 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
V
Peter Himmel, escort to the lovely Edith, was unaccustomed
to being snubbed; having been snubbed, he
was hurt and embarrassed, and ashamed of himself. For
a matter of two months he had been on special delivery
terms with Edith Bradin, and knowing that the
one excuse and explanation of the special delivery letter
is its value in sentimental correspondence, he had believed
himself quite sure of his ground. He searched
in vain for any reason why she should have taken this
attitude in the matter of a simple kiss.
Therefore when he was cut in on by the man with the
mustache he went out into the hall and, making up a
sentence, said it over to himself several times. Considerably
deleted, this was it:
"Well, if any girl ever led a man on and then jolted
him, she did—and she has no kick coming if I go out and
get beautifully boiled."
So he walked through the supper room into a small
room adjoining it, which he had located earlier in the
large bowls of punch flanked by many bottles. He
took a seat beside the table which held the bottles.
At the second highball, boredom, disgust, the monotony
of time, the turbidity of events, sank into a vague
background before which glittering cobwebs formed.
Things became reconciled to themselves, things lay
quietly on their shelves; the troubles of the day arranged
themselves in trim formation and at his curt
wish of dismissal, marched off and disappeared. And
with the departure of worry came brilliant, permeating
symbolism. Edith became a flighty, negligible girl,
not to be worried over; rather to be laughed at. She
fitted like a figure of his own dream into the surface
world forming about him. He himself became in a
measure symbolic, a type of the continent bacchanal,
the brilliant dreamer at play.
Then the symbolic mood faded and as he sipped his
third highball his imagination yielded to the warm glow
and he lapsed into a state similar to floating on his
back in pleasant water. It was at this point that he
noticed that a green baize door near him was open
about two inches, and that through the aperture a pair
of eyes were watching him intently.
"Hm," murmured Peter calmly.
The green door closed—and then opened again—a
bare half inch this time.
"Peek-a-boo," murmured Peter.
The door remained stationary and then he became
aware of a series of tense intermittent whispers.
"One guy."
"What's he doin'?"
"He's sittin' lookin'."
"He better beat it off. We gotta get another li'l'
bottle."
Peter listened while the words filtered into his consciousness.
"Now this," he thought, "is most remarkable."
He was excited. He was jubilant. He felt that he
had stumbled upon a mystery. Affecting an elaborate
carelessness he arose and walked around the table—
then, turning quickly, pulled open the green door, precipitating
Private Rose into the room.
Peter bowed.
"How do you do?" he said.
Private Rose set one foot slightly in front of the other,
poised for fight, flight, or compromise.
"How do you do?" repeated Peter politely.
"I'm o'right."
"Can I offer you a drink?"
Private Rose looked at him searchingly, suspecting
possible sarcasm.
"O'right," he said finally.
Peter indicated a chair.
"Sit down."
"I got a friend," said Rose, "I got a friend in there."
He pointed to the green door.
"By all means let's have him in."
Peter crossed over, opened the door and welcomed in
Private Key, very suspicious and uncertain and guilty.
Chairs were found and the three took their seats around
the punch bowl. Peter gave them each a highball and
offered them a cigarette from his case. They accepted
both with some diffidence.
"Now," continued Peter easily, "may I ask why you
gentlemen prefer to lounge away your leisure hours in a
room which is chiefly furnished, as far as I can see, with
scrubbing brushes. And when the human race has progressed
to the stage where seventeen thousand chairs
are manufactured on every day except Sunday—" he
you tell me," went on Peter, "why you choose to rest
yourselves on articles intended for the transportation
of water from one place to another?"
At this point Rose contributed a grunt to the conversation.
"And lastly," finished Peter, "will you tell me why,
when you are in a building beautifully hung with enormous
candelabra, you prefer to spend these evening
hours under one anemic electric light?"
Rose looked at Key; Key looked at Rose. They
laughed; they laughed uproariously; they found it was
impossible to look at each other without laughing.
But they were not laughing with this man—they were
laughing at him. To them a man who talked after this
fashion was either raving drunk or raving crazy.
"You are Yale men, I presume," said Peter, finishing
his highball and preparing another.
They laughed again.
"Na-ah."
"So? I thought perhaps you might be members of
that lowly section of the university known as the Sheffield
Scientific School."
"Na-ah."
"Hm. Well, that's too bad. No doubt you are
Harvard men, anxious to preserve your incognito in
this—this paradise of violet blue, as the newspapers
say,"
"Na-ah," said Key scornfully, "we was just waitin'
for somebody."
"Ah," exclaimed Peter, rising and filling their glasses,
"very interestin'. Had a date with a scrublady, eh?"
They both denied this indignantly.
"It's all right," Peter reassured them, "don't apologize.
A scrublady's as good as any lady in the world.
skin.' "
"Sure," said Key, winking broadly at Rose.
"My case, for instance," continued Peter, finishing
his glass. "I got a girl up here that's spoiled. Spoildest
darn girl I ever saw. Refused to kiss me; no reason
whatsoever. Led me on deliberately to think sure I
want to kiss you and then plunk! Threw me over!
What's the younger generation comin' to?"
"Say tha's hard luck," said Key—"that's awful hard
luck."
"Oh, boy!" said Rose.
"Have another?" said Peter.
"We got in a sort of fight for a while," said Key after
a pause, "but it was too far away."
"A fight?—tha's stuff!" said Peter, seating himself
unsteadily. "Fight 'em all! I was in the army."
"This was with a Bolshevik fella."
"Tha's stuff!" exclaimed Peter, enthusiastic.
"That's what I say! Kill the Bolshevik! Exterminate
'em!"
"We're Americuns," said Rose, implying a sturdy,
defiant patriotism.
"Sure," said Peter. "Greatest race in the world!
We're all Americuns! Have another."
They had another.
| Tales of the jazz age | |