Olympian Nights, John Kendrick Bangs [good book club books .TXT] 📗

to the authorship of the proverb, but some proverbialist said 'Two is company and three is a crowd.' I'd never known that before, but I learned it then, and began to stay away from home a little myself, so that we should not be crowded."

I commended the young man for his philosophy.

"Nevertheless, my dear Dan," I added, "you ought to be more autocratic. Knowing that two is company and three otherwise, you have been guilty of allowing many a young couple who have trusted in you to begin house-keeping with an inevitable third person. We see it every day among the mortals."

"What has been good enough for me, sir," the boy returned, with a comical assumption of sternness--he looked so like a fat baby of three just ready for his bath--"is good enough for mortals. When I married Psyche, I brought her home to my mother's house, and for some nineteen thousand years we lived together. If Love can stand it, mortals must."

"Excuse me," said I, apologetically. "I have not suffered. However, in all my study of you mythologians, it has never occurred to me before this that Venus was the goddess of the mother-in-law."

"You mustn't blame me for that," said Cupid, dryly. "I'm the god of Love; wisdom is out of my province. For what you don't know and haven't learned you must blame Pallas, who is our Superintendent of Public Instruction. She knows it all--and she got it darned easy, too. She sprang forth from the head of Jove with a Ph.D. already conferred upon her. She looks after the education of the world. I don't--but I'll wager you anything you please to put up that man gains more real experience under my management than he does from Athena's department, useful as her work is."

I could not but admit the truth of all that the boy said, and of course I told him so. To change the subject, which, if pursued, might lead to an exposure of my own ignorance, I said:

"But, Dan, what interests me most, and pains me most as well, is to hear that you are separated from Psyche. I do not wish to seem inquisitive on the subject of a--ah--of a man's family affairs"--I hesitated in my speech because he seemed such a baby and it was difficult to take him seriously, as is always the way with Love, unless we are directly involved--"but you have told me of the separation, and as a man, a newspaper-man, I am interested. Couldn't you reconcile your mother, Madame Venus, to Psyche--or, rather, Mrs. Dan?"

"Not for a moment," replied the boy. "Not for a millionth part of a tenth of a quarter of a second by a stop-watch. Their irreconcilability was copper-fastened, and I found myself compelled to choose between them. My mother developed a gray hair the day after the first trouble, and my wife began to go out to afternoon teas and sewing-circles and dances. The teas and dances were all right. You can't talk at either. But the sewing-circle was ruin. At this particular time the circle was engaged in making winter garments for the children of the mother of the Gracchi. I presume that as a student and as a father you realize all that this meant. You also know that a sewing-circle needs four things: first, an object; second, a needle and thread; third, a garment; fourth, a subject for conversation. These things are constitutionally required, and Psyche joined what she called 'The Immortal Dorcas.' The result was that all Olympus and half of Hades were shortly acquainted with the confidential workings of my department--all told under the inviolate bond of secrecy, however, which requires that each member confided in shall not communicate what she has heard to more--or to less--than ten people."

"I know," said I. "The Dorcas habit has followers among my own people."

"But see where it placed me!" cried the little creature. "There was me, or I--I don't know whether Greek or English is preferable to you--charged with the love affairs of the universe. Confiding all I knew, like a dutiful husband, to my wife, and having her letting it all out to the public through the society. Why, my dear fellow, it wasn't long before the immortals began to accuse me of being in the pay of the Sunday newspapers, and you must know as well as anybody else that Love has nothing to do with them. Even the affairs of my sovereign began to creep out, and innuendoes connecting Jupiter with people prominent in society were printed in the opposition organs."

"Poor chap!" said I, sympathetically. "I did not realize that you had to contend against the Sunday-newspaper nuisance as we mortals have."

"We have," he said, quickly, almost resignedly; "and they are ruining even Olympus itself. Still, I made a stand. Told Psyche she talked too much, and from that time on confided in her no more."

"And how did she take it?" I asked.

"She declined to take it at all," said Cupid, with a sigh. "She demanded that I should tell her everything on penalty of losing her--and I lost her. She left me a little over a thousand years ago, and my mother for the same reason sent me adrift fifteen hundred or more years ago. That is why I am eking out a living running an elevator," he added, sadly. "Still, I'm happy here. I go up when I feel sad, and go down when I feel glad. On the whole, I am as happy as any of the gods."

"However, Dan," I cried, sympathetically, slapping him on the back, "you have your official position, and that will keep you in--ah--well, you don't seem to need 'em, but it would keep you in clothes if you could be persuaded to wear them."

"No," said the little elevator boy, sadly. "I don't want 'em in this climate--nor are they necessary in any other. All over the world, my dear fellow, _true_ love is ever warm."

There was a decided interval. I felt sorry for the little lad who had been a god and who had become an elevator boy, so I said to him:

"Never mind, Danny, you are sure of your office always."

"I wish it were so," said he, sadly. "But really, sir, it isn't. You may think that love rules all things nowadays, but that is a fallacy. Of late years a rival concern has sprung up. I have found my office subjected to a most annoying competition which has attracted away from me a large number of my closest followers. In the days when we acknowledged ourselves to be purely heathen, love was regarded with respect, but now all that is changed. Opposite my office in the government building there is a matrimonial corporation doing a very large business, by which the fees of my position are greatly reduced. Possibly after you have had your audience with Jove to-morrow you will take a turn about the city, in which event you will see this trust's big brazen sign. You can't miss it if you walk along Mercury Avenue. It reads:

+----------------------------------+
| MAMMON & CO. |
| Matchmakers |
| |
| FORTUNES GUARANTEED: |
| HAPPINESS EXTRA |
| |
| GEO. W. MAMMON |
| President |
| |
| HORACE GREED |
| Gen'l Manager |
| |
| BRANCH OFFICE |
| 67 Gehenna Ave., Hades |
+----------------------------------+

"Dear me!" I cried. "Poor Love!"

"I don't need your sympathy," said the boy, quickly, drawing himself up proudly. "It can't last, this competition. Man and god kind will soon see the difference in the permanence of our respective output. This is only a temporary success they are having, and it often happens that the spurious articles put forth by Mammon & Company are brought over to me to be repaired. My sun will dawn again. You can't put out the fires in my furnaces as long as men and women are made from the old receipt."

Here the elevator stopped, and a rather attractive young woman appeared at the door.

"Here is where you get out, sir," said the elevator boy.

"You are Mr.----" began the girl.

"I am," I replied.

"I have orders to show you to number 609," she said. "The proprietor will see you to-morrow at eleven."

"Thank you very much," I replied, somewhat overcome by the cordiality of my reception. It is not often that mere beggars are so hospitably received.

"Good-night, Cupid," I added, turning to the little chap in the elevator. "I trust we shall meet again."

"Oh, I guess we will," he replied, with a wink at the maid. "I generally do meet most men two or three times in their lives. So _au revoir_ to you. Treat the gentleman well, Hebe," he concluded, pulling the rope to send the elevator back. "He doesn't know much, but he is sympathetic."

"I will, Danny, for your sake," said the little maid, archly.

The boy laughed and the car faded from sight. Hebe, even more lovely than has been claimed, with a charmingly demure glance at my costume, which was wofully bedraggled and wet, said:

"This way, sir. I will have your luggage sent to your room at once."

"But I haven't any luggage, my dear," said I. "I have only what is on my back."

"Ah, but you have," she replied, sweetly. "The proprietor has attended to that. There are five trunks, a hat-box, and a Gladstone bag already on their way up."

And with this she showed me into a magnificent apartment, and, even as she had said, within five minutes my luggage arrived, a valet appeared, unpacked the trunks and bag, brushed off the hat that had lain in the hat-box, and vanished, leaving me to my own