TO MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

I

First Meeting between a Citizen in Spectacles and the Great

Pleasure-Dog Behemoth; also of Charles Gardiner We st, a

Personage at Thirty.

3

II

Mrs. Paynter's Boarding-House: which was not founded as an

Eleemosynary Institution.

14

III

Encounter between Charlotte Lee We yland, a Landlady's Agent,

and Doctor Queed, a You ng Man who wouldn't pay hisBoard.

25

IV

Relating how Two Stars in their Courses fought for Mr. Queed;

and how he accepted Remunerative Employment under Colonel

Cowles, the Military Political Economist.

40

VSelections from Contemporary Opinions of Mr. Queed; also concerning

Henry G. Surface, his Life and Deeds; of Fifi, the

Landlady's Daughter, and how she happened to look up Altruism

in the Dictionary.

51

VI

Autobiographical Data imparted, for Sound Business Reasons,

to a Landlady's Agent; of the Agent's Other Title, etc.

64

VII

In which an Assistant Editor, experiencing the Common Desire

to thrash a Proof-Reader, makes a Humiliating Discovery;

and of how Trainer Klinker gets a Pupil the Same Evening.

79

VIII

Formal Invitation to Fifi to share Queed's Dining-Room (provided

it is very cold upstairs); and First Outrage upon the

Sacred Schedule of Hours.

93

IX

Of Charles Gardiner We st, President-Elect of Blaines College,

and his Ladies Fair: all in Mr. We st's Lighter Manner.

104

X

Of Fifi on Friendship, and who would be sorry if Queed died;

of Queed's Mad Impulse, sternly overcome; of his Indignant

Call upon Nicolovius, the Old Professor.

114

XI

Concerning a Plan to make a Small Gift to a Fellow-Boarder,

and what it led to in the Way of Calls; also touching upon

Mr. Queed's Dismissal from the Post, and the Generous Resolve

of the You ng Lady, Charles We yland.

127

XII

More Consequences of the Plan about the Gift, and of how Mr.

Queed drinks his Medicine like a Man; Fifi on Men, and

how they do; Second Corruption of the Sacred Schedule.

137

XIII

"Taking the Little Doctor Down a Peg or Two": as performed

for the First and Only Time by Sharlee We yland.

146

XIV

In which Klinker quotes Scripture, and Queed has helped Fifi

with her Lessons for the Last Time.

163

XV

In a Country Churchyard, and afterwards; of Friends: how they

take your Time while they live, and then die, upsetting your

Evening's Work; and what Buck Klinker saw in the Scriptorium

at 2 a.m..

174

XVI

Triumphal Return of Charles Gardiner We st from the Old World;

and of how the Other World had wagged in his Absence.

186

XVII

A Remeeting in a Cemetery: the Unglassed Queed who loafed on

Rustic Bridges; of the Consequences of failing to tell a Lady

that you hope to see her again soon.

200

XVIII

Of President We st of Old Blaines College, his Trustees and his

Troubles; his Firmness in the Brown-Jones Hazing Incident

so misconstrued by Malicious Asses; his Article for the Post,

and why it was never printed: all ending in We st's Profound

Dissatisfaction with the Rewards of Patriotism.

216

XIX

The Little House on Duke of Gloucester Street; and the Beginning

of Various Feelings, Sensibilities, and Attitudes between two

Lonely Men.

239

XX

Meeting of the Post Directors to elect a Successor to Colonel

Cowles; Charles Gardiner We st's Sensible Remarks on Mr. Queed; Mr.

We st's Resignation from Old Blaines College, and New Consecration

to the Uplift.

248

XXI

Queed sits on the Steps with Sharlee, and sees Some Old Soldiers

go marching by.

257

XXII

In which Professor Nicolovius drops a Letter on the Floor, and

Queed conjectures that happiness sometimes comes to Men

wearing a Strange Face.

274

XXIII

Of the Bill for the Reformatory, and its Critical Situation; of

We st's Second Disappointment with the Rewards of Patriotism;

of the Consolation he found in the Most Charming Resolve

in the World.

290

XXIV

Sharlee's Parlor on Another Evening; how One Caller outsat Two,

and why; also, how Sharlee looked in her Mirror for a Long

Time, and why.

300

XXV

Recording a Discussion about the Reformatory between Editor

We st and his Dog-like Admirer, the City Boss; and a Briefer

Conversation between We st and Prof. Nicolovius's Boarder.

312

XXVI

In which Queed forces the Old Professor's Hand, and the Old

Professor takes to his Bed.

330

XXVII

Sharlee We yland reads the Morning Post; of Rev. Mr. Dayne's

Fight at Ephesus and the Telephone Message that never came;

of the Editor's Comment upon the Assistant Editor's Resignation,

which perhaps lacked Clarity; and of how Eight Men

elect a Mayor.

345

XXVIII

How Words can be like Blows, and Blue Eyes stab deep; how

Queed sits by a Bedside and reviews his Life; and how a

Thought leaps at him and will not down.

363

XXIX

In which Queed's Shoulders can bear One Man's Roguery and

Another's Dishonor, and of what these Fardels cost him: how

for the Second Time in his Life he stays out of Bed to think.

375

XXX

Death of the Old Professor, and how Queed finds that his List of

Friends has grown; a Last Will and Testament; Exchange of

Letters among Prominent Attorneys, which unhappily proves

futile.

387

XXXI

God moves in a My sterious Way: how the finished Miss Avery

appears as the Instrument of Providence; how Sharlee sees

her Idol of Many Years go toppling in the Dust, and how it is

her Turn to meditate in the Still Watches.

397

XXXII

Second Meeting between a Citizen and the Great Pleasure-Dog

Behemoth, involving Plans for Two New Homes.

416

QUEED

IFirst Meeting between a citizen in Spectacles and the Great Pleasure-Dog Behemoth; also of Charles Gardiner We st, a Personage at Thirty.

It was five of a November afternoon, crisp and sharp, and already running into dusk. Down the street came a girl and a dog, rather a small girl and quite a behemothian dog. If she had been a shade smaller, or he a shade more behemothian, the thing would have approached a parody on one's settled idea of a girl and a dog. She had enough height to save that, but it was the narrowest sort of squeak.

The dog was of the breed which are said to come trotting into Alpine monasteries of a winter's night with fat American travelers in their mouths, frozen stiff. He was extremely large for his age, whatever that was. On the other hand, the girl was small for her age, which was twenty-four next month; not so much short, you understand, for she was of a reasonable height, as of a dainty slimness, a certain exquisite reticence of the flesh. She had cares and duties and even sober-sided responsibilities in this world, beyond the usual run of girls. Yet her hat was decidedly of the mode that year; her suit was smartly and engagingly cut; her furs were glossy and black and big. Her face, it may be said here as well as later, had in its time given pleasure to the male sex, and some food for critical conversation to the female. A good many of the young men whom she met along the way this afternoon appeared distinctly pleased to speak to her.

The girl was Sharlee We yland, and Sharlee was the short for Charlotte Lee, as invented by herself some score of years before. One baby-name in a hundred sticks through a lifetime, and hers was the one in that particular hundred. Of the young men along the way, one was so lucky as to catch her eye through a large plate-glass window. It was Semple and We st's window, the ground-floor one in the great new Commonwealth Building, of which the town is rightly so proud, and the young man was no other than We st, Charles Gardiner himself. A smile warmed his good-looking face when he met the eye of the girl and the dog; he waved a hand at them. That done, he immediately vanished from the window and reached for his hat and coat; gave hurried directions to a clerk and a stenographer; and sallying forth, overtook the pair before they had reached the next corner.

"Everything's topsy-turvy,"said he, coming alongside."Here you are frivolously walking downtown with a dog. Usually at this time you are most earnestly walking uptown, and not a sign of a dog as far as the eye can see. What on earth's happened?"

"Oh, how do you do?"said she, apparently not displeased to find herself thus surprised from the rear."I too have a mad kind of feeling, as though the world had gone upside down. Don't be amazed if I suddenly clutch out at you to keep from falling. But the name of it—of this feeling—is having a holiday. Mr. Dayne went to New York at 12.20."

"Ah, I see. When the cat's away?"

"Not at all. I am taking this richly earned vacation by his express command."

"In that case, why mightn't we turn about and go a real walk—cease picking our way through the noisome hum of commerce and set brisk evening faces toward the open road—and all that? You and I and the dog. What is his name? Rollo, I suppose?"

"Rollo! No! Or Tray or Fido, either! His name is Bee, short for Behemoth—and I think that a very captivating little name, don't you? His old name, the one I bought him by, was Fred— Fred!—but already he answers to the pretty name of Bee as though he were born to it. Watch."She pursed her lips and gave a whistle, unexpectedly loud and clear."Here, Bee, here! Here, sir! Look, look. He turned around right away!"

We st laughed."Wonderfully gifted dog. But I believe you mentioned taking a walk in the November air. I can only say that physicians strongly recommend it, valetudinarians swear by it—"

"Oh—if I only could!—but I simply cannot think of it. Do you know, I never have a holiday without wondering how on earth I could have gotten on another day without it. You can't imagine what loads of things I've done since two o'clock, and loads remain. The very worst job of them all still hangs by a hair over my head. I must cross here."

We st said that evidently her conception of a holiday was badly mixed. As they walked he paid for her society by incessantly taking off his hat; nearly everybody they met spoke to them, many more to him than to her. Though both of them had been born in that city and grown up with it, the girl had only lately come to know We st well, and she did not know him very well now. All the years hitherto she had joined in the general admiration of him shyly and from a distance, the pretty waiting-lady's attitude toward the dazzling young crown prince. She was observant, and so she could not fail to observe now the cordiality with which people of all sorts saluted him, the touch of deference in the greeting of not a few. He was scarcely thirty, but it would have been clear to a duller eye that he was already something of a personage. Yet he held no public office, nor were his daily walks the walks of philanthropic labor for the common good. In fact Semple & We st's was merely a brokerage establishment, which was understood to be cleaning up a tolerable lot of money per annum.

They stood on the corner, waiting for a convenient chance to cross, and We st looked at her as at one whom it was pleasant to rest one's eyes upon. She drew his attention to their humming environment. For a city of that size the life and bustle here were, indeed, such as to take the eye. Trolley cars clanged by in a tireless procession; trucks were rounding up for stable and for bed; delivery wagons whizzed corners and bumped on among them; now and then a chauffeur honked by, grim eyes roving for the unwary pedestrian. On both sides of the street the homeward march of tired humans was already forming and quickening.

"Heigho! We're living in an interesting time, you and I,"said We st."It isn't every generation that can watch its old town change into a metropolis right under its eyes."

"I remember,"said she,"when it was an exciting thing to see anybody on the street you didn't know. You went home and told the family about it, and very likely counted the spoons next morning. The city seemed to belong to us then. And now—look. Everywhere new kings that know not Joseph. Bee!"

"It's the law of life; the old order changeth."He turned and looked along the street, into the many faces of the homeward bound."The eternal mystery of the people.... Don't you like to look at their faces and wonder what they're all doing and thinking and hoping and dreaming to make out of their lives?"

"Don't you think they're all hoping and dreaming just one thing?—how to make more money than they're making at present? All over the world,"said Miss We yland,"bright young men lie awake at night, thinking up odd, ingenious ways to take other people's money away from them. The se young men are the spirit of America. We're having an irruption of them here now... the Goths sacking the sacred city."

"Clever rascals they are too. I,"said We st,"belong to the other group. I sleep of nights and wake up in the morning to have your bright young Goths take my money away from me."

He laughed and continued:"Little Bobby Smythe, who used to live here, was in my office the other day. I was complimenting him on the prosperity of the plumbers'supply manufacture—for such is his mundane occupation, in Schenectady, N.Y. Bobby said that plumbers'supplies were all well enough, but he made his real money from an interesting device of his own. The re is a lot of building going on in his neighborhood, it seems, and it occurred to him to send around to the various owners and offer his private watchman to guard the loose building materials at night. This for the very reasonable price of $3.50 a week. It went like hot cakes.'But,'said I,'surely your one watchman can't look after thirty-seven different places.''No,'said Bobby,'but they think he does.'I laughed and commended his ingenuity.'But the best part of the joke,'said he,'is that I haven't got any watchman at all.'"

Sharlee We yland laughed gayly."Bobby could stand for the portrait of young America."

"You've been sitting at the feet of a staunch old Tory Gamaliel named Colonel Cowles. I can see that. Ah, me! My garrulity has cost us a splendid chance to cross. What are all these dreadful things you have still left to do on your so-called holiday?"

"We ll,"said she,"first I'm going to Saltman's to buy stationery. Boxes and boxes of it, for the Department. Bee! Come here, sir! Look how fat this purse is. I'm going to spend all of that. Bee! I wish I had put him to leash. He's going to hurt himself in a minute—you see!—"

"Don't you think he's much more likely to hurt somebody else? For a guess, that queer-looking little citizen in spectacles over the way, who so evidently doesn't know where he is at."

"Oh, do you think so?—Bee!... Then, after stationery, comes the disagreeable thing, and yet interesting too. I have to go to my Aunt Jennie's, dunning."