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apply to you instead of me?

 

C. She wished me to use my influence.

 

H. Dear me, what has INFLUENCE to do with such a matter?

 

C. Well, I think she thought you would be more likely to examine

her book if you were influenced.

 

H. Why, what we are here FOR is to examine books—anybody’s book

that comes along. It’s our BUSINESS. Why should we turn away

a book unexamined because it’s a stranger’s? It would be foolish.

No publisher does it. On what ground did she request your influence,

since you do not know her? She must have thought you knew her

literature and could speak for it. Is that it?

 

C. No; she knew I didn’t.

 

H. Well, what then? She had a reason of SOME sort for believing you

competent to recommend her literature, and also under obligations

to do it?

 

C. Yes, I—I knew her uncle.

 

H. Knew her UNCLE?

 

C. Yes.

 

H. Upon my word! So, you knew her uncle; her uncle knows her literature;

he endorses it to you; the chain is complete, nothing further needed;

you are satisfied, and therefore—

 

C. NO, that isn’t all, there are other ties. I know the cabin

her uncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too; also I

came near knowing her husband before she married him, and I DID

know the abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he

went flying through the air and clear down to the trail and hit

an Indian in the back with almost fatal consequences.

 

H. To HIM, or to the Indian?

 

C. She didn’t say which it was.

 

H. (WITH A SIGH). It certainly beats the band! You don’t know HER,

you don’t know her literature, you don’t know who got hurt when

the blast went off, you don’t know a single thing for us to build

an estimate of her book upon, so far as I—

 

C. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her uncle.

 

H. Oh, what use is HE? Did you know him long? How long was it?

 

C. Well, I don’t know that I really knew him, but I must have

met him, anyway. I think it was that way; you can’t tell about

these things, you know, except when they are recent.

 

H. Recent? When was all this?

 

C. Sixteen years ago.

 

H. What a basis to judge a book upon! As first you said you knew him,

and now you don’t know whether you did or not.

 

C. Oh yes, I know him; anyway, I think I thought I did; I’m perfectly

certain of it.

 

H. What makes you think you thought you knew him?

 

C. Why, she says I did, herself.

 

H. SHE says so!

 

C. Yes, she does, and I DID know him, too, though I don’t remember

it now.

 

H. Come—how can you know it when you don’t remember it.

 

C. I don’t know. That is, I don’t know the process, but I DO know

lots of things that I don’t remember, and remember lots of things

that I don’t know. It’s so with every educated person.

 

H. (AFTER A PAUSE). Is your time valuable?

 

C. No—well, not very.

 

H. Mine is.

 

So I came away then, because he was looking tired. Overwork, I reckon;

I never do that; I have seen the evil effects of it. My mother

was always afraid I would overwork myself, but I never did.

 

Dear madam, you see how it would happen if I went there. He would

ask me those questions, and I would try to answer them to suit him,

and he would hunt me here and there and yonder and get me embarrassed

more and more all the time, and at last he would look tired on

account of overwork, and there it would end and nothing done.

I wish I could be useful to you, but, you see, they do not

care for uncles or any of those things; it doesn’t move them,

it doesn’t have the least effect, they don’t care for anything

but the literature itself, and they as good as despise influence.

But they do care for books, and are eager to get them and examine them,

no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen. If you will send

yours to a publisher—any publisher—he will certainly examine it,

I can assure you of that.

***

A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION

 

Consider that a conversation by telephone—when you are simply siting

by and not taking any part in that conversation—is one of the solemnest

curiosities of modern life. Yesterday I was writing a deep article

on a sublime philosophical subject while such a conversation was

going on in the room. I notice that one can always write best when

somebody is talking through a telephone close by. Well, the thing

began in this way. A member of our household came in and asked me

to have our house put into communication with Mr. Bagley’s downtown.

I have observed, in many cities, that the sex always shrink from

calling up the central office themselves. I don’t know why,

but they do. So I touched the bell, and this talk ensued:

 

CENTRAL OFFICE. (GRUFFY.) Hello!

 

I. Is it the Central Office?

 

C. O. Of course it is. What do you want?

 

I. Will you switch me on to the Bagleys, please?

 

C. O. All right. Just keep your ear to the telephone.

 

Then I heard K-LOOK, K-LOOK, K’LOOK—KLOOK-KLOOK-KLOOK-LOOK-LOOK! then

a horrible “gritting” of teeth, and finally a piping female voice:

Y-e-s? (RISING INFLECTION.) Did you wish to speak to me?

 

Without answering, I handed the telephone to the applicant, and sat down.

Then followed that queerest of all the queer things in this world—

a conversation with only one end of it. You hear questions asked;

you don’t hear the answer. You hear invitations given; you hear

no thanks in return. You have listening pauses of dead silence,

followed by apparently irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations

of glad surprise or sorrow or dismay. You can’t make head or tail

of the talk, because you never hear anything that the person at the

other end of the wire says. Well, I heard the following remarkable

series of observations, all from the one tongue, and all shouted—

for you can’t ever persuade the sex to speak gently into a telephone:

 

Yes? Why, how did THAT happen?

 

Pause.

 

What did you say?

 

Pause.

 

Oh no, I don’t think it was.

 

Pause.

 

NO! Oh no, I didn’t mean THAT. I meant, put it in while it

is still boiling—or just before it COMES to a boil.

 

Pause.

 

WHAT?

 

Pause.

 

I turned it over with a backstitch on the selvage edge.

 

Pause.

 

Yes, I like that way, too; but I think it’s better to baste it

on with Valenciennes or bombazine, or something of that sort.

It gives it such an air—and attracts so much noise.

 

Pause.

 

It’s forty-ninth Deuteronomy, sixty-forth to ninety-seventh inclusive.

I think we ought all to read it often.

 

Pause.

 

Perhaps so; I generally use a hair pin.

 

Pause.

 

What did you say? (ASIDE.) Children, do be quiet!

 

Pause

 

OH! B FLAT! Dear me, I thought you said it was the cat!

 

Pause.

 

Since WHEN?

 

Pause.

 

Why, I never heard of it.

 

Pause.

 

You astound me! It seems utterly impossible!

 

Pause.

 

WHO did?

 

Pause.

 

Goodness gracious!

 

Pause.

 

Well, what IS this world coming to? Was it right in CHURCH?

 

Pause.

 

And was her MOTHER there?

 

Pause.

 

Why, Mrs. Bagley, I should have died of humiliation! What did

they DO?

 

Long pause.

 

I can’t be perfectly sure, because I haven’t the notes by me;

but I think it goes something like this: te-rolly-loll-loll, loll

lolly-loll-loll, O tolly-loll-loll-LEE-LY-LI-I-do! And then REPEAT,

you know.

 

Pause.

 

Yes, I think it IS very sweet—and very solemn and impressive,

if you get the andantino and the pianissimo right.

 

Pause.

 

Oh, gum-drops, gum-drops! But I never allow them to eat striped candy.

And of course they CAN’T, till they get their teeth, anyway.

 

Pause.

 

WHAT?

 

Pause.

 

Oh, not in the least—go right on. He’s here writing—it doesn’t

bother HIM.

 

Pause.

 

Very well, I’ll come if I can. (ASIDE.) Dear me, how it does tire

a person’s arm to hold this thing up so long! I wish she’d—

 

Pause.

 

Oh no, not at all; I LIKE to talk—but I’m afraid I’m keeping you

from your affairs.

 

Pause.

 

Visitors?

 

Pause.

 

No, we never use butter on them.

 

Pause.

 

Yes, that is a very good way; but all the cook-books say they

are very unhealthy when they are out of season. And HE doesn’t

like them, anyway—especially canned.

 

Pause.

 

Oh, I think that is too high for them; we have never paid over fifty

cents a bunch.

 

Pause.

 

MUST you go? Well, GOOD-by.

 

Pause.

 

Yes, I think so. GOOD-by.

 

Pause.

 

Four o’clock, then—I’ll be ready. GOOD-by.

 

Pause.

 

Thank you ever so much. GOOD-by.

 

Pause.

 

Oh, not at all!—just as fresh—WHICH? Oh, I’m glad to hear you

say that. GOOD-by.

 

(Hangs up the telephone and says, “Oh, it DOES tire a person’s

arm so!”)

 

A man delivers a single brutal “Good-by,” and that is the end of it.

Not so with the gentle sex—I say it in their praise; they cannot

abide abruptness.

***

EDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE

 

These two were distantly related to each other—seventh cousins,

or something of that sort. While still babies they became orphans,

and were adopted by the Brants, a childless couple, who quickly

grew very fond of them. The Brants were always saying: “Be pure,

honest, sober, industrious, and considerate of others, and success

in life is assured.” The children heard this repeated some thousands

of times before they understood it; they could repeat it themselves

long before they could say the Lord’s Prayer; it was painted over

the nursery door, and was about the first thing they learned to read.

It was destined to be the unswerving rule of Edward Mills’s life.

Sometimes the Brants changed the wording a little, and said:

“Be pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and you will never

lack friends.”

 

Baby Mills was a comfort to everybody about him. When he wanted

candy and could not have it, he listened to reason, and contented

himself without it. When Baby Benton wanted candy, he cried for it

until he got it. Baby Mills took care of his toys; Baby Benton

always destroyed his in a very brief time, and then made himself

so insistently disagreeable that, in order to have peace in the house,

little Edward was persuaded to yield up his play-things to him.

 

When the children were a little older, Georgie became a heavy expense

in one respect: he took no care of his clothes; consequently, he

shone frequently in new ones, with was not the case with Eddie.

The boys grew apace. Eddie was an increasing comfort, Georgie an

increasing solicitude. It was always sufficient to say, in answer

to Eddie’s petitions, “I would rather you would not do it”—

meaning swimming, skating, picnicking, berrying, circusing,

and all sorts of things which boys delight in. But NO answer

was sufficient for Georgie; he had to be humored in his desires,

or he would carry them with a high hand. Naturally, no boy got

more swimming