the question I am asking myself," returned Miss Huyler, whose growing anxiety was more or less painful to witness. "Can your luck hold out? Will your ability as an averter of danger hold out? In short, Mr. Van Squibber, are you infallible?"

The question came to Van Squibber like a flash of lightning out of a clear sky. It was too pertinent. Had he not often wondered himself as to his infallibility? Had he not only the day before said to Travers, "You can't always tell in advance just how a thing you are going into may turn out, even though you have been through that thing many times, and think you do."

"I do lead a dramatic life," he said, quietly, hoping by a show of serenity to reassure her. "But," he added, proudly, "I am, after all, Van Squibber; I am here to do whatever is sent me to do. I am not a fatalist, but I regard myself as the chosen instrument of fate--or something. So far, I have not failed. On the basis of averages, I am not likely to fail now. Fate, or something, has chosen me to succeed."

"That is true," said Eleanor--"quite true; but there are exceptions to all rules, and I would rather you would fail to rescue some other girl from a position of peril than myself."

That Miss Huyler's words were prophetic, the unhappy Van Squibber was to realize, and that soon, for almost as they spoke the cheeks of both were blanched by a dreadful roar in the bushes beside the path upon which they walked.

"Shall I leave you?" asked Van Squibber, politely.

"Not now--oh, not now, I beg!" cried Miss Huyler. "It is too late. The catastrophe is imminent. You should have gone before the author brought it on. Finding me defenceless and you gone, he might have spared me. As it is, you are here, and must fulfil your destiny."

"Very well," returned Van Squibber. "That being so, I will see what this roaring is. If it is a child endeavoring to frighten you, I shall get his address and have my man chastise his father, for I could never strike a child; but if it is a lion, as I fear, I shall do what seems best under the circumstances. I have been told, Miss Huyler, that a show of bravery awes a wild beast, while a manifestation of cowardice causes him to spring at once upon the coward. Therefore, if it be a lion, do you walk boldly up to him and evince a cool head, while I divert his attention from you by running away. In this way you, at least, will be saved."

"Noble fellow!" thought Eleanor to herself. "If he were to ask me, I think I might marry him."

Meanwhile Van Squibber had investigated, and was horror-struck to find his misgivings entirely too well founded. It was the lion from the park menagerie that had escaped, and was now waiting in ambush to pounce upon the chance pedestrian.

"Remember, Eleanor," he cried, forgetting for the moment that he had never called her by any but her last name with its formal prefix--"remember to be brave. That will awe him, and then when he sees me running he will pursue me."

Removing his shoes, Van Squibber, with a cry which brought the hungry beast bounding out into the path, started on a dead run, while Miss Huyler, full of confidence that the story would end happily whatever she might do, walked boldly up to the tawny creature, wondering much, however, why her rescuer had removed his shoes. It was strange that, knowing Van Squibber as well as she did, she did not at once perceive his motive in declining to run in walking-shoes, but in moments of peril we are all excusable for our vagaries of thought! You never can tell, when you are in danger, what may happen next, for if you could you would know how it is all going to turn out; but as it is, mental disturbance is quite to be expected.

For once Van Squibber failed. He ran fast enough and betrayed enough cowardice to attract the attention of ten lions, but this special lion, by some fearful idiosyncrasy of fate, which you never can count on, was not to be deceived. With a louder roar than any he had given, he pounced upon the brave woman, and in an instant she was no more. Van Squibber, turning to see how matters stood, was just in time to witness the final engulfment of the fair girl in the lion's jaws.

"Egad!" he cried. "_I have failed!_ And now what remains to be done? Shall I return and fight the lion, or shall I keep on and go to the club? If I kill the lion, people will know that I have been walking in the park before breakfast. If I continue my present path and go to the club, the fellows will all want to know what I mean by coming without my shoes on. What a dilemma! Ah! I have it; I will go home."

And that is what Van Squibber did. He went back to his rooms in the Quigmore at once, hastily undressed, and when, an hour later, his man returned with the soda mint drop, he was sleeping peacefully.

That night he met Travers at the club reading the _Evening Moon_.

"Hello, Van!" said Travers. "Heard the news?"

"No. What?" asked Van Squibber, languidly.

"Eleanor Huyler has disappeared."

"By Jove!" cried Van Squibber, with well-feigned surprise. "I heard the boys crying 'Extra,' but I never dreamed they would put out an extra for her."

"They haven't," said Travers. "The extra's about the lion."

"Ah! And what's happened to the lion?" cried Van Squibber, nervously.

"He's dead. Got loose this morning early, and was found at ten o'clock dying of indigestion. It is supposed he has devoured some man, name unknown, for before his nose was an uneaten patent-leather pump, size 9-3/4 B, and in his throat was stuck the other, half eaten."

"Ha!" muttered Van Squibber, turning pale. "And they don't know whose shoes they were?" he added, in a hoarse whisper.

"No," said Travers. "There's no clew, even."

Van Squibber breathed a sigh of relief.

"Robert!" he cried, addressing the waiter, "bring me a schooner of absinthe, and ask Mr. Travers what he'll have." And then, turning, he said, _sotto voce_, to himself, "Saved! And Eleanor is revenged. Van Squibber may have failed, but his patent-leather pumps have conquered."

III

IN WHICH A MINCE-PIE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE

When Mr. Snobbe sat down after the narration of his story, there was a thunderous outburst of applause. It was evident that the exciting narrative had pleased his fellow-diners very much--as, indeed, it was proper that it should, since it dealt in a veiled sort of way with characters for whom all right-minded persons have not only a deep-seated admiration, but a feeling of affection as well. They had, one and all, in common with the unaffected portion of the reading community, a liking for the wholesome and clean humor of Mr. Van Bibber, and the fact that Snobbe's story suggested a certain original, even in a weak sort of fashion, made them like it in spite of its shortcomings.

"Good work," cried Hudson Rivers. "Of course it's only gas in comparison with the sun, but it gives light, and we like it."

"And it's wholly original, too, even though an imitation in manner. The real Van Bibber never failed in anything he undertook," said Tenafly Paterson. "I've often wished he might have, just once--it would have made him seem more human--and for that reason I think Tom is entitled to praise."

"I don't know about that," observed Monty St. Vincent. "Tom hadn't anything to do with it--it was the dinner. Honor to whom honor is due, say I. Praise the cook, or the caterer."

"That's the truth," put in Billie Jones. "Fact is, when this book of ours comes out, I think, instead of putting our names on the title-page as authors, the thing to do is to print the menu."

"You miss the point of this association," interjected Snobbe. "We haven't banded ourselves together to immortalize a Welsh rabbit or a mince-pie--nay, nor even a ruddy duck. It's our own glory we're after."

"That's it," cried Monty St. Vincent--"that's the beauty of it. The scheme works two ways. If the stuff is good and there is glory in it, we'll have the glory; but if it's bad, we'll blame the dinner. That's what I like about it."

"It's a valuable plan from that point of view," said the presiding officer. "And now, if the gentleman who secured the ball numbered two will make himself known, we will proceed."

Hudson Rivers rose up. "I have number two," he said, "but I have nothing to relate. The coffee I drank kept me awake all night, and when I finally slept, along about six o'clock next morning, it was one of those sweet, dreamless sleeps that we all love so much. I must therefore ask to be excused."

"But how shall you be represented in the book?" asked Mr. Harry Snobbe.

"He can do the table of contents," suggested St. Vincent.

"Or the fly-leaves," said Tenafly Paterson.

"No," said Huddy; "I shall ask that the pages I should have filled be left blank. There is nothing helps a book so much as the leaving of something to the reader's imagination. I heard a great critic say so once. He said that was the strong point of the French writers, and he added that Stockton's _Lady or the Tiger_ took hold because Stockton didn't insist on telling everything."

"It's a good idea," said Mr. Jones. "I don't know but that if those pages are left blank they'll be the most interesting in the book."

Mr. Rivers sat down with a smile of conscious pride, whereupon Mr. Tenafly Paterson rose up.

"As I hold the number three ball, I will give you the fruits of my dinner. I attribute the work which I am about to present to you to the mince-pie. Personally, I am a great admirer of certain latter-day poets who deal with the woes and joys of more or less commonplace persons. I myself would rather read a sonnet to a snow-shovel than an ode to the moon, but in my dream I seem to have conceived a violent hatred for authors of homely verse, as you will note when I have finished reading my dream-poem called 'Retribution.'"

"Great Scott!" murmured Billie Jones, with a deep-drawn sigh. "Poetry! From Tenafly Paterson! Of all the afflictions of man, Job could have known no worse."

"The poem reads as follows," continued Paterson, ignoring the chairman's ill-timed remark:

RETRIBUTION

Writ a pome about a kid. Finest one I ever did.

Heaped it full o' sentiment-- Very best I could invent.

Talked about his little toys; How he played with other boys;

How the beasts an' birdies all Come when little Jamie'd call.

'N' 'en I took that little lad, Gave him fever, mighty bad.

'N' 'en it sorter pleased my whim To have him die and bury him.

It got printed, too, it did That small pome about the kid,

In a paper in the West; Put ten dollars in my vest.

Every pa an' ma about Cried like mighty--cried right out.

I jess took each grandma's heart, Lammed and bruised it, made it smart;

'N' everybody said o' me, "Finest pote we ever see,"

'Cept one beggar, he got mad. Got worst lickin' ever had;

Got my head atween his fists, Called me "Prince o' anarchists."

Clipped me one behind my ear-- Laid me up for 'most a year.

"'Cause," he said, "my poetry 'D made his wife an' mother cry;

"'Twarn't no poet's bizness to Make the wimmin all boo-hoo."

'N' 'at is why to-day, by Jings! I don't fool with hearts an' things.

I don't care how high the bids, I've stopped scribblin' 'bout dead kids;

'R if I haven't, kinder sorter Think 'at maybe p'r'aps I'd oughter.

The lines were received with hearty appreciation by all save Dobbs Ferry, who looked a trifle gloomy.

"It is a strange thing," said the latter, "but that mince-pie affected me in precisely the same way, as you will see for yourselves when I read my contribution, which, holding ball number four as I do, I will proceed to give you."

Mr. Ferry then read the following poem, which certainly did seem to indicate that the man who prepared the fatal pie had certain literary ideas which he mixed in with other ingredients:

I bought a book of verse the other day, And when I read, it filled me with dismay.

I wanted it to take home to my wife, To bring a bit of joy into her life;

And I'd been told the author of those pomes Was called the laureate of simple homes.

But, Jove! I read, and found it full of rhyme That kept my eyes a-filling all the time.

One told about a pretty little miss Whose father had denied a simple kiss,

And as she left, unhappy, full of cares, She fell and broke her neck upon the stairs.

And then he wrote a lot of tearful lines Of children who had trouble with their spines;

And 'stead of joys, he penned so many woes I sought him out and gave him curvature 'f the nose;

And all the nation, witnessing his plight, Did crown me King, and cry, "It served him right."

"A remarkable coincidence," said Thomas Snobbe. "In fact, the coincidence is rather more remarkable than the poetry."

"It certainly is," said Billie Jones; "but what a wonderfully suggestive pie, considering that it was a mince!"

After which dictum the presiding officer called upon the holder of the fifth ball, who turned out to be none other than Bedford Parke, who blushingly rose up and delivered himself of what he called "The Overcoat, a Magazine Farce."

IV

BEING THE CONTRIBUTION OF MR. BEDFORD PARKE

THE OVERCOAT

A FARCE. IN TWO SCENES

SCENE FIRST

_Time_: MORNING AT BOSTON

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "I think it will rain to-day, but there is no need to worry about that. Robert has his umbrella and his mackintosh, and I don't think he is idiotic enough to lend both of them. If he does, he'll get wet, that's all." Mrs. Edwards is speaking to herself in the sewing-room of the apartment occupied by herself and her husband in the Hotel Hammingbell at Boston. It is not a large room, but cosey. A frieze one foot deep runs about the ceiling, and there is a carpet on the floor. Three pins are seen scattered about the room, in one corner of which is a cane-bottomed chair holding across its back two black vests and a cutaway coat. Mrs. Edwards sits before a Wilcox & Wilson sewing-machine sewing a button on a light spring overcoat. The overcoat has one outside and three inside pockets, and is single-breasted. "It is curious," Mrs. Edwards continues, "what men will do with umbrellas and mackintoshes on a rainy day. They lend them here and there, and the worst part of it is they never remember where." A knock is heard at the door. "Who's there?"

_Voice_ (_without_). "Me."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards_ (_with a nervous shudder_). "Come in." Enter Mary the house-maid. She is becomingly attired in blue alpaca, with green ribbons and puffed sleeves. She holds a feather duster in her right hand, and in her left is a jar of Royal Worcester. "Mary," Mrs. Edwards says, severely, "where are we at?"

_Mary_ (_meekly_). "Boston, ma'am."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "South Boston or Boston proper?"

_Mary._ "Boston proper, ma'am."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Then when I say 'Who's there?' don't say 'Me.' That manner of speaking may do at New York, Brooklyn, South Boston, or Congress, but at Boston proper it is extremely gauche. 'I' is the word."

_Mary._ "Yes, ma'am; but you know, ma'am, I don't pretend to be literary, ma'am, and so these little points baffles I very often." Mrs. Edwards sighs, and, walking over to the window, looks out upon the trolley-cars for ten minutes; then, picking up one of the pins from the floor and putting it in a pink silk pin-cushion which stands next to an alarm-clock on the mantel-piece, a marble affair with plain caryatids and a brass fender around the hearth, she resumes her seat before the sewing-machine, and threads a needle. Then--

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Well, Mary, what do you want?"

_Mary._ "Please, Mrs. Edwards, the butcher is came, and he says they have some very fine perairie-chickens to-day."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "We don't want any prairie-chickens. The prairies are so very vulgar. Tell him never to suggest such a thing again. Have we any potatoes in the house?"

_Mary._ "There's three left, ma'am, and two slices of cold roast beef."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Then tell him to bring five more potatoes, a steak, and--Was all the pickled salmon eaten?"

_Mary._ "All but the can, ma'am."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Well--Mr. Edwards is very fond of fish. Tell him to bring two boxes of sardines and a bottle of anchovy paste."

_Mary._ "Very well, Mrs. Edwards."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "And--ah--Mary, tell him to bring some Brussels sprouts for breakfast. What are you doing with that Worcester vase?"

_Mary._ "I was takin' it to cook, ma'am. Sure she broke the bean-pot this mornin', and she wanted somethin' to cook the beans in."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Oh, I see. Well, take good care of it, Mary. It's a rare piece. In fact, I think you'd better leave that here and remove the rubber plant from the jardiniere, and let Nora cook the beans in that. Times are a little too hard to cook beans in Royal Worcester."