Tales of the Jazz Age
by
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Part 4 out of 7
that had been asked him, but the honeyed luxury that clasped his body
added to the illusion of sleep--jewels, fabrics, wines, and metals
blurred before his eyes into a sweet mist ....
"Yes," he replied with a polite effort, "it certainly is hot enough
for me down there."
He managed to add a ghostly laugh; then, without movement, without
resistance, he seemed to float off and away, leaving an iced dessert
that was pink as a dream .... He fell asleep.
When he awoke he knew that several hours had passed. He was in a great
quiet room with ebony walls and a dull illumination that was too
faint, too subtle, to be called a light. His young host was standing
over him.
"You fell asleep at dinner," Percy was saying. "I nearly did, too--it
was such a treat to be comfortable again after this year of school.
Servants undressed and bathed you while you were sleeping."
"Is this a bed or a cloud?" sighed John. "Percy, Percy--before you go,
I want to apologise."
"For what?"
"For doubting you when you said you had a diamond as big as the
Ritz-Carlton Hotel."
Percy smiled.
"I thought you didn't believe me. It's that mountain, you know."
"What mountain?"
"The mountain the chateau rests on. It's not very big, for a mountain.
But except about fifty feet of sod and gravel on top it's solid
diamond. _One_ diamond, one cubic mile without a flaw. Aren't you
listening? Say----"
But John T. Unger had again fallen asleep.
3
Morning. As he awoke he perceived drowsily that the room had at the
same moment become dense with sunlight. The ebony panels of one wall
had slid aside on a sort of track, leaving his chamber half open to
the day. A large negro in a white uniform stood beside his bed.
"Good-evening," muttered John, summoning his brains from the wild
places.
"Good-morning, sir. Are you ready for your bath, sir? Oh, don't get
up--I'll put you in, if you'll just unbutton your pyjamas--there.
Thank you, sir."
John lay quietly as his pyjamas were removed--he was amused and
delighted; he expected to be lifted like a child by this black
Gargantua who was tending him, but nothing of the sort happened;
instead he felt the bed tilt up slowly on its side--he began to roll,
startled at first, in the direction of the wall, but when he reached
the wall its drapery gave way, and sliding two yards farther down a
fleecy incline he plumped gently into water the same temperature as
his body.
He looked about him. The runway or rollway on which he had arrived had
folded gently back into place. He had been projected into another
chamber and was sitting in a sunken bath with his head just above the
level of the floor. All about him, lining the walls of the room and
the sides and bottom of the bath itself, was a blue aquarium, and
gazing through the crystal surface on which he sat, he could see fish
swimming among amber lights and even gliding without curiosity past
his outstretched toes, which were separated from them only by the
thickness of the crystal. From overhead, sunlight came down through
sea-green glass.
"I suppose, sir, that you'd like hot rosewater and soapsuds this
morning, sir--and perhaps cold salt water to finish."
The negro was standing beside him.
"Yes," agreed John, smiling inanely, "as you please." Any idea of
ordering this bath according to his own meagre standards of living
would have been priggish and not a little wicked.
The negro pressed a button and a warm rain began to fall, apparently
from overhead, but really, so John. discovered after a moment, from a
fountain arrangement near by. The water turned to a pale rose colour
and jets of liquid soap spurted into it from four miniature walrus
heads at the corners of the bath. In a moment a dozen little
paddle-wheels, fixed to the sides, had churned the mixture into a
radiant rainbow of pink foam which enveloped him softly with its
delicious lightness, and burst in shining, rosy bubbles here and there
about him.
"Shall I turn on the moving-picture machine, sir?" suggested the negro
deferentially. "There's a good one-reel comedy in this machine to-day,
or I can put in a serious piece in a moment, if you prefer it.
"No, thanks," answered John, politely but firmly. He was enjoying his
bath too much to desire any distraction. But distraction came. In a
moment he was listening intently to the sound of flutes from just
outside, flutes dripping a melody that was like a waterfall, cool and
green as the room itself, accompanying a frothy piccolo, in play more
fragile than the lace of suds that covered and charmed him.
After a cold salt-water bracer and a cold fresh finish, he stepped out
and into a fleecy robe, and upon a couch covered with the same
material he was rubbed with oil, alcohol, and spice. Later he sat in a
voluptuous while he was shaved and his hair was trimmed.
"Mr. Percy is waiting in your sitting-room," said the negro, when
these operations were finished. "My name is Gygsum, Mr. Unger, sir. I
am to see to Mr. Unger every morning."
John walked out into the brisk sunshine of his living-room, where he
found breakfast waiting for him and Percy, gorgeous in white kid
knickerbockers, smoking in an easy chair.
4
This is a story of the Washington family as Percy sketched it for John
during breakfast.
The father of the present Mr. Washington had been a Virginian, a
direct descendant of George Washington, and Lord Baltimore. At the
close of the Civil War he was a twenty-five-year-old Colonel with a
played-out plantation and about a thousand dollars in gold.
Fitz-Norman Culpepper Washington, for that was the young Colonel's
name, decided to present the Virginia estate to his younger brother
and go West. He selected two dozen of the most faithful blacks, who,
of course, worshipped him, and bought twenty-five tickets to the West,
where he intended to take out land in their names and start a sheep
and cattle ranch.
When he had been in Montana for less than a month and things were
going very poorly indeed, he stumbled on his great discovery. He had
lost his way when riding the room and the sides and bottom of the bath
itself was a blue aquarium, and gazing through the crystal surface on
which he sat, he could see fish swimming among amber lights and even
gliding without curiosity past his outstretched toes, which were
separated from them only by the thickness of the crystal. From
overhead, sunlight came down through sea-green glass.
"I suppose, sir, that you'd like hot rosewater and soapsuds this
morning, sir--and perhaps cold salt water to finish."
The negro was standing beside him.
"Yes," agreed John, smiling inanely, "as you please,"; Any idea of
ordering this bath according to his own meagre standards of living
would have been priggish and not a little wicked.
The negro pressed a button and a warm rain began to fall, apparently
from overhead, but really, so John discovered after a moment, from a
fountain arrangement near by. The water turned to a pale rose colour
and jets of liquid soap spurted into it from four miniature walrus
heads at the corners of the bath. In a moment a dozen little
paddle-wheels, fixed to the sides, had churned the mixture into a
radiant rainbow of pink foam which enveloped him softly with its
delicious lightness, and burst in shining, rosy bubbles here and there
about him.
"Shall I turn on the moving-picture machine, sir?" suggested the negro
deferentially. "There's a good one-reel comedy in this machine to-day,
or I can put in a serious piece in a moment, if you prefer it."
"No, thanks," answered John, politely but firmly, He was enjoying his
bath too much to desire any distraction. But distraction came. In a
moment he was listening intently to the sound of flutes from just
outside, flutes dripping a melody that was like a waterfall, cool and
green as the room itself, accompanying a frothy piccolo, in play more
fragile than the lace of suds that covered and charmed him.
After a cold salt-water bracer and a cold fresh finish, he stepped out
and into a fleecy robe, and upon a couch covered with the same
material he was rubbed with oil, alcohol, and spice. Later he sat in a
voluptuous chair while he was shaved and his hair was trimmed.
"Mr. Percy is waiting in your sitting-room," said the negro, when
these operations were finished. "My name is Gygsum, Mr. Unger, sir. I
am to see to Mr. Unger every morning."
John walked out into the brisk sunshine of his living-room, where he
found breakfast waiting for him and Percy, gorgeous in white kid
knickerbockers, smoking in an easy chair.
4
This is a story of the Washington family as Percy sketched it for John
during breakfast.
The father of the present Mr. Washington had been a Virginian, a
direct descendant of George Washington, and Lord Baltimore. At the
close of the Civil War he was a twenty-five-year-old Colonel with a
played-out plantation and about a thousand dollars in gold.
Fitz-Norman Culpepper Washington, for that was the young Colonel's
name, decided to present the Virginia estate to his younger brother
and go West, He selected two dozen of the most faithful blacks, who,
of course, worshipped him, and bought twenty-five tickets to the West,
where he intended to take out land in their names and start a sheep
and cattle ranch.
When he had been in Montana for less than a month and things were
going very poorly indeed, he stumbled on his great discovery. He had
lost his way when riding in the hills, and after a day without food he
began to grow hungry. As he was without his rifle, he was forced to
pursue a squirrel, and, in the course of the pursuit, he noticed that
it was carrying something shiny in its mouth. Just before it vanished
into its hole--for Providence did not intend that this squirrel should
alleviate his hunger--it dropped its burden. Sitting down to consider
the situation Fitz-Norman's eye was caught by a gleam in the grass
beside him. In ten seconds he had completely lost his appetite and
gained one hundred thousand dollars. The squirrel, which had refused
with annoying persistence to become food, had made him a present of a
large and perfect diamond.
Late that night he found his way to camp and twelve hours later all
the males among his darkies were back by the squirrel hole digging
furiously at the side of the mountain. He told them he had discovered
a rhinestone mine, and, as only one or two of them had ever seen even
a small diamond before, they believed him, without question. When the
magnitude of his discovery became apparent to him, he found himself in
a quandary. The mountain was _a_ diamond--it was literally
nothing else but solid diamond. He filled four saddle bags full of
glittering samples and started on horseback for St. Paul. There he
managed to dispose of half a dozen small stones--when he tried a
larger one a storekeeper fainted and Fitz-Norman was arrested as a
public disturber. He escaped from jail and caught the train for New
York, where he sold a few medium-sized diamonds and received in
exchange about two hundred thousand dollars in gold. But he did not
dare to produce any exceptional gems--in fact, he left New York just
in time. Tremendous excitement had been created in jewellery circles,
not so much by the size of his diamonds as by their appearance in the
city from mysterious sources. Wild rumours became current that a
diamond mine had been discovered in the Catskills, on the Jersey
coast, on Long Island, beneath Washington Square. Excursion trains,
packed with men carrying picks and shovels, began to leave New York
hourly, bound for various neighbouring El Dorados. But by that time
young Fitz-Norman was on his way back to Montana.
By the end of a fortnight he had estimated that the diamond in the
mountain was approximately equal in quantity to all the rest of the
diamonds known to exist in the world. There was no valuing it by any
regular computation, however, for it was _one solid diamond_--and
if it were offered for sale not only would the bottom fall out of the
market, but also, if the value should vary with its size in the usual
arithmetical progression, there would not be enough gold in the world
to buy a tenth part of it. And what could any one do with a diamond
that size?
It was an amazing predicament. He was, in one sense, the richest man
that ever lived--and yet was he worth anything at all? If his secret
should transpire there was no telling to what measures the Government
might resort in order to prevent a panic, in gold as well as in
jewels. They might take over the claim immediately and institute a
monopoly.
There was no alternative--he must market his mountain in secret. He
sent South for his younger brother and put him in charge of his
coloured following, darkies who had never realised that slavery was
abolished. To make sure of this, he read them a proclamation that he
had composed, which announced that General Forrest had reorganised the
shattered Southern armies and defeated the North in one pitched
battle. The negroes believed him implicitly. They passed a vote
declaring it a good thing and held revival services immediately.
Fitz-Norman himself set out for foreign parts with one hundred
thousand dollars and two trunks filled with rough diamonds of all
sizes. He sailed for Russia in a Chinese junk, and six months after
his departure from Montana he was in St. Petersburg. He took obscure
lodgings and called immediately upon the court jeweller, announcing
that he had a diamond for the Czar. He remained in St. Petersburg for
two weeks, in constant danger of being murdered, living from lodging
to lodging, and afraid to visit his trunks more than three or four
times during the whole fortnight.
On his promise to return in a year with larger and finer stones, he
was allowed to leave for India. Before he left, however, the Court
Treasurers had deposited to his credit, in American banks, the sum of
fifteen million dollars--under four different aliases.
He returned to America in 1868, having been gone a little over two
years. He had visited the capitals of twenty-two countries and talked
with five emperors, eleven kings, three princes, a shah, a khan, and a
sultan. At that time Fitz-Norman estimated his own wealth at one
billion dollars. One fact worked consistently against the disclosure
of his secret. No one of his larger diamonds remained in the public
eye for a week before being invested with a history of enough
fatalities, amours, revolutions, and wars to have occupied it from the
days of the first Babylonian Empire.
From 1870 until his death in 1900, the history of Fitz-Norman
Washington was a long epic in gold. There were side issues, of
course--he evaded the surveys, he married a Virginia lady, by whom he
had a single son, and he was compelled, due to a series of unfortunate
complications, to murder his brother, whose unfortunate habit of
drinking himself into an indiscreet stupor had several times
endangered their safety. But very other murders stained these happy
years of progress and exspansion.
Just before he died he changed his policy, and with all but a few
million dollars of his outside wealth bought up rare minerals in bulk,
which he deposited in the safety vaults of banks all over the world,
marked as bric-a-brac. His son, Braddock Tarleton Washington, followed
this policy on an even more tensive scale. The minerals were converted
into the rarest of all elements--radium--so that the equivalent of a
billion dollars in gold could be placed in a receptacle no bigger than
a cigar box.
When Fitz-Norman had been dead three years his son, Braddock, decided
that the business had gone far enough. The amount of wealth that he
and his father had taken out of the mountain was beyond all exact
computation. He kept a note-book in cipher in which he set down the
approximate quantity of radium in each of the thousand banks he
patronised, and recorded the alias under which it was held. Then he
did a very simple thing--he sealed up the mine.
He sealed up the mine. What had been taken out of it would support all
the Washingtons yet to be born in unparalleled luxury for generations.
His one care must be the protection of his secret, lest in the
possible panic attendant on its discovery he should be reduced with
all the property-holders in the world to utter poverty.
This was the family among whom John T. Unger was staying. This was the
story he heard in his silver-walled living-room the morning after his
arrival.
5
After breakfast, John found his way out the great marble entrance, and
looked curiously at the scene before him. The whole valley, from the
diamond mountain to the steep granite cliff five miles away, still
gave off a breath of golden haze which hovered idly above the fine
sweep of lawns and lakes and gardens. Here and there clusters of elms
made delicate groves of shade, contrasting strangely with the tough
masses of pine forest that held the hills in a grip of dark-blue
green. Even as John looked he saw three fawns in single file patter
out from one clump about a half-mile away and disappear with awkward
gaiety into the black-ribbed half-light of another. John would not
have been surprised to see a goat-foot piping his way among the trees
or to catch a glimpse of pink nymph-skin and flying yellow hair
between the greenest of the green leaves.
In some such cool hope he descended the marble steps, disturbing
faintly the sleep of two silky Russian wolfhounds at the bottom, and
set off along a walk of white and blue brick that seemed to lead in no
particular direction.
He was enjoying himself as much as he was able. It is youth's felicity
as well as its insufficiency that it can never live in the present,
but must always be measuring up the day against its own radiantly
imagined future--flowers and gold, girls and stars, they are only
prefigurations and prophecies of that incomparable, unattainable young
dream.
John rounded a soft corner where the massed rosebushes filled the air
with heavy scent, and struck off across a park toward a patch of moss
under some trees. He had never lain upon moss, and he wanted to see
whether it was really soft enough to justify the use of its name as an
adjective. Then he saw a girl coming toward him over the grass. She
was the most beautiful person he had ever seen.
She was dressed in a white little gown that came just below her knees,
and a wreath of mignonettes clasped with blue slices of sapphire bound
up her hair. Her pink bare feet scattered the dew before them as she
came. She was younger than John--not more than sixteen.
"Hallo," she cried softly, "I'm Kismine."
She was much more than that to John already. He advanced toward her,
scarcely moving as he drew near lest he should tread on her bare toes.
"You haven't met me," said her soft voice. Her blue eyes added, "Oh,
but you've missed a great deal!"... "You met my sister, Jasmine, last
night. I was sick with lettuce poisoning," went on her soft voice, and
her eye continued, "and when I'm sick I'm sweet--and when I'm well."
"You have made an enormous impression on me," said John's eyes, "and
I'm not so slow myself"--"How do you do?" said his voice. "I hope
you're better this morning."--"You darling," added his eyes
tremulously.
John observed that they had been walking along the path. On her
suggestion they sat down together upon the moss, the softness of which
he failed to determine.
He was critical about women. A single defect--a thick ankle, a hoarse
voice, a glass eye--was enough to make him utterly indifferent. And
here for the first time in his life he was beside a girl who seemed to
him the incarnation of physical perfection.
"Are you from the East?" asked Kismine with charming interest.
"No," answered John simply. "I'm from Hades."
Either she had never heard of Hades, or she could think of no pleasant
comment to make upon it, for she did not discuss it further.
"I'm going East to school this fall" she said. "D'you think I'll like
it? I'm going to New York to Miss Bulge's. It's very strict, but you
see over the weekends I'm going to live at home with the family in our
New York house, because father heard that the girls had to go walking
two by two."
"Your father wants you to be proud," observed John.
"We are," she answered, her eyes shining with dignity. "None of us has
ever been punished. Father said we never should be. Once when my
sister Jasmine was a little girl she pushed him downstairs and he just
got up and limped away.
"Mother was--well, a little startled," continued Kismine, "when she
heard that you were from--from where you _are_ from, you know.
She said that when she was a young girl--but then, you see, she's a
Spaniard and old-fashioned."
"Do you spend much time out here?" asked John, to conceal the fact
that he was somewhat hurt by this remark. It seemed an unkind allusion
to his provincialism.
"Percy and Jasmine and I are here every summer, but next summer
Jasmine is going to Newport. She's coming out in London a year from
this fall. She'll be presented at court."
"Do you know," began John hesitantly, "you're much more sophisticated
than I thought you were when I first saw you?"
"Oh, no, I'm not," she exclaimed hurriedly. "Oh, I wouldn't think of
being. I think that sophisticated young people are _terribly_
common, don't you? I'm not all, really. If you say I am, I'm going to
cry."
She was so distressed that her lip was trembling. John was impelled to
protest:
"I didn't mean that; I only said it to tease you."
"Because I wouldn't mind if I _were_," she persisted, "but I'm
not. I'm very innocent and girlish. I never smoke, or drink, or read
anything except poetry. I know scarcely any mathematics or chemistry.
I dress _very_ simply--in fact, I scarcely dress at all. I think
sophisticated is the last thing you can say about me. I believe that
girls ought to enjoy their youths in a wholesome way."
"I do, too," said John, heartily,
Kismine was cheerful again. She smiled at him, and a still-born tear
dripped from the comer of one blue eye.
"I like you," she whispered intimately. "Are you going to spend all
your time with Percy while you're here, or will you be nice to me?
Just think--I'm absolutely fresh ground. I've never had a boy in love
with me in all my life. I've never been allowed even to _see_
boys alone--except Percy. I came all the way out here into this grove
hoping to run into you, where the family wouldn't be around."
Deeply flattered, John bowed from the hips as he had been taught at
dancing school in Hades.
"We'd better go now," said Kismine sweetly. "I have to be with mother
at eleven. You haven't asked me to kiss you once. I thought boys
always did that nowadays"
John drew himself up proudly.
"Some of them do," he answered, "but not me. Girls don't do that sort
of thing--in Hades."
Side by side they walked back toward the house.
6
John stood facing Mr. Braddock Washington in the full sunlight. The
elder man was about forty, with a proud, vacuous face, intelligent
eyes, and a robust figure. In the mornings he smelt of horses--the
best horses. He carried a plain walking-stick of gray birch with a
single large opal for a grip. He and Percy were showing John around.
"The slaves' quarters are there." His walking-stick indicated a
cloister of marble on their left that ran in graceful Gothic along the
side of the mountain. "In my youth I was distracted for a while from
the business of life by a period of absurd idealism. During that time
they lived in luxury. For instance, I equipped every one of their
rooms with a tile bath."
"I suppose," ventured John, with an ingratiating laugh, "that they
used the bathtubs to keep coal in. Mr. Schnlitzer-Murphy told me that
once he---"
"The opinions of Mr. Schnlitzer-Murphy are of little importance, I
should imagine," interrupted Braddock Washington coldly. "My slaves
did not keep coal in their bathtubs. They had orders to bathe every
day, and they did. If they hadn't I might have ordered a sulphuric
acid shampoo. I discontinued the baths for quite another reason.
Several of them caught cold and died. Water is not good for certain
races--except as a beverage."
John laughed, and then decided to nod his head in sober agreement.
Braddock Washington made him uncomfortable.
"All these negroes are descendants of the ones my father brought North
with him. There are about two hundred and fifty now. You notice that
they've lived so long apart from the world that their original dialect
has become an almost indistinguishable patois. We bring a few of them
up to speak English--my secretary and two or three of the house
servants.
"This is the golf course," he continued, as they strolled along the
velvet winter grass. "It's all a green, you see--no fairway, no rough,
no hazards."
He smiled pleasantly at John.
"Many men in the cage, father?" asked Percy suddenly.
Braddock Washington stumbled, and let forth an involuntary curse.
"One less than there should be," he ejaculated darkly--and then added
after a moment, "We've had difficulties."
"Mother was telling me," exclaimed Percy, "that Italian teacher---"
"A ghastly error," said Braddock Washington angrily. "But of course
there's a good chance that we may have got him. Perhaps he fell
somewhere in the woods or stumbled over a cliff. And then there's
always the probability that if he did get away his story wouldn't be
believed. Nevertheless, I've had two dozen men looking for him in
different towns around here."
"And no luck?"
"Some. Fourteen of them reported to my agent they'd each killed a man
answering to that description, but of course it was probably only the
reward they were after---"
He broke off. They had come to a large cavity in the earth about the
circumference of a merry-go-round, and covered by a strong iron
grating. Braddock Washington beckoned to John, and pointed his cane
down through the grating. John stepped to the edge and gazed.
Immediately his ears were assailed by a wild clamor from below.
"Come on down to Hell!"
"Hallo, kiddo, how's the air up there?"
"Hey! Throw us a rope!"
"Got an old doughnut, Buddy, or a couple of second-hand sandwiches?"
"Say, fella, if you'll push down that guy you're with, we'll show you
a quick disappearance scene."
"Paste him one for me, will you?"
It was too dark to see clearly into the pit below, but John could tell
from the coarse optimism and rugged vitality of the remarks and voices
that they proceeded from middle-class Americans of the more spirited
type. Then Mr. Washington put out his cane and touched a button in the
grass, and the scene below sprang into light.
"These are some adventurous mariners who had the misfortune to
discover El Dorado," he remarked.
Below them there had appeared a large hollow in the earth shaped like
the interior of a bowl. The sides were steep and apparently of
polished glass, and on its slightly concave surface stood about two
dozen men clad in the half costume, half uniform, of aviators. Their
upturned faces, lit with wrath, with malice, with despair, with
cynical humour, were covered by long growths of beard, but with the
exception of a few who had pined perceptibly away, they seemed to be a
well-fed, healthy lot.
Braddock Washington drew a garden chair to the edge of the pit and sat
down.
"Well, how are you, boys?" he inquired genially.
A chorus of execration, in which all joined except a few too
dispirited to cry out, rose up into the sunny air, but Braddock
Washington heard it with unruffled composure. When its last echo had
died away he spoke again.
"Have you thought up a way out of your difficulty?"
From here and there among them a remark floated up.
"We decided to stay here for love!"
"Bring us up there and we'll find us a way!"
Braddock Washington waited until they were again quiet. Then he said:
"I've told you the situation. I don't want you here, I wish to heaven
I'd never seen you. Your own curiosity got you here, and any time that
you can think of a way out which protects me and my interests I'll be
glad to consider it. But so long as you confine your efforts to
digging tunnels--yes, I know about the new one you've started--you
won't get very far. This isn't as hard on you as you make it out, with
all your howling for the loved ones at home. If you were the type who
worried much about the loved ones at home, you'd never have taken up
aviation."
A tall man moved apart from the others, and held up his hand to call
his captor's attention to what he was about to say.
"Let me ask you a few questions!" he cried. "You pretend to be a
fair-minded man."
"How absurd. How could a man of _my_ position be fair-minded
toward you? You might as well speak of a Spaniard being fair-minded
toward a piece of steak."
At this harsh observation the faces of the two dozen fell, but the
tall man continued:
"All right!" he cried. "We've argued this out before. You're not a
humanitarian and you're not fair-minded, but you're human--at least
you say you are--and you ought to be able to put yourself in our place
for long enough to think how--how--how--"
"How what?" demanded Washington, coldly.
"--how unnecessary--"
"Not to me."
"Well--how cruel--"
"We've covered that. Cruelty doesn't exist where self-preservation is
involved. You've been soldiers; you know that. Try another."
"Well, then, how stupid."
"There," admitted Washington, "I grant you that. But try to think of
an alternative. I've offered to have all or any of you painlessly
executed if you wish. I've offered to have your wives, sweethearts,
children, and mothers kidnapped and brought out here. I'll enlarge
your place down there and feed and clothe you the rest of your lives.
If there was some method of producing permanent amnesia I'd have all
of you operated on and released immediately, somewhere outside of my
preserves. But that's as far as my ideas go."
"How about trusting us not to peach on you?" cried some one.
"You don't proffer that suggestion seriously," said Washington, with
an expression of scorn. "I did take out one man to teach my daughter
Italian. Last week he got away."
A wild yell of jubilation went up suddenly from two dozen throats and
a pandemonium of joy ensued. The prisoners clog-danced and cheered and
yodled and wrestled with one another in a sudden uprush of animal
spirits. They even ran up the glass sides of the bowl as far as they
could, and slid back to the bottom upon the natural cushions of their
bodies. The tall man started a song in which they all joined--
"_Oh, we'll hang the kaiser
On a sour apple-tree_--"
Braddock Washington sat in inscrutable silence until the song was
over.
"You see," he remarked, when he could gain a modicum of attention. "I
bear you no ill-will. I like to see you enjoying yourselves. That's
why I didn't tell you the whole story at once. The man--what was his
name? Critchtichiello?--was shot by some of my agents in fourteen
different places."
Not guessing that the places referred to were cities, the tumult of
rejoicing subsided immediately.
"Nevertheless," cried Washington with a touch of anger, "he tried to
run away. Do you expect me to take chances with any of you after an
experience like that?"
Again a series of ejaculations went up.
"Sure!"
"Would your daughter like to learn Chinese?"
"Hey, I can speak Italian! My mother was a wop."
"Maybe she'd like t'learna speak N'Yawk!"
"If she's the little one with the big blue eyes I can teach her a lot
of things better than Italian."
"I know some Irish songs--and I could hammer brass once't."
Mr. Washington reached forward suddenly with his cane and pushed the
button in the grass so that the picture below went out instantly, and
there remained only that great dark mouth covered dismally with the
black teeth of the grating.
"Hey!" called a single voice from below, "you ain't goin' away without
givin' us your blessing?"
But Mr. Washington, followed by the two boys, was already strolling on
toward the ninth hole of the golf course, as though the pit and its
contents were no more than a hazard over which his facile iron had
triumphed with ease.
7
July under the lee of the diamond mountain was a month of blanket
nights and of warm, glowing days. John and Kismine were in love. He
did not know that the little gold football (inscribed with the legend
_Pro deo et patria et St. Mida_) which he had given her rested on
a platinum chain next to her bosom. But it did. And she for her part
was not aware that a large sapphire which had dropped one day from her
simple coiffure was stowed away tenderly in John's jewel box.
Late one afternoon when the ruby and ermine music room was quiet, they
spent an hour there together. He held her hand and she gave him such a
look that he whispered her name aloud. She bent toward him--then
hesitated.
"Did you say 'Kismine'?" she asked softly, "or--"
She had wanted to be sure. She thought she might have misunderstood.
Neither of them had ever kissed before, but in the course of an hour
it seemed to make little difference.
The afternoon drifted away. That night, when a last breath of music
drifted down from the highest tower, they each lay awake, happily
dreaming over the separate minutes of the day. They had decided to be
married as soon as possible.
8
Every day Mr. Washington and the two young men went hunting or fishing
in the deep forests or played golf around the somnolent course--games
which John diplomatically allowed his host to win--or swam in the
mountain coolness of the lake. John found Mr. Washington a somewhat
exacting personality--utterly uninterested in any ideas or opinions
except his own. Mrs. Washington was aloof and reserved at all times.
She was apparently indifferent to her two daughters, and entirely
absorbed in her son Percy, with whom she held interminable
conversations in rapid Spanish at dinner.
Jasmine, the elder daughter, resembled Kismine in appearance--except
that she was somewhat bow-legged, and terminated in large hands and
feet--but was utterly unlike her in temperament. Her favourite books
had to do with poor girls who kept house for widowed fathers. John
learned from Kismine that Jasmine had never recovered from the shock
and disappointment caused her by the termination of the World War,
just as she was about to start for Europe as a canteen expert. She had
even pined away for a time, and Braddock Washington had taken steps to
promote a new war in the Balkans--but she had seen a photograph of
some wounded Serbian soldiers and lost interest in the whole
proceedings. But Percy and Kismine seemed to have inherited the
arrogant attitude in all its harsh magnificence from their father. A
chaste and consistent selfishness ran like a pattern through their
every idea.
John was enchanted by the wonders of the château and the valley.
Braddock Washington, so Percy told him, had caused to be kidnapped a
landscape gardener, an architect, a designer of state settings, and a
French decadent poet left over from the last century. He had put his
entire force of negroes at their disposal, guaranteed to supply them
with any materials that the world could offer, and left them to work
out some ideas of their own. But one by one they had shown their
uselessness. The decadent poet had at once begun bewailing his
separation, from the boulevards in spring--he made some vague remarks
about spices, apes, and ivories, but said nothing that was of any
practical value. The stage designer on his part wanted to make the
whole valley a series of tricks and sensational effects--a state of
things that the Washingtons would soon have grown tired of. And as for
the architect and the landscape gardener, they thought only in terms
of convention. They must make this like this and that like that.
But they had, at least, solved the problem of what was to be done with
them--they all went mad early one morning after spending the night in
a single room trying to agree upon the location of a fountain, and
were now confined comfortably in an insane asylum at Westport,
Connecticut.
"But," inquired John curiously, "who did plan all your wonderful
reception rooms and halls, and approaches and bathrooms---?"
"Well," answered Percy, "I blush to tell you, but it was a
moving-picture fella. He was the only man we found who was used to
playing with an unlimited amount of money, though he did tuck his
napkin in his collar and couldn't read or write."
As August drew to a close John began to regret that he must soon go
back to school. He and Kismine had decided to elope the following
June.
"It would be nicer to be married here," Kismine confessed, "but of
course I could never get father's permission to marry you at all. Next
to that I'd rather elope. It's terrible for wealthy people to be
married in America at present--they always have to send out bulletins
to the press saying that they're going to be married in remnants, when
what they mean is just a peck of old second-hand pearls and some used
lace worn once by the Empress Eugenie."
"I know," agreed John fervently. "When I was visiting the
Schnlitzer-Murphys, the eldest daughter, Gwendolyn, married a man
whose father owns half of West Virginia. She wrote home saying what a
tough struggle she was carrying on on his salary as a bank clerk--and
then she ended up by saying that 'Thank God, I have four good maids
anyhow, and that helps a little.'"
"It's absurd," commented Kismine--"Think of the millions and millions
of people in the world, labourers and all, who get along with only two
maids."
One afternoon late in August a chance remark of Kismine's changed the
face of the entire situation, and threw John into a state of terror.
They were in their favourite grove, and between kisses John was
indulging in some romantic forebodings which he fancied added
poignancy to their relations.
"Sometimes I think we'll never marry," he said sadly. "You're too
wealthy, too magnificent. No one as rich as you are can be like other
girls. I should marry the daughter of some well-to-do wholesale
hardware man from Omaha or Sioux City, and be content with her
half-million."
"I knew the daughter of a wholesale hardware man once," remarked
Kismine. "I don't think you'd have been contented with her. She was a
friend of my sister's. She visited here."
"Oh, then you've had other guests?" exclaimed John in surprise.
Kismine seemed to regret her words.
"Oh, yes," she said hurriedly, "we've had a few."
"But aren't you--wasn't your father afraid they'd talk outside?"
"Oh, to some extent, to some extent," she answered, "Let's talk about
something pleasanter."
But John's curiosity was aroused.
"Something pleasanter!" he demanded. "What's unpleasant about that?
Weren't they nice girls?"
To his great surprise Kismine began to weep.
"Yes--th--that's the--the whole t-trouble. I grew qu-quite attached to
some of them. So did Jasmine, but she kept inv-viting them anyway. I
couldn't under_stand_ it."
A dark suspicion was born in John's heart.
"Do you mean that they _told_, and your father had
them--removed?"
"Worse than that," she muttered brokenly. "Father took no chances--and
Jasmine kept writing them to come, and they had _such_ a good
time!"
She was overcome by a paroxysm of grief.
Stunned with the horror of this revelation, John sat there
open-mouthed, feeling the nerves of his body twitter like so many
sparrows perched upon his spinal column.
"Now, I've told you, and I shouldn't have," she said, calming suddenly
and drying her dark blue eyes.
"Do you mean to say that your father had them _murdered_ before
they left?"
She nodded.
"In August usually--or early in September. It's only natural for us to
get all the pleasure out of them that we can first."
"How abominable! How--why, I must be going crazy! Did you really admit
that--"
"I did," interrupted Kismine, shrugging her shoulders. "We can't very
well imprison them like those aviators, where they'd be a continual
reproach to us every day. And it's always been made easier for Jasmine
and me, because father had it done sooner than we expected. In that
way we avoided any farewell scene-"
"So you murdered them! Uh!" cried John.
"It was done very nicely. They were drugged while they were
asleep--and their families were always told that they died of scarlet
fever in Butte."
"But--I fail to understand why you kept on inviting them!"
"I didn't," burst out Kismine. "I never invited one. Jasmine did. And
they always had a very good time. She'd give them the nicest presents
toward the last. I shall probably have visitors too--I'll harden up to
it. We can't let such an inevitable thing as death stand in the way of
enjoying life while we have it. Think of how lonesome it'd be out here
if we never had _any_ one. Why, father and mother have sacrificed
some of their best friends just as we have."
"And so," cried John accusingly, "and so you were letting me make love
to you and pretending to return it, and talking about marriage, all
the time knowing perfectly well that I'd never get out of here
alive---"
"No," she protested passionately. "Not any more. I did at first. You
were here. I couldn't help that, and I thought your last days might as
well be pleasant for both of us. But then I fell in love with you,
and--and I'm honestly sorry you're going to--going to be put
away--though I'd rather you'd be put away than ever kiss another
girl."
"Oh, you would, would you?" cried John ferociously.
"Much rather. Besides, I've always heard that a girl can have more fun
with a man whom she knows she can never marry. Oh, why did I tell you?
I've probably spoiled your whole good time now, and we were really
enjoying things when you didn't know it. I knew it would make things
sort of depressing for you."
"Oh, you did, did you?" John's voice trembled with anger. "I've heard
about enough of this. If you haven't any more pride and decency than
to have an affair with a fellow that you know isn't much better than a
corpse, I don't want to have any more to with you!"
"You're not a corpse!" she protested in horror. "You're not a corpse!
I won't have you saying that I kissed a corpse!"
"I said nothing of the sort!"
"You did! You said I kissed a corpse!"
"I didn't!"
Their voices had risen, but upon a sudden interruption they both
subsided into immediate silence. Footsteps were coming along the path
in their direction, and a moment later the rose bushes were parted
displaying Braddock Washington, whose intelligent eyes set in his
good-looking vacuous face were peering in at them.
"Who kissed a corpse?" he demanded in obvious disapproval.
"Nobody," answered Kismine quickly. "We were just joking."
"What are you two doing here, anyhow?" he demanded gruffly. "Kismine,
you ought to be--to be reading or playing golf with your sister. Go
read! Go play golf! Don't let me find you here when I come back!"
Then he bowed at John and went up the path.
"See?" said Kismine crossly, when he was out of hearing. "You've
spoiled it all. We can never meet any more. He won't let me meet you.
He'd have you poisoned if he thought we were in love."
"We're not, any more!" cried John fiercely, "so he can set his mind at
rest upon that. Moreover, don't fool yourself that I'm going to stay
around here. Inside of six hours I'll be over those mountains, if I
have to gnaw a passage through them, and on my way East." They had
both got to their feet, and at this remark Kismine came close and put
her arm through his.
"I'm going, too."
"You must be crazy--"
"Of course I'm going," she interrupted impatiently.
"You most certainly are not. You--"
"Very well," she said quietly, "we'll catch up with father and talk it
over with him."
Defeated, John mustered a sickly smile.
"Very well, dearest," he agreed, with pale and unconvincing affection,
"we'll go together."
His love for her returned and settled placidly on his heart. She was
his--she would go with him to share his dangers. He put his arms about
her and kissed her fervently. After all she loved him; she had saved
him, in fact.
Discussing the matter, they walked slowly back toward the château.
They decided that since Braddock Washington had seen them together
they had best depart the next night. Nevertheless, John's lips were
unusually dry at dinner, and he nervously emptied a great spoonful of
peacock soup into his left lung. He had to be carried into the
turquoise and sable card-room and pounded on the back by one of the
under-butlers, which Percy considered a great joke.
9
Long after midnight John's body gave a nervous jerk, he sat suddenly
upright, staring into the veils of somnolence that draped the room.
Through the squares of blue darkness that were his open windows, he
had heard a faint far-away sound that died upon a bed of wind before
identifying itself on his memory, clouded with uneasy dreams. But the
sharp noise that had succeeded it was nearer, was just outside the
room--the click of a turned knob, a footstep, a whisper, he could not
tell; a hard lump gathered in the pit of his stomach, and his whole
body ached in the moment that he strained agonisingly to hear. Then
one of the veils seemed to dissolve, and he saw a vague figure
standing by the door, a figure only faintly limned and blocked in upon
the darkness, mingled so with the folds of the drapery as to seem
distorted, like a reflection seen in a dirty pane of glass.
With a sudden movement of fright or resolution John pressed the button
by his bedside, and the next moment he was sitting in the green sunken
bath of the adjoining room, waked into alertness by the shock of the
cold water which half filled it.
He sprang out, and, his wet pyjamas scattering a heavy trickle of
water behind him, ran for the aquamarine door which he knew led out on
to the ivory landing of the second floor. The door opened noiselessly.
A single crimson lamp burning in a great dome above lit the
magnificent sweep of the carved stairways with a poignant beauty. For
a moment John hesitated, appalled by the silent splendour massed about
him, seeming to envelop in its gigantic folds and contours the
solitary drenched little figure shivering upon the ivory landing. Then
simultaneously two things happened. The door of his own sitting-room
swung open, precipitating three naked negroes into the hall--and, as
John swayed in wild terror toward the stairway, another door slid back
in the wall on the other side of the corridor, and John saw Braddock
Washington standing in the lighted lift, wearing a fur coat and a pair
of riding boots which reached to his knees and displayed, above, the
glow of his rose-colored pyjamas.
On the instant the three negroes--John had never seen any of them
before, and it flashed through his mind that they must be the
professional executioners paused in their movement toward John, and
turned expectantly to the man in the lift, who burst out with an
imperious command:
"Get in here! All three of you! Quick as hell!"
Then, within the instant, the three negroes darted into the cage, the
oblong of light was blotted out as the lift door slid shut, and John
was again alone in the hall. He slumped weakly down against an ivory
stair.
It was apparent that something portentous had occurred, something
which, for the moment at least, had postponed his own petty disaster.
What was it? Had the negroes risen in revolt? Had the aviators forced
aside the iron bars of the grating? Or had the men of Fish stumbled
blindly through the hills and gazed with bleak, joyless eyes upon the
gaudy valley? John did not know. He heard a faint whir of air as the
lift whizzed up again, and then, a moment later, as it descended. It
was probable that Percy was hurrying to his father's assistance, and
it occurred to John that this was his opportunity to join Kismine and
plan an immediate escape. He waited until the lift had been silent for
several minutes; shivering a little with the night cool that whipped
in through his wet pyjamas, he returned to his room and dressed
himself quickly. Then he mounted a long flight of stairs and turned
down the corridor carpeted with Russian sable which led to Kismine's
suite.
The door of her sitting-room was open and the lamps were lighted.
Kismine, in an angora kimono, stood near the window Of the room in a
listening attitude, and as John entered noiselessly she turned toward
him.
"Oh, it's you!" she whispered, crossing the room to him. "Did you hear
them?"
I heard your father's slaves in my---"
"No," she interrupted excitedly. "Aeroplanes!"
"Aeroplanes? Perhaps that was the sound that woke me."
"There're at least a dozen. I saw one a few moments ago dead against
the moon. The guard back by the cliff fired his rifle and that's what
roused father. We're going to open on them right away."
"Are they here on purpose?"
"Yes--it's that Italian who got away---"
Simultaneously with her last word, a succession of sharp cracks
tumbled in through the open window. Kismine uttered a little cry, took
a penny with fumbling fingers from a box on her dresser, and ran to
one of the electric lights. In an instant the entire chateau was in
darkness--she had blown out the fuse.
"Come on!" she cried to him. "We'll go up to the roof garden, and
watch it from there!"
Drawing a cape about her, she took his hand, and they found their way
out the door. It was only a step to the tower lift, and as she pressed
the button that shot them upward he put his arms around her in the
darkness and kissed her mouth. Romance had come to John Unger at last.
A minute later they had stepped out upon the star-white platform.
Above, under the misty moon, sliding in and out of the patches of
cloud that eddied below it, floated a dozen dark-winged bodies in a
constant circling course. From here and there in the valley flashes of
fire leaped toward them, followed by sharp detonations. Kismine
clapped her hands with pleasure, which, a moment later, turned to
dismay as the aeroplanes, at some prearranged signal, began to release
their bombs and the whole of the valley became a panorama of deep
reverberate sound and lurid light.
Before long the aim of the attackers became concentrated upon the
points where the anti-aircraft guns were situated, and one of them was
almost immediately reduced to a giant cinder to lie smouldering in a
park of rose bushes.
"Kismine," begged John, "you'll be glad when I tell you that this
attack came on the eve of my murder. If I hadn't heard that guard
shoot off his gun back by the pass I should now be stone dead---"
"I can't hear you!" cried Kismine, intent on the scene before her.
"You'll have to talk louder!"
"I simply said," shouted John, "that we'd better get out before they
begin to shell the chateau!"
Suddenly the whole portico of the negro quarters cracked asunder, a
geyser of flame shot up from under the colonnades, and great fragments
of jagged marble were hurled as far as the borders of the lake.
"There go fifty thousand dollars' worth of slaves," cried Kismine, "at
pre-war prices. So few Americans have any respect for property."
John renewed his efforts to compel her to leave. The aim of the
aeroplanes was becoming more precise minute by minute, and only two of
the anti-aircraft guns were still retaliating. It was obvious that the
garrison, encircled with fire, could not hold out much longer.
"Come on!" cried John, pulling Kismine's arm, "we've got to go. Do you
realise that those aviators will kill you without question if they
find you?"
She consented reluctantly.
"We'll have to wake Jasmine!" she said, as they hurried toward the
lift. Then she added in a sort of childish delight: "We'll be poor,
won't we? Like people in books. And I'll be an orphan and utterly
free. Free and poor! What fun!" She stopped and raised her lips to him
in a delighted kiss.
"It's impossible to be both together," said John grimly. "People have
found that out. And I should choose to be free as preferable of the
two. As an extra caution you'd better dump the contents of your jewel
box into your pockets."
Ten minutes later the two girls met John in the dark corridor and they
descended to the main floor of the chateau. Passing for the last time
through the magnificence of the splendid halls, they stood for a
moment out on the terrace, watching the burning negro quarters and the
flaming embers of two planes which had fallen on the other side of the
lake. A solitary gun was still keeping up a sturdy popping, and the
attackers seemed timorous about descending lower, but sent their
thunderous fireworks in a circle around it, until any chance shot
might annihilate its Ethiopian crew.
John and the two sisters passed down the marble steps, turned sharply
to the left, and began to ascend a narrow path that wound like a
garter about the diamond mountain. Kismine knew a heavily wooded spot
half-way up where they could lie concealed and yet be able to observe
the wild night in the valley--finally to make an escape, when it
should be necessary, along a secret path laid in a rocky gully.
10
It was three o'clock when they attained their destination. The
obliging and phlegmatic Jasmine fell off to sleep immediately, leaning
against the trunk of a large tree, while John and Kismine sat, his arm
around her, and watched the desperate ebb and flow of the dying battle
among the ruins of a vista that had been a garden spot that morning.
Shortly after four o'clock the last remaining gun gave out a clanging
sound, and went out of action in a swift tongue of red smoke. Though
the moon was down, they saw that the flying bodies were circling
closer to the earth. When the planes had made certain that the
beleaguered possessed no further resources they would land and the
dark and glittering reign of the Washingtons would be over.
With the cessation of the firing the valley grew quiet. The embers of
the two aeroplanes glowed like the eyes of some monster crouching in
the grass. The château stood dark and silent, beautiful without light
as it had been beautiful in the sun, while the woody rattles of
Nemesis filled the air above with a growing and receding complaint.
Then John perceived that Kismine, like her sister, had fallen sound
asleep.
It was long after four when he became aware of footsteps along the
path they had lately followed, and he waited in breathless silence
until the persons to whom they belonged had passed the vantage-point
he occupied. There was a faint stir in the air now that was not of
human origin, and the dew was cold; be knew that the dawn would break
soon. John waited until the steps had gone a safe distance up the
mountain and were inaudible. Then he followed. About half-way to the
steep summit the trees fell away and a hard saddle of rock spread
itself over the diamond beneath. Just before he reached this point he
slowed down his pace warned by an animal sense that there was life
just ahead of him. Coming to a high boulder, he lifted his head
gradually above its edge. His curiosity was rewarded; this is what he
saw:
Braddock Washington was standing there motionless, silhouetted against
the gray sky without sound or sign of life. As the dawn came up out of
the east, lending a gold green colour to the earth, it brought the
solitary figure into insignificant contrast with the new day,
While John watched, his host remained for a few moments absorbed in
some inscrutable contemplation; then he signalled to the two negroes
who crouched at his feet to lift the burden which lay between them. As
they struggled upright, the first yellow beam of the sun struck
through the innumerable prisms of an immense and exquisitely chiselled
diamond--and a white radiance was kindled that glowed upon the air
like a fragment of the morning star. The bearers staggered beneath its
weight for a moment--then their rippling muscles caught and hardened
under the wet shine of the skins and the three figures were again
motionless in their defiant impotency before the heavens.
After a while the white man lifted his head and slowly raised his arms
in a gesture of attention, as one who would call a great crowd to
hear--but there was no crowd, only the vast silence of the mountain
and the sky, broken by faint bird voices down among the trees. The
figure on the saddle of rock began to speak ponderously and with an
inextinguishable pride.
"You--out there---!" he cried in a trembling voice.
"You--there-----!" He paused, his arms still uplifted, his head held
attentively as though he were expecting an answer. John strained his
eyes to see whether there might be men coming down the mountain, but
the mountain was bare of human life. There was only sky and a mocking
flute of wind along the treetops. Could Washington be praying? For a
moment John wondered. Then the illusion passed--there was something in
the man's whole attitude antithetical to prayer.
"Oh, you above there!"
The voice was become strong and confident. This was no forlorn
supplication. If anything, there was in it a quality of monstrous
condescension.
"You there---" Words, too quickly uttered to be understood, flowing
one into the other .... John listened breathlessly, catching a phrase
here and there, while the voice broke off, resumed, broke off
again--now strong and argumentative, now coloured with a slow, puzzled
impatience, Then a conviction commenced to dawn on the single
listener, and as realisation crept over him a spray of quick blood
rushed through his arteries. Braddock Washington was offering a bribe
to God!
That was it--there was no doubt. The diamond in the arms of his slaves
was some advance sample, a promise of more to follow.
That, John perceived after a time, was the thread running through his
sentences. Prometheus Enriched was calling to witness forgotten
sacrifices, forgotten rituals, prayers obsolete before the birth of
Christ. For a while his discourse took the farm of reminding God of
this gift or that which Divinity had deigned to accept from men--great
churches if he would rescue cities from the plague, gifts of myrrh and
gold, of human lives and beautiful women and captive armies, of
children and queens, of beasts of the forest and field, sheep and
goats, harvests and cities, whole conquered lands that had been
offered up in lust or blood for His appeasal, buying a meed's worth of
alleviation from the Divine wrath--and now he, Braddock Washington,
Emperor of Diamonds, king and priest of the age of gold, arbiter of
splendour and luxury, would offer up a treasure such as princes before
him had never dreamed of, offer it up not in suppliance, but in pride.
He would give to God, he continued, getting down to specifications,
the greatest diamond in the world. This diamond would be cut with many
more thousand facets than there were leaves on a tree, and yet the
whole diamond would be shaped with the perfection of a stone no bigger
than a fly. Many men would work upon it for many years. It would be
set in a great dome of beaten gold, wonderfully carved and equipped
with gates of opal and crusted sapphire. In the middle would be
hollowed out a chapel presided over by an altar of iridescent,
decomposing, ever-changing radium which would burn out the eyes of any
worshipper who lifted up his head from prayer--and on this altar there
would be slain for the amusement of the Divine Benefactor any victim
He should choose, even though it should be the greatest and most
powerful man alive.
In return he asked only a simple thing, a thing that for God would be
absurdly easy--only that matters should be as they were yesterday at
this hour and that they should so remain. So very simple! Let but the
heavens open, swallowing these men and their aeroplanes--and then
close again. Let him have his slaves once more, restored to life and
well.
There was no one else with whom he had ever needed: to treat or
bargain.
He doubted only whether he had made his bribe big enough. God had His
price, of course. God was made in man's image, so it had been said: He
must have His price. And the price would be rare--no cathedral whose
building consumed many years, no pyramid constructed by ten thousand
workmen, would be like this cathedral, this pyramid.
He paused here. That was his proposition. Everything would be up to
specifications, and there was nothing vulgar in his assertion that it
would be cheap at the price. He implied that Providence could take it
or leave it.
As he approached the end his sentences became broken, became short and
uncertain, and his body seemed tense, seemed strained to catch the
slightest pressure or whisper of life in the spaces around him. His
hair had turned gradually white as he talked, and now he lifted his
head high to the heavens like a prophet of old--magnificently mad.
Then, as John stared in giddy fascination, it seemed to him that a
curious phenomenon took place somewhere around him. It was as though
the sky had darkened for an instant, as though there had been a sudden
murmur in a gust of wind, a sound of far-away trumpets, a sighing like
the rustle of a great silken robe--for a time the whole of nature
round about partook of this darkness; the birds' song ceased; the
trees were still, and far over the mountain there was a mutter of
dull, menacing thunder.
That was all. The wind died along the tall grasses of the valley. The
dawn and the day resumed their place in a time, and the risen sun sent
hot waves of yellow mist that made its path bright before it. The
leaves laughed in the sun, and their laughter shook until each bough
was like a girl's school in fairyland. God had refused to accept the
bribe.
For another moment John, watched the triumph of the day. Then,
turning, he saw a flutter of brown down by the lake, then another
flutter, then another, like the dance of golden angels alighting from
the clouds. The aeroplanes had come to earth.
John slid off the boulder and ran down the side of the mountain to the
clump of trees, where the two girls were awake and waiting for him.
Kismine sprang to her feet, the jewels in her pockets jingling, a
question on her parted lips, but instinct told John that there was no
time for words. They must get off the mountain without losing a
moment. He seized a hand of each, and in silence they threaded the
tree-trunks, washed with light now and with the rising mist. Behind
them from the valley came no sound at all, except the complaint of the
peacocks far away and the pleasant of morning.
When they had gone about half a mile, they avoided the park land and
entered a narrow path that led over the next rise of ground. At the
highest point of this they paused and turned around. Their eyes rested
upon the mountainside they had just left--oppressed by some dark sense
of tragic impendency.
Clear against the sky a broken, white-haired man was slowly descending
the steep slope, followed by two gigantic and emotionless negroes, who
carried a burden between them which still flashed and glittered in the
sun. Half-way down two other figures joined them--John could see that
they were Mrs. Washington and her son, upon whose arm she leaned. The
aviators had clambered from their machines to the sweeping lawn in
front of the chateau, and with rifles in hand were starting up the
diamond mountain in skirmishing formation.
But the little group of five which had formed farther up and was
engrossing all the watchers' attention had stopped upon a ledge of
rock. The negroes stooped and pulled up what appeared to be a
trap-door in the side of the mountain. Into this they all disappeared,
the white-haired man first, then his wife and son, finally the two
negroes, the glittering tips of whose jewelled head-dresses caught the
sun for a moment before the trap-door descended and engulfed them all.
Kismine clutched John's arm.
"Oh," she cried wildly, "where are they going? What are they going to
do?"
"It must be some underground way of escape--"
A little scream from the two girls interrupted his sentence.
"Don't you see?" sobbed Kismine hysterically. "The mountain is wired!"
Even as she spoke John put up his hands to shield his sight. Before
their eyes the whole surface of the mountain had changed suddenly to a
dazzling burning yellow, which showed up through the jacket of turf as
light shows through a human hand. For a moment the intolerable glow
continued, and then like an extinguished filament it disappeared,
revealing a black waste from which blue smoke arose slowly, carrying
off with it what remained of vegetation and of human flesh. Of the
aviators there was left neither blood nor bone--they were consumed as
completely as the five souls who had gone inside.
Simultaneously, and with an immense concussion, the château literally
threw itself into the air, bursting into flaming fragments as it rose,
and then tumbling back upon itself in a smoking pile that lay
projecting half into the water of the lake. There was no fire--what
smoke there was drifted off mingling with the sunshine, and for a few
minutes longer a powdery dust of marble drifted from the great
featureless pile that had once been the house of jewels. There was no
more sound and the three people were alone in the valley.
9
At sunset John and his two companions reached the huge cliff which had
marked the boundaries of the Washington's dominion, and looking back
found the valley tranquil and lovely in the dusk. They sat down to
finish the food which Jasmine had brought with her in a basket,
"There!" she said, as she spread the table-cloth and put the
sandwiches in a neat pile upon it. "Don't they look tempting? I always
think that food tastes better outdoors."
"With that remark," remarked Kismine, "Jasmine enters the middle
class."
"Now," said John eagerly, "turn out your pocket and let's see what
jewels you brought along. If you made a good selection we three ought
to live comfortably all the rest of our lives."
Obediently Kismine put her hand in her pocket and tossed two handfuls
of glittering stones before him. "Not so bad," cried John
enthusiastically. "They aren't very big, but-Hallo!" His expression
changed as he held one of them up to the declining sun. "Why, these
aren't diamonds! There's something the matter!
"By golly!" exclaimed Kismine, with a startled look. "What an idiot I
am!"
"Why, these are rhinestones!" cried John.
"I know." She broke into a laugh. "I opened the wrong drawer. They
belonged on the dress of a girl who visited Jasmine. I got her to give
them to me in exchange for diamonds. I'd never seen anything but
precious stones before."
"And this is what you brought?"
"I'm afraid so." She fingered the brilliants wistfully. "I think I
like these better. I'm a little tired of diamonds."
"Very well," said John gloomily. "We'll have to live in Hades. And you
will grow old telling incredulous women that you got the wrong drawer.
Unfortunately, your father's bank-books were consumed with him."
"Well, what's the matter with Hades?"
"If I come home with a wife at my age my father is just as liable as
not to cut me off with a hot coal, as they say down there."
Jasmine spoke up.
"I love washing," she said quietly. "I have always washed my own
handkerchiefs. I'll take in laundry and support you both."
"Do they have washwomen in Hades?" asked Kismine innocently.
"Of course," answered John. "It's just like anywhere else."
"I thought--perhaps it was too hot to wear any clothes."
John laughed.
"Just try it!" he suggested. "They'll run you out before you're half
started."
"Will father be there?" she asked.
John turned to her in astonishment.
"Your father is dead," he replied sombrely. "Why should he go to
Hades? You have it confused with another place that was abolished long
ago."
After supper they folded up the table-cloth and spread their blankets
for the night.
"What a dream it was," Kismine sighed, gazing up at the stars. "How
strange it seems to be here with one dress and a penniless fiancée!
"Under the stars," she repeated. "I never noticed the stars before. I
always thought of them as great big diamonds that belonged to some
one. Now they frighten me. They make me feel that it was all a dream,
all my youth."
"It _was_ a dream," said John quietly. "Everybody's youth is a
dream, a form of chemical madness."
"How pleasant then to be insane!"
"So I'm told," said John gloomily. "I don't know any longer. At any
rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a
form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only
diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of
disillusion. Well, I have that last and I will make the usual nothing
of it." He shivered. "Turn up your coat collar, little girl, the
night's full of chill and you'll get pneumonia. His was a great sin
who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours."
So wrapping himself in his blanket he fell off to sleep.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
I
As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At
present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the
first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anaesthetic air of
a hospital, preferably a fashionable one. So young Mr. and Mrs. Roger
Button were fifty years ahead of style when they decided, one day in
the summer of 1860, that their first baby should be born in a
hospital. Whether this anachronism had any bearing upon the
astonishing history I am about to set down will never be known.
I shall tell you what occurred, and let you judge for yourself.
The Roger Buttons held an enviable position, both social and
financial, in ante-bellum Baltimore. They were related to the This
Family and the That Family, which, as every Southerner knew, entitled
them to membership in that enormous peerage which largely populated
the Confederacy. This was their first experience with the charming old
custom of having babies--Mr. Button was naturally nervous. He hoped it
would be a boy so that he could be sent to Yale College in
Connecticut, at which institution Mr. Button himself had been known
for four years by the somewhat obvious nickname of "Cuff."
On the September morning consecrated to the enormous event he arose
nervously at six o'clock dressed himself, adjusted an impeccable
stock, and hurried forth through the streets of Baltimore to the
hospital, to determine whether the darkness of the night had borne in
new life upon its bosom.
When he was approximately a hundred yards from the Maryland Private
Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen he saw Doctor Keene, the family
physician, descending the front steps, rubbing his hands together with
a washing movement--as all doctors are required to do by the unwritten
ethics of their profession.
Mr. Roger Button, the president of Roger Button & Co., Wholesale
Hardware, began to run toward Doctor Keene with much less dignity than
was expected from a Southern gentleman of that picturesque period.
"Doctor Keene!" he called. "Oh, Doctor Keene!"
The doctor heard him, faced around, and stood waiting, a curious
expression settling on his harsh, medicinal face as Mr. Button drew
near.
"What happened?" demanded Mr. Button, as he came up in a gasping rush.
"What was it? How is she" A boy? Who is it? What---"
"Talk sense!" said Doctor Keene sharply, He appeared somewhat
irritated.
"Is the child born?" begged Mr. Button.
Doctor Keene frowned. "Why, yes, I suppose so--after a fashion." Again
he threw a curious glance at Mr. Button.
"Is my wife all right?"
"Yes."
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Here now!" cried Doctor Keene in a perfect passion of irritation,"
I'll ask you to go and see for yourself. Outrageous!" He snapped the
last word out in almost one syllable, then he turned away muttering:
"Do you imagine a case like this will help my professional reputation?
One more would ruin me--ruin anybody."
"What's the matter?" demanded Mr. Button appalled. "Triplets?"
"No, not triplets!" answered the doctor cuttingly. "What's more, you
can go and see for yourself. And get another doctor. I brought you
into the world, young man, and I've been physician to your family for
forty years, but I'm through with you! I don't want to see you or any
of your relatives ever again! Good-bye!"
Then he turned sharply, and without another word climbed into his
phaeton, which was waiting at the curbstone, and drove severely away.
Mr. Button stood there upon the sidewalk, stupefied and trembling from
head to foot. What horrible mishap had occurred? He had suddenly lost
all desire to go into the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and
Gentlemen--it was with the greatest difficulty that, a moment later,
he forced himself to mount the steps and enter the front door.
A nurse was sitting behind a desk in the opaque gloom of the hall.
Swallowing his shame, Mr. Button approached her.
"Good-morning," she remarked, looking up at him pleasantly.
"Good-morning. I--I am Mr. Button."
At this a look of utter terror spread itself over girl's face. She
rose to her feet and seemed about to fly from the hall, restraining
herself only with the most apparent difficulty.
"I want to see my child," said Mr. Button.
The nurse gave a little scream. "Oh--of course!" she cried
hysterically. "Upstairs. Right upstairs. Go--_up!_"
She pointed the direction, and Mr. Button, bathed in cool
perspiration, turned falteringly, and began to mount to the second
floor. In the upper hall he addressed another nurse who approached
him, basin in hand. "I'm Mr. Button," he managed to articulate. "I
want to see my----"
Clank! The basin clattered to the floor and rolled in the direction of
the stairs. Clank! Clank! I began a methodical decent as if sharing in
the general terror which this gentleman provoked.
"I want to see my child!" Mr. Button almost shrieked. He was on the
verge of collapse.
Clank! The basin reached the first floor. The nurse regained control
of herself, and threw Mr. Button a look of hearty contempt.
"All _right_, Mr. Button," she agreed in a hushed voice. "Very
_well!_ But if you _knew_ what a state it's put us all in this
morning! It's perfectly outrageous! The hospital will never have
a ghost of a reputation after----"
"Hurry!" he cried hoarsely. "I can't stand this!"
"Come this way, then, Mr. Button."
He dragged himself after her. At the end of a long hall they reached a
room from which proceeded a variety of howls--indeed, a room which, in
later parlance, would have been known as the "crying-room." They
entered.
"Well," gasped Mr. Button, "which is mine?"
"There!" said the nurse.
Mr. Button's eyes followed her pointing finger, and this is what he
saw. Wrapped in a voluminous white blanket, and partly crammed into
one of the cribs, there sat an old man apparently about seventy years
of age. His sparse hair was almost white, and from his chin dripped a
long smoke-coloured beard, which waved absurdly back and forth, fanned
by the breeze coming in at the window. He looked up at Mr. Button with
dim, faded eyes in which lurked a puzzled question.
"Am I mad?" thundered Mr. Button, his terror resolving into rage. "Is
this some ghastly hospital joke?
"It doesn't seem like a joke to us," replied the nurse severely. "And
I don't know whether you're mad or not--but that is most certainly
your child."
The cool perspiration redoubled on Mr. Button's forehead. He closed
his eyes, and then, opening them, looked again. There was no
mistake--he was gazing at a man of threescore and ten--a _baby_
of threescore and ten, a baby whose feet hung over the sides of the
crib in which it was reposing.
The old man looked placidly from one to the other for a moment, and
then suddenly spoke in a cracked and ancient voice. "Are you my
father?" he demanded.
Mr. Button and the nurse started violently.
"Because if you are," went on the old man querulously, "I wish you'd
get me out of this place--or, at least, get them to put a comfortable
rocker in here,"
"Where in God's name did you come from? Who are you?" burst out Mr.
Button frantically.
"I can't tell you _exactly_ who I am," replied the querulous
whine, "because I've only been born a few hours--but my last name is
certainly Button."
"You lie! You're an impostor!"
The old man turned wearily to the nurse. "Nice way to welcome a
new-born child," he complained in a weak voice. "Tell him he's wrong,
why don't you?"
"You're wrong. Mr. Button," said the nurse severely. "This is your
child, and you'll have to make the best of it. We're going to ask you
to take him home with you as soon as possible-some time to-day."
"Home?" repeated Mr. Button incredulously.
"Yes, we can't have him here. We really can't, you know?"
"I'm right glad of it," whined the old man. "This is a fine place to
keep a youngster of quiet tastes. With all this yelling and howling, I
haven't been able to get a wink of sleep. I asked for something to
eat"--here his voice rose to a shrill note of protest--"and they
brought me a bottle of milk!"
Mr. Button, sank down upon a chair near his son and concealed his face
in his hands. "My heavens!" he murmured, in an ecstasy of horror.
"What will people say? What must I do?"
"You'll have to take him home," insisted the nurse--"immediately!"
A grotesque picture formed itself with dreadful clarity before the
eyes of the tortured man--a picture of himself walking through the
crowded streets of the city with this appalling apparition stalking by
his side.
"I can't. I can't," he moaned.
People would stop to speak to him, and what was he going to say? He
would have to introduce this--this septuagenarian: "This is my son,
born early this morning." And then the old man would gather his
blanket around him and they would plod on, past the bustling stores,
the slave market--for a dark instant Mr. Button wished passionately
that his son was black--past the luxurious houses of the residential
district, past the home for the aged....
"Come! Pull yourself together," commanded the nurse.
"See here," the old man announced suddenly, "if you think I'm going to
walk home in this blanket, you're entirely mistaken."
"Babies always have blankets."
With a malicious crackle the old man held up a small white swaddling
garment. "Look!" he quavered. "_This_ is what they had ready for
me."
"Babies always wear those," said the nurse primly.
"Well," said the old man, "this baby's not going to wear anything in
about two minutes. This blanket itches. They might at least have given
me a sheet."
"Keep it on! Keep it on!" said Mr. Button hurriedly. He turned to the
nurse. "What'll I do?"
"Go down town and buy your son some clothes."
Mr. Button's son's voice followed him down into the: hall: "And a
cane, father. I want to have a cane."
Mr. Button banged the outer door savagely....
2
"Good-morning," Mr. Button said nervously, to the clerk in the
Chesapeake Dry Goods Company. "I want to buy some clothes for my
child."
"How old is your child, sir?"
"About six hours," answered Mr. Button, without due consideration.
"Babies' supply department in the rear."
"Why, I don't think--I'm not sure that's what I want. It's--he's an
unusually large-size child. Exceptionally--ah large."
"They have the largest child's sizes."
"Where is the boys' department?" inquired Mr. Button, shifting his
ground desperately. He felt that the clerk must surely scent his
shameful secret.
"Right here."
"Well----" He hesitated. The notion of dressing his son in men's
clothes was repugnant to him. If, say, he could only find a very large
boy's suit, he might cut off that long and awful beard, dye the white
hair brown, and thus manage to conceal the worst, and to retain
something of his own self-respect--not to mention his position in
Baltimore society.
But a frantic inspection of the boys' department revealed no suits to
fit the new-born Button. He blamed the store, of course---in such
cases it is the thing to blame the store.
"How old did you say that boy of yours was?" demanded the clerk
curiously.
"He's--sixteen."
"Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you said six _hours_. You'll
find the youths' department in the next aisle."
Mr. Button turned miserably away. Then he stopped, brightened, and
pointed his finger toward a dressed dummy in the window display.
"There!" he exclaimed. "I'll take that suit, out there on the dummy."
The clerk stared. "Why," he protested, "that's not a child's suit. At
least it _is_, but it's for fancy dress. You could wear it
yourself!"
"Wrap it up," insisted his customer nervously. "That's what I want."
The astonished clerk obeyed.
Back at the hospital Mr. Button entered the nursery and almost threw
the package at his son. "Here's your clothes," he snapped out.
The old man untied the package and viewed the contents with a
quizzical eye.
"They look sort of funny to me," he complained, "I don't want to be
made a monkey of--"
"You've made a monkey of me!" retorted Mr. Button fiercely. "Never you
mind how funny you look. Put them on--or I'll--or I'll _spank_
you." He swallowed uneasily at the penultimate word, feeling
nevertheless that it was the proper thing to say.
"All right, father"--this with a grotesque simulation of filial
respect--"you've lived longer; you know best. Just as you say."
As before, the sound of the word "father" caused Mr. Button to start
violently.
"And hurry."
"I'm hurrying, father."
When his son was dressed Mr. Button regarded him with depression. The
costume consisted of dotted socks, pink pants, and a belted blouse
with a wide white collar. Over the latter waved the long whitish
beard, drooping almost to the waist. The effect was not good.
"Wait!"
Mr. Button seized a hospital shears and with three quick snaps
amputated a large section of the beard. But even with this improvement
the ensemble fell far short of perfection. The remaining brush of
scraggly hair, the watery eyes, the ancient teeth, seemed oddly out of
tone with the gaiety of the costume. Mr. Button, however, was
obdurate--he held out his hand. "Come along!" he said sternly.
His son took the hand trustingly. "What are you going to call me,
dad?" he quavered as they walked from the nursery--"just 'baby' for a
while? till you think of a better name?"
Mr. Button grunted. "I don't know," he answered harshly. "I think
we'll call you Methuselah."
3
Even after the new addition to the Button family had had his hair cut
short and then dyed to a sparse unnatural black, had had his face
shaved so dose that it glistened, and had been attired in small-boy
clothes made to order by a flabbergasted tailor, it was impossible for
Button to ignore the fact that his son was a excuse for a first family
baby. Despite his aged stoop, Benjamin Button--for it was by this name
they called him instead of by the appropriate but invidious
Methuselah--was five feet eight inches tall. His clothes did not
conceal this, nor did the clipping and dyeing of his eyebrows disguise
the fact that the eyes under--were faded and watery and tired. In
fact, the baby-nurse who had been engaged in advance left the house
after one look, in a state of considerable indignation.
But Mr. Button persisted in his unwavering purpose. Benjamin was a
baby, and a baby he should remain. At first he declared that if
Benjamin didn't like warm milk he could go without food altogether,
but he was finally prevailed upon to allow his son bread and butter,
and even oatmeal by way of a compromise. One day he brought home a
rattle and, giving it to Benjamin, insisted in no uncertain terms that
he should "play with it," whereupon the old man took it with--a weary
expression and could be heard jingling it obediently at intervals
throughout the day.
There can be no doubt, though, that the rattle bored him, and that he
found other and more soothing amusements when he was left alone. For
instance, Mr. Button discovered one day that during the preceding week
be had smoked more cigars than ever before--a phenomenon, which was
explained a few days later when, entering the nursery unexpectedly, he
found the room full of faint blue haze and Benjamin, with a guilty
expression on his face, trying to conceal the butt of a dark Havana.
This, of course, called for a severe spanking, but Mr. Button found
that he could not bring himself to administer it. He merely warned his
son that he would "stunt his growth."
Nevertheless he persisted in his attitude. He brought home lead
soldiers, he brought toy trains, he brought large pleasant animals
made of cotton, and, to perfect the illusion which he was
creating--for himself at least--he passionately demanded of the clerk
in the toy-store whether "the paint would come oft the pink duck if
the baby put it in his mouth." But, despite all his father's efforts,
Benjamin refused to be interested. He would steal down the back stairs
and return to the nursery with a volume of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, over which he would pore through an afternoon, while his
cotton cows and his Noah's ark were left neglected on the floor.
Against such a stubbornness Mr. Button's efforts were of little avail.
The sensation created in Baltimore was, at first, prodigious. What the
mishap would have cost the Buttons and their kinsfolk socially cannot
be determined, for the outbreak of the Civil War drew the city's
attention to other things. A few people who were unfailingly polite
racked their brains for compliments to give to the parents--and
finally hit upon the ingenious device of declaring that the baby
resembled his grandfather, a fact which, due to the standard state of
decay common to all men of seventy, could not be denied. Mr. and Mrs.
Roger Button were not pleased, and Benjamin's grandfather was
furiously insulted.
Benjamin, once he left the hospital, took life as he found it. Several
small boys were brought to see him, and he spent a stiff-jointed
afternoon trying to work up an interest in tops and marbles--he even
managed, quite accidentally, to break a kitchen window with a stone
from a sling shot, a feat which secretly delighted his father.
Thereafter Benjamin contrived to break something every day, but he did
these things only because they were expected of him, and because he
was by nature obliging.
When his grandfather's initial antagonism wore off, Benjamin and that
gentleman took enormous pleasure in one another's company. They would
sit for hours, these two, so far apart in age and experience, and,
like old cronies, discuss with tireless monotony the slow events of
the day. Benjamin felt more at ease in his grandfather's presence than
in his parents'--they seemed always somewhat in awe of him and,
despite the dictatorial authority they exercised over him, frequently
addressed him as "Mr."
He was as puzzled as any one else at the apparently advanced age of
his mind and body at birth. He read up on it in the medical journal,
but found that no such case had been previously recorded. At his
father's urging he made an honest attempt to play with other boys, and
frequently he joined in the milder games--football shook him up too
much, and he feared that in case of a fracture his ancient bones would
refuse to knit.
When he was five he was sent to kindergarten, where he initiated into
the art of pasting green paper on orange paper, of weaving coloured
maps and manufacturing eternal cardboard necklaces. He was inclined to
drowse off to sleep in the middle of these tasks, a habit which both
irritated and frightened his young teacher. To his relief she
complained to his parents, and he was removed from the school. The
Roger Buttons told their friends that they felt he was too young.
By the time he was twelve years old his parents had grown used to him.
Indeed, so strong is the force of custom that they no longer felt that
he was different from any other child--except when some curious
anomaly reminded them of the fact. But one day a few weeks after his
twelfth birthday, while looking in the mirror, Benjamin made, or
thought he made, an astonishing discovery. Did his eyes deceive him,
or had his hair turned in the dozen years of his life from white to
iron-gray under its concealing dye? Was the network of wrinkles on his
face becoming less pronounced? Was his skin healthier and firmer, with
even a touch of ruddy winter colour? He could not tell. He knew that
he no longer stooped, and that his physical condition had improved
since the early days of his life.
"Can it be----?" he thought to himself, or, rather, scarcely dared to
think.
He went to his father. "I am grown," he announced determinedly. "I
want to put on long trousers."
His father hesitated. "Well," he said finally, "I don't know. Fourteen
is the age for putting on long trousers--and you are only twelve."
"But you'll have to admit," protested Benjamin, "that I'm big for my
age."
His father looked at him with illusory speculation. "Oh, I'm not so
sure of that," he said. "I was as big as you when I was twelve."
This was not true-it was all part of Roger Button's silent agreement
with himself to believe in his son's normality.
Finally a compromise was reached. Benjamin was to continue to dye his
hair. He was to make a better attempt to play with boys of his own
age. He was not to wear his spectacles or carry a cane in the street.
In return for these concessions he was allowed his first suit of long
trousers....
4
Of the life of Benjamin Button between his twelfth and twenty-first
year I intend to say little. Suffice to record that they were years of
normal ungrowth. When Benjamin was eighteen he was erect as a man of
fifty; he had more hair and it was of a dark gray; his step was firm,
his voice had lost its cracked quaver and descended to a healthy
baritone. So his father sent him up to Connecticut to take
examinations for entrance to Yale College. Benjamin passed his
examination and became a member of the freshman class.
On the third day following his matriculation he received a
notification from Mr. Hart, the college registrar, to call at his
office and arrange his schedule. Benjamin, glancing in the mirror,
decided that his hair needed a new application of its brown dye, but
an anxious inspection of his bureau drawer disclosed that the dye
bottle was not there. Then he remembered--he had emptied it the day
before and thrown it away.
He was in a dilemma. He was due at the registrar's in five minutes.
There seemed to be no help for it--he must go as he was. He did.
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