Part 6

On the fifth of the following month Mr. and Mrs. Idiot were seated comfortably in their library. The children had gone to bed, and they were enjoying the bliss of a quiet evening at home, when the door-bell rang, and in a moment or two the maid ushered in Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dawkins, preceded, of course, by their cards. The young householders were delighted, and Polly Dawkins was never more charming. She looked well, and she talked well, and there was not a symptom of any diminution of the old-time friendship perceptible--only she did appear to be tired and care-worn.

The evening wore away pleasantly. The chat reverted to old times, and by degrees Mrs. Dawkins seemed to grow less tired.

About ten o'clock the Idiot invited his neighbor to adjourn to the smoking-room, where they each lit a cigar and indulged in a companionable glass.

"Idiot," said Dawkins, when his wife called out to him that it was time to go home, "your wife is a wonder. I've been trying for three months to make Polly come up here and she wouldn't. Keeps books, you know--now. Has to--so much to do. Thought you owed us a call, but received your bill Wednesday--looked it up--questioned servants--found you were right."

"Bill," cried the Idiot. "What bill?"

"Why, the one Mrs. Idiot sent--this," said Dawkins, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Confoundedly good joke."

The Idiot took up the piece of paper. It was type-written--on Tommy's machine--and read as follows:

November 1 1898 MR. AND MRS. RICHARD DAWKINS _To Mr. and Mrs. Idiot Dr._

September 20 Evening call 1 Account overdue. Please remit.

"Great Scott!" laughed the Idiot.

"My dear," said the Idiot after the Dawkinses had gone, "that bill of yours was a great idea."

"It wasn't my idea at all--it was yours," said Mrs. Idiot, laughing. "You said we ought to be business-like to the last and send out a statement on the first of the month. I sent it. And they paid up."

"Richard," said Mrs. Dawkins, as they drove home, "did you get a receipt?"

X

AS TO SANTA CLAUS

"I am very glad I didn't take Tommy and Mollie to church with me this morning," said Mrs. Idiot, on her return from service. "It would have broken their hearts to have heard the sermon. I don't know what gets into Dr. Preachly sometimes. He gave us a blast about Santa Claus."

"A blast about Santa Claus, eh!" said the Idiot. "And how did he blast the good old saint?"

"He said he was a lie," rejoined Mrs. Idiot, indignantly, "and that it was the duty of every Christian in the land to see that the lie was exposed."

"Great heavens!" cried the Idiot, in astonishment. "Doesn't Dr. Preachly believe in Santa Claus? Poor old Preachly! How much he has lost! Did he say anything about Hop o' My Thumb and Cinderella?"

"No, of course not. Why should he?" returned Mrs. Idiot.

"Oh, because; I suppose that a man who doesn't believe in Santa Claus is a skeptic on the subject of Hop o' My Thumb, and Rumpelstiltzken, and Cinderella, and Jack the Giant-Killer, and all the rest of that noble army of childhood friends," explained the Idiot.

"He didn't mention them," said Mrs. Idiot. "He--"

"He's going to preach a series of sermons on lies, I presume," said the Idiot. "He's tackled Santa Claus first, as being the most seasonable of the lot, eh? Jack the Giant-Killer ought to be a good subject for a ministerial attack."

"Well, he pulled poor old Santa Claus to pieces," said Mrs. Idiot, with a sigh.

"Why didn't you bring me a piece of him as a souvenir?" demanded the Idiot. "Just a lock of his hair for my collection of curios? What was done with the remains?"

Mrs. Idiot laughed as she pulled over her gloves and smoothed them upon her lap.

"There weren't any remains," she answered. "When Dr. Preachly got through with him there wasn't a vestige of the old chap left. To begin with, he was a lie, the doctor said. Then he went on and showed that he was a wickedly partial old fellow--a very snob, he called him--because he gives fine things to the children of the rich and little or nothing to the children of the poor. He filled the little folk with hope and brought them disappointment, and so on. It was a powerful sermon, although I wanted to weep over it."

"Go ahead and weep," said the Idiot; "it's the appropriate thing to do. I don't wonder you wanted to cry; you've always liked Dr. Preachly."

"Of course," said Mrs. Idiot.

"And you hate to see him make a--ah--a--well, you know--of himself in the pulpit; and I quite agree with you. I rather like Preachly myself. It is too bad to see a well-meaning man like that batting his brains out against the rock of Gibraltar, whether suicide is sin or not. What has put him in this despondent mood? Do you suppose he has heard?"

"Heard what?" demanded Mrs. Idiot.

"About the slippers," said the Idiot.

"What slippers?" asked his wife.

"Oh, the same old slippers," said the Idiot. "You know the ones I mean--the ones he's going to get from Santa Claus. Really, I'm not surprised, after all. If I were a minister, and realized that truckloads of embroidered slippers of every size and color, covered with stags of red worsted jumping over rivulets of yellow floss, with split agates for eyes set in over the toe, were to be dumped in my front yard every Christmas Eve by that old reprobate, Santa Claus, I think I, too, would set him down as a fraud, or an overworked cobbler, anyhow."

"That's exaggerated--a comic-paper idea," said Mrs. Idiot. "I don't believe the average clergyman gets so many slippers. Dr. Preachly only got eight pairs last Christmas."

"Is that all?" cried the Idiot. "Mercy, what a small income of slippers! Dear me! how can he live with only eight pairs of slippers? But, after all, slippers are an appropriate gift for a clergyman," he added, "and Santa Claus should be credited with that fact. Slippers have soles, and the more slippers he gets the easier it is to save their soles, and therefore--"

"Really, my dear, you are flippant," said Mrs. Idiot.

"Not at all," rejoined the Idiot. "I am merely trying to sit on two stools at once--to retain my respect for Dr. Preachly without giving up my everlasting regard for Santa Claus. If I can't do both I am very much afraid it will be Dr. Preachly, and not Santa Claus, who will go to the wall in this establishment, and that would be sad. I can't say I think much of the doctor's logic. Do you?"

"I didn't notice his logic," Mrs. Idiot replied.

"Very likely," said the Idiot; "from what you tell me of his discourse I imagine he must have left it at home, which is a bad thing to do in an argument. To begin, he called Santa a lie, did he?"

"Yes; said he didn't exist at all."

"Good! Then how could he have been a snob?"

"Why, while of course I have no sympathy with his conclusions, Dr. Preachly handled that point pretty well. It certainly is true that in the homes of the rich there is a lavishness of gifts that you don't find in the homes of the poor, and therefore Santa Claus treats the rich better than he does the poor. We all know that."

"Hum!" said the Idiot. "And so it is Santa Claus who is the snob, eh, and not Fortune?"

"Well, Dr. Preachly did not touch upon that. All he said was that Santa Claus was a snob for favoring 'high society' and in many cases absolutely ignoring the submerged."

"But I don't see how," said the Idiot.

"Suppose he brings a diamond necklace to the daughter of a Croesus?"

"Precisely," said the Idiot.

"And a china doll to the daughter of a carpenter?" said Mrs. Idiot.

"That's tact, not snobbishness," said the Idiot. "What would the daughter of a carpenter do with a diamond necklace? The china doll is not only more appropriate, but a better plaything."

"Well, anyhow, he gives richly to those that have, and sparsely, if at all, to those that haven't, Dr. Preachly said," said Mrs. Idiot.

"There is scriptural authority for that," observed the Idiot. "I wonder if Dr. Preachly reads his Bible! Perhaps I'd better send him one for Christmas instead of a pair of galoshes. He'll find in the Bible that 'to him that hath shall be given,' and so forth. But to return to the logic--"

"I told you I didn't notice it," said Mrs. Idiot.

"Nor did Dr. Preachly, my dear; passed it by as if it were a poor relation, apparently. But this is true, a lie is an untruth. Truth alone lives, therefore an untruth does not live. Santa Claus is a lie and does not live, and is a snob, according to our reverend logician. Now, how can one who does not live be a snob or anything else? Truly, I wish Dr. Preachly would be more careful in his statements. As a pew-holder in his church I do not like to hear him denounce something that does not exist as having unworthy qualities. It's like shaking a sword at nothing and patting yourself on the back afterwards for your courage; still more in this instance is it like batting your poor mortal head against the hard surface of an everlasting rock, and our clergy should be in better business.

"Let 'em fight the harmful lies--the lies of false social ideas as propagated by distinctions of pew-holding, for instance. The man who sits in the front of the church is no better than the man who sits at the back, and is frequently his inferior; but has he more or has he less influence? The man who hands in his check for ten thousand dollars, having that and more to spare, is not more the friend of religion and Christianity than the poor beggar who stumbles in and puts his penny in the plate, thus diminishing by one-fifth his capital. Suppose Santa Claus is in a material sense a fancy or a lie; Heaven help Dr. Preachly if he can't see the beauty and the ethical value of the deception. Is he not the embodiment of the golden rule, and is he not, after all--God bless him and them!--something beautiful in the eyes of the children?"

"I'm flippant, and I know it, but there are some things I cling to," he added, after a pause. "Santa Claus is one of them, and Dr. Preachly can preach through all eternity, and, with all due respect to him, he can't remove from my mind the beauty of an idea that was planted there by two people who were practical enough, my father and my mother. I've inherited Santa Claus, and I'm not going to give him up, and no preacher in our church or in the church of others can take him away from me by one sermon, or by an infinite number of sermons, however sincere they may be. Is dinner ready?"

Dinner was ready. It was eaten reflectively, and after it the children went to Sunday-school. From this Tommy returned with a swollen eye, which later became dark.

"Hullo, pop!" he said, addressing the Idiot as he entered the house.

"Hullo, sonny!" replied the Idiot, observing the swollen eye. "Had a good time?"

"Yep," said the boy; "pretty good."

"Been fighting?" suggested the Idiot.

"Not so very much," said the boy; "only a little." And he began to sing a popular air, as if he didn't care much about life in general, and didn't mind an aching eye, which was rapidly, by its inflammation, giving away the fact that he had met with trouble.

"What did you learn at Sunday-school?" asked the Idiot.

"More blessed to give than to receive," said Tommy.

"Good!" said the Idiot. "I hope you will remember that, sonny. There is no satisfaction in all the world like that of giving if you can afford it."

"I think tho, too," said Mollie, sitting down on her father's lap with the contented sigh of a little girl who has discovered that life is not all an illusion. "I gave my dollie away to-day, papa," she added. "She wath only thawdust, and Pollie Harrington hath her now. She was a drefful care, and I'm glad to be ridden of her."

But the Idiot's mind was not on dolls, and he showed it. His boy's eye proved a greater care.

"Come here, my boy," he said.

The boy approached inquiringly.

"How did this happen?" the Idiot asked. "Your eye is swollen."

"Oh, I don't know," cried Tommy, exultantly. "Jimmie Roberts said there wasn't no Santy Claus."

"Well?"

"I said there was, an' then I gave him one on the end of his nose."

Here the boy struggled away from his father, as if he had done something he was willing to stand by.

"Let me understand this," said the Idiot. "Jimmie said--"

"There wasn't any Santy Claus," interrupted Tommy.

"Then what did you say?" asked the Idiot.

"I told him he didn't know what he was talking about," said Tommy.

"Why did you say that?"

"Because he was wrong, papa," said Tommy. "I've seen Santy Claus; I saw him last year."

"Ah! You did, eh? I was not aware of that fact."

Tommy began to laugh.

"You can't fool me, daddy," he said, climbing onto his father's knee. "Of course I've seen him, and he's the bulliest feller in all the world. _You're him!_"

And a hug followed.

Later on Mrs. Idiot and the Idiot sat together. The latter was deep in thought.

"Children have queer notions," said he, after a while.

"They are generally pretty right, though," observed Mrs. Idiot. "You are a pretty good Santa Claus, after all," she added.

"Pollie," said the Idiot, rising, "I believe in Santa Claus because he represents the spirit of the hour, and whoever tries to turn him down tries to turn down that spirit--the most blessed thing we have. Let's keep the children believing in Santa Claus, eh?"

"I agree," said Mrs. Idiot. "For the secret is out. You are Santa Claus to them."

"Heaven grant I may always be as much," said the Idiot. "For if a father is Santa Claus, and a boy or a girl believes in Santa Claus as a friend, as a companion, as something that brings them only sincerity and love and sympathy, then may we feel that Tiny Tim's prayer has been answered, and that God has blessed us all."

XI

AS TO NEW-YEAR'S DAY

It was New-Year's eve, and Mr. and Mrs. Idiot with their old friends were watching the old year die. The old year had been a fairly successful one for them all, and they were properly mournful over its prospective demise, but the promise of the new was sufficiently bright to mitigate their sorrow.

"What a sandwich life is, after all!" ejaculated the Idiot.

Mr. Pedagog started nervously. The remark was so idiotic that even its source seemed to make it inexcusable.

"I don't quite catch your drift," said he.

"As the man said when an avalanche of snow fell off his neighbor's roof and missed him by an inch," said the Idiot. "Why, just think a moment, Doctor, and my drift will overwhelm you. Look about you and consider what we have ourselves demonstrated to-night. If that does not prove life a series of emotional sandwiches, then I don't know what a sandwich is. Twenty minutes ago we were all gladness over the prosperity of the year gone by. Five minutes ago we were all on the verge of tears because the good old year is going the way of all years. An hour from now we will be joyously acclaiming the new. Two thick slices of joy with a thin slice of grief between."

"Ah!" said Mr. Pedagog. "I see. There is something in the analogy, after all. The bread of joy and the ham of sorrow, as you might put it; do make up the sum of human existence; but in some cases, my lad, I am afraid you will find there is only one slice of bread to two of ham."

"No doubt," replied the Idiot, "but that does not affect my proposition that life is a sandwich. If one slice of ham between two slices of bread is a ham sandwich, why is not one slice of bread between two slices of ham a bread sandwich? What is a sandwich, anyhow? The dictionary says that a sandwich is something placed between two other things; hence, all things are sandwiches, because there is nothing in the world, the world being round, that is not between two other things. Therefore, all things being sandwiches, life is a sandwich, Q. E. D."

"Is life a thing?" demanded Mr. Pedagog.

"Certainly," said the Idiot. "And a mighty good thing, too. If you don't believe it look the word thing up in the dictionary. All things are things."

"But," continued the Schoolmaster, his old spirit of antagonism rising up in his breast, "granted that life is a thing, what is it between so that it becomes a sandwich?"

"The past and the future," said the Idiot. "It is a slice of the immediate between a slice of past and one of future."

Mr. Pedagog laughed.

"You are still the same old Idiot," he said.

"Yes," said the Idiot. "Gibraltar and I and Truth are the three unchangeable things in this life, and that's why I am so happy. I'm in such good company. Gibraltar and Truth are good enough companions for anybody."

Meanwhile Mollie and Tommy, who had been allowed to sit up upon this rare occasion, stirred uneasily.

"Ith I a thandwich, popper?" said the little girl, sleepily, raising her head from her father's shoulder and gazing into his eyes.

"Yes, indeed, you are," said her father, giving her an affectionate squeeze. "A sugar sandwich, Mollie. You're really good enough to eat."

"Well, I'd rather be a pie," put in Tommy; "an apple pie."

"Very well, my son," returned the Idiot. "Have your own way. Henceforth be a pie if you prefer--an apple pie. But may I ask why you express this preference?"

"Oh, because," said Tommy, "if I'm to be an apple pie somebody's got to fill me chock-full of apple sauce."

"The son of his father," observed Mr. Whitechoker.

"I think it is a pity," Mrs. Pedagog put in at this point, "that some of the good old customs of the New Year have gone out."

"As to which, Mrs. Pedagog?" asked the Idiot.

"Well, New-Year's calling particularly," explained the lady. "It is no longer the thing for people to make New-Year's calls, and I must confess I regret it. It used to be a great pleasure to me in the old days to receive the gentlemen--my old friends, and relatives, and boarders."

"Why distinguish between your old friends and your boarders, Mrs. Pedagog?" interrupted the Idiot. "They are synonymous terms."

"They are now," said the good lady, "but--ah--they weren't always. I used sometimes to think you, for instance, didn't like me as much as you might."

"I didn't dare," explained the Idiot. "If I'd liked you as much as I might I'd have told you so, and then Mr. Pedagog would have got jealous and there'd have been a horrid affair."

The lady smiled graciously, and Mr. Pedagog threw a small paper pellet at the Idiot.

"I'm much obliged to you for holding off, Idiot," he said. "I don't know where I'd have been to-day if you'd got in ahead of me. Mrs. Pedagog has always had a soft spot in her heart for you."

"I've got the other spot," said the Idiot, "and a pair of aces are hard to beat in pairs; but I think I voice Mrs. Pedagog's sentiments in the matter, Mr. Pedagog, when I say that she and I would always have been glad to see you every other New-Year's day if I had been the fortunate winner of her hand."

"And Mr. Pedagog and I would have been glad to see you and Mrs. Pedagog in the sandwich years," said Mrs. Idiot to her husband; and then, turning to the Schoolmaster, added, "Wouldn't we, Mr. Pedagog?"

"No, madame," returned Mr. Pedagog, courteously. "You might have been, but I would not. If I had married you I could never have seen any one else with pleasure. I should have kept my eyes solely for you."

"John!" cried Mrs. Pedagog, arching her eyebrows.

"Pleasantry, my dear--mere pleasantry," returned the Schoolmaster, tapping his fingers together and smiling sweetly upon Mrs. Idiot.

"You didn't finish, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot. "You were telling us how you used to enjoy New-Year's calling before it went out."

"Yes," replied Mrs. Pedagog. "It was charming. I used positively to look forward to its coming with delight. We women, Mr. Idiot, found the old custom very delightful."

"But the men, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot, "did you ever think of them?"

"What else did we think of? What else is there for a woman to think about?" replied Mrs. Pedagog.

"Jane!" cried Mr. Pedagog.

"_Pleasantry, my dear--mere pleasantry_," returned Mrs. Pedagog, frigidly. And Mr. Pedagog lit a cigar. It is not always pleasant to be quoted.

"Still," said the Idiot, "you thought of men only as creatures of the moment--"

"Entirely," said Mrs. Pedagog.

"And not as creatures of the week following," said the Idiot.

"What has that to do with it?" asked Mrs. Pedagog.

"Much--from the man's stand-point," returned the Idiot. "His digestion was butchered to make a woman's holiday. Take myself as an example. I used to make New-Year's calls; and to get through with my list by midnight, I had to start in at nine o'clock in the morning."

"Nine o'clock is not so early," said Mr. Whitechoker.

"It's early for cake and pickled oysters," said the Idiot. "And for chicken salad and wedding-cake, and for lemonade and punch, and for lobster and egg-nog, and for ice-cream and _pâté-de-foie-gras_."

"H'm!" said Mr. Pedagog, reflectively. "That's true."

"Quite so," observed Mr. Whitechoker, brushing off his vest, upon which the ashes of his cigar had rested. "Especially for the punch."

"There was no punch in my house," said Mrs. Pedagog. "Indeed, I always served a very simple luncheon. We did have chicken salad, of course, but the chicken was good and the salad was crisp--"

"I'd swear to it," said the Idiot.

"And we had egg-nog, but there was more egg than nog in it--"

"Again I'd swear to it," said the Idiot, smacking his lips.

"And as for the lobsters, nobody ever complained--"

"He'd have been a lobster himself who would," said the Idiot. "But that does not prove that no one ever suffered."

"And as for the pickled oysters, no one ever suffered from them that I knew of," continued the good lady. "They are harmless eaten in moderation."

"Exactly right," cried the Idiot. "No gentleman would ever complain of pickled oysters, even if they were made of inferior rubber, eaten in moderation. Yet I recall in my own experience a pickled oyster of most impressive quality. He was not a pickled oyster of the moment. He was the Admiral Dewey of pickled oysters. In appearance he resembled every other pickled oyster I ever met, but--well, he kept me in a state of worry for a month. Just eating him alone was eating pickled oysters in immoderation. I felt as if I had swallowed an overshoe. He was a charming pickled oyster, Mrs. Pedagog, and he was devoted to me, but he involved me in complications alongside of which the Philippine question is child's play. If a New-Year's caller could have confined his attentions to the ladies he met no harm would have come to him, but he couldn't, you know. The day was one continuous round of effort and indigestibles. What a man got at your house and had to eat merely to show his appreciation of your hospitality was all right and wholesome. Your lobster and egg-nog could do him no harm, but he couldn't stop with yours; he had to continue, and consume lobsters and egg-nog everywhere else and all day long. The day resolved itself into a magnificent gorge alongside of which that of Niagara seems like a wagon-rut. It finally came down to the point where either man or the custom had to die, and man being selfish, the custom went. Did you ever consider exactly how much indigestible food an amiable, well-meaning person had to consume in a round of, say, three dozen calls, Mrs. Pedagog?"

Mr. Brief nodded his approval. "Now you've struck it," he said. "I've been there, Idiot."

"I must confess," said Mrs. Pedagog, "that I never looked into that question."