PS 3500 ^^ The Notion^Counter A FARRAGO o/ FOIBLES J Book r- rOFYRIGltr DEPOSIT. THE NOTION-COUNTER The Notion-Counter A FARRAGO o/ FOIBLES Being Notes About Nothing Sy NOBODY ILLUSTRATED BY SOMEBODY DEDICATED TO EVERYBODY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOSTON f^ 3^0° l\lt nI(= Copyright, 192a, by The Atlantic Monthly Prbss Printed in the United States of America JUN -3 1S22 CONTENTS Pagb The Notion-Counter 1 On Dyeing 5 Shell-Shock in a Shoeshop 11 Millinery Madness 16 The Passing of the Old Lady 21 Visited on the Children 25 "Now Who Shall Arbitrate?" 31 1. Cynthia's Husband 31 2. Clarence's Wife 36 My Wife's Address-Book 41 My Wife's Check-Book 48 My Wife's "Telaphib" List 55 Woman versus Women 63 Mrs. O 'Toole AND Venus . 67 My Architectural Friends 75 Parables in Motors 80 Reel-Life 84 Pots and Kettles 90 What Kind of a Snob Are You? 95 Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On ... . 102 IN certain of these Notes about Nothing — many of which first ap- peared in the "Contributors* Club" of the Atlantic Monthly — "Nobody" has ventured to masquerade as a woman; in others "Nobody" has counterfeited to be a man. The Notion -Counter THE other day a parable was suggested to my mind by the sight of a loquacious country-woman wan- dering through the intricacies of a large city de- partment-store. I watched her approach an impressive individual^ who appeared to combine the functions of floorwalker and stargazer, and put her case before him for solution. "/ want to find the counter where they sell cute little knickknacks ," she began confidentially; "the kind of things nobody wants, but that are real nice to take home to the folks. I aint got the money to squander on any of these kind of vanities and folderols'' (this with a comprehensive gesture that swept the horizon). "I want to find somethin kind of odd, such as clus- ters of pins that look like blackberries, and emery- bags that look like radish- es, and pincushions that The Notion-Counter look like tomatoes, and sort of comical things that aint what they seem.'' The superman winced perceptibly, and pointed a very definite forefinger towards a remote corner. " What you want is the Notion- Counter,** he firmly announced. *'Go past the 'Finery from France* and leave 'Luxuries in Leather^ behind you; the Notion- Counter is what you are looking for.** As I began by saying, this little incident suggested to my mind an allegory in which a department-store should become the modern symbol of Vanity Fair, through which twentieth-century Christians {or at any rate their wives and daughters) must pass on their way to the Celestial City, where, we hope, there are no bargains and no bar- gain-hunters. How suggestive is the very name of the Notion-Counter! Here one does not look for convictions, for faiths , or for hopes; but ''notions** can be picked up like the coveted blackberries of the little country-woman. We can imagine the bewildered pilgrim* s progress through the maze of such a great centre of retail trade, try- ing to coordinate her desires. She passes the Small-Talk Counter and scorns the Gossip Department. Even the Anecdotal Corner of the Slander Section fails to interest her, though she is given a sample of a story that is both long and broad, and undeniably cheap. The Notion-Counter " Could we interest you in Habits ? " inquires an eager floorwalker. ** They are custom-made, and so they are never sent on approval. Habits can never be changed.^* '' I form my own habits, and one of them is never to wear one when I ride,'* the customer curtly replies; and that subject is closed. ''Are you sure, madam," continues the un-snubbable official — *'are you sure that, even if you do not care to observe Theories or to acquire Habits, you may not want some Real Facts? We have a new importation from Europe and they are warranted solid, not merely polished to look genuine, like those that were sent over to us in war- time.*' ''No, I do not care even to look at Facts,** the shopper firmly proclaims; "you need not offer me any Advice, either. And your Ideals are frightfully high! I saw some at the Love- Counter, but they were far beyond me.** "We have some excellent values in Prejudices, all bound in hide,** the floorwalker suggests; "they are, of course, among the Gents* Furnishings** " You don*t seem to understand what I am looking for," Mrs. Christian interrupts impatiently. "I dont want anything real, like Ideas, or unreal, like Ideals, or any- thing to give away, like Advice, or to keep, like Command- ments. I *d like to find the counter of trivial Comments and Exaggerations, of marked-down remnants of Personal Observation, and Figures of Speech that are nt to be The Notion-Counter taken seriously. I want some of those silly little odds and ends that look like what they Ve not. I want to find the counter where they display frivolous and foolish Notions, that dont deserve to he called Opinions, I want — " ** Why did nt you tell me before that you wanted No- tions 1" the thoroughly exasperated official exclaims, re- moving his mask of professional courtesy. '^Of course, if you want Notions, the Notion- Counter is what you want ! Turn to the left, go past the Ready-made-Opinion Depart- ment, leaving the section of Speculation behind you I The Notion- Counter is what you are looking for I " ON DYEING WHY is it that people who are employed in dye- house agencies are invariably confirmed pes- simists on all questions that touch their own profession ? Their spirits seem to have been subdued to that they work in, to have been dipped in the black- est of never-fading gloom. Melancholy has marked them for her own. Assuredly there should be in- scribed over the door of the dyehouse, as over the door of other death-cells, the classic phrase of doom: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." My thesis is that the women employed in these mortuary temples have only one human trait, which is, that in spite of their profession, they do not want to dye. In order to prove the truth of this convic- tion, I started forth a few weeks ago on an investigating expedi- tion, carrying a large bundle under my arm. My package con- tained clothes, not old The Notion-Counter so much as middle-aged, some being really young, a baby's coat of spotless purity being among the more juvenile members of the hand-picked collection. Before entering the dyeing establishment, I paused to look in the cruelly deceptive shop-window. It pre- sented a gay scene of headless ladies exquisitely gowned in every shade of delicate pink, blue, yellow, and lavender. A placard bore the legend (I use the word advisedly) : "These dresses have all been dyed." Almost fearing that my theory was to be disproved, I entered and, placing my package on the marble tomb- stone of a counter, displayed the contents to a woe- begone female in black. Before I could explain what I wished to have done, the sallow saleslady summoned another human vulture from a hidden recess, and to- gether they looked, with stricken faces, at my articles of apparel, shaking their heads ominously as I dis- played my various exhibits. "I have brought in a few things to be dyed," I began cheerfully. "Now, this little coat — which is per- fectly clean, you see — I should like to have dyed light blue; this pink chiffon waist, which is a trifle soiled, I want to have dyed black; the little negligee I want pink, and this scarf lavender." While I was talking, the leading lady quietly re- moved the garments from my grasp and began rolling them up in the bundle again. On Dyeing "It is perfectly impossible, madam," she said in a tone of finality. "Your things cannot be dyed." "May I ask why not?" I inquired with quiet con- trol. "My garments are most of them white, and many are practically new." The undertaker's assistant now stepped forward, and in sepulchral tones made these disconnected an- nouncements, which sounded like texts from a free- thinker's burial service: — "The infant's coat has too much wool. We do not recommend dyeing chiffon. The morning sack (she pronounced it * mourning') is made of taffeta, which rots. The gauze scarf might possibly take a very dark—" But at this moment the tragedy-queen broke in. "We will take no responsibility, even about the scarf." The weird sisters had almost finished tying up my bundle again as I feebly protested: "But why do you advertise dyeing, why do you exhibit these dresses in the window, why do you — " One of the women held up a warning hand. "Your garments are not fit to dye" (I blushed for their evil lives) ; "we could take no responsibility for the result." "But if / am willing to take the responsibility," I protested in desperation, tearing open the bundle again, " how much should I have to pay for the experiment? " S The Notion-Counter The mutes exchanged a look, and in the character of pallbearers carried the corpus vile to some distant cave, whence, after a muttered colloquy held over the re- mains, they returned with the verdict: — ''The scarf is the only article we are willing even to attempt. We are much rushed with business." (The receiving vault in which we stood was perfectly empty.) **We shall have to keep it seven weeks, and the only color it can take is a brownish-red. Even that we do not advise.** I almost smiled, they were so true to type. I had been waiting for that brownish-red suggestion. **That will be perfectly lovely," I said hastily; **and will you please charge the scarf and send it when it is finished? I have no account here," I added lightly, **but I can give good references." Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound. A mascu- line voice from behind the scenes proclaimed, "We never charge. It must be paid for C. O. D." My saleslady took her cue. "No, we never charge, and we cannot tell the exact cost. It will probably not exceed four dollars." "But the scarf cost only $2.50!" I gasped. Silence and stony indifference on the part of the officiating executive. "I think I will take my things somewhere else," I announced. And with no help this time from the af- On Dyeing fronted attendants, I made my exit, trailing clouds of paper and string as I departed to continue my investi- gations. It is unnecessary to recount my experiences at the five other establishments I visited, so similar were my reception and dismissal in all. There were slight va- riations on the original minor theme : sometimes my test cases had too much wool in their composition, sometimes too much silk ; the heaviness of their mate- rial would cause them to shrink, or their flimsiness would cause them to dissolve. The fabrics seemed doomed to perish if subjected even to that arid proc- ess known as dry cleansing. There were faint glimpses of brownish-red on the horizon, but even they flickered out, leaving me in utter darkness. At the sixth and last dyeing establishment I investi- gated, my cynicism received a slight setback. After the usual preliminary discouragements and refusals and whispered consultations, the shopgirl, who had not fully developed into the usual shop-ghoul betrayed unexpected symptoms of compassion. "I tell you what, lady," she at last conceded, ** there ain't a thing in your collection that's worth coloring; but if you want to leave the bundle at your own risk, we '11 do the best we can; only we're so busy that you can't get your things back for two months." "Very well," I replied, "I will take all risks. I 'm 10 The Notion-Counter very much obliged to you for consenting to do some- thing that you advertise to do — it is unusual; and I will give you my name and address and pay C. O. D. if I am still living when my things are dyed." I thought I had really found the rare establishment that does what it advertises to do; and when, at the end of one week instead of eight, a letter came bearing the name of my dyehouse, my hopes rose high. Was I to hear that the firm had undergone conversion and would finish my work in a reasonable time? Was I to read some message of encouragement, *' We who are about to dye salute you," or some such appropriate word of cheer? No. The note stated that, after grave consideration, it had been decided that the risk of dye- ing any of my articles was too great — accordingly they were holding my bundle for further instructions. If I cared to have the scarf dyed a brownish-red in- stead of lavender — That day I read no more. I saw scarlet ^ — scarlet untinged with brown. I vowed then the act of vengeance I am now perpetrating. I would creep up unawares among these dyers who lie — and a stab in the back, dealt by an unknown hand, should cause these liars to dye. SHELL-SHOCK IN A SHOESHOP THIS small exposition of a social phenomenon is presented to the sorority of shoestore sufferers, merely in the hope that it will be diagnosed as correct, and not condemned as another extravagance of an embittered shopper. Things are seldom what they seem. The other day I went to what I supposed to be a mark-down sale of boots and shoes, but found instead that I was attend- ing a reception ; or perhaps it would be more correct to call the social function at which I found myself a leap-year party, because, in a shoestore, it is appar- ently always leap-year. Women in bevies were crowding and jostling each other just inside the entrance, shrilly demanding some particular clerk, the name of the coveted salesman ris- ing above the steady stream of feminine chatter with flattering insistence. I was deafened by the Babel of tongues among which various phrases crashed through into my consciousness. "Where is Mr. Johnson? I must have Mr. Johnson. He 's the only man that knows just what I want." "Is Mr. Jackson here? Say, Edna, do you mind just catching hold of that gentleman that *s talking to the fleshy woman in blue? He 's my special friend. All 12 The Notion-Counter the others make me get shoes that are too big for me." i "Oh, Mr. Sampson, here I am! You know you told me to be sure and always ask for you." "Good morning, Mr. Benson. How are you this morning? Popular as ever, I see! I want you to show me the very latest thing in tango-slippers. I think everything of Mr. Benson," the speaker then an- nounced to all whom it might concern. And the moun- tain of flesh from whom this flattering declaration emanated forced her way toward her coveted idol, Mahomet being utterly unable to go to the mountain. I looked round me in despair. Each clerk was either surrounded by a group of ladies or having a confiden- tial chat with one alone on some cushioned sofa. Broken bits of conversation continued to assail my ears; sometimes the subject matter was such as would be tossed to and fro between any two people meeting at an afternoon tea ; sometimes there was an inter- change of personal gossip concerning the large world of society in which the majority of the shoe-purchasing and shoe-selling world seemed to move side by side. The feminine confidences to which I found myself lis- tening were the more astounding in their intimacy from the fact that often they were evidently being poured into the ear of a total stranger. A young girl in fur coat and pearl necklace bent confidentially toward a swain in whose blacking-stained palm her silk-stock- Shell-Shock in a Shoeshop 13 inged foot was temporarily reposing, and exchanged ballroom badinage. Stout matrons repeated the latest mots of their grandchildren, or deplored the manners of the new generation, sure of a sympathetic listener at their feet. Somehow the intimacy implied by an appeal for sympathy always seems of the closest pos- sible brand. Among the confusion of faces, I suddenly detected the puzzled one of a rather deaf contemporary of my own. I made my way to her side, and indicating a confidential confessional that was in progress at a little distance I shouted, ** Don't you admire shoemen's sympathy?" She looked alarmed for my reason. "Schumann's Symphony?" she murmured vaguely. *'Why, yes, I think it 's beautiful, if you mean the one in D minor." This would never do. *' It 's no use trying to talk in a shoeshop," I yelled, backing away. "Did you say you had shell-shock? " my deaf friend inquired again. I nodded violently and withdrew to continue my observations. "Is this the new democracy? " I asked myself in a daze. But no. I have been to other mark-down sales. I have traveled from automatic attics to bargain base- ments, and everywhere the old order prevailed to the extent of the purchaser and the dispenser of wares 14 The Notion-Counter being separated by that imaginary equator which divides the seller and the sold. Perhaps the absence of that symbol of separation, the counter, explains the greater freedom of intercourse in the shoestore. But as I had come to buy boots and not to moralize, I de- cided to be very up-to-date and "cut in" on some confidential couple. Accordingly I boldly placed my- self beside a seal-skinned siren, who was discussing with her chosen partner a movie she had seen the night before, and said firmly: **I have come to buy some boots. Will you please wait on me when you are quite through talking to this lady?" My sarcasm passed un- heeded. Without glancing my way, the clerk merely^, pointed to a distant corner and replied: **I am busy. Perhaps one of those other gentlemen can attend to you." It was in that corner, neglected and alone, that I evolved the theory that the shoeman is as yet in a state of transition. He is an unclassified animal, a sort of social Soko, or missing link. Perhaps eventually he will arise from his ** probably arboreal" crouch, and will stand upright on two legs and proclaim himself Shell-Shock in a Shoeshop 15 either a man or a gentleman ! Perhaps he will have a consulting-parlor, in which ladies may lay bare their souls (I repudiate the obvious pun) less publicly than at present. But for the moment the shoe-specialist is certainly in an anomalous position, into which he has been pushed by the incredible intimacy of his rich and common lady-patronesses. Perhaps there is some psychological reason why, in removing the shoe, one removes also a shell of reserve (perhaps shell-shocked sensibilities have caused it to disintegrate) while a new sole-protector is being tested. It always establishes a pleasantly cordial relation to find one's self hand and glove with a courteous clerk on the other side of the counter; but it is almost start- ling to find one's self foot and boot — so to speak — with an impassioned salesman kneeling at one's feet. MILLINERY MADNESS A HAT is in man's life a thing apart; *t is woman's whole existence — or so at least one would ■ judge by the tense and concentrated faces re- flected in the mirrors of "Miss Hattie'sHat Shop," as that specialist's consulting-room is euphemistically called. The purchase of a hat should never be undertaken alone, any more than one should have one's teetJi pulled out without a friendly face to confront one when "coming out" of gas. And, by the way, what a good idea it would be to have a whiff of some anaes- thetic applied to the victim who enters a millinery establishment to have twenty-five dollars painlessly extracted. "Crown work" is sometimes a nervous strain to the occupant of the dental chair. It is often an equally trying experience to the visitor in the mil- linery parlor. To be sure, the sight of a hat that seemed designed by Fate — or France — to suit one's own particular contour and coloring frequently acts like a narcotic, and drugs one's conscience into complete subjection to the saleslady's wishes. No practitioner in psycho- analysis or hypnotic suggestion could more success- fully subdue the conscious will and gain a mastery Millinery Madness 17 over the victim than could the plausible Miss Hattie. This is what happened when I went to look at hats — not to buy them. "Oh, no, madam, $29.87 is not at all dear for this little toque," Miss Hattie protested to me when I faintly murmured at the price. "What, you say that you don't wear feathers be- cause you belong to the Auburn Society? Why, dear, auburn hair like yours is very fashionable this season, only we call it henna now instead of red, and black feathers look real well with it. What, you don't wear bird's feathers? Well now, isn't that a joke! This is n't a bird's feather; it 's just made out of whalebone! We don't mind killing whales, do we, and yet I sup- pose it hurts them to be shot more than it does birds, they 're so much less fluffy." All this time the hat is being deftly pinned to my head. It is only by a supreme effort of will that I can tear it off, most of my hair coming down in the struggle ; but I am determined not to be hypnotized into sub- mission so early; it shows such pitiable weakness. " I 'm only looking, not buying, and I don't like that hat," I insist; "eitheri/is tooyoungor Jam tooold— in fact, I think the shapes are perfectly terrible this year. Now look at that—" And I pointed a finger of derision at what appeared to be a fruit-basket filled with oranges and bananas that was lying on the table beside me. 1 8 The Notion-Counter Suddenly a female more like a Fury than a Shopper bore down upon me with a look that froze my blood. **You are speaking of my hat, madam, and it is not for sale," she announced with bitter scorn. "Perhaps you did n't know that yellow is all the rage this year." And she flounced away, bearing her agricultural ex- hibit with her. {Exit slave, hearing fruit.) This experience unnerved me so that I felt a sus- ceptibility to hypnotism stealing over me, of which Miss Hattie was quick to take advantage by producing head coverings of other shapes and shades. **How should you like something in the line of Bur- gundy?" she suggested, awaking pleasant memories of pre-Prohibition days; ''or maize is very fashionable this year, as well as pelican. Then there is always bisque, or jade, or even wistaria." Where were the blues and reds that did not sail under false colors? Where were the browns of yester- year? I tried to intimate, from my state of partial hypnosis, that though I recognized the faces of all the colors she was introducing to me, I had forgotten their names. "Now you just leave it all to m.e," the skillful prac- titioner purred soothingly; "I have just the hat for you — something refined and at the same time snappy." She placed upon my fevered brow an austere and Millinery Maaness 19 uncompromising pyramid, designed on the antedi- luvian lines of Mrs. Noah's hat, as remembered in my own early Noah's Arkaic days. "Say, I 'm just tickled to death with the way you look in that hat," my hypnotizer went on, making a few passes in front of my face, thereby completing her mesmeric success. ** You 're just stunning in it — perfectly stunning." C'Yes, and stunned, too," I murmured inaudibly.) ** The way the brim comes down and hides your face is just too becoming for words. Now, I 'm going to put your old hat in a piece of paper, because of course 20 The Notion-Counter you want to wear the new one, and I don't blame you — not one mite." Her deft fingers were working as fast as her tongue. She knew that I must not "come to" while in her parlor. "Now here you are, Miss Smithkins. I 'm so glad we had just what you wanted and so cheap, too. Good morning, — come again, — I remember the charge ad- dress." And before I knew it, I was in the street below. My first coherent thought was that I had not even asked the price of the hat I was wearing ; and I did not entirely shake off my stupor till I saw my reflection in a shop-window and awoke with a scream. THE PASSING OF THE OLD LADY T is hard to persuade modern enthusiasts that innovations are not necessarily improve- ments, and that many invent- ions of to-day supplant things of yesterday which were in- herently better worth pre- serving. Among other lost arts must be reluctantly mentioned that of growing old. It has been succeeded by something far less lovely, the trick of remaining young. The Old Lady seems to have passed — or is it possible that she has only temporarily withdrawn for a nice little old-fashioned nap in her easy- chair, while her modern substitute is chasing a golf-ball overthelinks, counting up her gains at the bridge-table, or putting a girdle around the earth in an automobile. May it be that, when the present-day young woman of seventy-five dies from over-athleticism, or from ex- posing herself to a draft in a low-necked gown, the dear little old lady of a past era will awake, pick up the dropped stitches of her knitting, rub her spectacles, and resume her interrupted sway? Certainly, it is a consummation devoutly to be wished. 22 The Notion-Counter To-day the most flattering tribute we hear paid to a woman in the seventies is the exclamation, **How young she looks!" And it is pitifully true that she looks much younger than she has any right to look. Her figure is alw^ays erect, often slender, and generally clad according to the latest dictum from the French court of fashion, even when the decree goes forth that the skirt should reach midway between knee and ankle. Her coifTure is much the same as that of her twenty- year-old granddaughter and she appears cushioned with ** ear-puffs," or billowy with Marcel waves, according to her frivolous fancy. A stylish hat par- tially extinguishes her "restored" countenance, and the young lady of thteescore years and ten is ready to compete with two younger generations in their activi- ties social, philanthropic, educational, and worldly. Of course this false dawn of youth accompanies the inevitable swing of the pendulum forward from the custom of a past day, when old age was assumed in early maturity. Our grandmothers took to caps, false teeth, and knitting before they were forty, and more than half of their allotted years were spent pre- paring for death instead of enjoying life. Common sense forbid that we should return to so unnatural a cutting-short of youth ! A spirit can never be too young for its body, and fresh sympathies are not incompatible with ripeness of The Passing of the Old Lady 23 years. But in the older generation to-day the quiet serenity of life's afternoon is conspicuously lacking, the inevitable result occurs, and we find young people growing up devoid of a sense of respect and of humility. We blame our girls and boys for their self-confidence, their rudeness, their sense of equality with all; but it seems only fair to look for the cause, of which their complacency is merely the effect. The truth is, there is nothing in human inter- course to-day to call forth the old- fashioned virtue of reverence, formerly bred in the bones of the young. Till the . genuine old lady, now obsolete, returns to dethrone the present pretender, till we can see her passing peaceful days in the large leisure of quiet home-staying, — always ready to lend a sympathetic ear or to share the wisdom of an experienced heart, — we shall look in vain for respect and modesty in the young. The other day a girl of eighteen spoke enthusias- tically of her grandmother as "a, perfect corker," and the painful point of the incident is that the elderly relative was pleased with the compliment. We do not wish the pendulum to swing back with the full strength of its present impetus; but may not some cunning artificer, skilled in the adjustment of 24 The Notion-Counter weights and balances, arise and regulate the clock of time and teach the old that in defying age they are corrupting youth? The old lady must be born again; she cannot be made from existing material, for in this age of doubt and uncertainties one fact shows clear: the New Woman can never grow into the Old Lady. VISITED ON THE CHILDREN THE spirit moves me to pour my sins into an impersonal and public ear — not into one that is attached to a private and particular head. And in this shameless unloading of my conscience, I come as a penitent to the confessional. I do not, it is true, ask for absolution, but I hope for the inward peace that follows acknowledgment of sin. My first mistake was in following Hamlet's advice to his mother, when I should have realized that the coun- sels of youth to age are frequently better as copy-book maxims than as guides for right living. If I had not as- sumed a virtue when I had it not, I should not now be acknowledging a fault when unfortunately I have it. I am an old maid (though that is not my ** fault,'* re- ferred to above). I am supposed to be passionately devoted to children and, as I have none of my own, my friends are very kind about supplying Nature's deficiency. As a matter of fact, I have always actively disliked children. When I was in the early twenties, I had a great many girl friends, and I became almost a professional bridesmaid. By a natural sequence of events, my role gradually changed to that of god- mother — and then my trials began. In looking back, I can trace my decline and fall to one act. 26 The Notion-Counter When I was visiting my friend, Kate Brown, I as- sumed a sympathy with childhood which I did not feel, and, out of friendship for an adoring mother, feigned an interest in her mewling and puking off- spring. I crushed my desire to pinch the baby and, instead, kissed it. I wanted to say, **What a grotesque head it has!" but, instead, murmured, **Is n't he the image of his father?" Then fearing that insincerity was written all over my hypocritical face, I capped the climax of untruth by boldly saying, "I do love children." I have always called falsehoods of that type "ner- vous lies," meaning thereby the kind of misstatements called forth by some social exigency and not by a native desire to deceive. I am aware that no definition can palliate my offense. From this moment my reputation as a child-wor- shiper was established. The news was flashed from fireside to fireside that a universal aunt had arisen to bless the homes of tired mothers. Thenceforward my seasons divided themselves into visits to the house- holds — or rather to the nurseries — of my friends, for I really may be said to have visited the children. In fact, to speak still more truthfully, I was visited on the children as irrevocably as if I were the sins of the fathers incarnate. The poor little victims were passive in suffering; I Visited on the Children 11 was active. If I had only said boldly to my married friends in the beginning, " I 'm sorry, but I 'm not very fond of children and I have no knack in managing them, " all would have been well. I should have stood upon a definite, if eccentric, platform. But I catered to the vanity of motherhood, and incidentally to my own, by seeking parental popularity. When I used to tell my friends that I could hardly keep my hands off their babies, I fear that I allowed them to misinterpret my meaning. The truth is, all the salient points about a child irritate me — its ubiquitousness, its egotism, its power of usurping at- tention, and its horrible frankness. My arms fairly ache to shake most little girls, and my palm itches to spank most little boys. (I am not sparing myself in this confession.) In my fiercer moods, I have even been known to suggest wild-animal games, so that I could roar and lay violent hands on the spoiled darling of its mother, and in the guise of a tiger give it the slap it so richly deserved. The first I knew of my supposed passion for children (ominous phrase!) was when I went to visit my friend Mrs. Smith, and she greeted me thus: "O Eliza dear, Kate Brown wrote me how fond you are of children, — she said you played with her baby for hours at a time to keep him from crying, — so I have arranged to let you have my three little girls all to yourself for a few days. I have taken the 28 The Notion-Counter opportunity of your being here on a good long visit to run up to town for a friend's wedding. Of course the children are a little noisy, but you won't mind that, and they *re wonderfully friendly. They think of you as Aunty already. Come in, Lily, Rose, and Daisy." My three fates entered and glared at me. I drew back my upper lip in what Mrs. Smith thought was a smile, but the children knew was a snarl. Lily's lower jaw dropped stupidly, and her m's were all 6's. She snuffled incessantly. She was the most unprepossessing child I ever saw, except Rose. Rose's voice suggested a diet of slate-pencils and pickles. She had straight colorless hair, and her face was all bespattered with muddy freckles. Daisy had rudimentary teeth with fringed edges, like saws, and her eyes were like gimlets. When she looked at me she saw my real, but hidden, self as clearly as if I had been a transparency hanging in a window. She glowered her dislike at me, and I tried to do the same to her without being detected by her mother. "This is your dear Aunty Eliza," Mrs. Smith said ingratiatingly. "She has no little girls of her own, and you must n't let her feel lonely." (How tired I have become of that introduction !) Then she turned to me. "You are so different from Fanny!" (mentioning a common friend). "Now, when she is here, I keep my little girls out of her way, for she tells her friends quite Visited on the Children 29 honestly that she does n't care for children. Is n't it funny and frank of her?" Funny and frank indeed — and oh, supremely sensi- ble ! How I have envied Fanny, — that wise virgin, — who assumed a fault when she had it not, and now has the reward of seeing children swept from her path by parents too tender to submit the little dears to the eye of indifference. For, as a matter of fact, Fanny's feel- ing for children is one of love and sympathy as compared with mine. It may excite sur- prise that the hollow- ness of my affection has never been de- tected. It has always been detected — by the children, who are the most clear-sighted of the human family; but never by their mothers, who, having eyes, see not. Children don't like me any better than I like them — and thereby they win from me a grudging respect. Many a time have I begged parents, with tears in my eyes, not to force their little ones to stay with me against their wills. The only result of this appeal is that I have overheard subsequent curtain lectures and surreptitious admon- 30 The Notion-Counter ishings, all on the text: **Poor Aunt Eliza! She has no little children of her own, and you must try to love her because she loves you so much.'* In my younger days I seriously contemplated matri- mony as an escape from children (strange paradox!). But marrying is like quarreling, in that it takes two to do it, and on the whole it seemed simpler to remain single. It has been a great relief to speak the truth at last. I can assure my harshest judges that my punishment has fitted my crime, with an exactness which even Gilbert's Mikado — that dispenser of perfect justice — would approve. The moral of my confession is that it is better to seem worse than you are than to be worse than you seem ; for the consequences of assumed virtue fall fatally upon the delinquent, while the wages of an assumed sin are frequently paid by other people. "NOW WHO SHALL ARBITRATE?" I CYNTHIA'S HUSBAND IN bringing a difference of opinion between my wife and myself to the notice of some desultory reader, who may find himself turning over these pages in — let us say — a dentist's waiting-room, I feel that I am submitting the question to an impartial judge. I do not apologize for the personal flavor of my griev- ances, for the problem is one of universal interest, and touches the antiquated controversy concerning the relative values of woman's intuition and man's logic. I will call my wife Cynthia, in order that she may not recognize herself should her eye chance to fall on words so unworthy of her notice. Cynthia and I have, each, but a single complaint against the other — a pretty good record as married people go, or don't go, nowadays. She says I have no penetration, and I in turn quote her favorite George Meredith at her, and exclaim: ** Destroyed by subtleties these women are." She claims to be the unique possessor of a pair of in- visible antennae, with which she can feel impressions and touch the intangible. Now when / meet a person for the first time, I size 32 The Notion-Counter him up by his conversation — which reveals his ideas and standards — and by his general bearing — which tells whether he is a gentleman or a mucker. Not so Cynthia. These obvious methods are not for her. In my business I am thrown with all sorts of men, mostly good, honest fellows — gentlemen I call them — and I often bring one of them home to lunch ; and then, when I see Cynthia at dinner, I ask her what she thinks of my friend. "Didn't you like Robinson?" I ask encouragingly. **He*s a bully chap, honest as daylight." She merely raises her eyebrows. "My dear Algernon, I do not question Mr. Robin- son's integrity — but have you ever noticed how his teeth are set in his gums? No gentleman ever has teeth hke that — they are sometimes worse, but never just like that." I feel myself to be a coarse clod not to have noticed Robinson's teeth ; but taking heart, I next bring home my friend Brown — a man of perfect refinement ac- cording to my gross standards, and with a set of teeth which Cynthia duly disposCiS of as "too good to be true." "Well, how about Brown?" I tentatively inquire. "Don't you think he is a gentlemanly fellow?" "Why yes, he is a little like a gentleman," she re- plies, "but his hair, Algernon — it grows just the way ' ' Now Who Shall Arbitrate ?" 33 the hair of clerks in shoestores grows, right up out of his head. It's common." *** Aye, madam, it is common,'" I cry with Ham- let; and without him, I add: **It is very common in- deed for hair to grow right up out of one's head " ; and I feel myself to have been very clever, in spite of Cynthia's pitying smile. Jones is then brought to the bar of judgment, and is banished to the limbo apparently reserved for my particular friends because, forsooth, he answers Cynthia's offer of salad with^the words, "Thank you, not any." Gray committed social suicide by saying "Pardon me," instead of *' I beg your pardon," apparently an unpardonable offense in itself; and White, my trump card, proved himself, if not a knave, at least a fool, by referring casually to a man of our acquaintance as "a gentleman whom we all know." In my masculine stupidity, I asked Cynthia one day to call on my partner's wife — a very pretty and cul- tivated woman ; at least so I thought till Cynthia laid invisible tentacles on her. "Why, my poor Algernon," she said after her call, "did you never see that Mrs. Black is simply ve- neered? She's not solid mahogany at all. Her *cult- your, ' as she calls it, keeps peeling off and showing the 34 The Notion-Counter raw material underneath. Why, when her husband introduced me to her she shook hands and simply- said, *Mrs. Shirley,' and added that she was glad to see me in her home." As I did not show due horror at this faux pas, Cynthia continued: "She had evidently been told that perfect ladies make three distinct words of *notatair instead •of running them all together as most of us do ; and that it is dictionary elegance to speak of one's *nevew.' Perhaps you would have been imposed upon by those trade-marks of acquired cultivation, but I should have liked her much better if she had remained the nice, simple little country-girl Nature intended her to be." "Well, but her husband, now," I began. "There *s no pretense about him." " Not a bit ! ' ' my wife rejoined with misleading heart- iness. "He wears just the kind of ring that railroad conductors always wear, and he says *culch-er' quite frankly, and swallows in the middle of the word ; besides, no one who tries to cover up his mouth with his hand when he laughs could possibly be called pretentious." At last, in desperation, I brought home a man whose business path sometimes crosses mine. He has not the strictest sense of honor, nor the highest regard for truth, nor the most refined brand of humor when he is with his own sex. In fact, he is a man whom other men call a cad; yet he is not without personal attrac- "Now Who Shall Arbitrate?'' 35 tions, chief among which is an enviable sense of ease in whatever circle he finds himself — particularly if that circle be largely feminine. This specimen I cau- tiously submitted to Cynthia's all-seeing eye. "There ! " she exclaimed almost before the door had slammed after him, ** that is a gentleman ! O Algernon, don't you feel the difference? Don't you see that a man like that can say things that in some people would be — well, almost questionable; yet in him they're all right just because he has that indefinable something — '* But I could stand it no longer. "He has that de- finable something which makes every man who knows him distrust him," I began. But I heard her murmur- ing, "Unconscious jealousy," and I knew that my words would be wasted. "The truth is, my dear Cynthia," I said in a fath- erly tone, but without caring to meet her eye, "you are, like all of your sex, absolutely illogical. A man knows a gentleman when he sees him, even if his teeth do grow out of his gums, and his hair out of his head. Men are better judges of human nature than women." "Do you mean to say that you seriously place a man's clumsy reasoning above a woman's delicate in- tuitions? " Cynthia asked incredulously. "I do," I responded. We seemed to be on the edge of a bona fide quarrel. Now who shall arbitrate ? ' " quoth Cynthia. (( ( 36 The Notion-Counter ** 'Ten men love what I hate. ' " When she wishes to annoy me particularly she quotes poetry at me. *' I don't know who will arbitrate," I reply,] very literally, "but the fact that you are willing to submit the question to arbitration is very encouraging. A neutral reader may settle domestic difficulties and avert an un-civil war.** II When the preceding little apology for masculine density appeared in print, it called forth the following confession from a kindred sufferer who has kindly consented to allow her sympathetic message to Cynthia's husband to he printed under the heading of CLARENCE'S WIFE I AM common, hopelessly and irretrievably com- mon, in my tastes, habits, and associations, and I am married to a Perfectly Refined Man. It is a not unusual situation. It is one round which the novelist has often woven a pathetic story, touched here and there with real tragedy; but in fiction, you will notice, the reader is invariably expected to sympathize with the soul of shrinking sensitiveness, whereas, in this fact of my husband's spiritual mesal- liance, it is the wife of common clay for whom your prayers are desired. ''Now Who Shall Arbitrate?'' 37 First let me hasten to assure expectant ears pricked for a tale of domestic infelicity, that Clarence and I are very happy together, though it is quite illogical that we should be. Clarence is an artist — Oh, dear! there I am forgetting again that that word always makes him wince! No, he is not an artist, he is a painter — though I can never see why he chooses to be called by a word that instantly creates the mental image of a turpentiney man in dirty white overalls, carrying a bucket of paint up a ladder. But that idea he considers a proof of my crude imagination. Clarence is of such refined gold that it would be "wasteful and ridiculous excess" to try to gild him with adjectives. It is for him to paint the lily, and add another hue unto the rainbow with his crazy impressionistic ideas of color, and it is for me to stand apart from the surrounding group of sensitive and soul-searching satellites, and lift my vulgar hands to Heaven, thanking God that I am not as other men are. For I glory in my shame, even as the Pharisee gloried in his superiority. Occasionally I go forth with Clarence into The World, — that little world of arts and letters which takes itself with such portentous seriousness, — but I always feel like a cow in a china-shop, and if I move or breathe, I am afraid of breaking an ideal or tarnishing 38 The Notion-Counter an illusion. In this little world of half-lights and sub- dued tones, the men are all rather small and colorless, and wear soft, pointed beards. Their voices are gentle, their speech is academic, and they talk about the petty- poets, painters, and essayists of their acquaintance as if they were reincarnations of Homer, Velasquez, and Sainte-Beuve. These innocent creatures speak boldly of themselves as "we Bohemians," but they really live in Philistia Centre, and not one of them would dare to hold an opinion unshared by all. They are intellectual communists. The women are hardly less feminine than the men. They, also, never raise their voices; they seldom raise their eyes. They sit at the feet of their high-priestess, Miss Lily White, in whose chaste drawing-room they delight to cluster; and they strive to imitate her in- tonations, to think her higher thoughts, to share her greater hopes. And these innocuous ladies fancy that on their virginal shoulders have fallen the cloaks of the wom.en of the French salons! Cynthia's husband will readily see that I am no more at home in this milieu than he would be. I always feel as Tannhauser must have felt when he was surrounded by that Purity League in Elizabeth's castle, and I long for the outlet to my feelings which he found in snatch- ing up his little stringed instrument and breaking into a song so hearty and honest and elemental that his '' Now Who Shall Arbitrate ? '' 39 host and hostess and all their guests rushed from the room, leaving him alone with his own amazement. Clarence grows restive under the combination of his precieux friends and (though I say it who should n't) of his also precious wife; and he generally perceives that it is for the greatest good of the greatest number that I should be withdrawn from these social gatherings. He sees my mouth twitching with amusement when I ought to look solemn, and my eyes filling with tears of pity for the little stillborn joke that a tentative hu- morist has shyly produced. I hear soft murmurings of pity for Clarence rising to sympathetic lips before I am hurried from the room; but once outside the door, I clutch my husband's arm and explode w^ith coarse laughter ; and he is so much of a gentleman that he joins in a little, for fear of hurting my feelings; but he says gently, ** I think you are right, Sarah : my world is not your world, and it is better not to pretend that it is.'* Now, though I am not "refined," I do like people — just plain ordinary people, like those that Cynthia jeered at because their teeth and their hair grew in the common way. It has been my task to found a club, which has grown to such a stupendous size that the members have bought a house in which their meetings are held. The House of Commons is, for obvious rea- sons, the name of the club, and the only requirement for admission is that the members should know that 40 The Notion-Counter they are common; and that, in itself, is sufficiently un- common to limit the membership. We none of us pre- tend to be what we are not, or to like what we do not appreciate, or to understand things that are beyond us; and we all have a splendid time glorying in our inferiority. I feel that Cynthia's husband and some of his de- lightful friends should join this society now that they know of its existence, and of its one and only require- ment. Perhaps in time Cynthia herself may become eligible for membership, if the grossness of her hus- band's nature has strength enough to drag her down, which, we have been told, invariably happens when one is mated to a clown. By the same token my dear Clarence's good manners may, in course of time, be so corrupted by evil communications as to enable him to join us, and then, indeed, there will be joy over the one saint that repenteth. The only raison d'etre of this little song of myself, which I have chirped so persistently, is that I may ex- tend an invitation to all those who see themselves as others see them to join this Society of Self-Constituted Outcasts. After this egotistical confession, it is hardly necessary to mention my official position in the club — I am the Speaker of the House of Commons. MY WIFE'S ADDRESS-BOOK I WONDER whether other women's address-books are like Cynthia's. Hers defies definition : it can- not be indexed or codified, but must be interpreted by its amazing creator. To give an idea of the system by which it has been compiled I must quote a specific instance. The other day a lady who was calling on my wife inquired whether she could recommend a good laun- dress. "Oh, certainly," cried the practical Cynthia; "I always keep the names and addresses of everyone who can possibly be useful to anyone. Algernon," she called out to me as I was trying to read the paper in the next room, *'just look in my book of Social and Do- mestic Emergencies and tell me Nora Mahoney's ad- dress. It is something River Street." 42 The Notion-Counter Obediently I took up the little red book with its alphabetical pages, and, turning to the M's, ran my finger down the list, encountering on the way an alien group of P's who had somehow strayed into the wrong fold. There was no Mahoney among them. But I knew some of my wife's mental processes, and, nothing daunted, I turned to the N's, remembering that Cyn- thia had once dropped the remark that very few of the people she had ever employed seemed to have last names. There was no Nora among the Nightwatch- men, the Nurses, the Nellys, and the Neds. " Is your name M or N?** I murmured as I abandoned both initials and turned to L, for Laundress. Again I was thwarted, but my hunting-blood was stirred, and I fev- erishly, but vainly, sought the needle of a Nora in the haystack of Hired Help. "Don't you find it, dear? " inquired Cynthia, with a note of gentle surprise. " Perhaps you had better let me look. You can never seem to learn my system of registration." When the mystic volume was in her hands, she ap- peared to go into a trance, and with eyes closed, mut- tered, "Let me see now, would it be under W, for Washerwoman? No. Perhaps it might be under G, for General Housework — don 't you remember, Alger- non, how cleverly Nora was always able to do things that we did n't want her to do ? Here are the G's, — My Wife's Address-Book 43 let me see, — Gas-man, Gymnasium-teacher, Mrs. Gordon, Glove-cleansing, Miss Grant. Oh, here we are! General Housework! Oh, no, that isn't house- work, it's General Houston — don't you remember that delightful man with the military moustache, we met in Virginia? He gave me his card, and I just jotted his name down in my address-book. I put him among the G*s, because I knew that, though I might forget his name, I should never forget that he was a General; so here he is, just where he belongs — only, where is Nora?" She knit her brow for an instant and then unraveled it hastily. **Now I remember! How stupid of me to forget the workings of my own mind ! I always used to think that Nora's name was Agnes, it's so exactly the same kind of a name — and I probably put her down under A, thinking that is where I should look for her. Oh, yes, here she is ! " she called to her patiently waiting friend. "She leads off the A's, like Abou ben Adhem. Nora Mahoney, 18 Brook Street — just what I told you, except that I thought it was River Street." A few days after this episode I tried to get Cynthia really to explain her address-book to me so that I might be able to assist others, or myself, in some do- mestic, crisis, if she were away or ill ; but she found me very literal and thick-witted. 44 The Notion-Counter "You see/* she interpreted, "if a person has a very marked characteristic that distinguishes him more than his name, of course I put him down under the initial of his idiosyncrasy. For instance, there *s that deaf old upholsterer that Aunt Eliza told me about, who comes to the house and doesn't hear the awful noise he makes when he hammers. He is entered under D, for Deaf Upholsterer, because the image that is flashed into my mind when the chairs need recovering is of a deaf man — the fact that his name is Rosenberg is of minor importance." "But you have such a confusing way of mixing names and professions," I objected. "For instance, those delightful English people who were so good to us in London, Sir James and Lady Taylor, would be flat- tered if they could see that right on the heels of Lady Taylor follows,* Ladies' Tailor, seventy-five dollars and not very good!' Then here under M is Mason, A. P., such and such a street. That of course is our old friend Miss Anna ; but right under her name is Mason, A, with some business address following." "Oh, but A is n't an initial in that case," cried Cyn- thia, "A is just A, you know, a mason, whose, name I don't remember but who was highly recommended by the carpenter that time when the bricks fell out of the chimney! Really, Algernon, you don't seem to be using your mind." My Wife's Address-Book 45 I was still doggedly turning over the pages, and hardly listened to her. "Now look here," I trium- phantly exclaimed ; "can you give me any logical reason why under the letter F I should find Mrs. Charles B. Redmond, 32 Pineland Road?" "Why, of course I can!" Cynthia informed me without an instant's hesitation. "Mrs. Charles Red- mond was Fanny Flemming before she was married, and people always speak of her by her maiden name, on account of the alliteration ; so I put her down under the initial that brings her to my mind, but of course using the names she is called by. Don't you see?" I saw, but there were still unplumbed depths of mystery. "Can you tell me please," I asked humbly, "why there should be flowery beds of E's among the O's, and why a little oasis of blossoms beginning with B should be blooming among the weedy W's? I 'm sure there is some perfectly good feminine reason, but — " "Ah, there there is some excuse for you!" Cynthia acknowledged; "but surely even you must always as- sociate certain letters together for no apparent reason. For instance, perhaps you may have forgotten a name, but you are certain that it begins with a T. Later, you remember the name and find that it doesn't begin with a T at all, but with an L. Of course, there is some psychological reason why those two letters are asso- 46 The Notion-Counter ciated together in your mind. Now, to me, B and W are practically interchangeable, so I have put Mrs. Blake and the Burlingtons and old Miss Bosworth in with the W's, and the Wilkinsons and the Warners are among the B's. It really helps me very much to have them like that, but I can see that it would be confus- ing to people who had different group associations." I closed the little red volume abruptly. "Oh, well, if your address-book is simply an Intelligence Test — " I began. But Cynthia interrupted me. "It is n't an Intelli- gence Test, it 's an Intelligence Office," she gently ex- plained. "Well, it 's no use, I can't understand it," I con- fessed. "Your addresses are as safe from me as if they were written in Sanscrit instead of ciphers, and were locked into a safety-deposit vault. I have no key that fits, and I don't know the combination." "That 's because you 're a man," my wife pityingly explained. "There is n't a woman of my acquaintance who does n 't do her address-book-keeping on this gen- eral plan ; but the word that opens the combination is one that no man will ever understand." "Thank Heaven there are still the Telephone Book and the Social Register,'* I cried, stung by the tone of superiority in Cynthia's voice. But her last word was yet to be spoken. " If ever My Wife's Address-Book 47 you want to look up your own name in my address- book," she said very sweetly, ''remember the Parable of the Deaf Upholsterer, and look under S." MY WIFE'S CHECK-BOOK CYNTHIA tells me that the difficulties I endure in trying to understand her address-book are as nothing compared with the struggles she under- goes in trying to balance my check-book every month. To me the explanation is obvious, but I shall post- pone stating it. Cynthia, being very anxious to save me trouble, kindly suggested that she should make out all the checks for housekeeping expenses, and should even go over my check-book herself, to see that it agreed with the bank. In fact, there was nothing I should have to do but sign my name on the dotted line. Even this slight exertion Cynthia offered to spare me, iiiiininiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiHiinHimniHuinnmiuiMnniiiummiiiuimiv wui^ payt^ ur .,^ ,<^^^z. !jl ro CAA.*^t£^ IPuJ^JlTj^T^ Tot h ir cHgL€KAMUwiW MTOMWi 1 TZTTt My Wife's Check-Book 49 for she has improved the shining hours she spends sit- ting at the telephone, while the operator gives her the wrong number, by toying with a pencil and paper till she has attained a startling proficiency in reproducing my bold signature. When I describe to her the years in prison toward which her clever forgery will inevi- tably lead, if practised in my check-book, she merely tells me not to be absurd, as the president of the bank would understand at once that she was not committing a crime but only saving me trouble — besides which, no one would find out about it, anyway. The first of every month there is always just a little question of how much trouble I really am saved. My wife brings her own check-book and mine into my study and " goes over them " while I am trying to read. ^)TfiiMim!iiiiiiiiiiiin iiiimmni mni«^7iimiiniiim%i^i;iiiiimnnuuii'^! 32 X^TCL iL^tl^^ J L Id 7^2,1 t. '^(/i^ ^ -^f^ T^Aiff^ nc Ml c.T r. vt g'.cHc a fe>A i..Ffi»*«>V#AlL't» iraillwnaB»iaainitnifrniliaiiiniiiiiriiiiiiWiiriiiUii'k 50 The Notion-Counter When Cynthia does sums, she looks as if she were play- ing the piano, or manipulating the t3^pewriter. "This is theonlycer/amway of doing addition," she assures me, ** for, although I am practically certain that 6 and 5 are 1 1 , and not 13,1 feel that I should not be do- ing right if I failed to prove it by ten-finger exercises. Let me see," she begins, thinking out loud,** how much out were my accounts in April? I always write down *A. W. * for 'all wrong' after going over my returned checks, just as you put * O. K. ' on yours, and I am start- ing May with $79.13 more than the bank gives me." "Well, you must find where the mistake is," I begin, but she interrupts impatiently. "Oh, no! I have learned by experience that the bank always wins, just as it does at Monte Carlo, and that saves a lot of trouble. So I just subtract $79.13 from $57.00 (which is what the bank says I have), and that leaves — Oh, goodness ! I Ve got to do it by algebra, because there *s a minus quantity!" Very firmly I take Cynthia's pen out of her hand and go back over her personal expenditures. " Look here 1 " I presently exclaim. "Why does the number of this check suddenly jump from 29 to 375? " "Oh, I don't know," Cynthia rejoins lightly. "But the numbers don't matter; they are just for one's own convenience, and you were probably talking to me while I was numbering the check," My Wife's Check-Book 51 ''Well, let's look at the bill you paid with that check," I suggest. "We may find one of the keys to the mystery." But it only made her surplus more unaccountable; for she had paid a bill of $3.75 with a check for $29, and instead of numbering her check 29 had recorded it as No. 375! ** How dishonest of that Chinese laundry not to have told me of the mistake! The Oriental's code, I sup- pose, " was Cynthia's only comment, as I continued my search for similar slips of her pen. A little later, I dis- covered that she had entered the receipt of a small dividend on April 15, remembering that that was the date it was due, but forgetting that the company had suspended payment six months before. But even this financial liability was deftly converted into a mental asset. ** Don't you think it was wonderful that I should remember the date that dividend was due, and enter the right amount without even receiving the check?" she inquired, piqued by my failing to express admira- tion. And in view of the checks she had received and had neglected to enter, I could only agree that it was indeed wonderful. One of my wife's strange customs is to write little letters to herself on the margins of her stubs — all, I feel sure, perfectly unintelligible even to the recipient 52 The Notion-Counter of the letters. They run something like this: "Mem. Paid J. N. $2.00 too much, and she owed me $7.30 already. Take notice May 1st " ; and ** Don't forget to pay L. B. $4.50 for the rns and t's she got me." Then, cramped into almost illegible characters, came the announcement, "$75.00 of this is Children's Hospital money collected from friends. Not to be spent for my personal expenses unless promptly returned." Cynthia also has a very confusing system, when making out checks to tradesmen in my book, of enter- ing their names either by initials, or first names, or even a playful nickname. For example, "Little & Pettingill," who sell us provisions, are entered as "Little Pet." "L M. $87.50" is supposed to tell me at once that the iceman's bill was surpassed only by the plumber's, which is entered as "Plum. $9L00." Our son's teacher, who happens to be an old friend of ours, with a Dr. before his name and a great many initials after it, receives a sum fit for a king's ransom, under the laconic entry of "Billy's bill," while my dentist, with whom — in spite of spasmodic familiarity — my relations are somewhat strained, is merely referred to as "Edgar." "To Edgar, for balancing himself on a crowbar on an exposed nerve $175.00," w^as the last cryptic reference to this inquisitor, whose pockets we fill with gold in exchange for his having performed the same office on the family molars. My Wife's Check-Book 53 But the thing that throws out both Cynthia's and my accounts more than anything else is the inadvert- ent signing of her name on the checks for household bills in my check-book. When the day of reckoning comes, it is a day of rejoicing for me and of sorrowful perplexity for Cynthia, for while my balance looms magnificently large, my wife, who has been scrupu- lously economical for the last month, receives a cour- teous note from the bank informing her that she has overdrawn her account, and will she please, at her earliest convenience, etc., etc. Even in her consterna- tion she remembers to point out to me that the mistake must be a very frequent one, inasmuch as a printed form was used to convey the sad news. But when the explanation of her having signed her name to my checks is discovered, Cynthia's triumph of innocence knows no bounds. "Was there ever any- thing so stupid as that old bank! '* she exclaims. "Wouldn't you really think that, after all these months, they would know that my checks are pink and yours are green, even if the signature is wrong! What 's the good of having different-colored checks at all, ex- cept to prevent just such things as this happening? And what is n't the bank's fault is really yourSj Al- gernon," she continues; "because, whenever I come mto your study to make out checks, you begin to read aloud to me, and then of course I make mistakes. I 54 The Notion-Counter remember perfectly that, while I was signing my name to the meat bill, you were reading to me about some bill that Borah was hoping to get Harding to sign, and I remember thinking that I must n't sign Harding's name by mistake, so I signed my own, which was really far more disastrous for me." Cynthia has a positive genius for proving that her errors are never really hers, but always other people's; and I generally end by agreeing with her that the bank and I should share the blame. "But your methods are rather sketchy," I venture to suggest. To which she replies imperturbably, *'0h yes, I often call my check- book my sketch-book by mistake"; and she regards that as an unanswerable last word. But to go back to my own first word, the reason that Cynthia finds my check-book so difficult to make out is a very simple one; she makes it out! MY WIFE'S "TELAPHIB" LIST OF all modern weapons of offense the telephone is the most unfair, because in the conflict that follows the call to action — * * Hello ! Is this Sub- urban 4428?" — the party attacked has no adequate weapon of defense. The receiver transmits into the porches of the ear poisoned gas in the form, let us say, of an invitation to dine and play bridge — a poison more deadly than juice of cursed hebenon because we have no antidote at hand to pour into the mouthpiece at our end. The only possible retaliation is the sharp 56 The Notion-Counter swift stroke of a deadly lie. That such a lie is justified I have, in my saner moments, no doubt; but the mo- ment when I am called to the telephone never is a sane moment. I falter, I try to prevaricate, I decide to mix truth and falsehood — and I am lost ! As an aid to the retort courteous and untruthful, Cynthia has pinned on the wall beside the telephone list, a *'Telaphib List" of alibis and excuses, and in moments of great stress we both draw from some of the following suggestions : — Aunt Sally coming on a visit. Nephew just telephoned to ask if he can spend that night here — bringing a friend. (This in case we are told to bring nephew along.) Algernon's class dinner. Two people coming to play bridge that evening. Old cousin of Algernon's has died suddenly, and we think for a week it would be more respectful to accept no invitations. And then follows : — For Special Emergencies Only Aunt Sally seriously ill. May be summoned to her bedside any minute, so am not making any engage- ments ahead. Algernon has been having queer dizzy spells. Doc- tor forbids. . . . etc., etc. My Wife's ' ' Tdaphih "List 57 Am threatened with nervous breakdown (from too much telephoning!). Complete rest is ordered. Finally Both of us have been exposed to a kind of middle- aged mumps that are very contagious. Not right to others for us to go about. I trust it will be understood that any criticisms in which telephobia leads me to indulge are not aimed at the legitimate use of this necessary evil, but only at those social holdups to which even the most obscure dwellers in the remote suburbs of *' Society '* are liable. As Cynthia and I sit by our cozy fireside our home life is almost wrecked by the undesired presence of this invisible third. The Eternal Triangle in our case con- sists of ourselves and this wandering voice which, al- though proceeding from different throats, always beats on our eardrums with the same metallic vibrations. The voice invariably selects either the sacred hour of dinner for its rude intrusions, or the digestive period immediately following the repast, when easy-chairs and congenial chat lend to conjugal companionship something of the glamour of romance. Glowing with a sense of domestic felicity we decide that for a week we shall not allow any outside engage- ment to disturb the pleasant routine of our evenings 58 The Notion-Counter at home. Then the telephone rings. We both groan. My wife says, *'Yougo. I '11 go next time." After a tense interval I hear my strained voice say- ing to the absent inquisitor, ** Oh, that sounds perfectly delightful! I am very sure that / have nothing for that night ■ — but perhaps I had better ask Cynthia — she keeps an engagement-book, and — and — will you just hold the line a moment!" My wife's face at this moment is a study. Under her solemn fillet I see the scorn. She merely says, "Go on! You've done it now. / *w not going to get you out of it. You 've told them you have no engage- ment, so of course if you have n't, / have n 't ! You are theworst\\3.r I ever knew!" (Which I realize is not the compliment it sounds.) Again I hear my mechanical accents saying, ** Cyn- thia tells me she has no engagement. We shall be de- lighted to come." Then I hang up the receiver and stagger back to my avenging angel, ashamed of my own cowardice and in no condition for the marital skirmish that is bound to follow this ignominious sur- render to the unseen enemy. "If you would only let me do it!" says Lady Mac- beth. "When you refuse an invitation you must act definitely and convincingly. 'T were well ' t were done quickly when you are doing long-distance lying. You never kill with a good clean lie ; you just wound with a My Wife's "Telaphib" List 59 wretched little trumped-up excuse that only lacerates. You use a dagger as if it were a teaspoon and you were dipping it into ice cream. Really, Algernon, if you are too moral to — " The telephone bell puts an end to this painful ar- raignment of my virtues. "Your turn," I announce laconically. "Hello ? " I hear in tones of gentle firmness. Then in a moment comes the familiar, "No, it is not. You have the wrong number," followed by the irritated click of an angrily replaced receiver. Another poultice of silence for ten blessed minutes heals, not only the blows of sound, but the slight mutual irritation caused by my clumsy failure to buckle on the armor of untruth. I exclaim, "There's the telephone again!" "You!" says my wife briefly. I go, and I return. " You! " I announce triumphantly, and then I listen with jaw dropping, to my astonishing wife, who has sometimes actually been criticized for over-sincerity. Of course I understand perfectly that the conver- sation I hear is really for my benefit, much more than for the ear six miles away. Cynthia is showing off. She is also giving me an object lesson. This is what I hear: "Hello! Why, Grace dear, is that you? I have n*t seen you for an age!" (A pause! Then — ) "Oh, 60 The Notion-Counter my dear, that sounds too heavenly ! We should simply love it, but it *s absolutely out of the question because — *' (An evident interruption occurs; then Cynthia continues.) **No, it wouldn't do the least good to change the night — but it 's awfully sweet of you to suggest it! You see I expect Aunt Sally to spend the week with me, and you know I just have to give up everything while she's here — and then — " (Another pause) : '*0h, that's too sweet of you to want Algernon alone ! But I was just looking over his engagement-book (you know I have to keep his dates for him, he 's so stupid about such things) and if you can believe it, he has something every night for the next week! — What did you say ?" (A pause) **0h«o, my dear, he is n't popular at all! I don't mean inter- esting things, but just stupid sort of business meet- ings, and college reunions and things that he simply longs to get out of and can't. Oh, wait a minute — he 's just calling out, 'Tell Grace that if I had my way I 'd break every engagement in my calendar to dine with her and Ned! ' How 's that for a compliment ?" (Pause) ** No, he does n't ever flatter, — really, — that 's the way he feels about you both, but I must n't keep you any longer, my dear, do please ask us again some- time, won't you ? After Aunt Sally has gone, and when Algernon is through r^-uniting. Good-hye:. So disappointed!" My Wife's "Telaphib" List 61 Cynthia returns to her seat and her sewing — a flush of victory on her brow. " Is Aunt Sally really coming ? " I ask briefly. ** She 's awfully subject to bronchitis at this season," Cynthia replies evasively. " One can never be sure of an old person. " Then, very gravely, I take out my engagement-book to confront her with the blank pages, but after glanc- ing at the dates of the coming week I acknowledge my- self checkmated. I am aghast at discovering the fol- lowing entries : — Monday: Class dinner. Tuesday: Reunion of class. Wednesday : College Endowment Fund dinner. Thursday: Class dinner . . . and so on for the next ten days. ** Cynthia," I remark severely, **if you were a man I should say that your code is not that of a gentleman." ''Algernon," she replies sweetly, "if you were a woman I should say that you were inconsistent. We have agreed that it is right to Tel and Tel " (Cynthia's code for Telephone and Tell-a-lie) "but you don't dare to live up to your convictions. Gracious! There's that old bell again!" I take down the receiver and listen to the voice of the sluggard, too lazy to write her invitations: — 62 The Notion-Counter **This is Mary Borus speaking. We hope that you and your wife will run in to-morrow evening after the Mental Hygiene lecture, and have a Welsh rarebit." A sudden inspiration seizes me, and by way of answer I hear myself uttering those five words that so often beat as one, upon the ear of the "wrong number": " Willyoupleaseexcuseus ? " I hang up the receiver with conscious pride and am rewarded by Cynthia's smile of commendation. "How rude you were, dear!" she says admiringly. "At last you are really acquiring telephone technique!" ^mm$9^MM WOMAN is undoubtedly one of those good things of which we cannot have too much; but women are anomalous creatures, of whom we may certainly have too many. For it is one of the mysteries of life that, whereas an individual woman may combine the fascinations of Note: — "Nobody" wishes to repudiate "Somebody's" impli- cation that "Woman" is necessarily a mother, and that "Women" are by all outward hall-marks spinsters. The hand that casts the ballot or wields the gavel is, in " Nobody's" opinion, as womanly an appendage as the hand that rocks the cradle. 64 The Notion-Counter Cleopatra with the wisdom of Minerva, nevertheless, when she has been sufficiently multiplied, her counter- parts form an arid assembly of unrelated units from which all charm and dignity have fled — a heteroge- neous mass of individuals without form and void. Any- one who has attended meetings composed exclusively of either sex must have felt the different impressions produced by a body of men, whose personalities all blend into a harmonious whole, and a collection of women — isolated spots of yellow, green, and blue, which, like the little, many-colored dabs in an impres- sionistic painting, are supposed to become coherent when viewed in the right perspective. Undoubtedly the superficial and external attributes of dress and personality are responsible for a share of the half-contemptuous amusement with which as- semblies of women are regarded by their unorganized sisters. When we find gowns of varied hue, hats of diverse shapes, garments of every cut, coats of many colors, to say nothing of heads swollen with acute at- tacks of pompadour, or meek with the lowliness of English buns that never rise, we cannot hope for much dignity, while the voices alone, in all degrees of guttural and nasal, would preclude any impression of harmony. A hall, full of black-coated brethren, all bareheaded and short-haired, suggests an outward likeness which may have no internal equivalent, yet which affects the Woman versus Women 65 onlooker with a sense of oneness. Men look more or less like birds of a feather when flocking together. The individual is lost in the type; it is not Each, but All, that impresses us. Not so with women. The attention of the outsider is perhaps distracted by a strong-minded reformer with spectacles on nose and pouch on side, who, like Jenny Wren, always wears a plain brown gown and never dresses too fine ; while by her side sits the stud- iedly frivolous spinster, decorated with ** waves" and furbelows, and redolent of patchouli and peppermint. Another specimen intrudes itself upon the wandering attention and invites admiration of its alert intelli- gence, magnified by horn-rimmed spectacles. When one's eye and mind are constantly distracted by the individual, how can one be impressed by the whole? There are women who are as eloquent, as logical, as convincing in argument and speech as their husbands and brothers across the way; but surround them by their parti-colored female followers, and their words become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. The terrible truth is that women — en masse — become lu- dicrous in proportion to their numbers and the earnest- ness of their purpose ; whereas the defects of man are forgotten in the merits of mere men. For the rights of Woman I have always been a firm advocate; when their hard-won fight for the suffrage 66 The Notion-Counter was successful, I threw up my hat with the rest; and loyally I claim that a fine woman is a nobler work of God than an honest man. But for the rights of Women I have no sympathy, since hearing their wrongs voiced by women themselves. Till women are willing to sac- rifice the individuality wherein lies their true power, and are ready to don a uniform undictated by fickle Fashion, till they are ready to yield themselves to the perfect whole, let them not expect their public meet- ings to have any greater results than the laughter and applause of the unseen audiences from whom they de- mand respectful and silent attention. But far be it from me to wish to hasten the day when woman will be shorn of her strength by the cutting of her hair and the suppression of her individual taste. Bobbed hair, when framing a middle-aged face, is already being laughed out of fashion. It is the unexpectedness, the variety of the type that gives woman her personal power. It is only when she becomes one of an organ- ized body of women that she suggests a futile hen in a roosterless barnyard, where female fowls cackle and complain, instead of realizing her ideal self — the good, the true, the beautiful — which places her a little lower than the angels, but a little higher than man! MRS. O'TOOLE AND VENUS MANY words, both wise and foolish, are written and spoken nowadays concerning the moral regeneration which results from artistic en- vironment. We hear that in certain tenements the dear old traditional chromos of ecstatic saints, gor- geous in coats of many colors, have been supplanted by shadowy reproductions of Mona Lisa's disconcerting smile; that the crude theatrical poster has been ruth- lessly torn down by the helpful hand of the Social Uplifter, and in its place has been substituted the modern equivalent of a God-Bless-Our-Home motto. I refer to the inevitable little group of Mr. Sargent's prophets, who some years ago strayed beyond the walls of the Boston Public Library, and in small detachments have ever since been invading the American home, be it ever so humble. Even children have not been able to escape the in- fluence of *'the uplift of beauty," and if sentimental social workers are not careful they will transform natural little barbarians into un-natural and hypo- critical little pedants. The other day I stopped for a moment to look in at a "Centre of Friendliness" where an overzealous and undertrained young volunteer worker was spreading 68 The Notion-Counter sunshine — instead of bread and butter — for a group of boys and girls. I felt tempted to report Miss Noitall to the Society for the Control of Unnecessary Brutal- ity to Children when I grasped her method of aesthetic enlightenment. She had placed an exquisite Ophelia rose in a clear white vase against a bluey-green back- ground and was dilating to the children on how much more satisfactory it was to look at flowers than to touch them. To feel the beauty of a rose with one's soul instead of one's fingers was, she assured them, to possess the rose. A murmur of protest, like the subdued roar of a stage-mob, made itself heard among the small rebel- lious populace, and I saw little damp fists clench, not in anger, but in retrospective possession of entrancing tight little bunches of half-faded flowers, red, purple, and pink, all jammed together in one delightful relic of an hour in a kind lady's garden where they had been told that pickings could be keepings. The children looked at the exquisite, lonely rose with lacklustre eyes, and repeated '* y^s'm " to whatever the lecturer on aesthetics said, experience having taught them that acquiescence was the surest means of short- ening the discourse. But it was easy to see that their feeling for the untouchable rose was of a Peter Bell- like quality. Why must we try to teach people the kind of knowl- Mrs, O'TooIe and Venus 69 edge to which they are unsuited ? For my own part, I think there are few more painful spectacles than the sight of a trained seal ringing a dinner-bell or pushing a perambulator. I was reminded of just such an at- tempted triumph of Art over Nature the other day when I visited the cast-room in a large Museum. A self- respecting and self-supporting washerwoman, accom- panied by a lady friend,, was evidently learning from a "friendly visitor" how to see beauty in the Venus of Milo. I had followed the little group from room to room, rather in the manner of a detective escaping detection by complete absorption in various art treas- ures,* so that I was able to derive both enlightenment and amusement from the naive Celtic comments which I overheard. Poor Mrs. O'Toole was utterly iDewil- dered by Venus — but she was evidently trying to link her up with some war relics she had just been shown in another section of the Museum. She had heard hor- rible tales from her son who had been overseas — tales he had been told by a man in his company who had heard an English Tommy say that a French soldier had actually seen mutilated Belgian women and chil- dren. Perhaps Venus was a Belgian. At any rate, to one of Mrs. O'Toole's profession the thought of earning one's living with the handicap of handlessness touched a soft spot in her warm Irish heart, and blinded her to any possible beauty in so sad a spectacle. 70 The Notion-Counter "Och, the poor creature!" she murmured, "and her with no hands to do a day 's washing, and no arms to hold a shawl around her bare shoulders! Them Germans was surely crool." The friendly visitor hastened to correct Mrs. O 'Toole's misconception by leading her over to The Dying Gaul and reciting a little Byron for her edifi- cation. I then followed the strange little group into the Japanese section of the Museum, that Mrs. O'Toole might feast her eyes on some perfect example of Ori- ental form and color. And all to what end ? We may Mrs. O'Toole and Venus 71 marvel at the patience and imagination of the seal's trainer, and at the patience and lack of imagination of the washerwoman's uplifter, but are we anything but shocked at the result ? There are plenty of things we can learn from the seal ; there are still more things that we can learn from the scrubwoman — lessons in endurance, true neigh- borliness, and kind-heartedness. There are also, of course, innumerable things she can learn from us, things which will be more helpful and more pleasurable to her than a mere bowing acquaintance with Apollo or Hercules. Firing off pistols will not be a valuable accomplishment to a seal when he returns to his native element. I suppose these heretical doctrines will be set down as the vaporings of a reactionary, or, perhaps, thesmug sentiments of a pharisaical citizen who is trying to dis- courage the Privileged from uplifting the Downtrod- den. It is certainly not my intention to try to curb the progressive spirit of this age of altruism. I merely wish — in all humility — to utter a word of protest against sentimental and ignorant idealists, who are teaching insincerity and affectation to the few really sincere and ingenuous souls left unpolluted by mod- ern over-civilization. I do not mean to approve of Mrs. Stetson's con- servative butterfly, who so much preferred to remain 11 The Notion-Counter a worm that he madly tried to climb back into his chrysalis ; bu 1 1 think that when we introduce the Venus of Milo to Mrs. O 'Toole, we are tying artificial wings to a caterpillar and expecting him to float about like a butterfly. His efforts to soar are pitiful. If the wings develop from the inside he will fly naturally ; and when that moment comes, I promise to be behind no one in admiring his spontaneous flight. But most of us be- long to that large family of worms who will never turn into butterflies ; and if we can learn to crawl a little less lumberingly ourselves, we shall be setting a better example to our still slower friends than if we try to teach them to use flying-machines. Will no one, then, take my worm*s-eye view of life and join my Creepers' Crusade? Breathes there a man with soul so dead that he will come with me to the converted tenement of an unconverted washerwoman, reinstate the Monarch of the Glen (who abdicated in favor of a gray photograph of a gray gull against gray clouds), request Hoseaand Jeremiah to move on, and, in spite of their lamentations, enthrone a lurid caricature from a Sunday Supplement ? Nothing is beautiful unless it is sincere and appro- priate. One's surroundings should express one's indi- viduality and one's personal predilections. The mod- ern drawing-room which represents merely the taste of the architect and interior decorator is faultily fault- Mrs. 0' Toole and Venus 73 less and splendidly null, unless there is in it some per- sonal touch or suggestion of those who are to live within its walls. This human note is often out of harmony with the general scheme. Sometimes a clumsy black- walnut desk or a stuffy old armchair is the inartistic medium through which the tender grace of a day that is dead alone survives. Never mind — it is that touch of nature which gives life to the dead perfection of the decorator's art ; it is that discordant note for which the inward ear listens. Just so, to me at least, is the effect produced by a tenement-house room in which the bare necessities of life can be brightened by only the scantiest aesthetic touches, and in which these touches have been sup- plied by an alien hand. More beautiful — because more expressive of the genuine taste of its possessors — is the laboriously-wrought antimacassar of beads and plush, or the chromo representing the fruits of Cali- fornia, than the Lippo Lippi madonna or the chaste Japanese vase which the Uplifter would fain substitute for them. Preciosity is bad enough in drawing-rooms; it is intolerable in tenements. When we try to force upon uneducated tastes an appreciation of, let us say, Burne-Jones or Rodin, we are prying open a bud, de- stroying the embryonic flower inside, and tying a tissue-paper rose on the stem. Instead of trying to teach the less privileged classes (horrible phrase!) to 74 The Notion-Counter pretend to like what they don't like, let us try to learn from them to have the courage of our own tastes — be they good or bad. Mrs. O 'Toole is probably a first-class laundress — as an art critic she is less valuable. If she needs edu- cating, let us teach her something useful. If she wants to have a good time, let us spare her a close-up of the Belgian Venus and take her to see Mary Pickford in "Suds"! MY ARCHITECTURAL FRIENDS I WONDER if to others, as to me, houses seem to have names expressive of their characters — names universally of the feminine gender. I do not refer to the absurd and high-sounding abortions of misspelling given them in baptism by their parents or guardians — **Mayplehurst," "Wyndwold," "Hyl- holm." No, I mean good honest Christian names, suggested by the personality of the houses themselves, like ''Margaret and Mary, Kate and Caroline,'* to quote the May Queen's list of defeated candidates for the regency to which she herself was chosen. To an old man who has been robbed of human companion- 76 The Notion-Counter ship by the relentless years, these friends of wood and stone are among time's compensating gifts. I have lived — for more years than the Psalmist would allow me to consider free from labor and sorrow — in a country town where each dwelling is to me a distinct personality. Of course, houses express the in- dividuality of their occupants, and are saturated with associations which, to the octogenarian, are so much cud for the toothless jaws of memory to chew. That goes without saying; but what / cannot go without saying is that to me each house has a name and a char- acter of its own, not of its owner. Across my street is a matronly-looking colonial mansion, with yellowing complexion and a pleasant look of experience, whose name I am sure is Deborah. Her broad brow beams benignly upon me, and the smile of her hospitable front door, cordial and affec- tionate, recognizes that we are contemporaries. Close by is a little cottage whose eyebrows are always raised in an expression of surprise, and whose hair seems tightly pulled back on her roof. Neat, trig, and compact, this little house is always Ellen to me; for I once knew an Ellen — sixty years ago — whose personality was the same. All the way down the street to the post office, these friends of mine stand, cordial, smiling, intimate. That fat, comfortable house, who seems to recline rather My Architectural Friends 77 than to sit up like her neighbors, is called Lizzie, as any one with an ounce of imagination can see at a glance. Poor Lizzie's eyes are half shut under their swollen lids, and her rather cumbersome bulk emanates indolence. I know she is rheumatic from lying in that damp hollow so long, and the thought gives me a sympathetic twinge. Of course, there are some houses for whom I have not the same affection as for these intimates. For in- stance, there is a prudish little gray house on the corner, whose nose is in the air, and who is too prim to smile at any man, even when he is almost a right angle in shape and leans upon a cane. She is thin, angular, and old-maidish, and I know her name is Sophia, and that is all I care to know about her. Next door is a flirtatious little Queen Anne cottage, peeking coquettishly out from a tangle of flowers, her hair hanging picturesquely over her eyes in curls and tendrils. Dear little Flossy! I can't look at her be- guiling personality without regretting that her unsym- metrical prettiness has been superseded by a more classic type of beauty. Yet who can look at her digni- fied neighbor, Helen, and regret anything! Helen, the pride of her architect, and of her town, pure in line, stately in bearing, perfect in beauty. To her I take off my hat, while to Lizzie, Ellen, and Flossy I informally nod and smile. 78 The Notion-Counter Of course, in architectural circles, as in others, there is the vulgar parvenue who tries to get into good so- ciety by imitating her neighbors. Close beside Helen, peeking at her through an ornate fence, is one of these pretentious little upstarts. She is shockingly over- dressed, blatantly pinchbeck, and shows hybrid in- heritances. Her hair is done a la francaise (French roof), she has the real English complexion (redbrick), and she has decked herself with inappropriate Floren- tine furbelows and Roman mosaics (Italian garden and pergola). Her name, I need hardly say, is Gladys. Of course I understand that one of the many pleas- ures which dwellers in cities must resign is this sense of intimacy with inanimate things. Who ever heard of houses in blocks having names or personalities — with their red faces all alike, and never so much as a profile among them ! There is no variation of type. I feel like saying to them what Humpty Dumpty said to Alice when he felt the hopelessness of ever recognizing her again. "Your face is the same as everybody has. . . . Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance, or the mouth at the top — that would be some help." As one grows callous and cold with age, one wel- comes anything that brings back the glow of life to organs almost obsolete. So, when I leave the monoton- ous characterless city, after my annual visit to my My Architectural Friends 79 grandson, and get back to my dear old-fashioned town and look in the friendly faces of Deborah, Lizzie, Ellen, et al.f I feel the cockles of my heart warming with love, and the muscles of my throat tightening with emotion. And if I can keep my "cockles and mussels alive, all alive," like those in the old song, till my shell of mortality falls from me, it will be owing to the silent influence of my architectural friends. PARABLES IN MOTORS THE other day I was escorting an elderly phi- lanthropist across a crowded street. She is a lady of vigorous opinions 'and free speech, gems of which I herewith string together without exhibiting the thread of my own colorless rejoinders. "Did you ever see anything so outrageous as these motors!" she exclaimed in righteous wrath, as we just escaped being crushed between a taxicab and a huge touring car. "Automobiles are such insolent adver- tisements of wealth ! I don't see how their owners can endure being either hated or envied by that portion of Parables in Motors 81 the world that has not yet lost the use of its legs. For every human being automobiles kill, they create a so- cialist. They are vulgar, hideous, death-dealing ma- chines, put in the ignorant hands of the fools who own them and the knaves who run them. Now look at those little children trying to cross the street — and that poor old lady! I declare, the chauffeur is simply chas- ing her for his own cruel sport — hunting her as he would a fox, and blowing his horn." Then, — in italics, — "I can't see how a self-respecting person with any love or regard for humanity can own a motor.'' The next time I saw my vindictive friend she was tucked up in borrowed plumage, and comfortably in- stalled in the limousine of an acquaintance, who had kindly placed her car at our disposal to visit some dis- tant charitable institution of which we were both di- rectors; and, as we bowled gayly along, she seemed to have forgotten entirely our last meeting and conver- sation. '*I must say the motion of these cars is delightful," she said, sinking back among the cushions with an air of perfect ease and familiarity. **How safe we seem! I really think it would do no harm if the chauffeur should go a little faster. Do look at those stupid women rushing across the street like frightened hens ! I should think they 'd see that we 're not going to run into them. Now look at those children ! It 's outrageous 82 The Notion-Counter that they should make it so hard for the chauffeur to avoid running over them. If we killed one of those foolhardy little idiots, people would blame us, and it would n't be our fault at all — it would be simply a case of suicide." I acquiesced in her views, as I had done once before. ** After all, there is a great deal to be said for these motors," she continued judicially. " They are not only perfectly delightful to ride in, but they make all kinds of difficult things easy; and really most of the people who own them are apt to be very considerate to those who are less fortunate. There are certainly two sides to automobiling." There you have the chief function of the motor. There is nothing else I can think of which changes one's point of view so completely and so suddenly. A logical mind must therefore ask itself, ** If, by simply stepping into an automobile, I can see motors and motoring from an entirely different point of view, cannot I be- lieve that the same metamorphosis would take place if I could jump into a mental motor, and speed rapidly from one side of a question to another ? " Surely the parable of the motor should make us be- lieve in the existence of a missing link in the chain of mutual understanding which ought to bind all hun can- ity together. And if that lost link cannot be found, may we not ourselves manufacture one ? (As a moral- Parables in Motors 83 monger, it is with difficulty that I here refrain from al- luding to the ** flaming forge of life " as an appropriate workshop for the manufacture of missing links.) It is, at least, in harmony with my parable to suggest that every good chauffeur should be a skilled mechanic as well as a driver. By way of an irrelevant postscript, I will mention that, when I stepped in yesterday for a cup of tea with the lady who ** could not see how any self-respecting person could own a motor," I found her snowed under a pile of circulars stating the rival claims of various automobiles. "Should you advise me to get a runabout, or a tour- ing car?" she asked, with perfect seriousness. But I could not choose between them; for what I consider the most important part of motors — the parable — was equally sound in each. REEL-LIFE WE hear a great deal nowadays about censoring moving pictures till they more closely re- semble life. A far more piquant and popular act of legislation would be the censoring of life till it more closely approximates the fascinating unreality of the movie. Poets have always enjoyed comparing the world to the stage, but perhaps old Omar was the first to don the prophet's garb, in addition to his crown of laurel and grapevine, and foretell the movie when he exclaimed : — We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go Round with the Sun-illumin'd Lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the Show. If Shakespeare were to be edited in such a way as to make him thoroughly intelligible to the youth of the present day, Jaques would have to exclaim: — All the world 's a screen And all the men and women movie-players. Verily the histrionic sense has helped many of us to surmount situations which would have seemed uncon- Reel-Life 85 querable save for the dramatic instinct, and the sense of playing a role has helped us to attain moments of real heroism. The more poignant a situation is, the more unreal it seems. Whether the dramatic stimulus of "the film*' will have the same beneficial effect on conduct is doubtful, just because the movie is farther removed from life; but if some of the miracles of mechanical art, as ex- emplified in moving pictures, could be applied to our daily life, the performance would go off much less clumsily. It is not the checkered career of the movie hero or heroine that seems desirable, so much as the way in which Art has improved upon Nature, par- ticularly in its method of dealing with crises. If our slogan, instead of "Back to Nature!" were "Forward to Artifice! " we should no longer have our awkward exits and our ill-timed entrances. We could be flashed in medias res, full-armed and equipped for the needs of the moment ; and there would never have to be the anticlimax of getting ourselves out of the room after a magnificent deed, or an eloquent speech. A flash, quicker than the wink of an eye, and we should exist no more. It is easy to understand the almost universal appeal of the movie — it brings adventure, romance, hair- breadth escape, pathos, humor, into the dullest lives, for so small a price. Of course, it is not much like life; 86 The Notion-Counter but how wonderful it would be if life could be like the movie — not so much in its events, which are perhaps a little lurid for some of us, but in its facile eliminations ! How reassuring it would be to know that, just as you were facing almost certain death, through the impact, let us say, of an express train with your motor-car, there would be just a flash of suspended activity, and the crash would never come! You would experience all the excitement of its having actually occurred ; for in the fraction of a second you would find yourself sitting uninjured on a pile of debris, your companion sitting beside you in the wilderness, with his Arrow collar unwrinkled, and the express train a wreck be- hind. What a saving of nervous wear and tear would be given to an apprehensive generation by the cer- tainty that the maximum of human suffering would be represented simply by a moment of arrested action ! And even in the more familiar domestic crisis, life would become a far more coherent and intelligible thing, if it could be reduced to a given number of reels. When the cook gives warning because she prefers a season at Newport to the summer months at Lenox, there would be a blessed moment of oblivion and then — presto !^ — we should find ourselves welcoming a cheerful successor, who feels that a ' summer in the Berkshires would be more restful than life at "the beach." If an instantaneous eraser could wipe away Reel-Life 87 '?. A TR, A G £ D Y • IM EIGHT REELS. all trivial fond records, as well as life's acuter agonies,, we should have the extraordinary experience of enjoy- ing the perfectly secure Present, while looking forward to intense adventure and backward upon phenomenal escapes. To be sure, we should be living on the system of Alice's jam, except that, under modern accelerations of speed, "to-morrow" would be translated into '*a second hence," and "yesterday" into a "second ago." Could Shakespeare's banished Duke be recalled from the Forest of Arden and transplanted in New York, I am sure that his passion for preaching would find Morals in Movies and Reality in Reels, as surely as Sermons in Stones. He would, with wise saws and modern instances, explain how we ought to act always 88 The Notion-Counter as if we were in a ** photo-play," cultivating the sub- lime trust of the hero of the screen, who knows that, in spite of hungry lions and airship accidents, of blood- thirsty criminals and soul-hungry sirens, he will emerge triumphant in the tenth reel, to the tune of "See the Conquering Hero Comes!" And this suggests what a help to our sordid lives might be supplied by that great asset of the moving picture, an accompanying organ or a quavering violin, to render the selection most appropriate to our im- mediate needs! We have seen in the movie how the hand raised to stab a rich, but otherwise blameless uncle, was stayed by the arresting power of the would- be assassin's favorite hymn. Surely this gives us a valuable suggestion. Would friends ever fall out, if, when an approaching quarrel darkened the horizon, they should hear a violin obbligato inquiring whether auld acquaintance should be forgot? If a thoughtless, but by no means criminally-inclined child had mislaid a piece of string for which we were angrily searching, would not our hearts be softened by the appropriate strains of "The Lost Chord" ? In these suggestions there are hints that a moving picture can be made moving indeed by the intelligent application of the Vox Humana stop at the right mo- ment. Would that its eloquent tremolo might follow us from the screen to the domestic hearth ! Perhaps, by Reel-Life 89 borrowing some of the artifice of the movie, we can make real life more like reel-life, and truth seem stranger than fiction. If this be pragmatism, yet there 's method in 't ! POTS AND KETTLES THE world is so full of a number of things that it is a difficult task to sort out from the cosmic potpourri those rare nuggets which yield un- alloyed pleasure to the rummager. To those in whose veins the sluggish flow of thick red blood is enlivened by a few drops of cynicism (not sufficient to poison, but enough to stimulate), I think there is no more acute joy than that which comes from finding unsuspected weak spots in the armor of their friends. Of course, we all like to know that our ene- Pots and Kettles 91 mies are vulnerable ; but it is only the cynical elect who can appreciate with fine Epicurean fastidiousness the glorious revelation that their friends are human, after all. And it is not only the weaknesses of those near and dear to us, it is their misfortunes and annoyances which give a thrill of illicit joy to those honest contor- tionists who can look into their own hearts. I once heard a young mother say that there was only one thing which gave her greater pleasure than hearing that the children of her friends were sick, and that was to hear that they were bad. No one but a " Potterite " (to borrow the excellent noun with which Rose Ma- caulay has enriched us) would think of condemning this young woman for being malicious or unkind. Misery is not the only human quality that loves com- pany. Some of her distant relatives — Anxiety, Dis- couragement, Annoyance — are equally sociable. Certain manifestations of what I call "human na- ture" are the jewels I like best to pick out from the jumble of human characteristics which a prodigal Prov- idence has cast as rubbish to the void ; and of these precious stones I make a speciality of collecting those which seem to me of purest ray, namely, gems of Self-deception. To be a human being is to be self-de- ceived ; and watching the manifestations of this uni- versal attribute gives a very rare quality of enjoyment to the exceptional soul who is the only enameled uten- 92 The Notion-Counter sil in a world of Pots and Kettles, all busily engaged in calling each other black — that one white utensil being always one's self. Why do the Pot and the Kettle delight in accusing each other of having at least a strain of colored blood, when they might unite their jibes at the expense of the Saucepan, for being what the Society Column in the Kitchen Companion would caXX "charming in baby-blue agate? " Why do they not sneer cynically at the ques- tionable purity of a white-enameled Frying-pan? Simply because it is always our own most conspicuous fault to which we are most keenly alive when it is re- produced in a neighbor, though sublimely unconscious of its existence in ourselves. I know of nothing more satisfying than to hear Mrs. Parvenue criticize Mrs. Nouveau-Riche for being "just a thought too cautious in her social relations." " I think it is a little mite pretentious to use a hyphen in one's name," says Mrs. P., moistening her lips with a tentative tongue; "and if there is one thing that I can't stand, it is pretense. I am afraid that Mrs. Nouveau-Riche is a little bit of a Climber; and I for one don't care to be made use of as a rung in her social ladder." This subtle figure of speech comes out with a me- chanical exactness that suggests constant repetition; and Mrs. Parvenue then proceeds to attach to Mrs. Pots and Kettles 93 N.-R.'s absent back a list of her own most flagrant faults. This is, of course, ecstasy to me, though it has to be bottled up in a sympathetic demeanor. But the ecstasy effervesces and overflows a few days later, when I meet Mrs. Nouveau-Riche at a friend's house, and after a little skillful guiding of the conver- sation on my part, she whispers confidentially: "I be- lieve you are acquainted with Mrs. Parvenue. Can- not you hint to her that it is not good form to make her social aspirations so evident? It really embarrasses me sometimes to see her play her cards so openly. It makes people laugh, and in spite of her foolish little pretenses she is too nice a woman to be laughed at. " / do not laugh. There is a pleasure too deep to be expressed by the crackling of thorns under a Pot — or a Kettle; but, like a hero of George Meredith's on a somewhat similar occasion, "At the two I stand amazed." If your eyes are once opened to the wonderful truth that other people are all self-deceived, you will find new vistas of enjoyment opening up before you. I know a man, — the most irritable, the most impatient, the most querulous and undisciplined of his sex, — the husband of a cow among women.. He has a son ten years old, who is a diminished replica of himself, snarly, fretful, spoiled. It is the father's constant 94 The Notion-Counter astonishment that the child of such parents should display traits so unaccountable. " Of course, I have many faults," he magnanimously concedes; "but I think I can truthfully say that an irritable disposi- tion is not one of them. As for my wife, she has the temperament of a pillow; so I suppose the boy reverts to some remote ancestor." These examples of Pots and Kettles calling each other black will be sufficient to indicate to the thought- ful student the pleasure that may come to the rescuer of broken bits of human nature, which may be cun- ningly pieced together and added to the museum of the Society for Cynical Research. Yet the novice must never forget the fundamental truth that it is one's own worst fault that one can never see; for the eye sees not itself ^' '' But by reflection, by some other things. For that reflection his vision is preternaturally keen. I myself am tolerant of all faults but one. I cannot bear to hear a person laugh at foibles of his fellows, or extract enjoyment from others* mistakes. It is like laughing at a blind man's blunders; and if I am ever guilty of it, I hope some Kettle will call me black. WHAT KIND OF A SNOB ARE YOU? NO kind! will of course be the indignant reply of anyone who takes the trouble to answer so irri- tating a question. "What is a snob?" should then be the pertinent query following the impertinent one ; and it will doubt- less receive a less immediate reply, because, although we all recognize a snob when we see him (unless we happen to be looking in the mirror), we do find that a snob has to be defined with every new generation. The Century Dictionary tells us that he is "one who is servile in spirit or conduct toward those whom he considers his superiors, and correspondingly proud and insolent toward those whom he considers his in- feriors." If the snob could be reduced to a formula, this would express him fairly well ; yet he is something more than that — something more and something less. The snob has always been one of the contemporary ex- pressions of the changing surface of Society — a bub- ble that floats on the stream of civilization and shows the direction of the current, when the deeper causes of its ebb and flow are hidden. In the book devoted to their interpretation seventy- five years ago, the highest authority on Snobs thus classified them : "You who despise your neighbor are a 96 The Notion-Counter Snob. You who forget your own friends, meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob; you who are ashamed of your poverty and blush for your calling are a Snob; so are you who boast of your pedi- gree or are proud of your wealth.** To this summing- up, we of the twentieth century can agree to-day, thanking Heaven that we are not as other men, and forgetting for the moment that Pharisee is another name for Snob. Let us glance once more at Thackeray's categorical list of the different varieties of snobs, and see how they compare with their descendants in the New World. First, there is the "Snob Royal *' (he has not, of course, his exact equivalent in democratic America). Then follows the "Military Snob,** who, we trust, will, at not too distant a day, be relegated to the realms of old, un- happy, far-off things, and battles long ago. There is the ** Clerical Snob" still existent at times, though hap- pily less in evidence here than in England. We shall all agree that the ** University Snob ** is not confined to Oxford and Cambridge ; nor is the "Literary Snob*' absent from gatherings of the Illuminati on the New England coast, the western plains, or the slopes of the Pacific. "Party-giving Snobs" were assuredly never more in evidence than in these days when the "right people" can be invited to their houses by hostesses whose personal friends and acquaintances are, socially What Kind of a Snob are You ? 97 speaking, of the blatantly wrong. "Dining-out Snobs" and "Country Snobs*' still abound at other people's tables and at week-end parties. Yet modern life has created various modifications of these basic types, which must be included in any enumeration of contemporary by-products of the social order. We all know the Intellectual Snob, who loves to conjure with the names of petty poets and aspiring artists, with whom he has occasionally exchanged per- functory platitudes over the afternoon teacup. We have also met the Provincial Snob, whose eyebrows are raised in shocked surprise if a family is mentioned whose name is unknown in his own very local habi- tation. The Educational Snob is a particularly fa- miliar phenomenon nowadays, and a childless onlooker cannot fail to be amused at the attitude of parents in regard to the schools they select for their offspring. They take such elaborate pains to explain that it is not at all because the Hobble-de-Hoy Academy is ** rather mixed," that they are taking their boy out and sending him to the Hand-Picked School; nor has fashion any- thing to do with little Elsie's being sent to the Semi- nary of the Socially Secure : it is simply that this partic- ular boy and girl react unfavorably to democratic conditions, which are perfectly good for other people's children. Then there is that singular anomaly, the Inverted The Notion-Counter Snob, who balances a chip on his shoulder and thinks that everyone of wealth or social prominence is neces- sarily to be distrusted ; that the rich are always pre- tentious and worldly, while those who have few ma- terial possessions are themselves possessed (like Rose Aylmer) of every virtue, every grace. Inverted Snobs should take to heart the admonition of the impassioned Peer in lolanthe: — Spurn not the nobly born With love affected, Nor treat with virtuous scorn The well-connected. High rank involves no shame — I boast an equal claim With him of humble name To be respected! It is hard to sail between the Scylla of Social Climb- ers and the Charybdis of Intellectual Strivers, and at the same time to shun the hidden rocks and shoals of all the other snobberies. **A Society that sets up to be polite and ignores Arts and Letters, I hold to be a Snobbish Society," says Thackeray, thereby indicat- ing another whirlpool to be skillfully avoided. To most of us the word "snobbish" (which is almost as much in use to-day as if it were the latest slang) suggests, as the dictionary intimates, either one who toadies to the great, or one who patronizes the What Kind of a Snob are You ? 99 humble. Between these two extremes of vulgarity- there is a large social area inhabited by the rest of us; but even here, in this zone of excellence, there are far too many who, before daring to do the simple and the appropriate thing, ask themselves the essentially snob- bish question, **What will people think?" What a refreshing relaxation of over-tense nerves would result from the abolition of slavery to conventions — not the conventions which are standardized good manners, but the conventions which ordain that perfectly un- important things should be performed in exactly the same way by totally different people ! The woman who will not ask Mrs. Goldcoin to lunch, because she has to give her peas from the can instead of from the South, is quite as much of a snob as Mrs. Goldcoin would be, if she declined the invitation for the same reason. If only money (and the lack of it) and social position (and the lack of it) could be taken naturally, and not become beams and motes in the eyes of the observers and observed! Of course, pretense is of the essence of snobbishness; but who is there so sure of authenticity that he can afford to throw stones at pretenders? It is hard for the star to remember always that his glory can never be the glory of the sun or of the moon, and to realize that a genuine twinkle is better than a beam of imi- tation gold. 100 The Notion-Counter The day of the twentieth century, being still young, is much more subtly lighted and shaded than the un- compromising black and white of Thackeray's Vic- torian noon. We grope in a mist of half-definitions and contradictions. We are no longer either bad or good — we are both bad and good. We are sincere and insin- cere, genuine and artificial, unpretentious and, at times, snobbish. To avoid being snobs, we must learn to look relentlessly at our own motives and our own actions, and to be sure that they always express our- selves, and nobody else. If we live on a corned-beef- and-cabbage basis when we are alone, we need not aspire to terrapin and artichokes when we entertain our more prosperous friends, but can compromise on — let us say — chicken and cranberry sauce. A pro- fessor who tries to live like a banker succeeds only in living like a snob. ** Fate has comfortably appointed gold plate for some, and has bidden others contentedly to wear the willow-pat- tern." That is the thrust with which Thackeray finds the weak spot in my own armor ; for some- times, when my superiors What Kind of a Snob are You? 101 come to dinner, I must confess to dusting off my Lowestoft plates and serving coffee out of Dresden china, with the air of one more accustomed to porcelain than to crockery ! And so I must answer the question I ask others by confessing that I am the kind of snob who does not always ** contentedly wear the willow- pattern." What kind of a snob are you ? SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON! FOR weeks I had been explaining to my friends that I felt very tired ; and evidently the disease was contagious, for the more I described my sen- sations, the more weary did the faces of my listeners become. I think the first conscious symptoms of fa- tigue came after three younger women had told me that I was looking very old, and very plain. Of course, what they said was, "You look tired, dear"; but I knew what they meant. At last I determined to take a definite step and consult a really up-to-date physician. I reached this decision one somnolent spring afternoon, as I lay on my sofa and listened to the eloquent discourse of a young friend who always keeps in touch with the latest curative fads. Her enthusiasm on the subject of Dr. Mendum was of so dynamic a quality that its appeal was irresistible. *'He is perfectly wonderful," she assured me, "and so open-minded. He thinks there IS something in almost everything, but he doesn't label himself anything.'' "I am sorry if he is too open-minded," I objected, "because that is just one of my own most alarming Such Stuff as Dreams are Made on! 103 symptoms. My mind is open, — at both ends, — and whatever goes in falls out. In fact, it 's more of a tube than a mind." **0h, Dr. Mendum's mind is n't a bit like that ! " his loyal disciple hastened to assure me. " I only mean that he takes what is best out of both the old and the new schools of thought. He has almost all the letters in the alphabet after his name (except perhaps M and D), and really his cures are quite uncanny." "I 'm afraid I am not ill enough to interest so re- markable a man," I began; "I am just awfully tired, and I feel — " But as usual I was interrupted. ** Oh, that does n't make the least difference. Why, Lily Billings went to him when she did n't have a thing the matter with her, and he was perfectly wonderful! He told her just how to keep on feeling well by all kinds of different methods, such as deep breathing, and rhythmical dancing, and muscle-control, and posture, and dreaming the right kind of dreams, and eating vitamines and, oh, lots of other things. He told her she had n't thought about Health enough and that she must be reeducated. She can't talk about anything but Dr. Mendum. It 's so interesting to hear her." "Well, I shall certainly make an appointment with the omniscient one at the earliest possible opportunity," I replied. "Perhaps he can teach me to conquer these waves of drowsiness which threaten to submerge me, 104 The Notion-Counter even while you are talking to me. I have the Sleepy Sickness." The first disengaged moment which this eclectic practitioner could dedicate to me, over the telephone and through his secretary, was a week later, and, punc- tual to the moment, I found myself in his cheery wait- ing-room. A scientifically Christian spirit of optim- ism pervaded the apartment. The pictures on the walls were all illustrative of deeds of helpfulness per- formed by men and women who simply radiated love. A few well-chosen quotations from books of religious devotion, modern psychology, and Eastern philosophy were scattered helpfully about the walls. Pink gera- niums bloomed in the window, and (lest one should feel enervated by so much cheer) a skeleton in the cor- ner — not in the cupboard — suggested to the recep- tive mind of the waiting patient that he was in the office of an anatomist, — a scientific student of funda- mental facts like bones, — and not in the studio of a dilettante. On the table were all the latest books on Psychoanalysis, Newest Thought, and Highest Thinking, to say nothing of many of the recognized scientific journals of medicine and orthopaedics, and pamphlets on the Value of Osteopathy were scattered with a lavish hand through this luxuriant garden of budding facts, fads, and fancies. After I had had time to absorb the various emana- Such Stuff as Dreams are Made on! 105 tions arising from this therapeutic potpourri, Dr. Men- dum came bustUng in, an embodiment of confidence, prosperity, and health. " I won't apologize for keeping you waiting," he an- nounced cheerfully, "because these few moments of concentration and absorption, in a carefully planned environment, are really the first steps in your cure. Now if you will come into my consulting-room and tell me, quite frankly, just what troubles you, I feel sure that I can help you very, very much." I followed him with all the eagerness of egotism re- leased from suppression. At last I had found someone who would listen to me — who even asked to hear how I felt ! What matter if I should have to pay later the individual fees of a multiple personality — I should have had my day! For fifteen minutes I talked elo- quently, while Dr. Mendum took flatteringly copious notes of my every word. When I had finished, he turned the light of a radiant smile upon me. "I understand your case completely," he assured me, "and I can guarantee a cure. Of course the spine is responsible for a great deal of the trouble, but some rather heroic local treatment will relieve that at once. Your nerves are in shreds, and your digestion has gone completely to pieces, but some severe exercises in stretching the muscles will help you very much, espe- cially when pursued in connection with a strict regime 106 The Notion-Counter of balanced foods, which I will prescribe for you after making the tests of reactions to inoculations. Later, I shall give you some pills — medicine still has its value on this plane of consciousness," he conceded with a smile of liberality; "but before we try mental sugges- tion (with perhaps just a touch of hypnosis), I will get right to work on the spine." I bowed my head, partly in acquiescence and partly in order that he might see how stiff and tense my neck- muscles were. The next moment I felt as if an angry gorilla had leaped between my shoulder blades and was torturing me with fierce clutches and insane poundings. He worried me as a cat worries a mouse, jerking my head almost out of its socket, twisting my arms, searching out — with fingers of iron — unsus- pected knobs in my vertebral column, each one of which appeared to be in a state of acute inflammation. I cried for mercy, I groaned, I implored him to cease. Finally, some good angel inspired me to call aloud, "I am cured!" and it was not till I made this public ac- knowledgment that a miracle had been wrought that he took me off the rack and removed the thumbscrews. "That is very satisfactory," he said sweetly, with- out a sign of fatigue from our recent combat. " Now I am going to give you a few hints about deep breathing, which the Yogi have found so satisfying; and while you are drawing in strength and healing, I am going to read Such Stuff as Dreams are Made on ! 1 07 you a few paragraphs culled from the ten greatest phi- losophers of all the ages, and twined into one perfect whole by myself. It tells us all we need to know on this earthly plane." He then taught me to breathe the way I have always breathed; and while I lay panting on the sofa, he in- toned various helpful phrases from such miscellaneous sources as St. Paul, Buddha, Emerson, Mrs. Eddy, Nietzsche, Freud, Ralph Waldo Trine, Marcus Aure- lius, Roosevelt, and Annie Payson Call. This acted like a lullaby; and just as I felt myself sinking into a perfectly suitable combination of Heaven, Nirvana, and Coma, he approached my huddled form and made some mystical passes on my forehead with a clammy forefinger. "Now you are going to relax," he chanted. "All inhibitions will be removed. Fear will steal away. Your subconscious mind will be revealed without dis- guise, in all its hideous depravity. The barriers of the will are down. You are going to tell me dreadful things about your past life — things so terrible that even you yourself have not dared to face them for per- haps threescore years. You will dream, and I shall in- terpret your dreams. You will tell me of A Man who once came into your life long years ago. It may be the memory of that man that makes you tired. Now sleep — sleep — go to sleep." 08 The Notion-Counter ** I won*t go to sleep ! " I indignantly exclaimed, and I pulled myself upright — only to face the dazed looks of the young friend who was sitting by my sofa-side, still expatiating on the super-manly qualities of Dr. Mendum. "But you have been asleep for two whole minutes,'* she expostulated reproachfully, "and just as I was tell- ing you how wonderfully Dr. Mendum combines all the best elements of mod- ern therapeutics." I started to my feet with- out a vestige of fatigue. "I was asleep, but I am awake ! " I cried. "My eyes were closed, but they are now open! I have been cured by Psycho-anal-osteo- pathologi-calesthenic-ology ! " "For Heaven's sake, what 's that ?" asked my poor young friend, alarmed for my reason. "That 's the scientific name for the School of Thought my eclectic dream-doctor represents," I ex- plained, " but it 's really simpler to call it just a mixture of Freud and Fraud." f LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 015 988 296 2 • ^rsi^. k 'MSS^ 1