Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy 7 – Leacock · Verses Across
Literature · Humor
Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy 7Chapter 4 (part 3)
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Literature · Humor
Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy 7
Chapter 4 (part 3)
LeacockEnglish
"While the play was at its height a servant appeared with a telegram on a silver tray. He handed it to Count Cavour. The Count paused in his play, opened the telegram, read it and then with the most inconceivable nonchalance, put it in his pocket. We stared at him in amazement for a moment, and then the Duc, with the infinite ease of a trained diplomat, quietly resumed his play.
"Two days afterward, meeting Count Cavour at a reception of the Empress Eugenie, I was able, unobserved, to whisper in his ear, 'What was in the telegram?' 'Nothing of any consequence,' he answered. From that day to this I have never known what it contained. My readers," concludes Baron Snorch, "may believe this or not as they like, but I give them my word that it is true.
"Probably they will not believe it."
I cannot resist appending to these anecdotes a charming little story from that well-known book, "Sorrows of a Queen". The writer, Lady de Weary, was an English gentlewoman who was for many years Mistress of the Robes at one of the best known German courts. Her affection for her royal mistress is evident on every page of her memoirs.
TENDERNESS OF A QUEEN
Lady de W. writes:
"My dear mistress, the late Queen of Saxe-Covia-Slitz- in-Mein, was of a most tender and sympathetic disposition. The goodness of her heart broke forth on all occasions. I well remember how one day, on seeing a cabman in the Poodel Platz kicking his horse in the stomach, she stopped in her walk and said, 'Oh, poor horse! if he goes on kicking it like that he'll hurt it.'"
I may say in conclusion that I think if people would only take a little more pains to resuscitate anecdotes of this sort, there might be a lot more of them found.
VI.--Education Made Agreeable or the Diversions of a
Professor
A few days ago during a pause in one of my college lectures (my class being asleep) I sat reading Draper's "Intellectual Development of Europe". Quite suddenly I came upon the following sentence:
"Eratosthenes cast everything he wished to teach into poetry. By this means he made it attractive, and he was able to spread his system all over Asia Minor."
This came to me with a shock of an intellectual discovery. I saw at once how I could spread my system, or parts of it, all over the United States and Canada. To make education attractive! There it is! To call in the help of poetry, of music, of grand opera, if need be, to aid in the teaching of the dry subjects of the college class room.
I set to work at once on the project and already I have enough results to revolutionize education.
In the first place I have compounded a blend of modern poetry and mathematics, which retains all the romance of the latter and loses none of the dry accuracy of the former. Here is an example:
The poem of
LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER
expressed as
A PROBLEM IN TRIGONOMETRY
INTRODUCTION. A party of three persons, a Scotch nobleman, a young lady and an elderly boatman stand on the banks of a river (R), which, for private reasons, they desire to cross. Their only means of transport is a boat, of which the boatman, if squared, is able to row at a rate proportional to the square of the distance. The boat, however, has a leak (S), through which a quantity of water passes sufficient to sink it after traversing an indeterminate distance (D). Given the square of the boatman and the mean situation of all concerned, to find whether the boat will pass the river safely or sink.
A chieftain to the Highlands bound
Cried "Boatman do not tarry!
And I'll give you a silver pound
To row me o'er the ferry."
Before them raged the angry tide
X**2 + Y from side to side.
Outspake the hardy Highland wight,
"I'll go, my chief, I'm ready;
It is not for your silver bright,
But for your winsome lady."
And yet he seemed to manifest
A certain hesitation;
His head was sunk upon his breast
In puzzled calculation.
"Suppose the river X + Y
And call the distance Q
Then dare we thus the gods defy
I think we dare, don't you?
Our floating power expressed in words
Is X + 47/3"
"Oh, haste thee, haste," the lady cries,
"Though tempests round us gather
I'll face the raging of the skies
But please cut out the Algebra."
The boat has left the stormy shore (S)
A stormy C before her
C1 C2 C3 C4
The tempest gathers o'er her
The thunder rolls, the lightning smites 'em
And the rain falls ad infinitum.
In vain the aged boatman strains,
His heaving sides reveal his pains;
The angry water gains apace
Both of his sides and half his base,
Till, as he sits, he seems to lose
The square of his hypotenuse.
The boat advanced to X + 2,
Lord Ullin reached the fixed point Q,--
Then the boat sank from human eye,
OY, OY**2, OGY.
But this is only a sample of what can be done. I have realised that all our technical books are written and presented in too dry a fashion. They don't make the most of themselves. Very often the situation implied is intensely sensational, and if set out after the fashion of an up-to-date newspaper, would be wonderfully effective.
Here, for example, you have Euclid writing in a perfectly prosaic way all in small type such an item as the following:
"A perpendicular is let fall on a line BC so as to bisect it at the point C etc., etc.," just as if it were the most ordinary occurrence in the world. Every newspaper man will see at once that it ought to be set up thus:
AWFUL CATASTROPHE
PERPENDICULAR FALLS HEADLONG
ON A GIVEN POINT
The Line at C said to be completely bisected President of the Line makes Statement etc., etc., etc.
But I am not contenting myself with merely describing my system. I am putting it to the test. I am preparing a new and very special edition of my friend Professor Daniel Murray's work on the Calculus. This is a book little known to the general public. I suppose one may say without exaggeration that outside of the class room it is hardly read at all.
Yet I venture to say that when my new edition is out it will be found on the tables of every cultivated home, and will be among the best sellers of the year. All that is needed is to give to this really monumental book the same chance that is given to every other work of fiction in the modern market.
First of all I wrap it in what is called technically a jacket. This is of white enamelled paper, and on it is a picture of a girl, a very pretty girl, in a summer dress and sunbonnet sitting swinging on a bough of a cherry tree. Across the cover in big black letters are the words:
THE CALCULUS
and beneath them the legend "the most daring book of the day." This, you will observe, is perfectly true. The reviewers of the mathematical journals when this book first came out agreed that "Professor Murray's views on the Calculus were the most daring yet published." They said, too, that they hoped that the professor's unsound theories of infinitesimal rectitude would not remain unchallenged. Yet the public somehow missed it all, and one of the most profitable scandals in the publishing trade was missed for the lack of a little business enterprise.
My new edition will give this book its first real chance.
I admit that the inside has to be altered,--but not very much. The real basis of interest is there. The theories in the book are just as interesting as those raised in the modern novel. All that is needed is to adopt the device, familiar in novels, of clothing the theories in personal form and putting the propositions advanced into the mouths of the characters, instead of leaving them as unsupported statements of the author. Take for example Dr. Murray's beginning. It is very good,--any one will admit it,--fascinatingly clever, but it lacks heart.
It runs:
If two magnitudes, one of which is determined by a straight line and the other by a parabola approach one another, the rectangle included by the revolution of each will be equal to the sum of a series of indeterminate rectangles.
Now this is,--quite frankly,--dull. The situation is there; the idea is good, and, whether one agrees or not, is at least as brilliantly original as even the best of our recent novels. But I find it necessary to alter the presentation of the plot a little bit. As I re-edit it the opening of the Calculus runs thus:
On a bright morning in June along a path gay with the opening efflorescence of the hibiscus and entangled here and there with the wild blossoms of the convolvulus,--two magnitudes might have been seen approaching one another. The one magnitude who held a tennis-racket in his hand, carried himself with a beautiful erectness and moved with a firmness such as would have led Professor Murray to exclaim in despair--Let it be granted that A. B. (for such was our hero's name) is a straight line. The other magnitude, which drew near with a step at once elusive and fascinating, revealed as she walked a figure so exquisite in its every curve as to call from her geometrical acquaintances the ecstatic exclamation, "Let it be granted that M is a parabola."
The beautiful magnitude of whom we have last spoken, bore on her arm as she walked, a tiny dog over which her fair head was bent in endearing caresses; indeed such was her attention to the dog Vi (his full name was Velocity but he was called Vi for short) that her wayward footsteps carried her not in a straight line but in a direction so constantly changing as to lead that acute observer, Professor Murray, to the conclusion that her path could only be described by the amount of attraction ascribable to Vi.
Guided thus along their respective paths, the two magnitudes presently met with such suddenness that they almost intersected.
"I beg your pardon," said the first magnitude very rigidly.
"You ought to indeed," said the second rather sulkily,
"you've knocked Vi right out of my arms."
She looked round despairingly for the little dog which seemed to have disappeared in the long grass.
"Won't you please pick him up?" she pleaded.
"Not exactly in my line, you know," answered the other magnitude, "but I tell you what I'll do, if you'll stand still, perfectly still where you are, and let me take hold of your hand, I'll describe a circle!"
"Oh, aren't you clever!" cried the girl, clapping her hands. "What a lovely idea! You describe a circle all around me, and then we'll look at every weeny bit of it and we'll be sure to find Vi--"
She reached out her hand to the other magnitude who clasped it with an assumed intensity sufficient to retain it.
At this moment a third magnitude broke on the scene:--a huge oblong, angular figure, very difficult to describe, came revolving towards them.
"M," it shouted, "Emily, what are you doing?"
"My goodness," said the second magnitude in alarm, "it's
MAMA."
I may say that the second instalment of Dr. Murray's fascinating romance will appear in the next number of the "Illuminated Bookworm", the great adult-juvenile vehicle of the newer thought in which these theories of education are expounded further.
VII.--An Every-Day Experience
He came across to me in the semi-silence room of the club.
"I had a rather queer hand at bridge last night," he said.
"Had you?" I answered, and picked up a newspaper.
"Yes. It would have interested you, I think," he went on.
"Would it?" I said, and moved to another chair.
"It was like this," he continued, following me: "I held the king of hearts--"
"Half a minute," I said; "I want to go and see what time it is." I went out and looked at the clock in the hall. I came back.
"And the queen and the ten--" he was saying.
"Excuse me just a second; I want to ring for a messenger."
I did so. The waiter came and went.
"And the nine and two small ones," he went on.
"Two small what?" I asked.
"Two small hearts," he said. "I don't remember which. Anyway, I remember very well indeed that I had the king and the queen and the jack, the nine, and two little ones."
"Half a second," I said, "I want to mail a letter."
When I came back to him, he was still murmuring:
"My partner held the ace of clubs and the queen. The jack was out, but I didn't know where the king was--"
"You didn't?" I said in contempt.
"No," he repeated in surprise, and went on murmuring:
"Diamonds had gone round once, and spades twice, and so
I suspected that my partner was leading from weakness--"
"I can well believe it," I said--"sheer weakness."
"Well," he said, "on the sixth round the lead came to me. Now, what should I have done? Finessed for the ace, or led straight into my opponent--"
"You want my advice," I said, "and you shall have it, openly and fairly. In such a case as you describe, where a man has led out at me repeatedly and with provocation, as I gather from what you say, though I myself do not play bridge, I should lead my whole hand at him. I repeat, I do not play bridge. But in the circumstances, I should think it the only thing to do."
VIII--Truthful Oratory, or What Our Speakers
Ought to Say
I
TRUTHFUL SPEECH GIVING THE
REAL THOUGHTS OF A DISTINGUISHED
GUEST AT THE FIFTIETH
ANNIVERSARY BANQUET
OF A SOCIETY
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: If there is one thing I abominate more than another, it is turning out on a cold night like this to eat a huge dinner of twelve courses and know that I have to make a speech on top of it. Gentlemen, I just feel stuffed. That's the plain truth of it. By the time we had finished that fish, I could have gone home satisfied. Honestly I could. That's as much as I usually eat. And by the time I had finished the rest of the food, I felt simply waterlogged, and I do still. More than that. The knowledge that I had to make a speech congratulating this society of yours on its fiftieth anniversary haunted and racked me all through the meal. I am not, in plain truth, the ready and brilliant speaker you take me for. That is a pure myth. If you could see the desperate home scene that goes on in my family when I am working up a speech, your minds would be at rest on that point.
I'll go further and be very frank with you. How this society has lived for fifty years, I don't know. If all your dinners are like this, Heaven help you. I've only the vaguest idea of what this society is, anyway, and what it does. I tried to get a constitution this afternoon but failed. I am sure from some of the faces that I recognise around this table that there must be good business reasons of some sort for belonging to this society. There's money in it,--mark my words,--for some of you or you wouldn't be here. Of course I quite understand that the President and the officials seated here beside me come merely for the self-importance of it. That, gentlemen, is about their size. I realized that from their talk during the banquet. I don't want to speak bitterly, but the truth is they are SMALL men and it flatters them to sit here with two or three blue ribbons pinned on their coats. But as for me, I'm done with it. It will be fifty years, please heaven, before this event comes round again. I hope, I earnestly hope, that I shall be safely under the ground.
II
THE SPEECH THAT OUGHT TO BE
MADE BY A STATE GOVERNOR
AFTER VISITING THE FALL
EXPOSITION OF AN AGRICULTURAL
SOCIETY
Well, gentlemen, this Annual Fall Fair of the Skedink County Agricultural Association has come round again. I don't mind telling you straight out that of all the disagreeable jobs that fall to me as Governor of this State, my visit to your Fall Fair is about the toughest.
I want to tell you, gentlemen, right here and now, that I don't know anything about agriculture and I don't want to. My parents were rich enough to bring me up in the city in a rational way. I didn't have to do chores in order to go to the high school as some of those present have boasted that they did. My only wonder is that they ever got there at all. They show no traces of it.
This afternoon, gentlemen, you took me all round your live-stock exhibit. I walked past, and through, nearly a quarter of a mile of hogs. What was it that they were called--Tamworths--Berkshires? I don't remember. But all I can say, gentlemen, is,--phew! Just that. Some of you will understand readily enough. That word sums up my whole idea of your agricultural show and I'm done with it.
No, let me correct myself. There was just one feature of your agricultural exposition that met my warm approval. You were good enough to take me through the section of your exposition called your Midway Pleasance. Let me tell you, sirs, that there was more real merit in that than all the rest of the show put together. You apologized, if I remember rightly, for taking me into the large tent of the Syrian Dancing Girls. Oh, believe me, gentlemen, you needn't have. Syria is a country which commands my profoundest admiration. Some day I mean to spend a vacation there. And, believe me, gentlemen, when I do go,--and I say this with all the emphasis of which I am capable,--I should not wish to be accompanied by such a set of flatheads as the officials of your Agricultural Society.
And now, gentlemen, as I have just received a fake telegram, by arrangement, calling me back to the capital of the State, I must leave this banquet at once. One word in conclusion: if I had known as fully as I do now how it feels to drink half a bucket of sweet cider, I should certainly never have come.
III
TRUTHFUL SPEECH OF A DISTRICT
POLITICIAN TO A LADIES' SUFFRAGE
SOCIETY
Ladies: My own earnest, heartfelt conviction is that you are a pack of cats. I use the word "cats" advisedly, and I mean every letter of it. I want to go on record before this gathering as being strongly and unalterably opposed to Woman Suffrage until you get it. After that I favour it. My reasons for opposing the suffrage are of a kind that you couldn't understand. But all men,--except the few that I see at this meeting,--understand them by instinct.
As you may, however, succeed as a result of the fuss that you are making,--in getting votes, I have thought it best to come. Also,--I am free to confess,--I wanted to see what you looked like.
On this last head I am disappointed. Personally I like women a good deal fatter than most of you are, and better looking. As I look around this gathering I see one or two of you that are not so bad, but on the whole not many. But my own strong personal predilection is and remains in favour of a woman who can cook, mend clothes, talk when I want her to, and give me the kind of admiration to which I am accustomed.
Let me, however, say in conclusion that I am altogether in sympathy with your movement to this extent. If you ever DO get votes,--and the indications are that you will (blast you),--I want your votes, and I want all of them.
IX.-Our Literary Bureau
NOVELS READ TO ORDER
FIRST AID FOR THE
BUSY MILLIONAIRE
NO BRAINS NEEDED
NO TASTE REQUIRED
NOTHING BUT MONEY
SEND IT TO US
We have lately been struck,--of course not dangerously,--by a new idea. A recent number of a well-known magazine contains an account of an American multimillionaire who, on account of the pressure of his brain power and the rush of his business, found it impossible to read the fiction of the day for himself. He therefore caused his secretaries to look through any new and likely novel and make a rapid report on its contents, indicating for his personal perusal the specially interesting parts.
Realizing the possibilities coiled up in this plan, we have opened a special agency or bureau for doing work of this sort. Any over-busy multimillionaire, or superman, who becomes our client may send us novels, essays, or books of any kind, and will receive a report explaining the plot and pointing out such parts as he may with propriety read. If he can once find time to send us a postcard, or a postal cablegram, night or day, we undertake to assume all the further effort of reading. Our terms for ordinary fiction are one dollar per chapter; for works of travel, 10 cents per mile; and for political or other essays, two cents per page, or ten dollars per idea, and for theological and controversial work, seven dollars and fifty cents per cubic yard extracted. Our clients are assured of prompt and immediate attention.
Through the kindness of the Editor of the Century we are enabled to insert here a sample of our work. It was done to the order of a gentleman of means engaged in silver mining in Colorado, who wrote us that he was anxious to get "a holt" on modern fiction, but that he had no time actually to read it. On our assuring him that this was now unnecessary, he caused to be sent to us the monthly parts of a serial story, on which we duly reported as follows:
JANUARY INSTALMENT
Theodolite Gulch,
The Dip, Canon County,
Colorado.
Dear Sir:
We beg to inform you that the scene of the opening chapter of the Fortunes of Barbara Plynlimmon is laid in Wales. The scene is laid, however, very carelessly and hurriedly and we expect that it will shortly be removed. We cannot, therefore, recommend it to your perusal. As there is a very fine passage describing the Cambrian Hills by moonlight, we enclose herewith a condensed table showing the mean altitude of the moon for the month of December in the latitude of Wales. The character of Miss Plynlimmon we find to be developed in conversation with her grandmother, which we think you had better not read. Nor are we prepared to endorse your reading the speeches of the Welsh peasantry which we find in this chapter, but we forward herewith in place of them a short glossary of Welsh synonyms which may aid you in this connection.
FEBRUARY INSTALMENT
Dear Sir:
We regret to state that we find nothing in the second chapter of the Fortunes of Barbara Plynlimmon which need be reported to you at length. We think it well, however, to apprise you of the arrival of a young Oxford student in the neighbourhood of Miss Plynlimmon's cottage, who is apparently a young man of means and refinement. We enclose a list of the principal Oxford Colleges.
We may state that from the conversation and manner of this young gentleman there is no ground for any apprehension on your part. But if need arises we will report by cable to you instantly.
The young gentleman in question meets Miss Plynlimmon at sunrise on the slopes of Snowdon. As the description of the meeting is very fine we send you a recent photograph of the sun.
MARCH INSTALMENT
Dear Sir:
Our surmise was right. The scene of the story that we are digesting for you is changed. Miss Plynlimmon has gone to London. You will be gratified to learn that she has fallen heir to a fortune of 100,000 pounds, which we are happy to compute for you at $486,666 and 66 cents less exchange. On Miss Plynlimmon's arrival at Charing Cross Station, she is overwhelmed with that strange feeling of isolation felt in the surging crowds of a modern city. We therefore enclose a timetable showing the arrival and departure of all trains at Charing Cross.
APRIL INSTALMENT
Dear Sir:
We beg to bring to your notice the fact that Miss Barbara Plynlimmon has by an arrangement made through her trustees become the inmate, on a pecuniary footing, in the household of a family of title. We are happy to inform you that her first appearance at dinner in evening dress was most gratifying: we can safely recommend you to read in this connection lines 4 and 5 and the first half of line 6 on page 1OO of the book as enclosed. We regret to say that the Marquis of Slush and his eldest son Viscount Fitzbuse (courtesy title) are both addicted to drink. They have been drinking throughout the chapter. We are pleased to state that apparently the second son, Lord Radnor of Slush, who is away from home is not so addicted. We send you under separate cover a bottle of Radnor water.
MAY INSTALMENT
Dear Sir:
We regret to state that the affairs of Miss Barbara Plynlimmon are in a very unsatisfactory position. We enclose three pages of the novel with the urgent request that you will read them at once. The old Marquis of Slush has made approaches towards Miss Plynlimmon of such a scandalous nature that we think it best to ask you to read them in full. You will note also that young Viscount Slush who is tipsy through whole of pages 121-125, 128-133, and part of page 140, has designs upon her fortune. We are sorry to see also that the Marchioness of Buse under the guise of friendship has insured Miss Plynlimmon's life and means to do away with her. The sister of the Marchioness, the Lady Dowager, also wishes to do away with her. The second housemaid who is tempted by her jewellery is also planning to do away with her. We feel that if this goes on she will be done away with.
JUNE INSTALMENT
Dear Sir:
We beg to advise you that Viscount Fitz-buse, inflamed by the beauty and innocence of Miss Plynlimmon, has gone so far as to lay his finger on her (read page 170, lines 6-7). She resisted his approaches. At the height of the struggle a young man, attired in the costume of a Welsh tourist, but wearing the stamp of an Oxford student, and yet carrying himself with the unmistakable hauteur (we knew it at once) of an aristocrat, burst, or bust, into the room. With one blow he felled Fitz-buse to the floor; with another he clasped the girl to his heart.
"Barbara!" he exclaimed.
"Radnor," she murmured.
You will be pleased to learn that this is the second son of the Marquis, Viscount Radnor, just returned from a reading tour in Wales.
P. S. We do not know what he read, so we enclose a file of Welsh newspapers to date.
JULY INSTALMENT
We regret to inform you that the Marquis of Slush has
disinherited his son. We grieve to state that Viscount
Radnor has sworn that he will never ask for Miss
Plynlimmon's hand till he has a fortune equal to her own.
Meantime, we are sorry to say, he proposes to work.
AUGUST INSTALMENT
The Viscount is seeking employment.
SEPTEMBER INSTALMENT
The Viscount is looking for work.
OCTOBER INSTALMENT
The Viscount is hunting for a job.
NOVEMBER INSTALMENT
We are most happy to inform you that Miss Plynlimmon has saved the situation. Determined to be worthy of the generous love of Viscount Radnor, she has arranged to convey her entire fortune to the old family lawyer who acts as her trustee. She will thus become as poor as the Viscount and they can marry. The scene with the old lawyer who breaks into tears on receiving the fortune, swearing to hold and cherish it as his own is very touching. Meantime, as the Viscount is hunting for a job, we enclose a list of advertisements under the heading Help Wanted--Males.
DECEMBER INSTALMENT
You will be very gratified to learn that the fortunes of Miss Barbara Plynlimmon have come to a most pleasing termination. Her marriage with the Viscount Radnor was celebrated very quietly on page 231. (We enclose a list of the principal churches in London.) No one was present except the old family lawyer, who was moved to tears at the sight of the bright, trusting bride, and the clergyman who wept at the sight of the cheque given him by the Viscount. After the ceremony the old trustee took Lord and Lady Radnor to a small wedding breakfast at an hotel (we enclose a list). During the breakfast a sudden faintness (for which we had been watching for ten pages) overcame him. He sank back in his chair, gasping. Lord and Lady Radnor rushed to him and sought in vain to tighten his necktie. He expired under their care, having just time to indicate in his pocket a will leaving them his entire wealth.
This had hardly happened when a messenger brought news to the Viscount that his brother, Lord Fitz-buse had been killed in the hunting field, and that he (meaning him, himself) had now succeeded to the title. Lord and Lady Fitz-buse had hardly time to reach the town house of the family when they learned that owing to the sudden death of the old Marquis (also, we believe, in the hunting field), they had become the Marquis and the Marchioness of Slush.
The Marquis and the Marchioness of Slush are still living in their ancestral home in London. Their lives are an example to all their tenantry in Piccadilly, the Strand and elsewhere.
CONCLUDING NOTE
Dear Mr. Gulch:
We beg to acknowledge with many thanks your cheque for one thousand dollars.
We regret to learn that you have not been able to find time to read our digest of the serial story placed with us at your order. But we note with pleasure that you propose to have the "essential points" of our digest "boiled down" by one of the business experts of your office.
Awaiting your commands,
We remain, etc., etc.
X.--Speeding Up Business
We were sitting at our editorial desk in our inner room, quietly writing up our week's poetry, when a stranger looked in upon us.
He came in with a burst,--like the entry of the hero of western drama coming in out of a snowstorm. His manner was all excitement. "Sit down," we said, in our grave, courteous way. "Sit down!" he exclaimed, "certainly not! Are you aware of the amount of time and energy that are being wasted in American business by the practice of perpetually sitting down and standing up again? Do you realize that every time you sit down and stand up you make a dead lift of"--he looked at us,--"two hundred and fifty pounds? Did you ever reflect that every time you sit down you have to get up again?" "Never," we said quietly, "we never thought of it." "You didn't!" he sneered. "No, you'd rather go on lifting 250 pounds through two feet,--an average of 500 foot-pounds, practically 62 kilowatts of wasted power. Do you know that by merely hitching a pulley to the back of your neck you could generate enough power to light your whole office?"
We hung our heads. Simple as the thing was, we had never thought of it. "Very good," said the Stranger. "Now, all American business men are like you. They don't think,--do you understand me? They don't think."
We realized the truth of it at once. We had never thought.
Perhaps we didn't even know how.
"Now, I tell you," continued our visitor, speaking rapidly and with a light of wild enthusiasm in his face, "I'm out for a new campaign,--efficiency in business--speeding things up--better organization."
"But surely," we said, musingly, "we have seen something about this lately in the papers?" "Seen it, sir," he exclaimed, "I should say so. It's everywhere. It's a new movement. It's in the air. Has it never struck you how a thing like this can be seen in the air?"
Here again we were at fault. In all our lives we had never seen anything in the air. We had never even looked there. "Now," continued the Stranger, "I want your paper to help. I want you to join in. I want you to give publicity."
"Assuredly," we said, with our old-fashioned politeness. "Anything which concerns the welfare, the progress, if one may so phrase it--" "Stop," said the visitor. "You talk too much. You're prosy. Don't talk. Listen to me. Try and fix your mind on what I am about to say."
We fixed it. The Stranger's manner became somewhat calmer. "I am heading," he said, "the new American efficiency movement. I have sent our circulars to fifty thousand representative firms, explaining my methods. I am receiving ten thousand answers a day"--here he dragged a bundle of letters out of his pocket--"from Maine, from New Hampshire, from Vermont,"--"Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut," we murmured.
"Exactly," he said; "from every State in the Union--from the Philippines, from Porto Rico, and last week I had one from Canada." "Marvellous," we said; "and may one ask what your new methods are?"
"You may," he answered. "It's a proper question. It's a typical business question, fair, plain, clean, and even admitting of an answer. The great art of answering questions," he continued, "is to answer at once without loss of time, friction or delay in moving from place to place. I'll answer it."
"Do," we said.
"I will," said the Stranger. "My method is first: to stimulate business to the highest point by infusing into it everywhere the spirit of generous rivalry, of wholesome competition; by inviting each and every worker to outdo each and every other."
"And can they do it?" we asked, puzzled and yet fascinated. "Can they all do it?"
"They do, and they can," said the Stranger. "The proof of it is that they are doing it. Listen. Here is an answer to my circular No. 6, Efficiency and Recompense, that came in this morning. It is from a steel firm. Listen." The Stranger picked out a letter and read it.
Dear Sir:
Our firm is a Steel Corporation. We roll rails. As soon as we read your circular on the Stimulus of Competition we saw that there were big things in it. At once we sent one of our chief managers to the rolling, mill. He carried a paper bag in his hand. "Now boys," he said, "every man who rolls a rail gets a gum-drop." The effect was magical. The good fellows felt a new stimulus. They now roll out rails like dough. Work is a joy to them. Every Saturday night the man who has rolled most gets a blue ribbon; the man who has rolled the next most, a green ribbon; the next most a yellow ribbon, and so on through the spectroscope. The man who rolls least gets only a red ribbon. It is a real pleasure to see the brave fellows clamouring for their ribbons. Our output, after defraying the entire cost of the ribbons and the gum-drops, has increased forty per cent. We intend to carry the scheme further by allowing all the men who get a hundred blue ribbons first, to exchange them for the Grand Efficiency Prize of the firm,--a pink ribbon. This the winner will be entitled to wear whenever and wherever he sees fit to wear it.
The stranger paused for breath.
"Marvellous," we said. "There is no doubt the stimulus of keen competition--"
"Shut up," he said impatiently. "Let me explain it further. Competition is only part of it. An item just as big that makes for efficiency is to take account of the little things. It's the little things that are never thought of."
Here was another wonder! We realized that we had never thought of them. "Take an example," the Stranger continued. "I went into a hotel the other day. What did I see? Bell-boys being summoned upstairs every minute, and flying up in the elevators. Yes,--and every time they went up they had to come down again. I went up to the manager. I said, 'I can understand that when your guests ring for the bell-boys they have to go up. But why should they come down? Why not have them go up and never come down?' He caught the idea at once. That hotel is transformed. I have a letter from the manager stating that they find it fifty per cent. cheaper to hire new bell-boys instead of waiting for the old ones to come down."
"These results," we said, "are certainly marvellous. "You are most assuredly to be congratulated on--"
"You talk too much," said the Stranger. "Don't do it. Learn to listen. If a young man comes to me for advice in business,--and they do in hundreds, lots of them,--almost in tears over their inefficiency,--I'd say, 'Young man, never talk, listen; answer, but don't speak.' But even all this is only part of the method. Another side of it is technique."
"Technique?" we said, pleased but puzzled.
"Yes, the proper use of machine devices. Take the building trade. I've revolutionized it. Till now all the bricks even for a high building were carried up to the mason in hods. Madness! Think of the waste of it. By my method instead of carrying the bricks to the mason we take the mason to the brick,--lower him on a wire rope, give him a brick, and up he goes again. As soon as he wants another brick he calls down, 'I want a brick,' and down he comes like lightning."
"This," we said, "is little short of--"
"Cut it out. Even that is not all. Another thing bigger than any is organization. Half the business in this country is not organized. As soon as I sent out my circular, No. 4, HAVE YOU ORGANIZED YOUR BUSINESS! I got answers in thousands! Heart-broken, many of them. They had never thought of it! Here, for example, is a letter written by a plain man, a gardener, just an ordinary man, a plain man--"
"Yes," we said, "quite so."
"Well, here is what he writes:
Dear Sir:
As soon as I got your circular I read it all through from end to end, and I saw that all my failure in the past had come from my not being organized. I sat and thought a long while and I decided that I would organize myself. I went right in to the house and I said to my wife, "Jane, I'm going to organize myself." She said, "Oh, John!"--and not another word, but you should have seen the look on her face. So the next morning I got up early and began to organize myself. It was hard at first but I stuck to it. There were times when I felt as if I couldn't do it. It seemed too hard. But bit by bit I did it and now, thank God, I am organized. I wish all men like me could know the pleasure I feel in being organized."
"Touching, isn't it?" said the Stranger. "But I get lots of letters like that. Here's another, also from a man, a plain man, working on his own farm. Hear what he says:
Dear Sir:
As soon as I saw your circular on HOW TO SPEED UP THE EMPLOYEE I felt that it was a big thing. I don't have any hired help here to work with me, but only father. He cuts the wood and does odd chores about the place. So I realized that the best I could do was to try to speed up father. I started in to speed him up last Tuesday, and I wish you could see him. Before this he couldn't split a cord of wood without cutting a slice off his boots. Now he does it in half the time."
"But there," the Stranger said, getting impatient even with his own reading, "I needn't read it all. It is the same thing all along the line. I've got the Method introduced into the Department Stores. Before this every customer who came in wasted time trying to find the counters. Now we install a patent springboard, with a mechanism like a catapault. As soon as a customer comes in an attendant puts him on the board, blindfolds him, and says, 'Where do you want to go?' 'Glove counter.' 'Oh, all right.' He's fired at it through the air. No time lost. Same with the railways. They're installing the Method, too. Every engineer who breaks the record from New York to Buffalo gets a glass of milk. When he gets a hundred glasses he can exchange them for a glass of beer. So with the doctors. On the new method, instead of giving a patient one pill a day for fourteen days they give him fourteen pills in one day. Doctors, lawyers, everybody,--in time, sir," said the Stranger, in tones of rising excitement, "you'll see even the plumbers--"
But just at this moment the door opened. A sturdy-looking man in blue entered. The Stranger's voice was hushed at once. The excitement died out of his face. His manner all of a sudden was meekness itself.
"I was just coming," he said.
"That's right, sir," said the man; "better come along and not take up the gentleman's time."
"Good-bye, then," said the Stranger, with meek affability, and he went out.
The man in blue lingered behind for a moment.
"A sad case, sir," he said, and he tapped his forehead.
"You mean--" I asked.
"Exactly. Cracked, sir. Quite cracked; but harmless. I'm engaged to look after him, but he gave me the slip downstairs."
"He is under delusions?" we inquired.
"Yes, sir. He's got it into his head that business in this country has all gone to pieces,--thinks it must be reorganized. He writes letters about it all day and sends them to the papers with imaginary names. You may have seen some of them. Good day, sir."
We looked at our watch. We had lost just half an hour over the new efficiency. We turned back with a sigh to our old-fashioned task.
XI.--Who Is Also Who. A Companion Volume to Who's Who
Note by the editor: I do not quarrel with the contents of such valuable compendiums as "Who's Who," "Men and Women of the Time," etc., etc. But they leave out the really Representative People. The names that they include are so well known as to need no commentary, while those that they exclude are the very people one most wishes to read about. My new book is not arranged alphabetically, that order having given great offence in certain social circles.
Smith, J. Everyman: born Kenoka Springs; educ. Kenoka Springs; present residence, The Springs, Kenoka; address, Kenoka Springs Post-Office; after leaving school threw himself (Oct. 1881) into college study; thrown out of it (April 1882); decided to follow the law; followed it (1882); was left behind (1883); decided (1884) to abandon it; abandoned it; resolved (1885) to turn his energies to finance; turned them (1886); kept them turned (1887); unturned them (1888); was offered position (1889) as sole custodian of Mechanics' Institute, Kenoka Springs; decided (same date) to accept it; accepted it; is there now; will be till he dies.
Flintlock, J. Percussion: aged 87; war veteran and pensioner; born, blank; educated, blank; at outbreak of Civil War sprang to arms; both sides; sprang Union first; entered beef contract department of army of U. S.; fought at Chicago, Omaha, and leading (beef) centres of operation during the thickest of the (beef) conflict; was under Hancock, Burnside, Meade, and Grant; fought with all of them; mentioned (very strongly) by all of them; entered Confederate Service (1864); attached (very much) to rum department of quarter-master's staff; mentioned in this connection (very warmly) in despatches of General Lee; mustered out, away out, of army; lost from sight, 1865-1895; placed on pension list with rank of general, 1895; has stayed on, 1895-1915; obtained (on 6th Avenue) war medals and service clasps; publications--"My Campaigns under Grant," "Battles I have Saved," "Feeding an Army," "Stuffing the Public," etc., etc.; recreations, telling war stories; favorite amusement, showing war medals.
Crook, W. Underhand: born, dash; parents, double dash; educated at technical school; on graduation turned his attention to the problem of mechanical timelocks and patent safes; entered Sing-Sing, 1890; resident there, 1890-1893; Auburn, 1894, three months; various state institutions, 1895-1898; worked at profession, 1898-1899; Sing-Sing, 1900; professional work, 1901; Sing-Sing, 1902; profession, 1903, Sing-Sing; profession, Sing-Sing, etc., etc.; life appointment, 1908; general favorite, musical, has never killed anybody.
Gloomie, Dreary O'Leary: Scotch dialect comedian and humorist; well known in Scotland; has standing offer from Duke of Sutherland to put foot on estate.
Muck, O. Absolute: novelist; of low German extraction; born Rotterdam; educated Muckendorf; escaped to America; long unrecognized; leaped into prominence by writing "The Social Gas-Pipe," a powerful indictment of modern society, written in revenge for not being invited to dinner; other works--"The Sewerage of the Sea-Side," an arraignment of Newport society, reflecting on some of his best friends; "Vice and Super-Vice," a telling denunciation of the New York police, written after they had arrested him; "White Ravens," an indictment of the clergy; "Black Crooks," an indictment of the publishers, etc., etc.; has arraigned and indicted nearly everybody.
Whyner, Egbert Ethelwind: poet, at age of sixteen wrote a quatrain, "The Banquet of Nebuchadnezzar," and at once left school; followed it up in less than two years by a poem in six lines "America"; rested a year and then produced "Babylon, A Vision of Civilization," three lines; has written also "Herod, a Tragedy," four lines; "Revolt of Woman, "two lines, and "The Day of Judgement," one line. Recreation, writing poetry.
Adult, Hon. Underdone: address The Shrubbery, Hopton- under-Hyde, Rotherham-near-Pottersby, Potts, Hants, Hops, England (or words to that effect); organizer of the Boys' League of Pathfinders, Chief Commissioner of the Infant Crusaders, Grand Master of the Young Imbeciles; Major-General of the Girl Rangers, Chief of Staff of the Matron Mountain Climbers, etc.
Zfwinski, X. Z.: Polish pianist; plays all night; address
4,570 West 457 Street, Westside, Chicago West.
XII.--Passionate Paragraphs
(An extract from a recent (very recent) novel, illustrating the new beauties of language and ideas that are being rapidly developed by the twentieth century press.)
His voice as he turned towards her was taut as a tie-line.
"You don't love me!" he hoarsed, thick with agony. She had angled into a seat and sat sensing-rather-than-seeing him.
For a time she silenced. Then presently as he still stood and enveloped her,--
"Don't!" she thinned, her voice fining to a thread.
"Answer me," he gloomed, still gazing into-and-through her.
She half-heard half-didn't-hear him.
Night was falling about them as they sat thus beside the river. A molten afterglow of iridescent saffron shot with incandescent carmine lit up the waters of the Hudson till they glowed like electrified uranium.
For a while they both sat silent,--looming.
"It had to be," she glumped.
"Why, why?" he barked. "Why should it have had to have been or (more hopefully) even be to be? Surely you don't mean because of MONEY?"
She shuddered into herself.
The thing seemed to sting her (it hadn't really).
"Money!" she almost-but-not-quite-moaned. "You might have spared me that!"
He sank down and grassed.
And after they had sat thus for another half-hour grassing and growling and angling and sensing one another, it turned out that all that he was trying to say was to ask if she would marry him.
And of course she said yes.
XIII.--Weejee the Pet Dog. An Idyll of the Summer
We were sitting on the verandah of the Sopley's summer cottage.
"How lovely it is here," I said to my host and hostess,
"and how still."
It was at this moment that Weejee, the pet dog, took a sharp nip at the end of my tennis trousers.
"Weejee!!" exclaimed his mistress with great emphasis,
"BAD dog! how dare you, sir! BAD dog!"
"I hope he hasn't hurt you," said my host.
"Oh, it's nothing," I answered cheerfully. "He hardly scratched me."
"You know I don't think he means anything by it," said
Mrs. Sopley.
"Oh, I'm SURE he doesn't," I answered.
Weejee was coming nearer to me again as I spoke.
"WEEJEE!!" cried my hostess, "naughty dog, bad!"
"Funny thing about that dog," said Sopley, "the way he KNOWS people. It's a sort of instinct. He knew right away that you were a stranger,--now, yesterday, when the butcher came, there was a new driver on the cart and Weejee knew it right away,--grabbed the man by the leg at once,--wouldn't let go. I called out to the man that it was all right or he might have done Weejee some harm."
At this moment Weejee took the second nip at my other trouser leg. There was a short GUR-R-R and a slight mix-up.
"Weejee! Weejee!" called Mrs. Sopley. "How DARE you, sir! You're just a BAD dog!! Go and lie down, sir. I'm so sorry. I think, you know, it's your white trousers. For some reason Weejee simply HATES white trousers. I do hope he hasn't torn them."
