The Dreamers: A Club, John Kendrick Bangs [books to read for beginners .txt] 📗

[138]

“I never heard of any doing so,” replied the chairman, “but in these days it is hardly safe to say that anything is impossible. If you have watched the development of the circus in the last five years—I mean the real circus, not the literary—you must have observed what an advance intellectually has been made by the various members of the animal kingdom. Elephants have been taught to sit at table and dine like civilized beings on things that aren’t good for them; pigs have been [139] educated so that, instead of evincing none but the more domestic virtues and staying contentedly at home, they now play poker with the sangfroid of a man about town; while the seal, a creature hitherto considered useful only in the production of sacques for our wives, and ear-tabs for our children, and mittens for our hired men, are now branching out as rivals to the college glee clubs, singing songs, playing banjoes, and raising thunder generally. Therefore it need surprise no one if a worm should learn to honk as high as any goose that ever honked. Anyhow, you can’t criticise a poet for anything of that kind. His license permits him to take any liberties he may see fit with existing conditions.”

“All of which,” observed Dick Snobbe, “is wandering from the original point of discussion. What is the meaning of Haarley’s poem? I can’t see that as yet we have reached a definite understanding on that point.”

“Well, I must confess,” said Jones,[140] “that I can’t understand it myself; but I never could understand magazine poetry, so that doesn’t prove anything. I’m only a newspaper man.”

“Let’s have the title, Haarley,” cried Tenafly Paterson. “Was it called ‘Life,’ or ‘Nerve Cells,’ or what?”

For a second Bridge’s cheeks grew red.

“Oh, well, if you must have it,” he said, desperately, “here it is. It was called, ‘A Thought on Hearing, While Visiting Gibraltar in June, 1898, that the War Department at Washington Had Failed to Send Derricks to Cuba, Thereby Delaying the Landing of General Shafter Three Days and Giving Comfort to the Enemy.’”

“Great Scott!” roared Dick Snobbe. “What a title!”

“It is excellent,” said Billy Jones. “I now understand the intent of the poem.”

“Which was—?” asked Rivers.

“To supply a real hiatus in latter-day letters,” Jones replied; “to give the public a war poem that would make them[141] think, which is what a true war poem should do. Who has the ninth ball?”

“I am the unfortunate holder of that,” said Greenwich Place. “I’d just been reading Anthony Hope and Mr. Dooley. The result is a composite, which I will read.”

“What do you call it, Mr. Place?” asked the stenographer.

“Well, I don’t know,” replied Greenwich. “I guess ‘A Dooley Dialogue’ about describes it.”

[142]

Being the substance of a Dooley dialogue dreamed by Greenwich Place, Esq.

“I must see him,” said Dolly, rising suddenly from her chair and walking to the window. “I really must, you know.”

“Who?” I asked, rousing myself from the lethargy into which my morning paper had thrust me. It was not grammatical of me—I was somewhat under the influence of newspaper English—but Dolly is quick to understand. “Must see who?” I continued.

“Who indeed?” cried Dolly, gazing at me in mock surprise. “How stupid of you! If I went to Rome and said I must see him, you’d know I must mean the[143] Pope; if I went to Berlin and said I must see it, you’d know I meant the Emperor. Therefore, when I come to Chicago and say that I must see him, you ought to be able to guess that I mean—”

“Mr. Dooley?” I ventured, at a guess.

“Good for you!” cried Dolly, clapping her hands together joyously; and then she hummed bewitchingly, “The Boy Guessed Right the Very First Time,” until I begged her to desist. When Dolly claps her hands and hums, she becomes a vision of loveliness that would give the most confirmed misogynist palpitation of the heart, and I had no wish to die.

“Do you suppose I could call upon him without being thought too unconventional?” she blurted out in a moment.

“You can do anything,” said I, admiringly. “That is, with me to help,” I added, for I should be sorry if Dolly were to grow conceited. “Perhaps it would be better to have Mr. Dooley call upon you. Suppose you send him your card, and put[144] ‘at home’ on it? I fancy that would fetch him.”

“Happy thought!” said Dolly. “Only I haven’t one. In the excitement of our elopement I forgot to get any. Suppose I write my name on a blank card and send it?”

“Excellent,” said I.

And so it happened; the morning’s mail took out an envelope addressed to Mr. Dooley, and containing a bit of pasteboard upon which was written, in the charming hand of Dolly:

Mrs. R. Dolly-Rassendyll.
At Home.
                  The Hippodorium.
Tuesday Afternoon.                

[145]

“‘I MUST SEE HIM,’ SAID DOLLY”

[146]

The response was gratifyingly immediate.

The next morning Dolly’s mail contained Mr. Dooley’s card, which read as follows:

[147]

Mr. Dooley.
At Work.
Every Day.         Archie Road.

“Which means?” said Dolly, tossing the card across the table to me.

“That if you want to see Dooley you’ll have to call upon him at his place of business. It’s a saloon, I believe,” I observed. “Or a club—most American saloons are clubs, I understand.”

“I wonder if there’s a ladies’ day there?” laughed Dolly. “If there isn’t, perhaps I’d better not.”

And I of course agreed, for when Dolly thinks perhaps she’d better not, I always agree with her, particularly when the thing is a trifle unconventional.

“I am sorry,” she said, as we reached the conclusion. “To visit Chicago without meeting Mr. Dooley strikes me as like making the Mediterranean trip without seeing Gibraltar.”[148]

But we were not to be disappointed, after all, for that afternoon who should call but the famous philosopher himself, accompanied by his friend Mr. Hennessey. They were ushered into our little parlor, and Dolly received them radiantly.

“Iv coorse,” said Dooley, “I hatter come t’ see me new-found cousin. Hennessey here says, he says, ‘She ain’t yer cousin,’ he says; but whin I read yer car-r-rd over th’ second time, an’ see yer na-a-ame was R. Dooley-Rassendyll, wid th’ hifalution betwixt th’ Dooley an’ th’ Rassendyll, I says, ‘Hennessey,’ I says, ‘that shmall bit iv a coupler in that na-a-ame means only wan thing,’ I says. ‘Th’ la-ady,’ I says, ‘was born a Dooley, an’ ’s prood iv it,’ I says, ‘as she’d ought to be,’ I says. ‘Shure enough,’ says Hennessey; ‘but they’s Dooleys an’ Dooleys,’ he says. ‘Is she Roscommon or Idunnaw?’ he says. ‘I dinnaw meself,’ I says, ‘but whichiver she is,’ I says, ‘I’m goin’ to see her,’ I says. ‘Anny wan that can feel at home in a big hotel like the Hippojorium,’ I[149] says, ‘is wort’ lookin’ at, if only for the curawsity of it,’ I says. Are ye here for long?”

“We are just passing through,” said Dolly, with a pleased smile.

“It’s a gud pla-ace for that,” said Dooley. “Thim as pass troo Chicago ginerally go awaa pleased, an’ thim as stays t’ink it’s th’ only pla-ace in th’ worruld, gud luk to ’em! for, barrin’ Roscommon an’ New York, it’s th’ only pla-ace I have anny use for. Is yer hoosband anny relation t’ th’ dood in the Prizner iv Cinders?”

I laughed quietly, but did not resent the implication. I left Dolly to her fate.

“He is the very same person,” said Dolly.

“I t’ought as much,” said Dooley, eying me closely. “Th’ strorberry mark on his hair sort of identified him,” he added. “Cousin Roopert, I ta-ak ye by the hand. Ye was a bra-ave lad in th’ first book, an’ a dom’d fool in th’ second; but I read th’ second first, and th’ first lasht, so whin I[150] left ye ye was all right. I t’ought ye was dead?”

“No,” said I. “I am only dead in the sense that Mr. Hope has no further use for me.”

“A wise mon, that Mr. Ant’ny Hawp,” said Dooley. “Whin I write me book,” he continued, “I’m goin’ t’ shtop short whin folks have had enough.”

“Oh, indeed!” cried Dolly, enthusiastically. “Are you writing a book, Mr. Dooley? I am so glad.”

“Yis,” said Dooley, deprecatingly, yet pleased by Dolly’s enthusiasm. “I’m half finished already. That is to say, I’ve made th’ illusthrations. An’ the publishers have accepted the book on th’ stringth iv them.”

“Really?” said Dolly. “Do you really draw?”

“Nawm,” said Dooley. “I niver drew a picture in me life.”

“He draws corks,” put in Hennessey. “He’s got a pull that bates—”

“Hennessey,” interrupted Mr. Dooley, “since whin have ye been me funnygraph?[151] Whin me cousin ashks me riddles, I’ll tell her th’ answers. G’ down-shtairs an’ get a cloob san’wich an’ ate yourself to death. Char-rge it to—er—char-rge it to Misther Rassendyll here—me cousin Roop, be marritch. He looks liks a soft t’ing.”

Hennessey subsided and showed an inclination to depart, and I, not liking to see a well-meaning person thus sat upon, tried to be pleasant to him.

“Don’t go just yet, Mr. Hennessey,” said I. “I should like to talk to you.”

“Mr. Rassendyll,” he replied, “I’m not goin’ just yet, but an invitation to join farces with one iv the Hippojorium’s cloob sandwhiches is too much for me. I must accept. Phwat is the noomber iv your shweet?”

I gave him the number, and Hennessey departed. Before he went, however, he comforted me somewhat by saying that he too was “a puppit in