CHAPTER XIII AN UNSUCCESSFUL FIASCO.

I AM not quite sure whether I have spoken of it but by profession, trade, occupation, I am a writer. I write short stories under an assumed name and therefore the telling of the events of the summer is in a manner easy for me.

But I not only write stories; I also at times read stories, and I have been known to recite—not in an impassioned way but merely foolishly. The previous winter had been a hard one in more ways than one for both Ethel and myself, but toward the close of it the winning of a prize in a story competition had given me enough money to enable me to knock off work for all summer, and it had seemed wise to take advantage of such a chance to rest and lie fallow.

I did not mention my occupation at the start because I was afraid that readers would say, “Oh, dear, this is a story by a literary man, and nothing will happen in it.” You see now-a-days when men in all walks of life write of what they have done, and make books of their writings, the people who read books have gotten to the point when they look with suspicion on a story that is written by a mere professional writer. They say, “Oh, he has done nothing but write. Let us read the book of the man who has first done and has then written.”

But you who have read thus far may feel in a way friendly to Minerva, and the rest, and so I take you into my confidence and make the pun to you that won for me a rebuke from Ethel. Letters spell livelihood for me.

The Congregational Minister, Egbert Hughson, and his wife returned to us in a few minutes and after the moving accident had been discussed for a certain length of time, he came to the matter that had brought him up.

He was a smooth shaven alert, Western man of about thirty, I should say, and I marked him out as a type of the modern muscular Christian, and this guess proved to have been correct. He was an Iowan who had come East to study, had graduated from Williams and after a year in a small Iowa church had been called to Egerton through the good offices of a former class-mate.

I hope I may not be accused of egotism if I set down plainly what Mr. Hughson said. The denouement is not what an egotist would roll under his tongue. During the narration of the episode let me treat Philip Vernon quite as if he did not press the keys with which I am writing this.

“Mr. Vernon, I did not know until Deacon Fotherby told me, that we had so distinguished a man amongst us. I have read your sketches in the Antarctic Monthly with a great deal of pleasure, and although you use a pen name, still I happened to know that you were the author. I also understand that you sometimes recite.”

I bowed assent. I could have told him the rest. He was going to say: “Now the Y. P. S. C. E. are about to give a little literary entertainment for the benefit of the library and it would add interest to the proceedings if you would do us the great honor of reciting one or more pieces for us, or perhaps read something of your own.”

I guessed right. He said it, allowing for certain unimportant verbal variations. I think it was the Y. M. S. C., instead of the Y. P. S. C. E., and instead of saying “it would add interest to the proceedings,” he said it would “give the affair a literary flavour”—words of the same import.

I told him that Mrs. Vernon had come up to rest, but that did not head him off. I really didn’t suppose it would. I was merely making his task a little difficult, so that he would appreciate me the more. We writers all do things like that. If I had fallen into his arms and had said, “Recite; why I’ll do the whole programme,” while he would have thanked me, he would have felt that he had gotten me so easily that I could not be worth much.

“Well, surely,” said he, “it won’t tire Mrs. Vernon for you to come and talk to us. You’ll be doing a favour to your fellows.”

Ah, now it was time for me to come down gracefully off my perch, and I consented to sing my little song. Altruism is the lesson of the hour, and I think I have learned it. I have been taught it often enough by various committees. Committees believe firmly in altruism. “Altruism,” say they, “is the getting of a man to do something worth something for nothing.” Some define altruism as “Depriving the labourer of his hire for the good of others.”

I would not care to be misunderstood in this matter. I really think that if a man has talents he ought to use them to the benefit of his fellows, but I have known so many poor strugglers in New York who, when they were struggling most frantically, have been asked by complaisant committees to give their services for the entertainment of the Grand-Daughters of Evolution or some other body perfectly capable of paying for their services that I am rather glad of this opportunity of freeing my mind.

Altruism begins at home. If you believe in it, practise it yourself, but until you have learned to think about the needs of the other fellow, don’t ask him to think of your luxuries.

The upshot of the whole matter was that I told Mr. Hughson that I would be glad to come and recite the following Wednesday (a week later), and a week later we hired Bert’s wagon, and with James holding the reins, Minerva by his side (of course we could not leave her at home alone) and Ethel and I on the back seat, we drove down to the Sunday School of the church.

I wish that the good pastor had introduced me. He was a man who had moved among his fellows and who knew life and had a sense of values, while the man who did introduce me, and who shall be nameless, was insincere, shallow, a flatterer and fond of the sound of his own voice.

I can say these things thus plainly, because he is now spending a year or so in State prison for breaking the sixth commandment. (No need to look it up; it is “Thou Shalt Not Steal.”)

To tell the truth, I did not want to be introduced. I had not recited for months, and I was feeling frightfully nervous. So much so that my knees wabbled, my palms were moist and my throat parched.

I would gladly have given the Y. M. S. C. ten dollars to release me, only I didn’t have my check-book with me.

This full-whiskered man, who was the Sunday School superintendent, took his long length up onto the platform and bowing and grimacing said, in a hard, flat voice,

“Ladies and gentlemen, I think that we of Egerton have always been fortunate in securing the summer services of various people who are eminent in the walks of life to which it has pleased God to call them. You may remember that last summer we had the eminent English scientist, Professor Drysden, who did some very clever card tricks for us; the year before we had Rev. Amaziah Barton, who sang a very amusing coon song for us, and I think it was the year before that that the famous Arctic explorer, whose name escapes me, entertained us with ventriloquial tricks. All these men showed in thus—er—doing things that were in a measure outside of the ordinary line of their duties, how manifold are the workings of the human brain.

“To-night we have with us a man whose name is known wherever the English language is spoken; a man whose erudite works are upon every shelf, a man who has reflected lustre upon the language spoken by Chaucer and Spenser—”

(I have never written anything under the name of Philip Vernon, so that my hearers were so far entirely in the dark as to my identity.)

“Mr. Vernon is a frequent contributor to the Antarctic Magazine, and those of us who feel that the month has not been well spent until we have absorbed its contents know Mr. Vernon’s work as we know our Bibles.

“We have been told by a celebrated philosopher that a little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men, and there is a great deal of truth in the remark. I am not above smiling at a joke myself; no one can afford to be so engrossed with the affairs of the world as never to permit a jocose remark to pass his lips.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and so Mr. Vernon is going to unbend to-night, and will make you shriek with laughter by his card tricks.”

Here he was interrupted by the Rev. Mr. Hughson, who said in a loud whisper, “No, he is going to recite.”

I was boiling. If I had been Mark Twain himself, such an introduction would have made whatever followed in the nature of an anti-climax. As I was to the audience simply an unknown “Mr. Vernon,” it was little less than cruelty to animals.

“Oh, surely. I am sure we are all prepared to laugh heartily at the witticisms and comical actions of Mr. Philip Vernon, the great author whom I now take pleasure in introducing to you.”

Ethel was well in the back of the room. She hates to hear me recite, as she is always afraid that I will go to pieces, a fear that I have often told her was groundless, as whatever else may happen, I always keep control of myself, but this evening the malapropos idiocies of the asinine gentleman on the platform upset me so that I hardly knew what I was doing when I stumbled up alongside of him.

I had chosen a poem that is not humourous in itself, but by means of perverting its written meanings and by the use of uncouth gestures the thing has served to create amusement among my friends and (when I am feeling in the mood for it) even among my enemies. But to-night I was not feeling humourous; only angry.

I bowed to the audience, bowed to the minister, bowed to the idiot who had misintroduced me, and then I began the thing, and to Ethel’s intense relief (for I happened to look at her) the audience burst out into laughter before I had finished the first verse. The second verse caused them to laugh still more, and instead of keeping my wits entirely on the matter in hand I allowed myself to think of both what my audience was doing and what the man had been saying, and the consequence was what it is apt to be if a man loses grip of his work. I lost my lines. I had recited the thing dozens of times, but now not a word would come to me. I smoothed my moustache and coughed in character, and took a step or two around the platform, as if I were leading up to some business and then I bowed suddenly and walked into the cloak room, where I was followed by Ethel, and for the next two minutes I had all I could do to restrain her sobs. She was hysterical.

As for me, I was angry clear through, and when the pastor came in I started to tell him, but he raised his hand and I saw that he understood better than I could say. He grasped my hand and I knew that he was a man of feeling.

“It’s all right,” said he. “The audience is laughing and applauding, and they think you meant to do it. Go back and give them something else.”

It was as if a flash of lightning had shown me a way of escape from a perilous lodgment.

“Do you mean it?” said I.

He opened the door a little and I could hear them clapping their hands.

“Ethel, I’ll go in and tell them that story I wrote for Mazie.”

Back to the platform I went, with my mind full of a nonsense story I had written for my niece.

I was received by enthusiastic applause, and heartened by their kindly feeling I told them the following story, which I called:
“The Mother of Little Maude and Little Maude.”

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Maude, and she went out a-driving in a four-wheeled carriage drawn by two four-legged horses and driven by one two-legged driver. And the dear little girl named Maude sat on the front seat by the two-legged driver and Maude’s dear Mama sat on the back seat by herself, which is not the same as beside herself.

And all of a sudden the horses, which had only been running before, began to run away. And the dear little girl named Maude wished to let her mamma know that they were running away, but she did not wish to alarm her too suddenly, for sometimes shocks are serious.

And the dear little girl named Maude saw a reporterman walking along the sidewalk looking for news for his paper. So she called to the reporterman and said, “I wish to speak to you on business.”

And the reporterman was agile, and he jumped on the step of the carriage, and the little girl said to him, “Please get it into your paper that the horses are running away, and I wish my dear mamma to know it. I am none other than little Maude.”

And the reporterman did not know that the lady on the back seat was the mamma of little Maude, so he raised his cap and jumped from the carriage and nearly fell down in so doing, for the horses were now running madly on eight legs, and the driver was getting nervous and the reporterman went to the newspaper office and wrote: “The horses of the little girl who is none other than little Maude, are running away and it is a pretty serious business, for her mamma does not know it, and there is no telling when the horses will stop.”

And they slapped this news into type, and then it was printed in the newspaper, and a newsboy took the papers and ran into the street, crying “Extry! Extry! Full account of the running away of the horses of the little girl, who is none other than little Maude.”

And Maude’s mamma heard the little boy, and she beckoned to him to bring her a paper. And the newsboy was also agile, and he leaped upon the step and sold a paper to the lady for a cent and then he jumped off again, for he had other papers to sell.

And the mamma of little Maude began to read the news. And when she came to the part that said the horses of little Maude were running away, she looked straight ahead and saw that it was indeed true.

And with great presence of mind she climbed over the back seat and dropped to the ground unhurt. And when little Maude saw that her dear mamma had escaped, she also climbed over the back seat and dropped to the ground unhurt. And when the driver saw that Maude’s mamma and little Maude had escaped, he also climbed over the back seat and dropped to the ground unhurt.

And the two horses, who were very intelligent and who had wondered what would be the outcome of their runaway, got into the carriage and they also climbed over the back seat and dropped to the ground unhurt.

The ride home was pleasanter than I had expected it to be. When I had stepped off the platform after my fiasco, I understood how a suicide felt. When I stepped off the second time I felt better.

“I almos’ bus’ laughin’,” said Minerva, as she climbed into the carriage.

“Thank you, Minerva,” said I, fully appreciating both the compliment and her peril.