Part 1

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The Four-Masted Cat-Boat

The Four-Masted Cat-Boat And Other Truthful Tales

By Charles Battell Loomis

With illustrations by Florence Scovel Shinn

New York The Century Co. 1899

Copyright, 1899, by THE CENTURY CO.

THE DE VINNE PRESS.

TO MY BROTHER

HARVEY WORTHINGTON LOOMIS

I DEDICATE THIS COLLECTION

OF SKETCHES

C. B. L.

Preface

To send a book into the world without a preface is like thrusting a bashful man into a room full of company without introducing him; and there could be only one thing worse than that,--to a bashful man,--and that would be to introduce him.

In introducing my book to the reader (how like a book-agent that sounds!) I wish to say that the only bond of union between the various sketches is that they were all done by the same hand--or hands, as they were written on a typewriter.

Whether it would have added to their interest to have placed the same characters in each sketch is not for me to say, but it would have been a great bother to do it, and in getting up a book the thing to avoid is bother. It hasn’t bothered me to write it. I hope it won’t bother you to read it, for I’d hate to have you bothered on my account.

C. B. L.

Contents

A FEW IDIOTISMS

PAGE

I. THE FOUR-MASTED CAT-BOAT 1

II. THE POOR WAS MAD 7

III. A PECULIAR INDUSTRY 10

IV. GRIGGS’S MIND 14

V. THE SIGNALS OF GRIGGS 21

VI. À LA SHERLOCK HOLMES 25

VII. MY SPANISH PARROT 30

VIII. “TO MEET MR. CAVENDISH” 35

IX. INSTINCT SUPPLIED TO HENS 41

X. A SPRING IDYL 46

XI. AN INVERTED SPRING IDYL 49

XII. AT THE CHESTNUTS’ DINNER 52

XIII. THE ROUGH WORDS SOCIETY 57

XIV. A NEW USE FOR HORSES 63

XV. A CALCULATING BORE 67

XVI. AN URBAN GAME 71

XVII. “DE GUSTIBUS” 75

XVIII. “BUFFUM’S BUSTLESS BUFFERS” 79

AT THE LITERARY COUNTER

XIX. “THE FATHER OF SANTA CLAUS” 85

XX. THE DIALECT STORE 92

XXI. “FROM THE FRENCH” 100

XXII. ON THE VALUE OF DOGMATIC UTTERANCE 107

XXIII. THE SAD CASE OF DEACON PERKINS 112

XXIV. THE MISSING-WORD BORE 118

XXV. THE CONFESSIONS OF A CRITIC 122

XXVI. HOW ’RASMUS PAID THE MORTGAGE 128

XXVII. ’MIDST ARMED FOES 137

XXVIII. AT THE SIGN OF THE CYGNET 141

XXIX. A SCOTCH SKETCH 146

UNRELATED STORIES--RELATED

XXX. EPHRATA SYMONDS’S DOUBLE LIFE 153

XXXI. A STRANGER TO LUCK 161

XXXII. CUPID ON RUNNERS 173

XXXIII. MY TRUTHFUL BURGLAR 183

XXXIV. THE MAN WITHOUT A WATCH 189

XXXV. THE WRECK OF THE “CATAPULT” 201

ESSAYS AT ESSAYS

XXXVI. THE BULL, THE GIRL, AND THE RED SHAWL 211

XXXVII. CONCERNING DISH-WASHING 219

XXXVIII. A PERENNIAL FEVER 225

XXXIX. “AMICUS REDIVIVUS” 231

XL. THE PROPER CARE OF FLIES 236

NOTE

I am indebted to the editors of the “Century”, the “Saturday Evening Post,” “Harper’s Bazaar,” “Puck,” the “Critic,” the “Criterion,” and the S. S. McClure Syndicate for permission to use the articles which first met printers’ ink in their columns.

C. B. L.

A FEW IDIOTISMS

I

THE FOUR-MASTED CAT-BOAT

AN ETCHING OF THE SEA, BY A LANDLUBBER

The sea lay low in the offing, and as far as the eye could reach, immense white-caps rode upon it as quietly as pond-lilies on the bosom of a lake.

Fleecy clouds dotted the sky, and far off toward the horizon a full-rigged four-masted cat-boat lugged and luffed in the calm evening breezes. Her sails were piped to larboard, starboard, and port; and as she rolled steadily along in the heavy wash and undertow, her companion-light, already kindled, shed a delicate ray across the bay to where the dull red disk of the sun was dipping its colors.

Her cordage lay astern, in the neat coils that seamen know so well how to make. The anchor had been weighed this half-hour, and the figures put down in the log; for Captain Bliffton was not a man to put off doing anything that lay in the day’s watch.

Away to eastward, two tiny black clouds stole along as if they were diffident strangers in the sky, and were anxious to be gone. Now and again came the report of some sunset gun from the forts that lined the coast, and sea-robins flew with harsh cries athwart the sloop of fishing-boats that were beating to windward with gaffed topsails.

“Davy Jones’ll have a busy day to-morrow,” growled Tom Bowsline, the first boatswain’s mate.

“Meaning them clouds is windy?” answered the steward, with a glance to leeward.

“The same,” answered the other, shaking out a reef, and preparing to batten the tarpaulins. “What dinged fools them fellers on the sloop of fishin’-ships is! They’ve got their studdin’sails gaffed and the mizzentops aft of the gangway; an’ if I know a marlinspike from a martingale, we’re goin’ to have as pretty a blow as ever came out of the south.”

And, indeed, it did look to be flying in the face of Providence, for the mackerel-ships, to the last one, were tugging and straining to catch the slightest zephyr, with their yard-arms close-hauled and their poop-decks flush with the fo’c’sle.

The form of the captain of the cat-boat was now visible on the stairs leading to the upper deck. It needed but one keen glance in the direction of the black clouds--no longer strangers, but now perfectly at home and getting ugly--to determine his course. “Unship the spinnaker-boom, you dogs, and be quick about it! Luff, you idiot, luff!” The boatswain’s first mate loved nothing better than to luff, and he luffed; and the good ship, true to her keel, bore away to northward, her back scuppers oozing at every joint.

“That was ez neat a bit of seamanship ez I ever see,” said Tom Bowsline, taking a huge bite of oakum. “Shiver my timbers! if my rivets don’t tremble with joy when I see good work.”

“Douse your gab, and man the taff-rail!” yelled the captain; and Tom flew to obey him. “Light the top-lights!”

A couple of sailors to whom the trick is a mere bagatelle run nimbly out on the stern-sprit and execute his order; and none too soon, for darkness is closing in over the face of the waters, and the clouds come on apace.

A rumble of thunder, followed by a blinding flash, betokens that the squall is at hand. The captain springs adown the poop, and in a hoarse voice yells out: “Lower the maintop; loosen the shrouds; luff a little--steady! Cut the main-brace, and clear away the halyards. If we don’t look alive, we’ll look pretty durn dead in two shakes of a capstan-bar. All hands abaft for a glass of grog.”

The wild rush of sailors’ feet, the creaking of ropes, the curses of those in the rear, together with the hoarse cries of the gulls and the booming of the thunder, made up a scene that beggars description. Every trough of the sea was followed by a crest as formidable, and the salt spray had an indescribable brackish taste like bilge-water and ginger-ale.

After the crew had finished their grog they had time to look to starboard of the port watch, and there they beheld what filled them with pity. The entire sloop of mackerel-ships lay with their keels up.

“I knowed they’d catch it if they gaffed their studdin’sails,” said Tom, as he shifted the quid of oakum.

The full moon rose suddenly at the exact spot where the sun had set. The thunder made off, muttering. The cat-boat, close-rigged from hand-rail to taff-rail, scudded under bare poles, with the churning motion peculiar to pinnaces, and the crew involuntarily broke into the chorus of that good old sea-song:

The wind blows fresh, and our scuppers are astern.

II

THE POOR WAS MAD

A FAIRY SHTORY FOR LITTLE CHILDHER

Wance upon a toime the poor was virry poor indade, an’ so they wint to a rich leddy that was that rich that she had goold finger-nails, an’ was that beautifil that it ’u’d mek you dopey to luke at her. An’ the poor asht her would she give thim the parin’s of her goold finger-nails fer to sell. An’ she said she would that, an’ that ivery Chuesdeh she did be afther a-parin’ her nails. So of a Chuesdeh the poor kem an’ they tuke the goold parin’s to a jewel-ery man, an’ he gev thim good money fer thim. Wasn’t she the koind leddy, childher? Well, wan day she forgot to pare her nails, an’ so they had nothin’ to sell. An’ the poor was mad, an’ they wint an’ kilt the leddy intoirely. An’ whin she was kilt, sorra bit would the nails grow upon her, an’ they saw they was silly to kill her. So they wint out to sairch fer a leddy wid silver finger-nails. An’ they found her, an’ she was that beautifil that her face was all the colors of the rainbow an’ two more besides. An’ the poor asht her would she give thim the parin’s of her silver finger-nails fer to sell. An’ she said that she would that, an’ that ivery Chuesdeh she did be afther a-parin’ her nails. So of a Chuesdeh the poor kem an’ they tuke the silver parin’s to the jewel-ery man, an’ he gev thim pretty good money fer thim, but not nair as good as fer the goold. But he was the cute jewel-ery man, wasn’t he, childher? Well, wan day she forgot to pare her nails, an’ so they had nothin’ to sell. An’ the poor was mad, an’ they wint an’ kilt the leddy intoirely. An’ whin she was kilt, sorra bit would the nails grow upon her, an’ they saw they was silly to kill her. So they wint out to sairch for a leddy wid tin finger-nails. An’ they found her, an’ she was that beautifil that she would mek you ristless. An’ the poor asht her would she give thim the parin’s of her tin finger-nails fer to sell. An’ she said she would that, an’ that ivery Chuesdeh she did be afther a-parin’ her nails. So of a Chuesdeh the poor kem. An’ did they git the tin nails, childher? Sure, that’s where y’ are out. They did not, fer the leddy had lost a finger in a mowin’-machine, an’ she didn’t have tin finger-nails at arl, at arl--only noine.

III

A PECULIAR INDUSTRY

The sign in front of the dingy little office on a side-street, through which I was walking, read:

JO COSE AND JOCK EWLAH FUNSMITHS

Being of an inquisitive turn of mind, I went in. A little dried-up man, who introduced himself as Mr. Cose, greeted me cheerily. He said that Mr. Ewlah was out at lunch, but he’d be pleased to do what he could for me.

“What is the nature of your calling?” asked I.

“It is you who are calling,” said he, averting his eyes. Then he assumed the voice and manner of a “lecturer” in a dime museum, and rattled along as follows:

“We are in the joke business. Original and second-hand jokes bought and sold. Old jokes made over as good as new. Good old stand-bys altered to suit the times. Jokes cleaned and made ready for the press. We do not press them ourselves. Joke expanders for sale cheap. Also patent padders for stories--”

I interrupted the flow of his talk to ask him if there was much demand for the padders.

“Young man,” said he, “do you keep up with current literature?”

Then he went over to a shelf on which stood a long line of bottles of the size of cod-liver-oil bottles, and taking one down, he said: “Now, here is Jokoleine, of which we are the sole agents. This will make a poor joke salable, and is in pretty general use in the city, although some editors will not buy a joke that smells of it.”

I noticed a tall, black-haired, Svengalic-looking person in an inner room, and I asked Mr. Cose who he was.

“That is our hypnotizer. The most callous editors succumb to his gaze. Take him with you when you have anything to sell. We rent him at a low figure, considering how useful he is. He has had a busy season, and is tired out, but that is what we pay him for. If he were to die you’d notice a difference in many of the periodicals. The poorer the material, the better pleased he is to place it. It flatters his vanity.”

I assured him that I was something of a hypnotist myself, and, thanking him for his courtesy, was about to come away, when he picked up what looked like a box of tacks and said:

“Here are points for pointless jokes. We don’t have much sale for them. Most persons prefer an application of Jokoleine. A recent issue of a comic weekly had sixty jokes and but one point, showing conclusively that points are out of fashion in some editorial rooms.

“A man came in yesterday,” rattled on the senior member, “and asked if we bought hand-made jokes, and before we could stop him he said that by hand-made jokes he meant jokes about servant-girls. We gave him the address of ‘Punch.’”

At this point I shook hands with Mr. Cose, and as I left he was saying: “For a suitable consideration we will guarantee to call anything a joke that you may bring in, and we will place it without hypnotic aid or the use of Jokoleine. It has been done before.”

And as I came away from the sound of his voice, I reflected that it had.

IV

GRIGGS’S MIND

The other day I met Griggs on the cars. Griggs is the man with the mind. Other people have minds, but they’re not like Griggs’s. He lives in Rutherford, New Jersey, and is, like me, a commuter, and as neither of us plays cards nor is interested in politics, and as we have tabooed the weather as a topic, it almost always happens that when we meet, we, or rather he, falls back on his mind as subject for conversation. For my part, my daily newspaper would be all-sufficient for my needs on the way to town; but it pleases Griggs to talk, and it’s bad for my eyes to read on the cars, so I shut them up and cultivate the air of listening, the while Griggs discourses.

I had recently read in the Contributors’ Club of the “Atlantic,” an article by a woman, who said that the letters of the alphabet seemed to be variously colored in her mind; that is, her mental picture gave to one letter a green hue, to another red, and so on. I spoke of this to Griggs, and he was much interested. He said that the sound of a cornet was always red to him. I asked him whether it made any difference who blew it, but Griggs scorns to notice puns, and he answered: “Not a particle. I don’t pretend to explain it, but it is so. Likewise, to me the color of scarlet tastes salt, while crimson is sweet.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him in amazement. It sounded like a bit out of “Alice in Wonderland.” Then I remembered that it was Griggs who was talking, and that he has a mind. When I don’t understand something about Griggs, I lay it to his mind and think no more about it. So I shut my eyes again and listened.

“By the way,” said he, “how does time run in your mind?”

“Why, I never thought of its running at all, although it passes quickly enough, for the most part!”

“But hasn’t it some general direction? Up or down, north or south, east or west?”

“Griggs,” said I, “is this your mind?”

“Yes,” said he.

“Well, go ahead; fire it off; unfold your kinks!” said I, leaning back in my seat; “but kindly remember that I have no mind, and if you can’t put it in words of one syllable, talk slowly so that I can follow you.”

He promised to put it as plainly as though he were talking to his youngest, aged three; and, with this assurance, my cerebrum braced itself, so to speak, and awaited the onslaught.

“My idea of the direction of time in all its divisions and subdivisions is as follows--”

“Say, Griggs,” said I, “let’s go into the smoker. A little oil of nicotine always makes my brain work easier.”

When we were seated in the smoker, and had each lighted a cigar, he went on:

“Assuming that I am facing the north, far in the southwest is the Garden of Eden and the early years of recorded time. Moving eastward run the centuries, and the years to come and the end of the world are in the far east.”

I felt slightly bewizzled, but I gripped the seat in front of me and said nothing.

“My mental picture of the months of the year is that January is far to the north. The months follow in a more or less zigzag, easterly movement, until we find that July and August have strayed far south. But the autumn months zigzag back, so that by the time December sweeps coldly by she is twelve months east of January, and then the new January starts on a road of similar direction. You still observe that the current of time sets toward me instead of away from me.”

What could I do but observe that it did? I had the inside seat, and Griggs has an insistent way about him, so I generally observe just when he asks me to, and thus avoid friction. Then, too, I always feel flattered when Griggs condescends to talk at me and reveal the wonders of his mind. So I observed heartily, and puffed away at my cigar, while he continued:

“The direction of the week-days is rather hazy in my mind--”

I begged him not to feel low-spirited about it--that it would probably seem clear to him before long; but I don’t think he heard me, for he went right on: “But it is a somewhat undulatory movement from west to east, Sundays being on the crest of each wave. Coming to the hours, I picture them as running, like the famous mouse, ‘down the clock,’ the early day-light being highest. The minutes and seconds refuse to be marshaled into line, but go ticking on to eternity helter-skelter, yet none the less inevitably.”

I rather admired the independence of the minutes and seconds in refusing to be ordered about even by his mind; but, of course, I didn’t tell him so. On the contrary, I congratulated him on the highly poetic way in which he was voicing his sentiments.

Just then we came into the station, and an acquaintance of his buttonholed him and lugged him off, for Griggs is quite a favorite, in spite of his mind. I was sorry, for I had wanted to ask him where the moments and instants seem bound for in his brain. I did manage, just as we were leaving the boat at Chambers Street, to tell him that I was going to be in the Augustan part of the city at noon, and would be pleased to take him out to lunch, if he ran across me; but he must have mistaken the month, as I ate my luncheon alone. I dare say he understood me to say January, and wandered all over Harlem looking for me. How unpleasant it must be to have a mind!

V

THE SIGNALS OF GRIGGS

You may remember Griggs as the man who had a mind. At the time that I wrote about that useful member of his make-up he was living out in New Jersey; but he was finally brought to see the error of his ways, and took the top flat in a nine-story house without an elevator, ’way up-town.

The other evening I went to call on the Griggses. He had not yet come home, but his wife let me in and helped me to a sofa to recover from the effects of my climb. I have been up the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and Popocatepetl, but I never felt so exhausted as I did after walking up those nine frightful flights. And Mrs. Griggs told me that she thought nothing of running up- and down-stairs a dozen times a day, which was a sad commentary on her truthfulness.

After I was there a few minutes, trying to get used to the notes of two lusty and country-bred children (offspring of Mr. and Mrs. Griggs), there came a feeble and dejected ring at the front-door bell. Mrs. Griggs hastened to the kitchen,--they do not keep a servant (that was their trouble in New Jersey, but now they don’t want to),--and after pressing the electric button that opened the front door, she said: “That’s poor Mr. Griggs. He must be feeling bad to-night, and I must put the children to bed before he gets up, as he is too nervous to stand their noise.”

I was somewhat astonished, but she ripped the clothes off of her buds of promise and popped them into bed with a skill and rapidity that would have secured her a position on the vaudeville stage. After they were covered up she returned to me. Of course Mr. Griggs had not yet arrived, and I asked her how she knew he was tired.

“Why, we have a code of signals. Mr. Griggs invented them. When he has done well down-town, he taps out a merry peal on the bell, and then I tell the children to greet him at the hall door and prepare for a romp. When the bell rings sharply I know that he is in no humor for fun, but will tolerate the children if they are quiet. But when he rings slowly and faintly, as he did to-night, I always put the dears to bed, as I know he has had bad luck and is worn out.”

As she spoke, Griggs opened the hall door and staggered in, weak from his superhuman climb and worn out from his day’s work. I said: “Good-by, old man; I’ll call some day when you’re going to give the bell the glad hand. You seem cozily situated.” And then I came down in the dumb-waiter, although I suppose it was risky.

What a great thing is an electric bell! But how much greater is an inventive mind like that of Griggs.

VI

À LA SHERLOCK HOLMES

Jones and I recently had occasion to take a drive of four or five miles in upper Connecticut. We were met at the station by Farmer Phelps, who soon had us snugly wrapped in robes and speeding over the frozen highway in a sleigh. It was bitter cold weather--the thermometer reading 3° above zero. We had come up from Philadelphia, and to us such extreme cold was a novelty, which is all we could say for it.

As we rode along, Jones fell to talking about Conan Doyle’s detective stories, of which we were both great admirers--the more so as Doyle has declared Philadelphia to be the greatest American city. It turned out that Mr. Phelps was familiar with the “‘Meemoirs’ of Sherlock Holmes,” and he thought there was some “pretty slick reasonin’” in it. “My girl,” said he, “got the book out er the library an’ read it aout laoud to my woman an’ me. But of course this Doyle had it all cut an’ dried afore he writ it. He worked backwards an’ kivered up his tracks, an’ then started afresh, an’ it seems more wonderful to the reader than it reely is.”

“I don’t know,” said Jones; “I’ve done a little in the observation line since I began to read him, and it’s astonishing how much a man can learn from inanimate objects, if he uses his eyes and his brain to good purpose. I rarely make a mistake.”

Just then we drove past an outbuilding. The door of it was shut. In front of it, in a straight row and equidistant from each other, lay seven cakes of ice, thawed out of a water-pan.

“There,” said Jones; “what do we gather from those seven cakes of ice and that closed door?”

I gave it up.

Mr. Phelps said nothing.

Jones waited impressively a moment, and then said quite glibly: “The man who lives there keeps a flock of twelve hens--not Leghorns, but probably Plymouth Rocks or some Asiatic variety. He attends to them himself, and has good success with them, although this is the seventh day of extremely cold weather.”

I gazed at him in admiration.

Mr. Phelps said nothing.

“How do you make it all out, Jones?” said I.