Well, m, says I, it may be that Idahos invitation was a kind of poetry, and meant no harm. May be it belonged to the class of rhymes they call figurative. They offend law and order, but they get sent through the mails on the grounds that they mean something that they dont say. Id be glad on Idahos account if youd overlook it, says I, and let us extricate our minds from the low regions of poetry to the higher planes of fact and fancy. On a beautiful afternoon like this, Mrs. Sampson, I goes on, we should let our thoughts dwell accordingly. Though it is warm here, we should remember that at the equator the line of perpetual frost is at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet[57]. Between the latitudes of forty degrees and forty-nine degrees it is from four thousand to nine thousand feet.
Oh, Mr. Pratt, says Mrs. Sampson, its such a comfort to hear you say them beautiful facts after getting such a jar from that minx of a Rubys poetry!
Let us sit on this log at the roadside, says I, and forget the inhumanity and ribaldry of the poets. It is in the glorious columns of ascertained facts and legalised measures that beauty is to be found. In this very log we sit upon, Mrs. Sampson, says I, is statistics more wonderful than any poem. The rings show it was sixty years old. At the depth of two thousand feet it would become coal in three thousand years. The deepest coal mine in the world is at Killingworth, near Newcastle[58]. A box four feet long, three feet wide, and two feet eight inches deep will hold one ton of coal. If an artery is cut, compress it above the wound. A mans leg contains thirty bones. The Tower of London was burned in 1841.
Go on, Mr. Pratt, says Mrs. Sampson. Them ideas is so original and soothing. I think statistics are just as lovely as they can be.
But it wasnt till two weeks later that I got all that was coming to me out of Herkimer.
One night I was waked up by folks hollering Fire! all around. I jumped up and dressed and went out of the hotel to enjoy the scene. When I see it was Mrs. Sampsons house, I gave forth a kind of yell, and I was there in two minutes.
The whole lower story of the yellow house was in flames, and every masculine, feminine, and canine in Rosa was there, screeching and barking and getting in the way of the firemen. I saw Idaho trying to get away from six firemen who were holding him. They was telling him the whole place was on fire down-stairs, and no man could go in it and come out alive.
Wheres Mrs. Sampson? I asks.
She hasnt been seen, says one of the firemen. She sleeps up-stairs. Weve tried to get in, but we cant, and our company hasnt got any ladders yet.
I runs around to the light of the big blaze, and pulls the Handbook out of my inside pocket. I kind of laughed when I felt it in my hands I reckon I was some daffy with the sensation of excitement.
Herky, old boy, I says to it, as I flipped over the pages, you aint ever lied to me yet, and you aint ever throwed me down at a scratch yet. Tell me what, old boy, tell me what! says I.
I turned to What to do in Case of Accidents, on page 117. I run my finger down the page, and struck it. Good old Herkimer, he never overlooked anything! It said:
Suffocation from Inhaling Smoke or Gas. There is nothing better than flaxseed. Place a few seed in the outer corner of the eye.
I shoved the Handbook back in my pocket, and grabbed a boy that was running by.
Here, says I, giving him some money, run to the drug store and bring a dollars worth of flaxseed. Hurry, and youll get another one for yourself. Now, I sings out to the crowd, well have Mrs. Sampson! And I throws away my coat and hat.
Four of the firemen and citizens grabs hold of me. Its sure death, they say, to go in the house, for the floors was beginning to fall through.
How in blazes, I sings out, kind of laughing yet, but not feeling like it, do you expect me to put flaxseed in a eye without the eye?
I jabbed each elbow in a firemans face, kicked the bark off of one citizens shin, and tripped the other one with a side hold. And then I busted into the house. If I die first Ill write you a letter and tell you if its any worse down there than the inside of that yellow house was; but dont believe it yet. I was a heap more cooked than the hurry-up orders of broiled chicken that you get in restaurants. The fire and smoke had me down on the floor twice, and was about to shame Herkimer, but the firemen helped me with their little stream of water, and I got to Mrs. Sampsons room. Shed lost conscientiousness from the smoke, so I wrapped her in the bed clothes and got her on my shoulder. Well, the floors wasnt as bad as they said, or I never could have done it not by no means.
I carried her out fifty yards from the house and laid her on the grass. Then, of course, every one of them other twenty-two plaintiffs to the ladys hand crowded around with tin dippers of water ready to save her. And up runs the boy with the flaxseed.
I unwrapped the covers from Mrs. Sampsons head. She opened her eyes and says:
Is that you, Mr. Pratt?
S-s-sh, says I. Dont talk till youve had the remedy.
I runs my arm around her neck and raises her head, gentle, and breaks the bag of flaxseed with the other hand; and as easy as I could I bends over and slips three or four of the seeds in the outer corner of her eye.
Up gallops the village doc by this time, and snorts around, and grabs at Mrs. Sampsons pulse, and wants to know what I mean by any such sandblasted nonsense.
Well, old Jalap and Jerusalem oakseed, says I, Im no regular practitioner, but Ill show you my authority, anyway.
They fetched my coat, and I gets out the Handbook.
Look on page 117, says I, at the remedy for suffocation by smoke or gas. Flaxseed in the outer corner of the eye, it says. I dont know whether it works as a smoke consumer or whether it hikes the compound gastro-hippopotamus nerve into action, but Herkimer says it, and he was called to the case first. If you want to make it a consultation, theres no objection.
Old doc takes the book and looks at it by means of his specs and a firemans lantern.
Well, Mr. Pratt, says he, you evidently got on the wrong line in reading your diagnosis. The recipe for suffocation says: Get the patient into fresh air as quickly as possible, and place in a reclining position. The flaxseed remedy is for Dust and Cinders in the Eye, on the line above. But, after all
See here, interrupts Mrs. Sampson, I reckon Ive got something to say in this consultation. That flaxseed done me more good than anything I ever tried. And then she raises up her head and lays it back on my arm again, and says: Put some in the other eye, Sandy dear.
And so if you was to stop off at Rosa to-morrow, or any other day, youd see a fine new yellow house with Mrs. Pratt, that was Mrs. Sampson, embellishing and adorning it. And if you was to step inside youd see on the marble-top centre table in the parlour Herkimers Handbook of Indispensable Information, all rebound in red morocco[59], and ready to be consulted on any subject pertaining to human happiness and wisdom.
Mammon[60] and the Archer
Old Anthony Rockwall, retired manufacturer and proprietor of Rockwalls Eureka[61] Soap, looked out the library window of his Fifth Avenue mansion and grinned. His neighbour to the right the aristocratic clubman, G. Van Schuylight Suffolk-Jones came out to his waiting motor-car, wrinkling a contumelious nostril, as usual, at the Italian renaissance sculpture of the soap palaces front elevation.
Stuck-up old statuette of nothing doing! commented the ex-Soap King. The Eden Museell get that old frozen Nesselrode yet if he dont watch out. Ill have this house painted red, white, and blue next summer and see if thatll make his Dutch nose turn up any higher.
And then Anthony Rockwall, who never cared for bells, went to the door of his library and shouted Mike! in the same voice that had once chipped off pieces of the welkin on the Kansas prairies.
Tell my son, said Anthony to the answering menial, to come in here before he leaves the house.
When young Rockwall entered the library the old man laid aside his newspaper, looked at him with a kindly grimness on his big, smooth, ruddy countenance, rumpled his mop of white hair with one hand and rattled the keys in his pocket with the other.
Richard, said Anthony Rockwall, what do you pay for the soap that you use?
Richard, only six months home from college, was startled a little. He had not yet taken the measure of this sire of his, who was as full of unexpectednesses as a girl at her first party.
Six dollars a dozen, I think, dad.
And your clothes?
I suppose about sixty dollars, as a rule.
Youre a gentleman, said Anthony, decidedly. Ive heard of these young bloods spending $24 a dozen for soap, and going over the hundred mark for clothes. Youve got as much money to waste as any of em, and yet you stick to whats decent and moderate. Now I use the old Eureka not only for sentiment, but its the purest soap made. Whenever you pay more than 10 cents a cake for soap you buy bad perfumes and labels. But 50 cents is doing very well for a young man in your generation, position and condition. As I said, youre a gentleman. They say it takes three generations to make one. Theyre off. Moneyll do it as slick as soap grease. Its made you one. By hokey! its almost made one of me. Im nearly as impolite and disagreeable and ill-mannered as these two old Knickerbocker gents on each side of me that cant sleep of nights because I bought in between em.
There are some things that money cant accomplish, remarked young Rockwall, rather gloomily.
Now, dont say that, said old Anthony, shocked. I bet my money on money every time. Ive been through the encyclopaedia down to Y looking for something you cant buy with it; and I expect to have to take up the appendix next week. Im for money against the field. Tell me something money wont buy.
For one thing, answered Richard, rankling a little, it wont buy one into the exclusive circles of society.
Oho! wont it? thundered the champion of the root of evil. You tell me where your exclusive circles would be if the first Astor hadnt had the money to pay for his steerage passage over?