Class _^^_a£li7 
 
 Rnnk HcjU^ Ff 
 fojATighfX" f1'^ 
 
 COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
THE PENNY 
 ANTE CLUB 
 
 A Partial Record 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR J. SHORES 
 
 NEW YORK EDITORIAL SERVICE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1916 
 
T^ 3"%^ 
 
 \\'i''\\l'' 
 
 Coi'VRir.HT, )i)16, 
 
 NEW YORK EDITORIAL SERVICE 
 
 New York 
 
 JAN 10 I9!5 
 
 (g)Cl.A42i)295 
 
 nvOt \ X 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MAN PROPOSES 1 
 
 In which the plans for the Club are made. 
 
 WOMAN DISPOSES 3 
 
 In which these plans are ratified by the Court of Last 
 Resort. 
 
 THE FIRST MEETING 7 
 
 In which we learn something of women. 
 
 THE SECOND MEETING 12 
 
 In which it is demonstrated that men are open and above 
 board. 
 
 THE THIRD MEETING 21 
 
 In which we learn why we forget things and something of 
 grammar. 
 
 THE FOURTH MEETING 33 
 
 In which we learn something 6f doctors. 
 
 THE FIFTH MEETING . . . .' 47 
 
 In which we learn something more about women. 
 
 THE SIXTH MEETING 60 
 
 In which we learn something of lawyers. 
 
 THE SEVENTH MEETING 70 
 
 In which we learn yet more of women. 
 
 THE EIGHTH MEETING 80 
 
 In which we hear some opinions on honesty. 
 
THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 MAN PROPOSES 
 
 IN WHICH THE PLANS FOR THE CLUB ARE MADE 
 
 THE club was determined upon by the four men 
 in the library while the four wives gossiped in 
 the music room. It was Brown who made the sugges- 
 tion, and as it was made in Brown's library which 
 was, for divers and sundry reasons, admirably 
 adapted for the meetings of the proposed club. Jones, 
 Smith and Robinson acquiesced without comment, 
 quite as though the subject had long been under con- 
 sideration and all reasons for and against such a revo- 
 lutionary step fully canvassed. 
 
 "I should say twice a week," said Jones, "Wednes- 
 day and Saturday." 
 
 "Game to open at eight-thirty and close at ten 
 o'clock sharp," said Smith. 
 
 "With five dollars to the Kitty from the first man 
 to suggest another round of Jack-pots," said Robin- 
 son. 
 
 "Of course I will invite the Club to hold its meet- 
 ings here," said Brown. 
 
 This was so well understood that the remark passed 
 without notice. Brown's library was well stocked 
 with books and other things. The four pulled at their 
 pipes in silence for a few moments. 
 
 "Do you think they will row?" asked Smith. 
 
 "Sure," said Jones. "It is their nature to." 
 
 1 
 
2 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 "I shall promise to give my wife all my gains," 
 said Robinson. 
 
 "It is understood that we Avill hold onr first meet- 
 ing next AVednesday evening," said Brown. 
 
 A general movement was lieard from the direction 
 of the music room. A moment later, they were joined 
 by the four wives. 
 
WOMAN DISPOSES 
 
 IN WHICH THESE PLANS ARE RATIFIED BY THE COURT OP 
 LAST RESORT 
 
 IT is intended, if practicable, to avoid introducing 
 any additional characters. If this were a play, 
 instead of a veracious chronicle, the Eight would be 
 accounted for as follows: 
 
 Persons of the Play 
 
 Mr. Robert Brown: Lawyer — age fifty — somewhat 
 corpulent of body — well-to-do but not offensively 
 rich — given to selling short at the wrong time — 
 law practice in the city below John Street — 
 philosophically pessimistic. 
 
 Mrs. Robert Brown: His wife. 
 
 Mr. John Smith: Doctor — age sixty — Diagnostician 
 — well-to-do — given to buying for a rise at the 
 wrong time — philosophically optimistic. 
 
 Mrs. John Smith: His wife. 
 
 Mr. William Jones: Life insurance solicitor — age 
 thirty-five. 
 
 Mrs. William Jones: Age forty — well-to-do by in- 
 heritance — interested in votes for women and 
 with convictions. 
 
 Mr. Jack Robinson: Age thirty — author of several 
 books that have not sold and of two novels that 
 have sold well. 
 
 Mrs. Jack Robinson: His wife — a nice little woman, 
 who has read her husband's novels. 
 
 Mr. Robinson's remark upon the disposition he 
 would make of his profits did not fall upon deaf ears 
 
 3 
 
4 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 though it evoked no comment at the time. The day 
 following the library conference, the four men went 
 about their business in the city as usual. At about 
 three o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Robinson stepped 
 over to JMrs. Jones' house and discovered that Mr. 
 Jones had, after some argument, persuaded Mrs. 
 Jones to withdraw her anticipated objection to the 
 club idea by promising her all of his winnings. Mrs. 
 Robinson was able to say with some pride that her 
 husband had made her the same generous offer. As 
 both ladies were, by now, somewhat apprehensive that 
 opposition might develop in the other households, they 
 determined to call upon i\Irs. Smith and JMrs. Brown 
 at once, after fortifying themselves with such argu- 
 ments in favor of the club idea as came readily to 
 mind. 
 
 Mrs. Robinson was prepared to say that the nature 
 of her husband's work kept him so isolated from other 
 men during the day, that she had long been thinking 
 of urging him to join some club of gentlemen whose 
 conversation would take him out of himself and away 
 from his work. Mrs. Jones was prepared to suggest 
 that it Avould be a good thing to get rid of their hus- 
 bands for two evenings a week, as it would afford an 
 opportunity, if the others should approve, of form- 
 ing themselves into a ladies' club for serious study 
 of modern languages, or art, or the "movements" in 
 which women were generally interested. 
 
 ]Mrs. Smith was found at home, and a few moments' 
 conversation led the three to proceed to ]\Irs. Bro\\ai's. 
 A few words with ]\Irs. Brown made it clear that each 
 of the four men had resorted to corruption to obtain 
 approval of the Penny Ante Club — and that each had 
 promised to pay his w'innings over to his wife. 
 
 This smacked of conspiracy. 
 
 The four ladies looked the perplexity which they 
 
WOMAN DISPOSES 5 
 
 felt. With true feminine intuition, the same diffi- 
 culty was presented to the mind of each. Mrs. Rob- 
 inson had secretly determined what she would buy 
 with the money which her husband would win from 
 Jones, Smith and Brown— Mrs. Jones had secretly, 
 etc.— why continue? Each knew perfectly well the 
 thought of the other, and each was determined that 
 her husband should not contribute. Gambling, after 
 all, is a vice, because sometimes the wrong people 
 
 Uvs. Jones was the first to recover. Her confidence 
 in her husband's ability to play poker saved the day. 
 
 She said: "Girls, I will be perfectly candid with 
 you. AVhen AVilliam made that proposition to me, 
 I was in favor of letting them go on. It didn't occur 
 to me that what I might get would or could amount 
 to much, and I didn't think of the danger of William 
 losing, instead of winning. Neither did it occur to 
 me that he couldn't win without winning from your 
 husbands. But I see all that now, and you are all 
 thinking the same thing. 
 
 "When this thought came into my mind a tew 
 minutes ago, I was prepared to vote against this club 
 idea, and tell William that I had changed my mmd 
 and couldn't stand for it; but, I guess, upon second 
 thought— or third thouglit— it may be just as well to 
 let them go ahead with their foolishness if it pleases 
 them. They want to play penny ante, and that's a 
 little bit of a game. No one can win more than a dol- 
 lar or two in one evening and I've heard that at the 
 end of forty games of that kind, the thing has evened 
 up so that nobody in the game has really made or 
 lost anything. All these men will lose at that game 
 will be the money they will give their wives. We'll 
 get that out of them and they will never miss it, and 
 it will make them feel generous and be a good thing 
 
6 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 all around. Besides, I think we can have some real 
 fun with the money. 
 
 "I suggest that we let thorn think we are running 
 a Browning Club on the same evenings, but that we 
 do, in fact, organize a girls' penny ante game, pull 
 down the blinds and play with the capital which they 
 so innocently contribute." 
 
THE FIRST MEETING 
 
 IN WHICH WE LEARN SOMETHING OP WOMEN 
 
 AT twenty minutes past eight Brown was ready 
 for his guests — cards, chips, cigarettes, cigars 
 and Tuxedo in a jar all in sight; and, just out of 
 sight, in a case with folding doors that outwardly 
 bore close resemblance to a bookcase containing De 
 Luxe editions, were the other things essential to a 
 pleasant evening at Poker, 
 
 Now, Brown really liked a game of Poker; but, as- 
 suming rightly or wrongly that his neighbors were 
 not Poker players, and probably could not afford to 
 lose enough to make the game interesting, he had 
 proposed the Club as a mere pretext for getting two 
 evenings a week with neighbors whom he felt were 
 worth knowing Avell. But this was not all. Brown 
 was a heavy stockholder in the realty company which 
 owned the suburb. He had not thought it necessary 
 to make this fact known to the public or to his neigh- 
 bors. He had built the first residence and the most 
 costly one upon the distinct understanding with his 
 associates in the enterprise that his interest should 
 be kept secret. The president of the company had 
 urged that it would be better to advertise the fact 
 that the owners had confidence in the enterprise. 
 Brown said: 
 
 "No, the Company may be presumed to have con- 
 fidence in the enterprise. The outlay of several hun- 
 dreds of thousands of dollars is sufficient evidence of 
 
 7 
 
8 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 that confidence. Now we want some evidence of the 
 confidence of the pnblie in the enterprise. I will 
 furnish twenty thousand dollars' worth of that evi- 
 dence by building a house with my own money and 
 upon plans provided by myself, conforming, of course, 
 to the building restrictions of the Company, but not 
 availing myself of the Company's offer to build for 
 purchasers, and without mortgage on the place. I 
 will pay for my lot, cash down, upon delivery of deed, 
 and not on the installment plan. This will help you 
 to sell lots as you will not keep my plan a secret." 
 
 "That is very generous of you," said the President. 
 "The Company would, I am sure, be glad to show 
 you its appreciation in some way." 
 
 "I shall not deprive the Company of that pleas- 
 ure," said Brown. "Before I pay for the lots, the 
 Company will execute a binding agreement under 
 which I can 'put' the property to the Company at 
 any time within five years at actual cost to myself 
 with five per cent, per annum interest. That fact 
 you need not advertise." 
 
 "I was wondering," said the President. "How- 
 ever, in order to start the ball rolling. I'm inclined to 
 accept your offer, and will put a resolution through 
 at the next board meeting which will confer sufficient 
 authority to enter into such an agreement. Will you 
 be good enough to suggest the proper phraseology? 
 It ought not to be so plain as to advise a stockholder 
 or the public of its purpose, and I think it is not 
 strictly necessary that the Board itself should see its 
 full effect if it can be made effective without doing 
 so." 
 
 Brown drew the resolution and it was passed at the 
 first meeting of the board of directors of the Realty 
 Company; all except the President and one member 
 of the Board, whom the President thought it expedient 
 
THE FIRST MEETING 9 
 
 to take into his confidence, supposing the resolution 
 to relate to an entirely different subject. 
 
 Smith, Jones and Robinson were the first builders 
 to follow in the wake of Brown. And, in the order 
 named, the good doctor had built with his own money 
 a handsome and substantial residence, occupying two 
 of the lots adjoining those occupied by Brown ; Jones 
 (or Mrs. Jones) took the two lots next upon the other 
 side of Brown and occupied a substantial dwelling 
 upon plans furnished by the architect for the Com- 
 pany and to be paid for in installments. Robinson's 
 dAvelling was built for him by the Company and stood 
 upon the two lots adjoining the Jones place. 
 
 The clock struck ten — the game was closed. Jones 
 was one dollar and thirty-five cents to the good, and 
 Robinson was the happy temporary possessor of 
 ninety-five cents, already no longer his, in truth, being 
 really held in trust for his spouse. The evening was 
 a success. The doors of the bookcase of the De Luxe 
 editions were swung open by Brown, disclosing a com- 
 partment within. Afterward the pipes were refilled 
 and the four settled down to an hour of converse, 
 
 "According to the program," said Jones, "the 
 ladies should now be deep in a discussion of old Brown- 
 ing, but unless my wife has been born anew since 
 last night, they will get more of my Jap boy than 
 Browning. There can be more things said about a 
 Jap boy than anything else in this world and mostly 
 uncomplimentary. ' ' 
 
 "You're right about that," said Robinson, "but 
 not about your Jap boy. Now I've got a Jap — but 
 let it go at that — this is my evening off." 
 
 "The women think of nothing and talk of nothing 
 except the servant boy problem," added Jones. 
 
10 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 "Just what I say," continued Robinson. "Now 
 my wife — " 
 
 Jones: "Let four of them get together and it's a 
 good bet they can't get off that subject even if — " 
 
 Robinson : "Of course they can 't. They all talk 
 at once and interrupt." 
 
 Jones: "Of course they interrupt each other in 
 the middle—" 
 
 Robinson : ' ' Anywhere. You can 't get them off 
 the subject, and as for getting them to take the 
 slightest interest in — " 
 
 Jones: "Exactly! They can't do it. The Lord 
 made them that way. Now when men get together 
 they usually find that they have some subject of im- 
 portance worth exchanging views upon and something 
 in the nature of real conversation upon matters of 
 general interest may ordinarily be expected." 
 
 Brown : ' ' For example ? ' ' 
 
 Smith: "Wives." 
 
 Jones: "Now, Doctor, you'll admit that women 
 are different — " 
 
 Smith: "Certainly." 
 
 Jones: "And that their conversation is usually 
 upon small subjects." 
 
 Smith: "Usually as small as babies if they have 
 'em." 
 
 Jones: "Well, you know perfectly well what I 
 mean, Doctor. AYomen as a class are not intellectual. 
 Their talk is piffle. A dictagraph report of an hour's 
 conversation by four women with no men present 
 would demonstrate Avhat I mean." 
 
 Smith: "Tlie same dictagraph reporting an hour's 
 conversation of four men — say at a bar — or at a game 
 of cards, or in the smoking compartment of a Pull- 
 man would give us little cause for boasting. I think, 
 Jones, you have made a valuable suggestion." 
 
THE FIRST MEETING 11 
 
 Jones: "What was it?" 
 
 Brown: "Certainly, Doctor, I agree with you. 
 Gentlemen, I will attend to it. I'll have one planted 
 in this room at our next meeting." 
 
 Robinson : ' ' Do you mean that you will get a dicta- 
 graph ? But what about the records 1 What will be- 
 come of the records? I don't want to talk for pub- 
 lication. I want these evenings off and to feel free 
 to say what comes into my mind. If the women 
 should get hold of the records — " 
 
 Brown: "I'll see to that." 
 
 Jones: "I'll not agree to it unless I'm protected. 
 I'm always likely to say something about women in 
 general that my wife might misunderstand. Women 
 don't understand how we men feel about them. Now 
 I've got one of the best wives in the world, but she 
 takes offense easily and — " 
 
 Brown: "It can be arranged for every one's pro- 
 tection. The records can be kept in that small closet 
 (indicating) and the door furnished with a lock that 
 will respond only to four different keys — used in a 
 fixed order. I know the locksmith who can furnish 
 that kind of a lock. Each of us will carry one of the 
 keys. At the end of six months the records will all 
 be destroyed unless by unanimous consent some other 
 disposition be made of them. Don't you think this 
 might prove interesting. Doctor?" 
 
 Smith : "It may prove very interesting. I 'm for 
 the experiment and am willing to contribute to the 
 expense." 
 
 Brown : "If you will allow me, gentlemen, there 
 will be no expense, I have a client engaged in the 
 manufacture of the machines, who will be glad to 
 make us a present of one. He understands the value 
 of advertising." 
 
THE SECOND MEETING 
 
 IN WHICH IT IS DEMONSTRATED THAT MEN ARE OPEN 
 AND ABOVE BOARD 
 
 BROWN: "Gentlemen, I have arranged for the 
 dictagraph and will have it ready for our next 
 meeting. Before starting the game, I am anxious to 
 know whether you are still under obligation to give 
 your winnings to your wives?" 
 
 Jones: "iNIy wife, as usual, has gone back on the 
 arrangement. She wasn't satisfied with a dollar and 
 thirty-five cents. I think she suspects that I held out 
 on her. She always suspects that I make more money 
 in my business than I do. If I tell her that business 
 is poor she doesn't believe it or acts as if she didn't. 
 That's the trouble with women — they make liars of 
 their husbands. It's not worth while telling wives 
 the truth. Any woman, except my wife, will believe 
 anything I tell her. I've tried it just to see. Even 
 my wife is more likely to believe me when I'm lying 
 than when I'm telling her the truth. When I'm 
 telling her the actual truth — oh, you needn't laugh, 
 I sometimes do — she says there's something peculiar 
 about my manner, or that I am not talking naturally 
 and that I can't blame her if she doesn't swallow it. 
 She doesn't say 'swallow it,' but that's what she 
 means. That's another thing about women. They 
 don't say what they mean — (Pause) — sometimes — 
 (Laughter) there you go again! Every one of you 
 knows that what I've said is true but you don't think 
 it's prudent or dignified to express yourselves." 
 
 12 
 
THE SECOND MEETING 13 
 
 Brown: "You haven't told us of your new com- 
 pact with your wife." 
 
 Jones: "I've got to give her at least two dollars 
 each meeting whether I make it or not. What do 
 you think of that for a woman's sense of commercial 
 honesty? I tell you, they haven't got any. At least 
 my wife hasn't any, and she's as good a woman as I 
 know. (All are smiling.) Well, what happened to 
 the rest of you ? ' ' 
 
 Brown: "I've made the same terms with Mrs. 
 Brown." 
 
 Smith: "And I with Mrs. Smith." 
 
 Robinson: "And I with Mrs. Robinson." 
 
 Jones: "What did I tell you? Women are all 
 alike. How do you suppose they all happened to 
 make it just two dollars?" 
 
 Brown: "I suspect that they conferred together 
 and compared notes." 
 
 Jones: "Of course — it's a regular conspiracy. 
 And that's just like women, too. They are not open 
 and above board like men. I'm not finding fault or 
 criticizing them. They can't help it. It's their na- 
 ture. God made them that way. Look at Adam and 
 Eve. You know what I mean. Don't you find them 
 that way in your business, Mr. Brown?" 
 
 Brown: "I don't find them in my business at all 
 as clients. My employment is by corporations; or 
 more strictly speaking, by the managers of corpora- 
 tions. I regret to say that many of my clients are 
 suspected of conspiracies, and some are being prose- 
 cuted upon charges of not having been entirely 'open 
 and above board' in their conduct of business. Of 
 course, I don't admit that any of them are guiltj^ 
 but sometimes it is stockholders and sometimes it is 
 the Government making charges against them. I 
 don't remember just now that any women are in- 
 
14 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 volved in such charges. I 'm not prepared to say that 
 women are especially addicted to conspiring or con- 
 spiracy. ' ' 
 
 Jones: "Now, Mr. Brown, you know you are twist- 
 ing what I said; I wasn't talking of business con- 
 spiracies but of conspiracies against men in general." 
 
 Brown: "If you mean that women are more likely 
 to conspire against men as a class than men to con- 
 spire against men as a class, I'm not prepared to dis- 
 sent at present. I'll have to consider that point be- 
 fore offering an opinion." 
 
 Robinson: "1 agree with Jones." 
 
 Brown : ' ' Jones, you ought to meet a friend of 
 mine. AVe'll call him, Cowper. lie is a lawyer and 
 a very good one; also a husband and a very good 
 one. One fine morning several years ago, we were 
 walking to business and discussing a divorce suit which 
 was occupying several columns of the morning papers 
 every day. Cowper was convinced that the whole 
 fault lay with the wife. It didn't look that way to 
 me and I said so. Cowper closed the discussion by 
 saying: 'Well, of course, one can't tell from news- 
 paper reports of the trial, but I'm convinced of one 
 thing, that women are the most dangerous class of 
 people in the world.' He was very serious and his 
 air was humorously tragic. Naturally, I suspected 
 that Mrs. Cowper had indulged her temper at his ex- 
 pense that morning. The lady was reputed to be 
 somewhat expert at starting Cowper to his business 
 in a depressed state of mind." 
 
 Jones: "Well, my wife and I never quarrel — 
 well, 'hardly ever' as somebody says; — but you know 
 what I mean. I'm not speaking from personal ex- 
 perience at all, though I guess we all have had some 
 personal experience ; but I can 't help observing 
 things, and I think I know something about women." 
 
THE SECOND MEETING 15 
 
 Brown : ' ' Lucky man ! And speaking of lucky 
 men, who are going to be the lucky men to-night? 
 It's nine o'clock and the game will have to be a short 
 one." 
 
 Smith : ' ' Don 't let me forget to ask you, Brown, 
 what you meant when you said that your chief em- 
 ployment comes from corporations, or more strictly 
 speaking, from the managers of corporations. I 
 don't get your point. I suppose you meant some- 
 thing by that qualification. You needn't explain 
 now. Any time will do. We'd better proceed with 
 the game. The ladies will all be disgusted with us. 
 As Jones says, they won't believe it possible for a 
 game to be played without somebody making some- 
 thing out of it. They might compare notes, you 
 know. ' ' 
 
 Promptly at ten o'clock the game was closed. Jones 
 had won two dollars and forty cents. Robinson, five 
 cents. Brown and the Doctor were both losers. 
 
 Jones (With a sigh) : Just my luck! If this had 
 happened last time, I wouldn't have had to agree to 
 pay over two dollars regardless." 
 
 Robinson: "How do you know that? Are you 
 sure that you were the first to agree to pay the two 
 dollars ? ' ' 
 
 Jones: "Of course I am. My wife raised the 
 question at once when I paid over the dollar and thir- 
 ty-five cents. She stuck out for quite a while for two- 
 fifty. I compromised on two dollars." 
 
 Smith : ' ' Does that quite fit in with the charge of 
 conspiracy ? ' ' 
 
 Jones: "Oh, it was a conspiracy all right. They 
 had probably hatched it up while we were playing that 
 first game. Women are not great logicians, but they 
 
16 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 are not quite fools. They've got intuition, you know, 
 and their intuition would tell them that we couldn't 
 all win every time and that they wouldn 't all get some- 
 thing every week unless they made a new bargain. 
 They fixed a limit. They've heard that word 'limit' 
 used in talk about Poker games, and that's their idea 
 about what fixing a limit means. 1 think it's the 
 limit myself, ^ly wife has probably heard me speak 
 of a 'raise' or raising the limit, and it was her idea 
 to raise the limit to two dollars and a half, but I 
 woukln't stand for it. Of course, she doesn't know 
 anything about the game of Poker. Neither do I, for 
 that matter (Smiles from the others) ; but she's got 
 nerve enough and can get away with a bluff as well 
 as any Poker player I ever knew. I'll bet, if the 
 truth were known, that they had agreed upon one 
 dollar and my wife just couldn't help beating the rest 
 of them to an extra dollar or two if she could work 
 me." 
 
 Robinson: "I think you are wrong about that, 
 Jones. I didn't tell you the whole truth about my 
 new arrangement. I've agreed to give my wife two 
 dollars and a half an evening. She looked so disap- 
 pointed when I passed over the sixty-five cents, that 
 I made the offer myself. But since the rest of you 
 are onlv paving tAvo dollars, I shall ask her to let me 
 off for that.'" 
 
 Brown : ' ' Only the men are open and above board. ' ' 
 
 Jones: "Now, gentlemen, what do you think of 
 Robinson? I think he's a confessed traitor to our 
 sex. Do you think he'll get off with two dollars? 
 Not on your life, gentlemen ! We '11 all be raised to 
 two dollars and a half before the end of another 
 week. ' ' 
 
 Robinson: "I don't think so. I asked her not to 
 tell." 
 
THE SECOND MEETING 17 
 
 Jones : "He asked her not to tell ! Ye Gods and 
 merry mortals, catch the naivete of that? Neighbor 
 Robinson is a thoroughly good citizen, I have no doubt. 
 He is certainly a good neighbor and he has shown rea- 
 sonable skill at Poker. But he asked her not to tell! 
 No reflections on IMrs. Robinson, of course, but she 
 didn't promise you not to tell, I'll venture? (Look- 
 ing into Robinson's face.) I can see that she didn't. 
 It's common and universal knowledge that women 
 can't keep secrets — at least such a secret as that. 
 And you didn 't even exact a promise ! ' ' 
 
 Smith: "Just a moment, Jones. I think you are 
 rather severe on Neighbor Robinson, who, I see, is 
 taking this quite good-naturedly. I rather suspect 
 that he is amused at the thought that he may have, 
 inadvertently I'm sure, laid the foundation for a de- 
 mand of the Union for two-fifty from each of us. For 
 my own part, I should think it complimentary to us, 
 if that should result. I should hate to believe that 
 my wife felt that she was being fully compensated 
 for my absence by a payment of two dollars and a 
 half. Indeed, I'm afraid that I did a somewhat fool- 
 ish thing myself when I told her that I would make 
 it three dollars per meeting, when I w'cnt home with- 
 out gains, and had to admit an actual loss. It didn't 
 occur to me that my action might possibly affect the 
 rest of you. I didn't even ask her not to tell." 
 
 Brown: "Doctor! Doctor! And at your age, 
 too! Well, except for the positively expressed opin- 
 ion of ]\Ir. Jones, I suppose at this point I should be- 
 gin to doubt whether men are, in fact, open and above 
 board. (All laugh heartily except Jones.) 
 
 Jones (After a pause and with an air of resigna- 
 tion) : Well, I suppose there is no help for it, and 
 your motives were good and all that; but you can 
 take it from me, that we are all in for a raise to three 
 
18 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 dollars. (A pause.) But have we heard it all, or is 
 the worst to come? What was your real promise, 
 Mr. Brown?" 
 
 Brown: "Two dollars, Neighbor, no more and no 
 less." 
 
 Jones: "Well, you and I are the victims of the 
 indiscretions of our friends." 
 
 Brown: "Now, my dear ]Mr. Jones, will you allow 
 me to ask j'ou one or two questions?" 
 
 Jones: "Certainly." 
 
 Brown: "When you agreed to pay the two dol- 
 lars, did you know- that any one of the rest o£ us had 
 agreed to a raise?" 
 
 Jones: "No." 
 
 Brown: "Did you, at that time, suspect any con- 
 spiracy upon the part of our wives to demand an in- 
 crease ? ' ' 
 
 Jones: "Well, no — I can't exactly say that I sus- 
 pected it at that time." 
 
 Brown: "Well, then I demand in the behalf of 
 myself and the unfortunate Mr. Robinson and the 
 indiscreet Doctor tliat you justify yourself to us and 
 to your own conscience for weakly consenting to such 
 extortion on the part of a woman whom you hold in 
 the bonds of matrimony under most solemn vows to 
 subordinate herself to you, when with 3'our self-con- 
 fessed intimate knowledge of the nature of woman 
 and her ways, you must have known that the rest of 
 us would be compelled to meet your ante, whether we 
 wished to do so or not?" 
 
 Jones: "Well, I guess I didn't figure it. (To 
 Robinson.) I'll withdraw tlie expression 'traitor to 
 our sex,' but I'm right about what's going to happen 
 to us. I'll warn you all now' that I'm going to play 
 the game of Poker from this on. It's been the way 
 of women from the beginning of the world to pit men 
 
THE SECOND MEETING 19 
 
 against each other in a sordid strife for gain. Doctor, 
 that's pretty nearly good enough for a dictagraph 
 record — what ? ' ' 
 
 Brown (Meaningly) : "Well, we've got it in a 
 dictagraph record." 
 
 Smith, Robinson and Jones (but loudest of all, 
 Jones): "What!" 
 
 Brown: "I told you that I would have the dicta- 
 graph in operation for our next meeting. That was 
 the truth, but not the whole truth. You can now 
 hear the record of this evening if you desire. Of 
 course we must agree with i\Ir. Jones that men are 
 open and above board, but as much cannot be asserted 
 of the dictagraph." 
 
 Jones: "Robinson isn't in the 'traitor to sex' 
 class. I want to hear this record — but, Mr. Brown, 
 unless you have got the new lock on that closet and 
 the four keys and I get mine, and am satisfied by 
 actual demonstration that the record can't be taken 
 out of there without my consent, I shall feel com- 
 pelled to insist that this particular record must be 
 smashed before we leave this evening. It's too dan- 
 gerous a thing to leave lying around. I don't re- 
 member all that I've said, and of course I was jok- 
 ing for the most part, and just talking to see Avhat 
 the rest of you would say and — " 
 
 Brown: "You needn't go further, Jones. The 
 dictagraph is not taking you down now, so you 
 needn't stultify j^ourself further. Of course this rec- 
 ord must not be preserved against the objection of 
 any one of you. I hope that you may have as free 
 an interchange of views when you know that you are 
 being reported." 
 
 Jones : "I 'm afraid I '11 shut up like a clam unless 
 I can forget the machine. I think I'll feel, every 
 time I open my mouth, as if I were on a platform 
 
20 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 and ought to say, 'Mr. Chairman' or 'Gentlemen.' 
 Should think you might feel like saying, '^lay it 
 please the Court, ' Brown ; and Robinson like chirp- 
 ing, 'To my Gentle Reader.' The Doctor won't feel 
 embarrassed at all. His profession is one which pre- 
 pares a man for all situations. He wouldn't feel em- 
 barrassed even if the room were full of ladies. Doc- 
 tors say what they please upon the most delicate sub- 
 jects, without embarrassment. They are in the con- 
 fidence of everybody and have plenty of confidence — 
 confidence men — you know. (Laughs.) No of- 
 fense. Doctor. Just a general observation. Good 
 thing that the thing can't record our thoughts as well 
 as our words, though by your smiling, as old Hamlet 
 says, you would seem to say that in this case you 
 wouldn't get much more out of me. (Laughs.) How 
 is that for a literary allusion, Robinson?" 
 
 Robinson: "Very apt. Especially as you and 
 Hamlet seem to be in accord as to the women." 
 
 Jones: "How is that?" 
 
 Robinson: " ']\Ian delights me not — nor women 
 either,' and so forth." 
 
 Jones: "Oh, yes, I remember, though I didn't 
 have that in mind. I only know fragments of Ham- 
 let. Read him in school, you know." 
 
 Brown: "Will you hear the record now?" 
 
 (All assent and the record is put through the phono- 
 graph to the anuisement of all except Jones, who lis- 
 tens with intense interest and a good deal of uneasi- 
 ness w^hile the others watch him.) 
 
 Jones: "Well, I can say one thing for the dicky 
 bird — it's no liar, and that record is nine-tenths 
 Jones ; but ' never again ' ! " 
 
THE THIRD MEETING 
 
 IN WHICH WE LEARN WHY WE FORGET THINGS AND 
 SOMETHING OF GRAMMAR 
 
 BROWN: "Well met, gentlemen. I think we 
 had better start the game at once or a discussion 
 may be started that will cheat us of our game alto- 
 gether. I feel like taking home a little easy money 
 myself to-night. I\Iy reputation as a man of busi- 
 ness is suffering in my own domestic circle — and I 
 might lose it anywhere else with more peace of mind. ' ' 
 
 Jones: "Is that machine going? If it is, won't 
 you please turn it off a minute ? I heard a good one 
 to-day but I don't think it needs to go on that rec- 
 ord. (All laugh.) Well, it's not exactly rotten, you 
 know, but just so-so." 
 
 Smith: "Turn off the machine, Brown. If Jones 
 doesn 't get it off his mind he will be at an unfair dis- 
 advantage during the game. Besides, I 'd like to hear 
 *a good one' to-night. Am just in the mood." 
 
 (When conversation was resumed, the game was 
 over. Jones was three dollars and twenty cents ahead 
 of the game and the rest were losers. ) 
 
 Brown: "Jones, have you any new opinions to 
 offer touching the mental status of woman ? ' ' 
 
 Jones: "Not on your life! Not while that ma- 
 chine goes. The truth is, gentlemen, I 've been think- 
 ing things over and I've made up my mind that I 
 talk too much." 
 
 Brown: "But consider, Jones — you have so much 
 21 
 
22 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 to say. I envy you your ability to form such positive 
 opinions — convictions upon subjects that I find so 
 difficult." 
 
 Jones: "But do you really have convictions upon 
 any subject? I've known a number of lawyers in 
 my time, and the only ones I've known who were any 
 good as law^-ers didn't seem to have any positive opin- 
 ions upon any subject. They've generally looked at 
 both sides of a proposition until they got tired of 
 considering it and then changed the subject. Guess 
 it's a business habit and it may be all right in your 
 line of business, but it would queer me in mine. Be- 
 sides, I'd rather have opinions than doubts. When 
 I'm in doubt about anything, I'm uneasy and I can't 
 sleep. After I got into bed last night, I couldn't 
 remember whether I'd brought my shoes into the bed- 
 room or left them in the library where I had changed 
 into slippers, and I couldn't go to sleep until I had 
 got up and turned on the light and found them in 
 the usual place in the bedroom. 
 
 "]\Iy wife's just the same. Doctor, Avhat's your 
 idea as to why a man will do a fool thing like that? 
 Forget, I mean, what he did only a few minutes be- 
 fore, when he must have known, at the time, what 
 he was doing? I couldn't take off my shoes witliout 
 knowing it, nor have put them down where I did 
 without knowing it." 
 
 Brown : ' ' Before starting the Doctor off into a 
 long psychological discussion involving mental dis- 
 sociation, main streams of consciousness, complexes, 
 split personalities and other mind patter, suppose you 
 give us your opinion, because you must have one." 
 
 Jones: "Of course I have one. I suppose I for- 
 got it because I was thinking of something else at 
 the time I took off my shoes. Of course I must have 
 thought about taking off my shoes too, but that re- 
 
THE THIRD MEETING 23 
 
 quired mighty little thinking and so little attention 
 that it left mighty little impression on my mind, and 
 naturally, it's like hunting for a needle in a haystack 
 to recall it. Of course it wasn't of any real impor- 
 tance to me whether I remembered a little thing like 
 that or not, so long as I took them off in my own 
 house, and I knew at the time that it wasn't impor- 
 tant. Such things are not done to be remembered. 
 You've had three meals to-day and raised a fork or 
 spoon — I won't say knife (Laughs) to your mouth 
 probably three hundred times. You can't actually re- 
 member doing it once; or, at least, can't remember 
 any particular time that you did it. What good 
 would it do you to be able to remember a thing like 
 that ? No good at all ; that 's why you don 't remem- 
 ber it. It's just natural to forget it. That's my ex- 
 planation. It's just natural to forget such things 
 because it wouldn't do a cussed bit of good to remem- 
 ber them, and so we're made so as not to remember. 
 Simple enough, isn't it? I asked the Doctor just for 
 fun. Wanted to see what he'd say. I thought he'd 
 get off some scientific dope, but not so bad as that 
 patter you've fed up on somewhere. Where did you 
 get that line, anyhow?" 
 
 Smith : ' ' Brown thinks he 's joking. He thinks 
 he's poking fun at you and that you don't know it, 
 so he wants to try it on me and see what he can get 
 over in that direction. My impression is that he's 
 fooling himself, but we don 't care. Now, I '11 venture 
 to say that Lawyer Brown couldn't give a better an- 
 swer than you 've given when you say that it 's natural 
 to forget at once such acts as it can be of no impor- 
 tance to us to remember. You've explained why you 
 forgot where you had placed your shoes. Forgetful- 
 ness of such matters is just as natural as sleep. There 
 is nothing abnormal about it. Of course you haven't 
 
24 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 explained the 'mechanism of forget fulness,' to use 
 the patter of the psychologist, but I don't believe 
 that Brown can do that or that he can give an intelli- 
 gent account of such explanations as are offered by 
 expert psychologists, though it is evident that he has 
 been reading up to impress us. ' ' 
 
 Brown: "I cry you mercy, gentlemen. I plead 
 guilty to every count in the indictment except the 
 charge that I was fooling such a wide-awake gentle- 
 man. I accept the answer of ]\lr. tjones to his own 
 question as being adequate to all practical intents. 
 But may I suggest, in the interest of teclmical ac- 
 curacy, one sliglit qualification? Instead of saying 
 that prompt forgetfulness of unimportant matters is 
 the natural or normal course, may we not more prop- 
 erly say that it is natural for us f|uickly to forget 
 matters of a kind that we ordinarily think it unim- 
 portant to remember?" 
 
 Jones: "I accept that amendment. Now my wife 
 remembers more fool, petty, unimportant things that 
 happen during the day about the house! It's her 
 habit, and mighty annoying sometimes. Of course 
 to her such things seem important and that's why 
 she remembers them. The difference between her and 
 me is that we don't agree upon what is important, 
 so we don't remember the same things. I say a lot 
 of things, as a man will in talking away to his wife, 
 without paying much attention to what I'm saying. 
 Days afterward she'll tell me I've said something or 
 made some little promise that I've forgotten all about, 
 not considering it of any importance when said ; and 
 then, when I deny saying it or insist that I don't re- 
 member saying it — which is perfectly true — she 
 thinks I'm lying about it. But it wouldn't be any 
 use trying to explain it to her as you could to a man. 
 You might as well talk Latin to a hog as psychology 
 
THE THIRD MEETING 25 
 
 to a woman. I don't mean to make any comparison 
 between a woman and a hog. (Ha! Ha!) They're 
 different. But woman is different from man, too. 
 What are you laughing at?" 
 
 Brown: "You, of course, and your prompt accept- 
 ance of our acceptance of your psychological views; 
 as Veil as your ready use in a practical way of your 
 psychology to explain trifling domestic episodes. 
 Our professional psychologist doesn't help us much 
 in the art of living pleasantly; while an amateur — 
 I suppose you will concede the amateur? — can find a 
 justification for forgetting little promises to his wife 
 that must help him to bear with her when she calls 
 him to account. You know that it is the different 
 point of view that leads to such little differences be- 
 tween man and wife, rather than innate perversity 
 in either, and you will forgive the woman much as 
 you would a child — which is at least philosophical, if 
 not magnanimous." 
 
 Jones: "Oh, keep it np if it amuses you. Your 
 great age gives you the privilege. But even an old 
 boy like you gets called down by the missus for little 
 things. ' ' 
 
 Brown: "Certainly. At least in my own case I 
 find that my wife remembers many things that she 
 thinks I ought to remember but which I do not. For 
 my part, I'd be quite as well satisfied if I could for- 
 get a good deal I do remember." 
 
 Jones: "AVell, that's reasonable. Think of the 
 business you're in! (Laughs.) But you've changed 
 the subject. You want to forget the things that 
 you thought important when they happened. It 
 isn't natural to do that and so it's a mighty hard 
 thing to do. There's one thing I've often thought 
 of—" 
 
 Brown: "Now, Jones, be careful! Have you 
 
26 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 really often thought of what you are about to say, 
 or has it just occurred to you?" 
 
 Jones: "Well, I think I've often thought of it, 
 but at any rate, I'm thinking of it now — let's see — 
 what was it I had in mind? Oh, yes, I was about to 
 say that it's a lucky thing for us that we don't re- 
 member our dreams. ]\Iost of them are unpleasant 
 and none of them true, so it wouldn't do us any good 
 to remember them. You forget all of them except the 
 very bad ones that sometimes wake you up ; and you '11 
 forget them too in a very short time if you're not such 
 a fool as to think them all out just as soon as you 
 Avake. Then I guess the thing you really remember 
 is what you thought out and that's naturally a long 
 ways off from the real dream. I've tried to remem- 
 ber real dreams and tell them afterward, but I always 
 lie more or less in telling tiiem and I guess everybody 
 does that. You've got to fill out a good deal in think- 
 ing out a dream, and you are pretty sure to fill out 
 a little more in telling it, just to make it good. When 
 anybody begins to tell me a strange dream, I begin 
 to think of something else because I know the dream 
 w^asn't dreamed as told. Grown-ups are nearly as 
 bad as children in telling their dreams, and take it 
 from me, if you encourage a small child in telling 
 its dreams, you'll make a liar of it or a (To Robinson) 
 novelist. (Laughs heartily.) I know that's so be- 
 cause I often get my little nephew, seven years old, 
 started just to hear him lie. Of course it's perfectly 
 natural for him to lie in telling a dream, but not much 
 more so than for a grown-up to do it. I know a man 
 who's always telling wonderful dreams he's had. I 
 really don't know anything else against him, but if 
 I were on a jury and he were called as a witness, I 
 wouldn't believe a word of his testimony, because I 
 know he enjoys lying, and that's enough for me. Of 
 
THE THIRD MEETING 27 
 
 course there are times when a man's got to lie, but 
 that's different. I guess I ought to pay for all the 
 records we're making. Suppose you talk a while, 
 Doctor, and let's get some real grammar down. I 
 went through grammar school and I studied grammar 
 too, but I don't seem to remember any of it." 
 
 Smith: "You know why, of course?" 
 
 Jones: "Certainly. Because I didn't consider it 
 important at the time." (Laughs.) 
 
 Smith : ' ' What 's your opinion of grammar, Rob- 
 inson? You are a writer and I think it would be 
 difficult for any sensible grammarian to find much to 
 criticize in 'The i\Ian of a Hundred Passions.' But 
 you're not writing a book now and may use your un- 
 dress English. Just forget your reputation. If you 
 make yourself as intelligible as Jones you'll satisfy 
 your audience. Book style is not demanded at ses- 
 sions of a penny ante club. 
 
 Robinson: "There are several kinds of English, 
 and colloquial English is good enough for a Poker 
 party. Colloquial English is the raw material from 
 which what we call good English is ultimately made. 
 I think a writer should use good English when express- 
 ing his own views, and permit his characters to use 
 the language which it would be reasonable to expect 
 from them as real persons in the circumstances under 
 which they speak. What we call grammatical Eng- 
 lish, or good English, has been created by our authors 
 who had leisure to select their words and phrases. 
 There is hardly such a thing yet as good conversa- 
 tional English, outside of books, and we can only 
 expect it from scholarly people engaged in serious 
 conversation where there is no call for that readiness 
 wdiich is necessary to amusing or lively talk. But I 
 don't consider really good English at all essential 
 to the expression of such thoughts as we usually 
 
28 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 indulge in at democratic social gatherings, such as 
 Poker clubs. 
 
 "Jones confesses to a lack of knowledge of the 
 rules of grammar. His confessed ignorance gives him, 
 at once, a great advantage over me. I profess to 
 know good English when I hear it and to be able to 
 write it. What is the consequence? I've wanted to 
 speak many times this evening, but, because I'm ex- 
 pected to speak in a particular style and I naturally 
 do not like to expose myself to criticism, the oppor- 
 tunity passes before I'm able to select my words. So 
 long as a man is at all careful not to say Avhat he 
 does not mean to say, he might as well 'pass' the con- 
 versation when a man like Jones is present. Jones 
 always chips in whether he has a hand or not. He 
 treats the game of conversation as if it were a penny 
 ante game. His ante isn't valuable, but if he keeps 
 playing, he may win a pot. Or if he keeps talking, 
 he may say something worth while. When he does 
 say a brilliant thing we're all. including Jones him- 
 self, a little bit surprised. He starts to talk with 
 nothing but a pair of deuces in his mind but he draws 
 on his imagination and gets a full house. And in 
 our admiration at his luck in the draw, we overlook 
 the fact that he came in on a pair of deuces and ought 
 to have stayed out altogether. A man who hasn't 
 courage to get into a conversation until he is sure that 
 he has something worth saying and can properly ex- 
 press it, is much like a Poker player who will never 
 chip in unless he had a good hand before the draw — 
 he's out of the game most of the time. Bacon says 
 that speaking makes a ready man. He might also 
 have said that it's the ready man who makes the 
 speech." 
 
 Brown: "Are we to understand, then, that you 
 consider the man best equipped for Poker club con- 
 
THE THIRD MEETING 29 
 
 versation who is indifferent to forms of speech, ig- 
 norant of the rules of grammar and wholly unem- 
 barrassed by his ignorance?" 
 
 Robinson : ' ' AVell, I think he will command at- 
 tention and get a hearing without much regard to 
 whether he has anything worth saying." 
 
 Brown : ' ' Why, then, would you advise a young 
 man to study his English and acquire skill in using 
 it properly — as I assume you would — if the effect of 
 such a course is to largely deprive him of opportunity 
 to be heard?" 
 
 Robinson: *'I was speaking of Poker club con- 
 versation as we have been pleased to term it — and 
 the same observations will apply to merely social 
 conversations generally. But don't understand that 
 I think the unembarrassed ungrammatical speaker is 
 really profited by his performance — nor to be con- 
 gratulated upon his ability to monopolize talk. I 
 only mean to say that he will succeed in doing that. 
 His success in doing so is attended with some decided 
 disadvantages. He will often incur the dislike of 
 others who are crowded out. He is certain to be 
 criticized and perhaps ridiculed by persons who at- 
 tach consequence to forms of speech. And, what is 
 I think much more important, the effect upon the 
 speaker himself is decidedly evil. Ilis speech be- 
 comes flippant and his utterances trivial. He ac- 
 quires a mental habit of thinking as he speaks. His 
 thoughts are incomplete and usually of little worth 
 because not considered by himself of more real worth 
 than the language employed to express them. It is 
 quite generally conceded that thought is vague and 
 undefined until it has been expressed in words. Ac- 
 curacy of expression is essential to accuracy of 
 thought; and if a man would cultivate good habits 
 of thinking, he must acquire the power of accurate 
 
30 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 expression, and that means, practically, that he must 
 acquire a command of good English." 
 
 Jones: "IMore psychology'. You'll admit, I sup- 
 pose, Robinson, that I've put the right tag on that 
 last idea of yours. I can't think the things that 
 Henry James would think because I don't fall for 
 his style of English. I've got to adopt his style of 
 expression or I'm to be shut out of his think arena. 
 All that I've got to do to be a great thinker is to get 
 old Daniel Webster down and cop the words and learn 
 to arrange them according to the rules laid down by 
 Lindley IMurray and I've taken the trick? That 
 seems to be the idea of most of you authors; but I 
 can tell you that the readers don't think so. You 
 might as well tell me that a bad idea can't be put 
 into good English as to tell me that a sound and sen- 
 sible idea can't be conveyed in speech that would 
 make a Wellesley graduate cry, 'Shocking!' Under- 
 stand, I don't claim that a man is necessarily a fool 
 because he won't utter a thought until he has parsed 
 the words and phrases of the sentence he will use in 
 expressing it, but he'd have a fine time selling life 
 insurance, and its selling insurance that counts if 
 you're in that business. If you want to sell stock 
 you must do it before the Exchange closes. Do you 
 get the idea? Of course if my thought or speech is 
 obscure, you won't get it. 
 
 "Once upon a time when I was younger and 
 foolisher, I thought I'd improve my mind. I got 
 Herbert Spencer's psychology from the library and 
 tried to read it. I found that it was not written in 
 good English, or in English at all. He put in, it 
 seems to me, most of his time inventing new words — ' 
 and rotten ones, too — to fit ideas he couldn't express 
 in the language of the people. And as I couldn't 
 get the idea back of his terminology (how's that, 
 
THE THIRD MEETING 31 
 
 Bobby?) without his definition, and as a definition 
 was necessary only because English wouldn't express 
 the idea, you can imagine about how long it would 
 have taken me or any man named Jones to get the 
 old boy's point of view. I was young then and 
 dreamed of becoming a learned man; but after a 
 really serious effort at reading that work, I con- 
 cluded that the commercial life would just about suit 
 Jones, and that selling insurance would teach me all 
 the psychology I'd care for. And you can take it 
 from me, I can sell more insurance in a month than 
 old Herbert could have sold in a lifetime. But of 
 course the business doesn't demand any understand- 
 ing of the workings of the human mind! I don't 
 think! I may not be able to put my psychological 
 views into good English or into Herbert Spencer dia- 
 lect, but I put them into my business, and that's not 
 trifling with them either — with the long 'i.' I might 
 not be able to give them 'accurate expression,' as 
 Robinson would say, in words, but they are suffi- 
 ciently definite in my mind to work out my financial 
 salvation. I don't think Herbert ever really made 
 any money on his. Now, Bobby, permit me to make 
 a few sapient apropos remarks upon your book, 'The 
 Man of a Hundred Passions.' I found it readable, 
 and, once in a while, I found something that tickled 
 my fancy, and I'll take the Doc's word for it that it 
 IS really the best ever. No doubt it's written in first- 
 class English. Of course you couldn't do anything 
 else. Now, you wrote that book to sell to the Joneses 
 of the world and there's lots of them masquerading 
 under the names of Smith, Robinson and Brown. 
 And you have succeeded in selling about a quarter 
 of a million of them to the aforesaid Joneses. 
 
 "I hate to do it, Bobby, but I've just got to hand 
 it to you. There are dozens and dozens of sentences 
 
32 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 in that book Avhich uo genuine Jones ever got the 
 meaning of. I've puzzled over some of them that 
 read so smoothly that I felt sure at first they must 
 mean something. Yet 1 had to give it up. I can't 
 give you credit for being able to give your views 'ac- 
 curate expression' in good English and believe that 
 in those sentences you had any clear meaning to ex- 
 press. I've just got to believe in your English, you 
 know, so I'm forced to believe that I didn't get the 
 meaning because it wasn't there. Now I'll bet a 
 penny, or even go you a ducat, that if I knew what 
 you were trying to say, I'd be able to say it to you 
 so that you would understand me, and do it in Eng- 
 lish, or American, or even in New York language. 
 Guess I'd undertake it in pigeon English if you insist 
 upon having an even chance for your money. If you 
 dare me to do it, I'll go through that book and cull 
 a few sentences for a test." 
 
 Smith: "Thank you both, gentlemen, for your 
 very frank expression of views upon the question pro- 
 pounded. We are a little bej'ond our closing hour 
 and I must say good night to you. I can see that 
 penny ante club conversation has possibilities that I 
 didn't dream of when we organized." 
 
 Brown : "I think. Doctor, the Bantam 's put up a 
 pretty good fight." 
 
 Jones: "Brown, if I should go home and tell my 
 wife that the last thing you said was a joke about a 
 couple of chickens, she'd say you were no fit company 
 for a boy like me. She might even warn your wife 
 to keep an eye on you." 
 
THE FOURTH MEETING 
 
 IN WHICH WE LEARN SOMETHING OF DOCTORS 
 
 JONES: "This evening, gentlemen, I will not be 
 drawn into an argument. I've said that before, 
 and I 'm going to keep on saying it until it comes true 
 even if it's the last thing I shall ever say. I would 
 like to suggest, however, that (Turning to the Doctor 
 and Robinson) we draw out Brother Brown. He 
 must be full of wisdom because he hasn't let much 
 escape him so far, and he must have learned some- 
 thing before he met us." 
 
 Smith: "1 think, Brown, that Jones with his 
 usual luck has made a good suggestion," 
 
 Jones: "I'll tell you why I'd like to hear a real 
 lawyer talk for a while. I took lunch to-day at 
 White's Avith a couple of young fellows who have 
 been admitted to the bar for about a year. Each of 
 them has a case, a little one no doubt, and the way 
 they let everybody in the neighborhood onto the fact 
 was a lesson in advertising even to an insurance man. 
 But they carried it too far, because it was made quite 
 clear that they were in the penny ante class. They 
 swelled themselves something worse than the frog old 
 ^sop tells about who broke himself all up trying to 
 look like a bull. (Laughs.) You see, Robby, I'm 
 up on the classics. Well, these fellows got to talking 
 about pleadings — complaints and answers — of course 
 the complaints were theirs. Young fellow^s are al- 
 ways for the plaintiff, I guess. I'll bet BrowTi here 
 
 33 
 
34 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 is for the defendant nine times out of ten and that 
 his clients need some real defending, too. It seems 
 that each of them had discovered in the answer put 
 in to his complaint something called 'a negative preg- 
 nant.' There were at least two dozen young women 
 in the restaurant, and j'ou can bet that I was some 
 startled when one of the fellows, speaking pretty 
 loud, says: 'Now what do you think of that for a 
 denial? Isn't she a peach? Look at that negative 
 pregnant!' Every one looked around for the peach. 
 The girls nearby looked over at us. There was some 
 stir around us and the boys knew that something had 
 happened. Other people nearby stopped talking. 
 Everybody looking around for the negative pregnant, 
 I guess. The fool boys felt that they had an audience, 
 attracted no doubt by their learned talk, so they let 
 themselves out strong. 
 
 " 'Look at that allegation! — The defendant struck 
 and kicked the plaintiff; and then at that denial — 
 Defendant denies that he struck and kicked the plain- 
 tiff — see the negative pregnant?' By this time every 
 one was on to them and the girls looked safe once 
 more and some of them were talking and pretending 
 to find something funny in their own talk. 'You see,' 
 Adams said — I didn't mean to give his name — 'You 
 see that only denies that he kicked him. It doesn't 
 deny that he struck him and a blow is as good for 
 my case as a kick.' Somebody laughed right out 
 loud. It was kind of quiet when that laugh came 
 and it sounded like a bellow. The boys were getting 
 rattled. 'No,' the other fellow said, 'it doesn't do 
 that — it just denies that he struck him and doesn't 
 deny that he kicked him. Can you show a kick?' 
 Here the old fellow that had laughed before bellowed 
 again and nearly choked himself doing it. 'Well, 
 you can bet that's a negative pregnant all right,' 
 
THE FOURTH MEETING 35 
 
 Adams insisted. 'Of course it is,' the other fellow 
 admitted, 'but I'll bet that if you try that on Jones, 
 he'll agree with me. Just see how that strikes a lay- 
 man. What do you say, Jones?' Everybody looked 
 at Jones, who felt like a fool. But I had to say some- 
 thing, so I said, 'Oh, quit your talking shop. I'll 
 agree with both of you. He doesn't deny that he 
 struck and he doesn't deny that he kicked; he just 
 denies the "and." ' The old fellow bellowed again 
 and pounded on the table and shouted out, 'A Daniel 
 come to judgment!' By this time I think he'd for- 
 gotten where he was. Looked like an actor or a law- 
 yer to me. He may have been a good lawyer for 
 he agreed with me (Laughs) but he certainly was a 
 bad actor. So am I — I 'm talking again. ' ' 
 
 Brown : ' ' The subtlety of this man Jones is amaz- 
 ing. He thinks it wouldn 't be courteous to say, ' Talk, 
 but don't talk shop,' so he relates a little incident, the 
 lesson of which is obvious. Well, I won't talk shop. 
 And if you feel that it is not inconsistent with your 
 announced policy of becoming a clam, I'd really like 
 to get your layman view as to the ethics of a proposi- 
 tion, seriousl.y entertained I should think from a news- 
 paper account this morning, of removing a bullet from 
 a man 's brain in order to save his life ; with a prac- 
 tical certainty in the mind of the surgeon that if the 
 man's life is saved, he will be made permanently in- 
 sane. The report comes from Chicago. The patient, 
 I take it, is in the charge of the public authorities in a 
 workhouse or poorhouse or some such public institu- 
 tion. The surgeon is confident that he can save the 
 patient's life but equally confident that the effect of 
 the operation will be to make the man permanently 
 insane. The official — superintendent — in charge con- 
 ceives it to be his duty to save the man's life even if 
 it be certain that such a result must follow. The pa- 
 
36 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 tient is apparently not being consulted. The surgeon 
 seems to feel that he is justified in operating at the 
 request of the superintendent and I infer from the 
 report that the operation is to take place. The sur- 
 geon is probably showing the bullet to his personal 
 friends by this time and the operation has probably 
 been successful. The patient has survived the shock 
 and is cheerfully prattling idiocy. What do you think 
 of it? Here are questions of ethics for the doctor, the 
 lawyer and the layman. Perhaps, also, for the 
 theologian. But I wouldn't be surprised if the lay- 
 man's view may have a larger measure of common 
 sense. I'm always inclined myself to distrust the 
 view of experts in ethics. What do you sa}', Jones, is 
 it worth while for a man to be given the whole world 
 and lose his own soul ? ' ' 
 
 Jones: "I didn't see the item this morning. If I 
 were the man's brother, or even brother-in-law, I'd 
 pack my gun and start for Chicago — " 
 
 Brown: "I shudder for you, friend Jones. You 
 not only declare your willingness to commit a crime 
 in Illinois, but are confessing to a felony in New 
 York Avhen j^ou admit having a gun to pack, if you 
 can't produce a license. You might have avoided that 
 by saying, 'I think the man's brother or brother-in-law 
 would be justified in packing his gun and starting for 
 Chicago.' You may not think much of the law or 
 of lawyers, but you certainly need legal advice occa- 
 sionally. ' ' 
 
 Jones : ' ' Oh, I 'm safe enough. The police couldn 't 
 find the gun — I haven't got one. There wouldn't be 
 any 'Hon. corpus delicti' as Wallace Irwin's Jap 
 Schoolboy would say. By the way, did any of you fel- 
 lows ever read Irwin 's ' Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum ' ? 
 There's some real language for you and about as far 
 
THE FOURTH MEETING 37 
 
 from Robinson's English as you could get and so 
 clear that a child could understand it — if brought up 
 on the Bowery. I meant to call your attention to it 
 the other night, but somebody interrupted me. But 
 to get back to the Chicago event. Can they do that 
 sort of thing to a man, Brown ? That must be against 
 the law, isn 't it ? But that 's a fool question. They 11 
 probably get it done before anybody will try to stop 
 them. The poor devil probably hasn 't got any friends, 
 and the doctor will want to experiment before any- 
 body has a chance to stop him. If they put it off for 
 a week, the women and the clergymen would start a 
 movement and some convention of anti-vivisectionists 
 would pass a resolution. But as it can't be stopped, 
 I suppose it will just start a discussion on ethics. But 
 I think it's a damned outrage. If doctors had any 
 conscience or any belief in the soul, such a thing 
 couldn't occur. The man's got to die sometime and 
 you know that there isn't a man alive who wouldn't 
 prefer to die rather than be turned into a gibbering 
 idiot the rest of his life. I 'd rather be turned into a 
 dog — a sane dog I mean — (Laughs) or a 'chicken' 
 (Laughs) or even a healthy bed-bug than become bug- 
 house like tliat. What will be left of that man to go 
 to Heaven or Hell when he does die ? He couldn 't get 
 into either place. ' ' 
 
 Brown; "You don't mean to say, do you, that the 
 insane have no souls to be saved or damned?" 
 
 Jones: "Well, I guess they haven't any souls to 
 be damned. They could plead insanity, you know, 
 (Laughs.) As to whether they have any souls to be 
 saved, of course I don't know. I'm not going to dis- 
 cuss any such question. Put that to the clergymen. 
 They are in the business of saving souls from fire — we 
 insurance men are not. (Laughs.) That Chicago 
 
38 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 story ought to be headlined — 'The Story of A ]\Iis- 
 placed Bullet.' The bullet ought to be in the sur- 
 geon. ' ' 
 
 Smith: "That's simply a newspaper story. It's 
 not likely the surgeon Avould operate if he were cer- 
 tain that permanent insanity would follow." 
 
 Jones: "Well, Doctor, I can say that I don't think 
 you would do such a thing, but it strikes me that the 
 modern surgeon has forgotten that he's a hired man 
 and is paid to work in the interest of the felloAv who 
 hires him and hasn't any right to consider anything 
 else. Looks to me as if most of them are working in 
 the interest of science — and notoriety — and regard 
 tiieir patients as so much raw material to work on. 
 Now the lawyers are different. They work for the 
 client's interest, right or wrong, and to Hades with the 
 human race. 1 don't mean that lawyers are naturally 
 more honest than doctors, but it's to their interest to 
 be loyal to their clients. Lawyers aren't w^orrying 
 about the science of the law. I guess there isn't any 
 such thing to worry about. But you doctors are al- 
 ways boasting about the great advance in the science 
 of surgery and medicine. The newspapers are full of 
 your wonderful new tricks with the knife, and I no- 
 tice that the report generally concludes with a state- 
 ment that the operation was successful, but the patient 
 didn't survive the shock. Now that sort of success 
 may satisfy the surgeon, but it is rather disappointing 
 to the patient. Every such case ought to be investi- 
 gated, and if it is found that the surgeon was experi- 
 menting in the interest of science, he ought to be dis- 
 armed and sent up for life." 
 
 Smith : "I quite agree with you that there are 
 many operations performed without reasonable justi- 
 fication, and that there are cases where the operator 
 ought to be sent up for life. How is it, Brown, could 
 
THE FOURTH MEETING 39 
 
 a prosecution for manslaughter or murder be had un- 
 der our present laws ? ' ' 
 
 Brown: "Undoubtedly, I think, though I don't 
 pretend to be particularly well informed as to any 
 branch of our criminal law except such as has to do 
 with crimes affecting property right — including, of 
 course, and particularly offenses under the Sherman 
 anti-trust act. (Everybody laughs.) The difficulty 
 would lie in getting proof sufficient to satisfy a jury 
 beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been com- 
 mitted. Of course a surgeon might deliberately in- 
 tend to kill his patient and might be guilty of murder, 
 but I think such cases must be extremely rare in fact, 
 and ordinarily it would be impossible to prove such a 
 charge. Any serious operation undertaken by a sur- 
 geon who does not in fact believe that it is necessary 
 or desirable on the patient 's account, I have no doubt, 
 is a crime under the law, but I don't recall any prose- 
 cutions of that character. I've known of many civil 
 actions for damages for malpractice and in some such 
 cases I've been rather surprised that there was no at- 
 tempt at criminal prosecution." 
 
 Smith: "I'm afraid. Brown, that if such prosecu- 
 tion should become popular our best surgeons would 
 either abandon the profession or need the constant 
 advice of skillful lawyers, much as our trust magnates 
 do now. I don't think it would be quite fair to a 
 surgeon of good repute to compel him to submit to 
 a jury of laymen the question of his motives, good 
 faith and skill in the performance of an operation. 
 After all, you will admit that surgery is necessary and 
 that a good surgeon is a pretty valuable citizen." 
 
 Bro\^ai : ' ' Certainly. But that furnishes no reason 
 why he should be protected in the commission of crime, 
 or why his motives and conduct should be free from 
 investigation by somebody authorized to inflict a pun- 
 
40 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 ishment that will fit the crime. Under our Constitu- 
 tion, that body must be a jury. There may be room 
 for a difference of opinion as to whether a jury se- 
 lected, as now, from the body of taxpayers, is a proper 
 tribunal for the trial of such a case ; but I think myself 
 that your surgeon would probably be as safe with such 
 a jury as he would with a jury composed of lawyers 
 or judges. The fact that while such prosecutions are 
 possible under present laws, none are undertaken, 
 would seem to suggest a general belief on the part of 
 Grand Jurors and prosecuting attorneys that juries of 
 la.ymen could rarely, if ever, be convinced beyond a 
 reasonable doubt of the guilt of the operator. It 
 would be a difficult thing for an honest juror with no 
 previous knowledge of tliat sul)ject to feel that he was 
 capable of forming a just opinion as to the defendant's 
 guilt. A jury of doctors, or even lawyers. — if honest 
 (Jones laughs) would feel competent to render a true 
 verdict and that is what the defendant, no doubt, in 
 many cases might not really long for." 
 
 Robinson : "I think there is quite a general dis- 
 trust among laymen of doctors and surgeons. As to 
 medicine generally, the doctors of this age so often 
 cast discredit upon the common practice and use of 
 medicine by their public utterances, that it is not sur- 
 prising that laymen, at least when well, should have a 
 profound distrust, amounting almost to contempt, for 
 the professional learning and practice of ordinary 
 physicians. I think the general public does really feel 
 that most doctors are pretenders who live by trading 
 upon the fears and helplessness of their patients. I 
 think myself that there must have been a great im- 
 provement in the last fifty years, but even now the 
 ordinary practitioner makes so little use in his daily 
 practice of the newer and better methods of practice, 
 that the public, I think, is largely justified in its dis- 
 
THE FOURTH MEETING 41 
 
 trust. This distrust will never disappear so long as 
 your practice savors of that of the alchemist and clair- 
 voyant. What I 'm saying, of course, has no personal 
 application to you, but to members of the profession 
 generally who have not attained special eminence. 
 The Latin names of the drugs conceal from the patient 
 any knowledge of the elements of his prescription. 
 I'm not suggesting a present purpose on the part of 
 physicians to withhold this knowledge by the form of 
 the prescription, as I understand very well that it 
 might be impractical to adopt a new nomenclature and 
 that any nomenclature must, for the most part, be one 
 whose words would mean little or nothing to the ordi- 
 nary patient ; but it is perfectly natural that when an 
 ignorant man discovers that the words 'aqua pura' in 
 his prescription mean merely water, he will jump 
 to the conclusion that the whole thing is humbug, 
 and he will think that lie is being charged for 
 water. ' ' 
 
 Jones: ''He will think you are watering the 
 charge. ' ' 
 
 Robinson: "But concealing the nature of the 
 remedy, while a circumstance to arouse suspicion is a 
 little circumstance compared with the obvious lack of 
 any reasonable investigation of the condition of the pa- 
 tient before prescribing, which is so general. The 
 ordinary doctor, when called in, feels of the patient's 
 pulse, looks at his tongue, asks a few questions concern- 
 ing pains or symptoms, looks wise, and leaves the pre- 
 scription. He seldom gives the patient his opinion, if 
 he has one, as to the cause of his illness ; and in a high 
 percentage of cases the doctor hasn't any opinion and 
 couldn't form one upon any such limited examination. 
 If the patient does not quickly recover, the doctor 
 changes his prescription a few times while waiting for 
 nature to effect a cure, and only when he can see that 
 
42 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 the patient is likely to change his doctor, will the phy- 
 sician use his stethoscope, examine the urine, make a 
 blood test, examine contents of stomach, or do any of 
 the many things which might help him to an under- 
 standing of the case, even though one or more of such 
 steps may have been clearly indicated as wise upon 
 the patient's description of his condition at the outset. 
 The patient is then made to feel that the doctor is not 
 properly attentive to the case, is indignant at what 
 he considers, at the least, to be neglect, and wonders 
 whether, after all, the later examination is made in 
 good faith. lie wonders also whether the doctor knows 
 enough to prescribe after his later examination. 
 Bernard Shaw is not the first or the only intelligent 
 man to charge that the profession is made up mainly 
 of quacks and fakers. His preface to his play, 'The 
 Doctor's Dilemma,' expresses generally the views of 
 most of the readers I think, though, of course, few 
 readers would approve everything he says. Doctor, 
 you have probably read ^Montaigne's essay on 'The 
 Resemblance of Children to their Fathers'?" 
 
 Smith: "I don't remember." 
 
 Robinson: "Well, you will find it worth reading. 
 The greater part of the essay is given over to an ac- 
 count of medical practices in his own day, based largely 
 too on his personal experience. I think you will find 
 it amusing. At any rate it will amuse and entertain 
 any one but a doctor." 
 
 Smith: "I might criticize your criticism, and may 
 do so, if you want my opinion upon the validity of 
 your comment. But I will assume for the moment that 
 your criticism is just, and then wdiat does it amount to 
 more than a charge that many doctors are incompetent 
 or careless — which may be with like truth charged 
 against lawyers, ministers — and bring discredit upon 
 the whole profession? Now, that is a charge neither 
 
THE FOURTH MEETING 43 
 
 new nor difficult to substantiate. But what remedy do 
 you propose? How would you correct the evil?" 
 
 Jones: "Well, Doctor, if I may butt in for a mo- 
 ment, — if I keep quiet longer I'm afraid I'll forget 
 every good thing that has occurred to me while the 
 rest of you have been talking — I'd suggest that you 
 really big boys get together and see what you can pro- 
 pose in a practical way to make these little fellows not 
 only qualify for practice, but afterward practice up to 
 their qualifications. Now, I've had a little experience 
 with doctors myself, and I know that a big percentage 
 of them are lacking in one essential qualification which 
 learning and licenses can never provide, and that is, 
 common horse sense. Only God could provide that, 
 and for some reason, not known to me. He has withheld 
 it from a lot of fellows who manage to get a license to 
 live on the sick. Now, the lawyers are governed, as I 
 understand it, by rules of court in their practice which 
 they've got to observe or come to grief. I suppose 
 after a lawyer has put the 'Hon. Negative Pregnant' 
 into one or two answers he isn't guilty of that crime 
 of practice any more. It costs him or his client 
 money, and the client is likely to find it out. There 
 are some things that I suppose doctors could be com- 
 pelled by law to do which would help some. 
 
 "About four years ago, I got sick enough to call in 
 the doctor. He was supposed to be the best in the 
 town. I was out on the road at the time. I was in 
 bed six weeks and you can bet I don't go to bed in 
 such a toM^n and such a bed unless I am sick. That fel- 
 low called on me fourteen times. He changed his pre- 
 scription six times, or at least thought he did. He 
 didn't keep any records and trusted to his memory 
 of symptoms and conditions on previous calls and to 
 his memory as to what he had already prescribed when 
 he wrote me out a new one. Now, it stands to reason 
 
44. THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 that a busy man like him, with twenty or more calls to 
 make each day, couldn't possibly remember what he 
 had noted as to my condition upon previous visits, or 
 even what he had prescribed. I know, in fact, that 
 he didn't remember, lie mixed me up W'ith his other 
 patients. He would ask me whether I still had a 
 pain that I never had; asked me once whether I was 
 still constipated, when I hadn't been constipated. 
 Well, I had a pretty good nurse and I was allowed to 
 talk and I got well. Of course I've never given that 
 doctor any credit for my recovery. I don't think he 
 did me any good— even by accident. Now suppose the 
 law had compelled that fellow, under heavy penalties, 
 to make a full record on each visit of what I told him, 
 and of what he learned by examination, and of his 
 opinions on the case, and of the prescription given, and 
 compelled him to give me a copy of it each time or 
 leave it with me, and had compelled him to make that 
 record, and the record made on each previous visit be- 
 fore he asked any more fool questions, or gave a dif- 
 ferent prescription. Don't you think it might have 
 helped some? He was practically treating a new 
 patient every time he called on me. I don't see any- 
 thing impractical in such a rule of practice for doc- 
 tors, nor anything unreasonable about it, unless the 
 suggestion that he put down his opinion each time as 
 to what was the matter with me. A doctor might in- 
 sist that it would tax him too hard to be compelled to 
 give a reason for his prescription." 
 
 Robinson: "Or, like Falstaff, refuse to give a 
 reason on compulsion if reasons were as plenty as 
 blackberries. ' ' 
 
 Jones: ''Well, his reasons in my case would have 
 had to be as plentiful as blackberries to justify six 
 different prescriptions. His first guess might be that 
 my liver was strained. His second that my spinal cord 
 
THE FOURTH MEETING 45 
 
 was twisted, and so on. His last ^ess might reason- 
 ably have been that my heart was broken or that my 
 common sense had received a shock — or that my money 
 was all gone." 
 
 Brown: "I'm inclined to approve of your sug- 
 gestion, Jones, but I suppose there is something to be 
 said against it. It looks too reasonable and sane to be 
 free from objection. What have you to say, Doc- 
 tor?" 
 
 Smith : ' ' There is much of merit in the suggestion. 
 It has, however, one feature that may be of doubtful 
 advisability, and that is, the requirement that the 
 doctor state his opinion each time as to the nature 
 of the disease. No man would like to go on record 
 as entertaining a different opinion on that subject six 
 times in three weeks, and the temptation would be to 
 stick to an opinion once expressed, even though it 
 ought to be abandoned — and to continue a treatment 
 which ought to be abandoned. Doctors are quite like 
 other men, and don't like to admit making mistakes, 
 especially admitting the mistake to the patient. I'm 
 not saying that doctors ought to be excused for not 
 being honest or that they ought to hide their mistakes, 
 but we are now discussing the practical value of Jones' 
 suggestion, and that means simply whether it would 
 work to the net advantage of the patient. 
 
 "There's a further objection to this particular fea- 
 ture of the proposed rule of practice which should 
 be considered. INIany physicians, I think I may say 
 most doctors, are of opinion that in many cases it is 
 unwise to inform the patient of the opinion enter- 
 tained as to the nature of the disease when the diag- 
 nosis indicates some serious or dangerous malady. I 
 do not, myself, think it ever advisable to do so until, 
 at least, the physician feels reasonably certain that he 
 is right, and even then it would be exceedingly harm- 
 
46 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 ful to some patients. I can see that the plan is much 
 weakened if the requirement that the opinion be stated 
 should be omitted. Perhaps Brother Jones can sug- 
 gest a feasible method of preserving the opinion with- 
 out requiring it to be communicated to the patient, 
 but I see no way of getting over the first objection that 
 the pride of opinion on the part of a physician might 
 lead him to persist in error to the patient's harm." 
 
 Jones: "I see, Doctor. You would have made a 
 good insurance solicitor. In your business it won 't do 
 to scare your customer, while in mine it is necessary 
 to scare him. But in each case it is necessary to un- 
 derstand what is likely to scare, and when you be- 
 come expert in that knowledge, you know how to treat 
 the customer. Noav. if I can adroitly lead my well 
 customer to think or fear that some dreadful disease 
 is likely to show itself soon, while assuring him that I 
 think there will be no difficulty in the company's ex- 
 aminers passing him if he applies promptly, he makes 
 the application promptly; while, if you suggest to a 
 sick patient that the symptoms indicate such a dis- 
 ease, he worries liimsolf to death. Perhaps it would 
 answer if the name of the disease were i)ut down in 
 Latin, what do you think of the rest of the plan ? ' ' 
 
 Smith: "I think the rest of the plan good. Of 
 course in our hospitals now a partial record of the 
 character you suggest is kept, usually by the nurse, 
 and the doctor has the report of that. It might be 
 made fuller, but as the patient is under constant ob- 
 servation, I don't think the plan of much importance 
 as applied to the hospital cases." 
 
 Jones (Looking at his watch) : "Gentlemen, I was 
 due at my house ten minutes ago. I\Iy wufe is prob- 
 ably practicing upon what she intends to say to me 
 about it, so I will bid you all good night and take my 
 medicine." 
 
THE FIFTH MEETING 
 
 IN WHICH WE LEARN SOMETHING MORE ABOUT 
 WOMEN 
 
 BROWN: ''If I remember right, Jones, you re- 
 marked as you said good night, at our last meet- 
 ing, that you would go home and take your medicine. 
 You're looking well, and I suppose it must have done 
 you good. ' ' 
 
 Jones : ' ' Not a particle of good, and I 'd forgotten 
 all about it I guess if you hadn't mentioned it." 
 
 Smith: "Forgotten, because not regarded as im- 
 portant at the time, I suppose?" 
 
 Jones: "Not exactly that, Doctor. I guess we 
 didn't give the full answer to the question as to why 
 we forget things. The answer was all right so far as 
 it went, but there's more to it. We forget some things 
 because they happen so often. If the same thing hap- 
 pens a million times we can't pick out one time from 
 another. Take sunsets, for instance ; you 've seen thou- 
 sands of fine sunsets. Each one interested you at the 
 time and you gave your attention to it, and it stirred 
 you up and gave you a sort of a bigger and better 
 feeling; but you don't remember one sunset from an- 
 other after a little while. You can picture a sunset in 
 your mind, but you can't remember a particular sun- 
 set. If you should see a horse kick a child, you'd 
 probably remember it as long as you live. That's 
 why I would have forgotten that particular dose of 
 medicine: not that my wife is particularly bad that 
 
 47 
 
48 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 way. So far as I can see, most women are about alike 
 in that respect. But I wish you could tell me, Doctor, 
 why women pick out the wrong time of day to raise a 
 row. They generally tackle you just before bedtime, 
 or if you sleep together, after you go to bed, and get 
 you into a state of mind where you can't go to sleep. 
 When I get mad I'm likely to stay awake two or three 
 hours. 1 guess most men will. Now why the devil 
 does a woman want to stir a man up so that he will 
 lose his sleep and be no good next day? There are 
 several times a day when a man ought to be left alone. 
 
 "His wife ought not to nag him just before he 
 is ready to leave for his office in the morning. She 
 ought to allow him to start off in a good humor, on 
 her own account and his. She oughtn't to do it just 
 before bedtime, as you know. She oughtn't to do it 
 at mealtime and spoil his digestion. Half the stomach 
 troubles in this world come from scrapping at meals. 
 But if a woman has got anything on her mind which 
 she knows will annoy her husband, she is sure to spring 
 it at just the wrong time. You're onto psychology 
 and women, Doctor, why do they do it?" 
 
 Smith : ' ' What time would you suggest as the ap- 
 propriate one for such little eruptions, Jones?" 
 
 Jones: "Well, I don't think they are strictly 
 necessary at any time. They're generally about some- 
 thing of no importance anyhow. But you'll admit 
 that they show a devilish ingenuity in picking out just 
 the worst of times." 
 
 Smith: "Woman's intuition, I suppose." 
 
 Jones: "Of course that's no reason at all. You 
 don't believe in woman's intuition any more than I 
 do. Woman's intuition is generally just woman's sus- 
 picion of a man. Her suspicions are generally justi- 
 fied because a man's like that. I guess that's a little 
 vague, but you know what I mean. A man's always 
 
THE FIFTH MEETING 49 
 
 doing things that his wife don't want him to do, be- 
 cause she doesn't want him to do anything that he 
 wants to do, whether there's any harm in it or not. 
 She wants to run him and he doesn't want to be run. 
 She knows, if she's got any common sense, that he's 
 done a dozen things every day that he won't tell her 
 about because he knows that she'd find fault, and 
 then when she guesses right, it is all attributed to her 
 wonderful intuition. Intuition — rot! If that's in- 
 tuition, I 've got it myself. I knew the other night by 
 that kind of intuition, what I 'd get for being late 
 when I got home. I agree with Brown 's lawyer friend 
 when he says that women are the most dangerous class 
 of people in the world, but it's not because they've got 
 intuition; it's because they don't really care a con- 
 tinental how much harm they do. A woman isn't 
 open and above board. (Everybody laughs). Well, 
 we've got a man in our office whose wife must be the 
 very devil. She knows how to get him mad, and 
 when she wants a new dress or something else he can 't 
 afford, she starts in to get him mad. He 's got a quick 
 temper and she soon gets him going. Of course it's 
 all over in a few minutes; but by that time he's made 
 such a fool of himself that he's got to apologize or 
 make up and then the new dress is easy. He knows 
 her like a book and sees through her from the start, 
 but she gets him every time just the same. But that's 
 the last out of me to-night on the subject of women. 
 Brown's responsible for this. Brown would have 
 made a good matador or picador— you know what I 
 mean— not one of the bull fighters, but one of those 
 fellows who goes into the pen and shakes the red rag 
 at the bull to stir him up. Brown ought to be 
 ashamed." 
 
 Brown: "Not at all. I think most married men 
 can get your point of view, Jones. Most of us are 
 
50 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 more timid about expressing ourselves and we like to 
 hear our own opinions put forcibly by some one who is 
 not afraid to speak his mind. Besides I find that you 
 have given the general subject a better consideration 
 than 1 have, and 1 find some of your suggestions quite 
 interesting. Now I'll be a little bit imprudent myself 
 and admit that your account of the lady who gets her 
 husband mad in order to get a new dress struck me 
 as merely funny at the time, but I didn't hear much 
 of what followed because all at once some little inci- 
 dents in my own experience Hashed into my mind 
 and I began to wonder if I hadn't been worked in just 
 the same way myself. It had never occurred to me 
 before, but I strongly suspect that such may be the 
 ease. Our wives are generally dependent upon us 
 to such an extent that it's not surprising that they 
 should consider themselves justified in resorting to 
 artifice to gain their laudable ends when they have 
 reason to suppose that we may not readily accept their 
 views of what is reasonably necessary or good for 
 them. They feel justified in getting their rights and 
 if the only way in which a needed dress is to be had 
 is to first make the husband mad, the wife is likely to 
 know that and make use of ber knowledge. After all, 
 it's only an up-to-date application of a very ancient 
 bit of wisdom. Whom the Gods would destroy, they 
 first make mad." 
 
 Jones : ' ' Oh, I don 't blame a woman for such tricks 
 when they are necessary to getting a needed dress, but 
 the method is not open and above board, and the 
 woman who resorts to it will soon use it to get a dress 
 not needed. But I suppose a man whose usual be- 
 havior leads his wife into such a practice doesn't de- 
 serve anything better. (All laugh at Brown.) My 
 wife has never been compelled to resort to that method. 
 She simply tells me that she needs it and is going to 
 
THE FIFTH MEETING 51 
 
 get it, I never say no, having learned that when I 
 used to say no I had to take it back or freeze to death 
 in the social atmosphere of my own house. Now I 
 just say, 'Well, I suppose if you've got to have it, 
 you've got to have it. Business is mighty slack just 
 now, and if it doesn't improve there's likely to be a 
 cut in the office force or salaries, but maybe it will pick 
 up. I hope it will. At any rate, I suppose we will 
 manage somehow.' Of course I can't always use the 
 same stuff, but that's a pattern — you know what I 
 mean. If I speak my little piece well and look the 
 part, I stand a fair show to win out. Of course I 
 don't resort to such low-down tricks unless I do feel 
 hardup or that we're spending too much, or honestly 
 don't think she needs the dress. If a woman's justi- 
 fied in managing a husband, a husband is justified in 
 managing a wife. Everything is fair in love and war, 
 and marriage is a state of love and war, as you all 
 very well know. 
 
 "But, Doctor, I'd like an answer to my question. 
 You are much older than I am and are much wiser 
 unless you have deceived both the world and the mem- 
 bers of the Penny Ante Club. As for the world — 
 well, I concede that simple men and foolish men have 
 deceived the world — but this Club? No, Doctor, and 
 we believe you wise ! Am I right, brothers ? ' ' 
 
 BroAvn : ' ' Right as a trivet ! ' ' 
 
 Robinson: "Right as whatever is!" 
 
 Smith: "Gentlemen and fellow clubmen — this 
 splendid and unsolicited tribute moves me more than 
 I can express and I fear that I shall make but a sorry 
 return for your generous confidence and touching 
 faith in the wisdom that comes with years when I as- 
 sure you that the wisdom of the old man is even as 
 the strength of his limbs — insufficient to support a sus- 
 tained defense of the rights of man against the tyranny 
 
52 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 and cunning of 'the most dangerous class of people 
 in the world.' I fear to destroy your illusions lest 
 you tind nothing to take their place and have no cour- 
 age left to live. The golden age of man is the age of 
 Jones, when all religions are sifted through the one- 
 inch mesh of reason, and being thus broken down, are 
 found to consist of nothing but myths; when God is 
 subjected to chemical analysis and found to consist of 
 gases in no wise differing from the gas that proceeds 
 from the mouth of man; when he announces the dis- 
 covery of his own origin and destination, and when 
 with a splendid temerity man demands of his intellect 
 the why and the wherefore of the ways of woman. 
 But, my brothers, I must warn you that it is only in 
 the golden age of man — which I have styled tlie Jones 
 age, — that this last question can be answered. 
 
 "Age is timid and without convictions; and because 
 of its timidity and lack of convictions, is insincere. 
 Its claim to wisdom, so long acknowledged by the 
 young, is the greatest of all great impositions. Age 
 is conservative because without courage or convic- 
 tions, and is subservient to established authority, and 
 it is on this account that the state and the church 
 and all institutions where stability may be threatened 
 by the splendid eruptive activity of the young and 
 vigorous brain have sought to, and have for years, 
 cheated youth of confidence in its own strength by 
 the constant teaching and preachment to the very 
 young of respect for elders — for gray hairs, and for 
 age because of the alleged wisdom that comes with 
 age. 'As this temple waxes, the inward service of the 
 mind and soul grows wide withal' — but as its founda- 
 tions crumble aud its walls totter to their fall, the 
 only wisdom found therein is the wisdom of owls. If 
 I am to answer the question put to me, therefore, I 
 shall not tell you what I now think, but shall tell you 
 
THE FIFTH MEETING 53 
 
 what I thought when I was of your age, and this I am 
 able to do because some thirty years ago I wrote an 
 essay upon the subject which I was never able to get 
 published and therefore have never been able to for- 
 get, because I then thought my views of great impor- 
 tance to the world at large and my disappointment 
 was keen. I have the manuscript with me, having an 
 intimation from our friend. Brown, that he intended 
 to start our friend Jones once more upon this inter- 
 esting theme and thinking you might be interested to 
 know how I viewed the subject thirty years ago. It is 
 entitled : 
 
 '' 'A Scientific Discourse on the Position of Woman 
 in the Universe, Including a Chapter on Her Relation 
 to Other Animals, with a Critical Examination of the 
 Argument for and against the Existence of a Feminine 
 Soul.' Before reading this, I ought to say that this 
 was the first of a series of intended articles which, if 
 written, would have covered the subject as compre- 
 hensively as does the title, but as I was never able to 
 find a publisher for this first article, I abandoned the 
 work and hence don't know what my views were upon 
 points not covered by this discussion, which you will 
 readily understand since it was, I believe, argued and 
 settled at our meeting, that no man has any views or 
 opinions worthy of the name until he has expressed 
 the same in language. 
 
 (Reading from manuscript.) " 'If we accept the 
 Biblical account of the origin of Woman, we cannot 
 regard her as any part of the original plan of the 
 Creator when He fashioned our Universe and deter- 
 mined to people it Avith beings possessing immortal 
 souls. He fashioned Adam in His own image and 
 breathed into him the breath of life — or in other words 
 animated Adam by direct impartation of a portion of 
 the divine life, which can mean nothing but the gener- 
 
54 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 ation of the soul of Adam. The mere body of Adam 
 was a mere natural image, formed from materials 
 previously created and not differing in nature from 
 a statue made by a sculptor. It was adapted, how- 
 ever, to become the habitation of a soul, much as a 
 suit of clothes is made of matter in a form adapted to 
 become a covering for the body of man. When it is 
 borne in mind (a fact commonly overlooked by the 
 careless reader) that the soul and body were not 
 created simultaneously, but came into being as the 
 result of two distinct and independent acts, it will be 
 understood how a human body, perfect in all its parts 
 and organs, with all bodily functions essential to its 
 growth or continued existence, may exist without a 
 soul; and the question is at once suggested whether 
 woman can rest a claim to be possessed of a soul upon 
 the liiblical account of her creation. We think it 
 clear that her contention cannot be rested upon the 
 Biblical account. Of course this is not conclusive 
 unless it be established that the Biblical account is 
 complete, and we think this has not j-et been demon- 
 strated. The most that can be safely said is, that it 
 furnishes negative evidence against the claim of woman 
 by its entire omission of any account of her having 
 been so endowed. The claim of woman to belong to 
 the same order of being as man is generally rested on 
 certain analogies existing between her and man which 
 are far from conclusive, or even convincing, evidence 
 of her claim to belong to the same order. These 
 analogies may be stated as follows: Woman has con- 
 sciousness, something resembling reason and intuition. 
 As to the claim that woman has intuition, it may be 
 conceded, but inasmuch as man has it not, it is clear 
 that the concession does not support her main con- 
 tention, but rather weakens it, and tends strongly to 
 disprove it. While consciousness and an inferior sort 
 
THE FIFTH MEETING 55 
 
 of reason are evidently possessed by many of the in- 
 ferior animals created before Adam, not in the image 
 of the Creator and not receiving the breath of life or 
 soul, it cannot seriously be contended that the Biblical 
 account of Creation lends any support to a theory that 
 animals, other than man, are endowed with souls; yet 
 every argument that may be advanced in favor of 
 woman's contention might be advanced in favor of 
 the serpent or the fish. It is worthy of mention that 
 the rib of Adam from which woman was fashioned 
 was created, and doubtless in its perfect state, before 
 Adam's soul was created, hence the rib could not be 
 any part of the soul and woman got no soul by or 
 through the mere process of creating her from a rib 
 having none; and it is at least peculiar that special 
 mention should be made of the generation of the soul 
 of Adam and the state of Eve left in uncertainty. If 
 it had been, at the time, suspected that woman would 
 ever advance such a claim, and her claim be denied, it 
 would seem that she would have been supplied with 
 the same record proof as Adam. 
 
 " 'It is not my purpose at this time to complete the 
 examination of this interesting subject, but merely to 
 point out the fact that the question exists and has 
 existed from the beginning, and thus to account, in 
 a great measure, for the actual position of woman in 
 civilized states. From the earliest dawn of history 
 to modern times, woman has unhesitatingly been 
 classed with inferior animals as a chattel owned by the 
 man, and accorded no rights as an independent being 
 and afforded no protection of the laws except such as 
 needed to be accorded her in order to preserve her to 
 her husband and to prevent the impairment of her 
 ability to serve him, or possibly the state. In former 
 ages it was quite common to give the husband power of 
 life and death over his wives and daughters ; and where 
 
56 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 the power has been withdrawn, as it has been with- 
 drawn in many modern states, it will be found, upon a 
 close historical examination of the causes leading to 
 such change in the laws, that the change has not been 
 made in the interest of woman herself, but in the in- 
 terest of the state; and the change has its foundation 
 in the same public policy that now prohibits, in many 
 cases, the wilful and wanton destruction of property 
 by the owner. — That policy which prohibits the burn- 
 ing of corn and the destruction of other forms of prop- 
 erty by the owner — a policy which denies the complete 
 and absolute dominion of the subject over any form of 
 property and recognizes only a usufruct in the indi- 
 vidual with ultimate ownership in the state. It is 
 true, that in modern times, and especially in this cen- 
 tury, there has been legislation which has tended to 
 what is often styled an amelioration of the conditions 
 of woman, or more fully styled, the emancipation of 
 woman, which has seemed to rest upon a concession of 
 a right in woman to be treated as a being of the same 
 high order as man. But again it will be found that 
 such legislation, though apparently in recognition of 
 such right, is really not based upon any such principle, 
 but is founded purely on the convenience of the state 
 or of man; and it has extended only so far as it has 
 pleased man to carry it. Such legislation has for its 
 basis the same considera'tion of public good as has led 
 to laws prohibiting unnecessary cruelty to animals, 
 and requiring the owners to properly care for the 
 same. The state is always harmed by wasteful or 
 wanton destruction of any form of useful pi'operty. 
 The correctness of the views here expressed, we shall 
 ask our readers to assume for the present, but we prom- 
 ise to demonstrate their truth in a more particular 
 exposition in a later part of this work by copious refer- 
 ences to the writings of the ancients and the works 
 
THE FIFTH MEETING 57 
 
 of the poets, the legal codes and judicial decisions of 
 both ancient and modern times, and by Herbert 
 Spencer's Cyclopedia of Sociological Facts— if he shall 
 have completed the same in time. 
 
 " 'My purpose in this first article is to show that 
 the conduct of woman is to be judged of and explained 
 upon the assumption that her real position, her real 
 relationsip to man, is not different in kind from that 
 of the ox, the horse, the dog, fox, serpent or other ani- 
 mal, useful or harmful to man ; and that she is moved 
 to act by the same influences and under the same char- 
 acter of stimulus as regulates, governs and controls 
 other animals in their conduct towards man ; conduct 
 that will be found to range from servile obedience, 
 down through pretended obedience, cunning evasion 
 and direct rebellion and defiance of the divinely consti- 
 tuted Lord of Creation. 
 
 " 'It is only by adopting this premise we are con- 
 strained to believe that a scientific, psychological study 
 of the mental operations of what Webster significantly 
 but inaccurately styles the female part of the human 
 race, can be productive of practical benefit to man or 
 enable him to understand or predict her probable 
 course of conduct under given conditions. Let us, 
 then, approach the subject in this truly scientific spirit 
 and establish general rules for interpretation of the 
 conduct of woman towards man which may furnish 
 every husband with a method whereby he may obtain 
 that obedience which the contract of marriage, or 
 more properly speaking, the fact of marriage, entitles 
 him to, and so derive the highest return or benefit 
 from the use of this particular species of property. 
 
 The only motives of the lower animals in their con- 
 duct towards man will be found to be the hope of re- 
 ward or fear of punishment; anticipated benefit or 
 harm. They are not influenced by higher considera- 
 
58 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 tions and not influenced by what we call moral prin- 
 ciple. AVe may confidently expect to find, as we pro- 
 ceed, that Avoman occupying, as she has for ages, a 
 similar position as respects man, is controlled in her 
 dealings with man only by the same considerations.' " 
 
 Jones : ' ' Doctor, how much more is there of that 
 dope?" 
 
 Smith: ''About fifty pages." 
 
 Jones: "May I look at that last page? I'm not 
 certain that I heard aright as you read." 
 
 Smith: "Certainly." (Hands sheet to Jones.) 
 
 Jones (After examination, handing sheet back) : 
 "I got you all right. Is that the original manuscript, 
 Doctor?" 
 
 Smith: "Yes." 
 
 Jones: "I see that the water-mark in the paper 
 shows that it was manufactured in 1912, and so I nat- 
 urally infer that you have departed from your duty as 
 a man to be open and above board in jialming this off 
 onto us as an ancient writing. I fear me. Doctor, 
 that this is intended as a cunning satire on the views 
 of Jones. After hearing that manuscript to this 
 point, I find that there is only one statement in it 
 that meets with my unqualified approval and that is 
 to the effect that age is timid and without convictions 
 and that its wisdom is the wisdom of owls. I move 
 3^ou, Gentlemen, that further reading of this docu- 
 ment be suspended for the present and then for all 
 time. It is only by such action that we can make the 
 punishment fit the crime. This man — God made him 
 — must have put in all of his spare time during the 
 past week, and a lot that was not spare time, in the 
 writing of the unread fifty pages, and I can think of 
 no greater, hence no more fitting, punishment than 
 denying him the privilege of reading it. The Doctor 
 is an amusing cuss, I grant you, but as the result of 
 
THE FIFTH MEETING 59 
 
 calling upon him for an honest, and possihly in- 
 structive, opinion on a subject that he ought to, but 
 probably don't, know something about, I think, after 
 looking^ at my watch, that I am just where I was at 
 the close of the last meeting— ten minutes late— and 
 must go with prospect of being compelled to take an- 
 other dose of the same medicine and without any new 
 philosophical view to comfort me." 
 
THE SIXTH MEETING 
 
 IN WHICH WE LEARN SOMETHING OF LAWYERS 
 
 JONES : "Brown, you started us on a raid against 
 surgeons and doctors generally last week by call- 
 ing attention to the case of the man in Chicago with a 
 bullet in his brain which some surgeon was going to 
 remove in order to save the patient's life, though the 
 effect of the operation would be to produce a perma- 
 nent insanity. Now, in tliinking that over, I'm in- 
 clined to think you referred to the news item with 
 malice prepense. You thought by making the iniqui- 
 ties of the doctors a subject of discussion, you and 
 your profession would escape our attention for a time 
 at least and you succeeded in your purpose. 
 
 "By the same ^Machiavellian method you steered 
 the conversation at our last meeting so as to give the 
 doctor a chance to satirize my views upon women, or 
 rather poke fun at me, to make me appear ridiculous. 
 Robinson agrees with me in this, and on the way over 
 we concluded that it was about time for you to come 
 out into the open and answer for your profession why 
 it is that in the opinion of mankind, from very ancient 
 times down to the present day, your profession has 
 been considered a necessary evil — its members gener- 
 ally suspected of having no respect for justice, and 
 your services purchaseable in aid of law-breaking and 
 law-breakers and all sorts of dishonest undertakings. ' ' 
 
 Brown : "AVell, I might answer by saying that you 
 60 
 
THE SIXTH MEETING 61 
 
 are evidently mistaken as to the real attitude of the 
 public, and as evidence, point to the fact that in this 
 country the confidence of the people in the general 
 integrity of the bar is so great that they will not suf- 
 fer any except lawyers to become judges. Now the 
 people are not so silly as not to believe that honesty in 
 a judge is an indispensable quality ; yet from this high 
 office they exclude doctors, authors, sellers of insur- 
 ance policies — yea, even ministers of the gospel. 
 Whether it is 'because you are judged rightly or 
 wrongly as possessing a less inflexible integrity than 
 lawyers, or merely lacking in ability to arrive at the 
 truth of a controverted matter, or having arrived at 
 the truth, lacking in a sense of justice or ability to dis- 
 tinguish the right from the wrong — it is nevertheless 
 true that you are excluded, by common consent, from 
 an office wherein all these qualities are desirable in a 
 superlative degree; while lawyers are, by the same 
 common consent, including the approval of insurance 
 vendors, doctors, and authors, declared to be the only 
 class of men fit for judicial duties and powers. You, 
 Jones and Robinson, would at once ridicule a proposi- 
 tion to elect our judges from the medical profession. 
 You, Doctor and Jones, would treat with scorn a 
 proposition to put our authors upon the bench. And 
 the whole humorous world would hoot at a suggestion 
 that peddlers of insurance would make fit judges. No, 
 vou will all say, ' These lawyers are all damned rascals, 
 but God save us from the justice of the illogical, unin- 
 formed and knavish man ; hence, give us no doctors, no 
 authors, no ministers. We will trust, rather, to men 
 trained in a profession whose daily practice is open to 
 the knowledge and criticism of the whole world ; where 
 the illogical, uninformed, incompetent or dishonest 
 must be soon detected and exposed; a profession, 
 therefore, in which the qualities of honesty, clear 
 
62 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 thinking, and the powers of righteous judgment are 
 most certainly developed in the highest degree." 
 
 Jones: "You'd have a fat chance of convincing a 
 man of good horse sense that there's anything logical 
 in that stump speech. It is the use of just such clap- 
 trap to confuse and mislead jurors into giving wrong 
 verdicts, and other like insincere practices, that has 
 justified the general Avant of faith in you. 
 
 "The law does not exclude a carpenter, a doctor or 
 a scavenger from the bench. Whatever a man's busi- 
 ness may be, if he qualifies for admission to the bar 
 by passing the necessary examinations to admit him 
 to practice, he becomes available to appointment or 
 election to the bench. It isn't a legal impediment to 
 elevation to the bench that the candidate has knowl- 
 edge of something beside the law. A knowledge of 
 the law is considered to be 'indispensable' in a judge 
 and a study of the law does not necessarily convert an 
 honest man into a rascal. It is the actual practice of 
 the law as a business for dollars and cents that de- 
 bases, or is supposed to debase. Strange as it may 
 seem, it appeared to be the general belief, until recent 
 years, that a pettifogging lawyer raised to the bench 
 was converted into an oracle of wisdom and became 
 thereby invested with a conscience and was not only 
 incapable of dishonesty, but was free from the minor 
 infirmities of bias, prejudice and partiality which, in 
 a normal human being, will influence conduct. In 
 these days confidence in the courts is weakened just 
 as belief in miracles is disappearing, and the judges 
 are coming in for free criticism and will all soon be up 
 against the recall. I'm surprised myself that it has 
 not yet been proposed that no practicing lawyer, or 
 one who has practiced the profession for profit, should 
 ever become a judge. I suppose it might be claimed 
 with some reason that legal attainments sufficient to 
 
THE SIXTH MEETING 63 
 
 admit a man to practice ought to be sufficient to qualify 
 him for the bench. I can see that there might be a 
 difficulty in persuading our young men to study law 
 with no other object than to become candidates for 
 the bench. Appointment or election would be too 
 uncertain to justify such a course. But it would not 
 be necessary that they should do that. Several thou- 
 sand young men are annually turned out of our law 
 schools— from whom judges might be selected. Such 
 as were not selected for judicial positions could enter 
 upon the practice of the law. Nine out of ten gradu- 
 ates would be willing and would feel honored at being 
 selected for the bench. Of course the young man 
 knows little of business or life, but the standard of 
 attainments could be raised and the age for admission 
 to the bar fixed at, say, twenty-five years, or later. If 
 you want to get an honest man I think you've got to 
 capture him young in these days. Even soliciting in- 
 surance has a tendency to take the fine edge off his 
 moral sense. But the practice — actual practice of the 
 law — is generally believed to be especially pernicious 
 and destructive of integrity in the individual. It is 
 supposed that the successful practicing attorney must 
 prostitute his abilities and since he is guilty and knows 
 he is guilty of this unfaithfulness to high ideals, he 
 suffers a general deterioration of moral character 
 somewhat similar to that which ruins a woman who 
 prostitutes her body. 
 
 "Now, Brother Brown, I'd like to get your honest 
 opinion upon the point as to the effect upon the moral 
 character of the practice of the law as it is carried on 
 to-day by what may be called reputable members of 
 your profession. Afterwards, I think it might be 
 worth while to consider whether it would not be well 
 seriously to consider divorcing the bench from the 
 bar. Of course I have not given any consideration to 
 
64 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 this and am only saying what comes into my mind 
 now. I know even less of this subject than I do of 
 women. ' ' 
 
 Smith: "I'd like very much to hear from you, 
 Brown — to hear your real views upon the subject. ' ' 
 
 Brown: "I don't think that the practice of the 
 law is likely to convert a dishonest man into an honest 
 one or an honest man into a rascal, but 1 think we 
 have little to do with honest or dishonest men, since 
 there is no such thing as a man who can be accurately 
 described as such. All men are more or less honest 
 and more or less dishonest. Your real inciuiry is di- 
 rected, I suppose, to the ethics of actual practice by 
 reputable men. Lawyers of standing and reputation 
 must in the transaction of business generally conform 
 to what is generally allowed to be permissible in 
 lawyers, or they will soon lose their standing and re- 
 pute. When we come to a consideration of much that 
 is conventionally allowable, we find much to question. 
 I have myself always been surprised at the leniency 
 shown by the public to lawyers who have engineered 
 swindling transactions for clients, so long as they were 
 not interested as principals in the shady transactions. 
 Counsel for a railway company will carry out the plans 
 of a dishonest president or board of directors for 
 swindling the creditors or stockholders of the com- 
 pany, and although their own salaries are paid out of 
 moneys belonging to stockholders, will not utter a pro- 
 test or advise the stockholders of the fact that they 
 are being betrayed. By way of illustration : the presi- 
 dent of the company or members of the board of di- 
 rectors will be secretly interested in commissions paid 
 bankers who underwrite the company's bonds and per- 
 haps in options given to bankers for the purchase of 
 company securities at heavy discounts and frequently 
 such is the case, even where the statutes forbid such 
 
THE SIXTH MEETING 65 
 
 connections. Where this is the case, the company 
 counsel is likely to be informed of the fact. Now, no 
 matter how unfairly the company may have been 
 treated; how unfair the commissions and the dis- 
 counts; how unreasonable the prices to be paid for 
 the securities ; no matter that counsel knows that such 
 arrangements would never be made or authorized by 
 disinterested officers; in other words, no matter how 
 clear the betrayal of trust in the transaction — the 
 counsel for the company will draft the contracts and 
 do all legal work necessary to carry such transactions 
 through, and continue to draw his salary from the 
 treasury — that is, from the stockholders — without dis- 
 closing the fact that they are being robbed. Now, no 
 good lawyer, for a moment, can justify such a course 
 to his conscience, A good lawyer can better distin- 
 guish right from wrong than can a good doctor or 
 plumber or merchant or minister. It is his trade to 
 weigh human conduct in the scales of justice. Why, 
 then, you may ask, and how can you reputable lawyers 
 explain his course of action if he cannot justify it 
 from a moral point of view? What can be said in 
 extenuation of such a course? How can he maintain 
 a shred of self-respect while taking the money of the 
 stockholders in pay for his services rendered in aid 
 of their betrayal, or of what he believes to be their be- 
 trayal ? His answer will be somewhat as follows : 
 
 ' ' He will say the stockholders have selected a board 
 of directors as their agents to conduct the business 
 with full authority to employ counsel to advise upon 
 matters of law, but not to take part or have any voice 
 in the management of the business. It is assumed that 
 counsel will confine himself to his own functions, and 
 he will have discharged the same if he shall point out 
 to the board or its officers any illegality in a proposed 
 transaction. If, notwithstanding his advice is against 
 
66 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 the legality, the officers and directors proceed with 
 the transaction, he will say that he has done all that 
 counsel for the company is expected, even by the stock- 
 holders, to do. The cases are numerous where stock- 
 holders have called officers and directors to account 
 for illegal or fraudulent acts of management, but I do 
 not recall an attempt to hold counsel for the company, 
 except where he has participated in the profits of the 
 fraudulent transaction — nor any case where there has 
 been any attempt to charge counsel because of his 
 knowledge of the fraud and his silence or omission to 
 call the same to the attention of stockholders. And, 
 indeed, I think it is generally considered that general 
 counsel for the company is simply general counsel to 
 the officers and the board. The practical situation 
 must be taken into account. The president or the 
 board has the power to em])loy and discharge counsel. 
 Any attorney who would expose to the stockholders a 
 proposed mismanagement of the company would be at 
 once discharged, nor would he get similar employment 
 from the management of any other corporation. All 
 of this is well understood by the general public in- 
 cluding stockholders, and such action is not expected 
 of counsel. The lawyer will therefore say that it is 
 no part of his engagement, express or implied, to do 
 more than to give his best opinion upon the legality of 
 proposed action, and that having done this, his duty 
 is discharged. 
 
 ' ' Now such a line of defense does not, in fact, satisfy 
 any good lawyer. He knows that he would at once 
 drop the whole dirty business or rather force it to be 
 dropped by threatening exposure, if it were not for 
 two things : first, he would lose his practice at once 
 and his employment is often his only means of liveli- 
 hood ; second, he w^ould be generally condemned by the 
 great unthinking public as having himself betrayed 
 
THE SIXTH MEETING 67 
 
 the trust of his employers — the men constituting the 
 board. The public would say, 'That man is not fit 
 to be trusted. It is true that in this case he has ex- 
 posed an iniquitous fraud, but his only knowledge 
 of that fraud came to him in professional confidence 
 and he has betrayed the men w'ho trusted him and 
 from whom he was getting his bread and butter. ' The 
 public has contempt for an informer or squealer. 
 They haven't much respect even for detectives, and 
 no lawyer could ever hope for further business, who 
 would set his own judgment as to what is right and 
 wrong against that of his employer. All this is felt 
 by every one, and hence the lawyer is not severely, or 
 perhaps at all, condemned in such a case. But the 
 lawyer himself does feel that he is prostituting his 
 talents. He doesn't feel clean. He says to himself 
 that the whole business is unmoral and that a better 
 and stronger man than himself would refuse his part 
 in the transaction. He feels that he can not justify 
 himself to himself for countenancing a fraud because 
 the public do not expect him to be scrupulously hon- 
 est; and is ashamed of himself for consenting to a 
 code of ethics which assumes for its basic principle 
 that he may be inferior in honesty to his fellowmen 
 without shame." 
 
 Smith : ' ' Well, Jones, considering the source from 
 which that statement of the case comes, we'll have 
 to concede that the practice of the law^ does not at 
 least entirely obliterate the sense of right and wrong." 
 
 Jones: "Perhaps not. Doctor; but if the success- 
 ful practice of the law does, of necessity, require, upon 
 the part of the practitioners, such a course as Mr. 
 Brown describes, it would seem to me that the public 
 is well justified in scoffing at the integrity of even 
 our best lawyers. They would seem to be a specially 
 licensed criminal class; licensed to commit acts that 
 
68 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 in any one else but lawyers would be punishable 
 crimes. When I suggested the analogy between the 
 prostitution of talents by a lawyer and the prostitu- 
 tion of the body by a woman, I had no idea that the 
 cases are really so similar, and upon the whole, it 
 strikes me that the 'extenuating circumstances,' as 
 Brown would call them, more nearly approach a jus- 
 tification from a moral point of view in the case of 
 the woman. In each case the need to live or obtain 
 the means of livelihood is the chief extenuating cir- 
 cumstance, but the mentally well equipped man in 
 good health (and your first-class lawyer generally is 
 such) is under no necessity to adopt such a profes- 
 sion, while the woman in question, without education 
 usually, and poorly endowed to earn a clean living, 
 may often find prostitution a practical necessity to 
 avoid actual want. You understand 1 'm not attempt- 
 ing to justify either of these unfortunate classes — 
 prostitutes or laAvyers — but of the two, the greater or 
 better excuse does not seem to lie wuth the lawyers. 
 
 "Of course there may be a difference of opinion as 
 to which is the greater offender when we take into 
 account the nature of the offenses or crimes commit- 
 ted. Murder committed for gain may be more wicked 
 than theft, but murder or killing in self-defense is 
 considered justifiable, and theft committed by an 
 actually starving wretch may be justified to the moral 
 sense of the community whether the law will excuse it 
 or not. If no better case can be made for the legal 
 profession than is made by Mr. Brown, who is one of 
 its shining lights, it would seem to me that it might 
 be well to do away entirely with the practicing attor- 
 ney. Of course my offhand suggestions are not en- 
 titled to much weight and I don't myself attach weight 
 to them. It seems to me now that the particular evils 
 that Brown has been describing are not really inci- 
 
THE SIXTH MEETING 69 
 
 dent to advocacy — or litigated matters — but arise out 
 of work done by lawyers acting in an advisory ca- 
 pacity in the conduct of business. It might meet the 
 evil if they were treated in all such matters as prin- 
 cipals or accessories to the fraud, in the same way 
 and to the same extent that others, not licensed to 
 practice law, would be treated for like acts. The sub- 
 ject is certainly well worth consideration by us so 
 long as we seem to have set about forming opinions 
 upon all sorts of sociological problems. 
 
 "But Brown hasn't yet given us his opinion as to 
 whether the practice of the law unfits a man to be 
 an upright .judge, whether the actual practice leads 
 to a moral degeneracy such as amounts to a disquali- 
 fication for such an office. 
 
 "According to my watch it is time to adjourn, and 
 I think perhaps we 've given ourselves enough to think 
 over for one evening. I feel that way about it my- 
 self. But I don't want to drop this subject here, 
 and hope that at the next meeting, or at some subse- 
 quent meeting the Penny Ante Club may hear more 
 of it." 
 
THE SEVENTH MEETING 
 
 IN WHICH "WTE LEARN YET MORE OF WOMEN 
 
 JONES: "Doctor, have you got with you the rest 
 of the essay on Woman 's Position in the Universe 
 — the unread portion, I mean?" 
 
 Smith: "I left it in the library here, having no 
 doubt that you would be anxious, upon reflection, to 
 hear the rest of it at some time, and especially as I 
 left off reading at the point where I was about to 
 point out the method by which wives ought to be kept 
 in the place to which the Lord evidently assigned 
 them." 
 
 Brown : "I suppose your methods are worked out 
 upon your theory that women are a part of the lower 
 animal kingdom, and our approval of them must log- 
 ically depend upon our acceptance of that theory?" 
 
 Smith : ' * Yes, I think that is perhaps true, but a 
 consideration of the practical working or conse- 
 quences of a strict adherence to the rules which I sug- 
 gest will, I think, furnish strong additional support 
 to the theory. I'm willing to give you the benefit 
 of the rest of it, if you all wish it." 
 
 Robinson : "Go on. Doctor. ' ' 
 
 Smith (Reading) : " 'Now it must be admitted 
 that generally speaking the only animals that man 
 has been able to turn to account without killing, are 
 those that he has made dependent upon himself for 
 subsistence. I do not mean by this that only such 
 animals as are dependent upon man for subsistence 
 
 70 
 
THE SEVENTH MEETING 71 
 
 can be of any account to him, but merely that he is 
 not able to direct the actions of animals not so de- 
 pendent upon him. Of course the earth worm is not 
 dependent upon man yet its labors have been of un- 
 told benefit to him. The rule for the treatment must 
 be found in the character of service desired, when we 
 come to a comparison of the treatment to be accorded 
 a woman and that given any other particular ani- 
 mal. For example, woman should not be overfed 
 nor permitted to overfeed since she cannot so ef- 
 fectively perform any kind of labor if permitted to 
 grow too fat; while in the case of the hog, since no 
 labor upon its part is desired and since its value to 
 man is only as its body may be converted into food 
 for man or articles of commerce, it is wise to encour- 
 age the hog to grow in bulk as fast as possible. But 
 it is clear — if I may indulge in a pleasantry while 
 at the same time stating a profound economic truth 
 — that a wife should not be permitted to make a 
 hog of herself, because her value to her husband in 
 any aspect of the case will be impaired by such a 
 course. Her ability to do any kind of manual labor 
 must be seriously impaired. Her value for orna- 
 mental purposes — as for example to preside over the 
 husband 's table — would be greatly reduced ; while 
 her occasional employment as a lure in the husband's 
 commercial activities would in these days be rendered 
 impossible.' " 
 
 Jones: "An anachronism. Doctor. Thirty years 
 ago, the skinny woman was not in favor with the gen- 
 eral public, nor with business men. As a small boy 
 I overheard much salacious speech concerning women 
 by the habituees of barber shops and country stores, 
 and my recollection is that the fat woman, deep- 
 bosomed and broad-hipped, was the tormentor of the 
 souls and bodies of men of that generation." 
 
72 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 Smith: "A palpable hit! as Hamlet would say. 
 But may I not be guilty of anachronism without being 
 wholly condemned when all the world knows that 
 Shakespeare himself regarded anachronistic use of 
 material as legitimate? Where was I when inter- 
 rupted by this flippant youth? 'By the Mass, I was 
 about to say something!' Oh yes! (Reading.) 
 
 " 'Now our English forbears, without perhaps a 
 full appreciation of the scientific basis of their action, 
 perceived the general doctrine which I have laid 
 down, when their laws provided that upon marriage 
 all the personal property and ehoses in action of the 
 wife should become the sole property of the husband 
 upon being reduced to his possession ; and that all 
 wages or other proceeds of her labor should there- 
 after belong to her husband, so that the wife could 
 not even give an acquittance or discharge — no more 
 than can a horse — for services rendered to another ; 
 and if by any accident or improvidence payment 
 were made to her, instead of to her husband, the lat- 
 ter could sue for and again recover from the debtor, 
 unless, perhaps, where the moneys paid the wife ac- 
 tually came into his possession. The wife was no 
 more capable of contracting, or being contracted with, 
 than was an ox, I do not remember that under the 
 common law of England a wife was ever the subject 
 of barter and sale as has been the case in many other 
 countries, but this right was denied, I think, not be- 
 cause of any right upon the part of the woman to 
 be free from sale, but solely because of our abhor- 
 rence for monopoly and a fear that the wealthy 
 voluptuaries would acquire all the women of child- 
 bearing age in the realm and the growth of popula- 
 tion be checked ; the consequences of which would be 
 a fall in the price of land. It may be laid down as 
 a significant fact in the history of the human race 
 
THE SEVENTH MEETING 73 
 
 that women have been so greatly restricted in the 
 right to acquire property as to be kept incapable of 
 achieving, anywhere, substantial independence of 
 man. I mean that this has been the policy of great 
 civilizations during the period of progressive growth. 
 This principle has not generally been departed from 
 until wealth has accumulated and in consequence the 
 manual labor of woman was no longer essential to 
 the support of the people. The labor of woman being 
 generally less valuable than that of man, and limited 
 in character by her lack of bodily strength, is the 
 first dispensed with as wealth accumulates. The ef- 
 fect is soon apparent. Women quickly deteriorate 
 in moral quality when supported in ease and idle- 
 ness. Goldsmith speaks: 
 
 Unhappy land to hast'ning ills a prey 
 Where wealth accumulates and men decay. 
 
 Goldsmith was lacking in scientific method and takes 
 but a superficial view when he attributes the decay 
 of men to the accumulation of wealth. The decay of 
 man is preceded by the decay of woman which fol- 
 lows hard upon the accumulation of wealth in which 
 she is permitted to share. Possession of property 
 means independence of man. Independence in either 
 man or woman means free love, and any nation which 
 by its laws or customs permits woman to accumulate 
 property readily, strikes a death blow to the con- 
 ventional morality which demands chastity of the 
 woman. And when the chastity or virtue of any 
 woman ceases to be regarded as a property right in 
 her husband or man, his control over her for all pur- 
 poses practically ceases. 
 
 " 'Man's greater bodily strength gives him a 
 monopoly of most wealth producing vocations, and 
 hence a greater control of means of subsistence than 
 
74 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 woman, unaided, could acquire. In competition with 
 man woman would naturally be forced into the least 
 productive or remunerative labors, and hence if men 
 and women each pursued independently for their sev- 
 eral gain the pursuits to which nature has adapted 
 them, we should find mankind rich and womankind 
 poor. Moreover women as a class, if not supported 
 by men, would, if compelled to bear children (which 
 is a God-imposed handicap), probably be unable to 
 support themselves and wouUl perish from the face 
 of the earth. The woman is therefore, by the law 
 of nature, dependent u[)on man for support, and all 
 attempts to make women as a class independent of 
 the support of men are presumptuous and foolish 
 attempts to remake and reconstitute the Universe, 
 doomed to failure in that, if carried through, 
 they will probably destroy the civilization in which 
 they were tolerated. Now women with independent 
 means of support do not willingly bear children. This 
 is a truth which may be supported by casual ob- 
 servation and which is borne out by history. Giv- 
 ing women financial independence is the surest race 
 suicide. The assertion that women as a class want 
 to bear children is the sheerest nonsense. The 'in- 
 stinct of motherhood' is practically non-existent in 
 females of any kind and probably no greater in 
 women than in any other animals. ^lother love, in- 
 deed, exists after a child is born and continues while 
 the child is young and helpless, provided an intimate 
 personal contact with the child is maintained, but 
 even mother love will not ordinarily be strong unless 
 the mother cares for the child and will not ordinarily 
 survive long separations. The mother love is often 
 stronger in the grandmother than in the mother; 
 often as strong in the nurse as in the mother; and 
 when we have eliminated from consideration that love 
 
THE SEVENTH MEETING 75 
 
 which a woman not the mother of a child will have 
 for it if given sole care of the child, we shall find 
 that the residuum of love which may be attributed 
 to the mother, as such, is negligible. The families 
 of the rich are small because the husband really pur- 
 chases domestic peace by releasing the wife of her 
 obligations to him and gives her financial independ- 
 ence by recognizing a fallacious and ruinous doctrine 
 that a woman is entitled to live in a manner befitting 
 the rank and station of her husband, or because the 
 husband prefers to put his wife to uses for which 
 she would be unfitted while breeding. 
 
 " 'But why, you may inquire, does the poverty of 
 the family and especially the financial dependence of 
 the wife favor increase in population, if the desire 
 for offspring is not strong in either the male or the 
 female? If called upon to answer this question, I 
 would say that the wife of the poor man or the poor 
 wife of a rich man will more readily consent to bear 
 a child in such cases as it may please the husband to 
 require her to do so. Further — and this is a cogent 
 reason — such a woman has so few pleasures that 
 would be interfered with by childbearing that her 
 reluctance to have children is comparatively small, 
 while the pleasures that she will derive from associa- 
 tion with her children and from their love for her will 
 be comparatively much greater than in the case of a 
 woman well supplied with money and permitted to 
 spend the same in dress or other scandalous diver- 
 tisements and follies. 
 
 " 'But, after all, I do not need to resort to argu- 
 ment or psychological analogies to find the cause of 
 woman's conduct I need only to point to the tin- 
 questioiiahle fact that the financially independent 
 woman practically ceases voluntary childbearing, as 
 a conclusive reason for not permitting such finau- 
 
76 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 cial independence if we consider, as we must, the 
 perpetuation of the race a desirable thing;." 
 
 Jones: "Doctor, will you pardon an interrup- 
 tion? The greater part of that precious manuscript 
 of yours shows your purpose to satirize Jones and 
 his views of womankind, but haven't you forgotten 
 your purpose in the last few pages and expressed 
 your own real opinion of the feminist movement and 
 consequences to be apprehended from it? Do you 
 really believe that the general movement for the 
 emancipation of woman is bad for the nation and for 
 the race?" 
 
 Smith: "I warned you at the outset that I would 
 only give you opinions entertained by me at your 
 age. I\ry opinions at the age of sixty are of no prac- 
 tical importance. At sixty a man is likely to be old- 
 fashioned in his views. At thirty-five a man thinks 
 he knows it all and is so confident in his opinion that 
 he seldom wholly abandons it — in other words — an 
 old man at sixty will have opinions that were current 
 twenty-five years before. You can often reconstruct 
 the prevailing modes of dress of a twenty-five-year- 
 distant period by a close observance of the dress of 
 a man of fifty. It may show in his necktie or his 
 hat or his shoes or his culT-links. He will ordinarily 
 wear a permissible style, but not the most advanced, 
 and his style will be that permissible one most re- 
 sembling a good, or perhaps advanced, style of the 
 earlier period. When you observe that a man of 
 sixty years wears a black satin or silk necktie, which 
 he fastens into a bow himself, while the prevailing 
 style for the man of thirty-five is the four-in-hand, 
 you may be sure that twenty-five years before the 
 prevailing style for the man of thirty-five was a 
 black satin or silk tie made into such a bow. His 
 cuff-links are such as were worn by the fashionable 
 
THE SEVENTH MEETING 77 
 
 young man of thirty-five, twenty -five years ago. Old 
 fashions linger with reasonable modification and 
 are tolerated in the old because of the persistence of 
 convictions formed at the age of thirty-five, as to 
 what is a decent and reasonably smart dress. Un- 
 consciously (for the most part), every generation 
 recognizes the fact that habits of life — manners and 
 opinions — formed at that period of life which I have 
 styled the golden age of man — or the Jones age — 
 obsess and possesses the victim or fortunate pos- 
 sessor for all time and stamp themselves indelibly 
 upon him. I am persuaded that an observant per- 
 son who has familiarized himself with the fashion of 
 the past half centurj^ could closely approximate the 
 age of a man above thirty-five years of age by in- 
 specting his wardrobe and his dressing-table, without 
 seeing the man himself. I am speaking now, of 
 course, in a general way. What is now deemed ap- 
 propriate in dress, manners or ideas in a man of 
 sixty was for the most part demanded of him twenty- 
 five years ago. At the age of thirty-five it is de- 
 manded of a man that he exhibit the best styles of 
 manners, clothing and ideas of his times." 
 
 Jones: "Well, Doctor, you are seeking to evade 
 the question but I am substantially answered, I 
 think. The feminist movement has made great 
 strides in the last twenty-five years and you have not 
 kept up with it. You are not in sympathy with it. 
 You are opposed to it. You are old-fashioned. And 
 like the obstinate old man that you are, seek argu- 
 ment and study in every way to prove that the world 
 is going fast to the Devil or the Demnition Bow- 
 wows. You have never marched in a female suffrage 
 parade and you never will. If you should ever 
 vote for female suffrage you would do it against your 
 better judgment. But you have never been a rad- 
 
78 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 ical. Even in your golden age, you were a conserva- 
 tive, as you will admit, and of course now 3'ou are a 
 reactionary. Now I'm a conservative myself. You 
 have accused me of flippancy and I plead guilty 
 whenever the talk is merely desultory or for the pur- 
 pose of killing time, but I'm really a rather sober- 
 minded Jones person, lacking, however, the timidity 
 of age and being perfectly willing to express my own 
 opinions in which I am about as far behind the times 
 as you are. 
 
 ' ' Now I do not give it as my opinion that the open- 
 ing up of opportunity to women to engage in em- 
 ployments formerl}^ monopolized by men is, upon the 
 whole, an unmixed blessing for the nation or the 
 race. Yet thousands and tens of thousands of indi- 
 vidual women have been raised from very hard liv- 
 ing conditions to tolerable or very comfortable living 
 conditions — and are leading incomparably happier 
 lives than they could have lived if new avenues of 
 employment had not been opened up. But this move- 
 ment is yet in its infancy and the evils, if any, that 
 will attend it are not yet clearly demonstrated in 
 experience. I think with you that it will still fur- 
 ther cut down the birth rate, but while you assume 
 this to be an evil, I'm not persuaded that the check- 
 ing of the birth-rate at the present time is an unde- 
 sirable thing. I'm not even persuaded that it is not 
 a necessary thing. And the checking of the birth- 
 rate by rendering marriage unnecessary to subsist- 
 ence of a considerable part of our female population 
 is to my mind a much more decent and desirable 
 method than others with which you are no doubt 
 reasonably familiar. When economic conditions re- 
 quire a checking of the birth-rate, the check may be 
 accomplished, it is true, by wars, pestilence and fam- 
 ine, and these or infanticide must be depended upon 
 
THE SEVENTH MEETING 79 
 
 to effect such check in our crowded population so 
 long as women must live in dependence upon men 
 for subsistence. If a large body of women may at 
 the present time withdraw voluntarily from the 
 child-bearing class — and I think they will if made 
 financially independent — I am not satisfied that the 
 opening up of new occupations to women may not 
 only be the best possible thing for millions of women 
 individually, but also a blessing to the race as a 
 whole." 
 
THE EIGHTH MEETING 
 
 IN WHICH WE HEAR SOME OPINIONS ON HONESTY 
 
 JONES: "I notice that the rich continue to 
 smuggle goods into this port and continue to get 
 light sentences, while the criminal law appears gen- 
 erally to be enforced with severity against poor male- 
 factors of all kinds. I also see that the newspapers 
 continue to condemn judges for their very apparent 
 discrimination against the poor and their leniency 
 to the rich. Occasionally some editor discourses upon 
 the turpitude of the offense of smuggling, but not in 
 a manner that shows any real abhorrence of the 
 crime. Now I don't believe that more than one man 
 in fifty would go into the business of smuggling even 
 if the danger of discovery and conviction were small, 
 but on the other hand, perhaps not more than one 
 of the remaining forty-nine would declare dutiable 
 articles intended for his own use if he felt it safe not 
 to do so. 
 
 "You are our expert psychologist, Doctor, and 
 ought to be able to explain the attitude of the peo- 
 ple toward this particular crime, though perhaps 
 Brown's greater knowledge of respectable dishonesty 
 as exemplified in the practice of the law should en- 
 able him to speak as an authority. I'd like the ex- 
 planation from either of you." 
 
 Brown : ' ' People generally distinguish between of- 
 fenses malum in se and offenses merely malum pro- 
 hibitum. Injuries to the person or property of oth- 
 
 80 
 
THE EIGHTH MEETING 81 
 
 ers are felt to be immoral and to show moral turpi- 
 tude, whether prohibited or not; while most men 
 will, when possible, evade the payment of taxes of 
 any kind and not be convicted by their own con- 
 sciences of any moral offense. If you want to know 
 why men who are honest in their dealings with their 
 fellows feel no compunctions of conscience at evad- 
 ing the payment of taxes, I think the question may 
 be answered by considering your own disposition 
 toward tax exaction. Unless you are different from 
 most men, you are perfectly willing to escape the 
 payment of taxes if you can do so without action 
 upon your part. In other words, if the State, county 
 or municipal authorities or agents of the federal gov- 
 ernment, through incompetence, carelessness or other- 
 wise, fail to take the steps necessary to subject your 
 property to assessment and levy a tax, you will not 
 ask them to do their duty and seek to pay a tax 
 that ought, under the law, to be imposed. A first 
 reason why you would not seek to charge yourself 
 with a proper tax is that other men would consider 
 you something of a fool in so doing and would dis- 
 trust your motives. You know very well that how- 
 ever fine and patriotic such an act may be in theory, 
 it is not the common opinion that any duty what- 
 ever rests upon a man to render the government any 
 voluntary aid in the collection of a tax levied against 
 himself. It is of the very essence of the justice of 
 any tax that it should be levied by law and operate 
 with impartiality so far as possible — and this means 
 that an adequate machinery must be created by law 
 for accomplishing this purpose. Voluntary contri- 
 butions will not in fact be made by a considerable 
 number of persons and hence there can be no real 
 duty to do more than what the law itself requires 
 of you. This reasoning is sufficient to quiet the con- 
 
82 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 sciences of most men, hence in a practical matter of 
 this kind, you should be satisfied with it. Whatever 
 may be said, in favor of the theory that you should 
 endeavor to contribute your proper proportion to 
 the support of the government, nothing whatever can 
 be said in favor of the proposition that it is your 
 duty to contribute more than your just proportion 
 and this is what in the long run you are likely to do 
 if you adopt a course that other men will generally 
 not adopt and so pay a sum as taxes which you 
 would not have been forced to pay. 
 
 "Again, notwithstanding the teaching of religion 
 and of our parents and school teachers when we are 
 young the sound common sense point of view, sup- 
 ported by observation as we grow older, is that a man 
 cannot afford in this world to be more honest than 
 the law or general usage compels him to be. Every 
 ounce of honesty beyond this measure hinders his 
 success in the accumulation of property without which 
 for most men there can be no independence nor 
 worldly happiness. The Doctor may take such in- 
 terest in his professional work or Robinson in his 
 writing, or even I might in the practice of my pro- 
 fession, as to be indifferent to wealth and ownership 
 of more proj^erty than what is required to preserve 
 life and to continue our work. IMost men are not 
 working at occupations that permit such devotion. 
 They work because they are compelled to it. Even 
 in our professions there are very few men w'ho would 
 continue in the work if it offered no material re- 
 wards. In business, even, common honesty may or 
 may not be the best policy for the individual in a 
 particular situation if regard is had only for finan- 
 cial success. Scrupulous honesty disqualifies a man 
 for commercial pursuits — by scrupulous honest}^ I 
 mean strict adherence to the golden rule. No man 
 
THE EIGHTH MEETING 83 
 
 can afford to be scrupulously honest in this sense so 
 long as the doctrine of caveat emptor lies at the 
 foundation of the law and is sanctioned by general 
 practice. Now why should any man permit his eon- 
 science to trouble him when his practice conforms to 
 the legal standards and commercial usage? Why 
 may not he say when he enters upon commercial life 
 — 'This is a game to be played under certain rules 
 laid down by the law. Aside from legal restrictions 
 or rules, there are, then, no enforcible regulations, 
 hence it is understood by all in the game that liberty 
 is given to employ every artifice and ingenuity to 
 win, which is not prohibited. The law can always 
 be changed by the people if found not sufficiently re- 
 strictive to ensure such fairness of dealing as indi- 
 vidual and public good require.' " 
 
 Jones: "Do you mean to say that no man can be 
 scrupulously honest and be successful in trade?" 
 
 Brown: "No — but I mean to say that a man of 
 only average ability and aptitude for the business 
 will ordinarily fail if he be scrupulously honest." 
 
 Smith: "Would you teach this belief of yours in 
 the schools?" 
 
 Brown: "Not in form at least, but I would at all 
 stages in the education of youth enforce the idea that 
 no one can safely rely upon or can expect scrupulous 
 honesty of another, and that he should depend upon 
 himself for success." 
 
 Jones: "In other words, you wouldn't teach him 
 that he ought not to be scrupulously honest, but you 
 would impress him with the folly of it." 
 
 Brown: "Not even so far as that, Mr. Jones. I 
 would impress him with the folly of depending upon 
 or relying upon scrupulous honesty in another. This 
 is only fair to youth and failure to go as far is to send 
 him forth in the world unarmed for its battles. If 
 
84 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 he is made to understand what is before him, and still 
 believes that he can be scrupulously honest and suc- 
 ceed, let him go to it. If he has extraordinary nat- 
 ural capacity or extraordinary industry-, he may pos- 
 sibly succeed." 
 
 Jones: "Then only extraordinary natural capac- 
 ity or extraordinary application, or both, will ^ve 
 the man of scrupulous honesty any chance in this 
 wicked world, and it is clear that the man of ordinary 
 capacity cannot afford to be scrupulously honest. It 
 may be a sound doctrine, but it sounds unlovely and 
 is certainly unchristian." 
 
 Brown: "It may be unchristian, but you must not 
 overlook the fact that this is not a Christian nation 
 and that our laws and customs are not Christian laws 
 and customs. 
 
 ' ' I am speaking of the proper education for a youth 
 who must live in a non-Christian country among non- 
 Christian people. The teachings of Christ were not 
 intended for a world that was to continue for 1900 
 years, nor were they so understood by the apostles 
 or early Christians. As a system of theology the 
 Christian religion has continued to this day, but the 
 distinctively Christian rules of conduct were quickly 
 abandoned as soon as it was perceived that the world 
 was not promptly coming to an end. 
 
 "Do good to them that despitefully use you. If a 
 man take thy coat, give him thy cloak also. If he 
 smite thee on one cheek, turn the other. These were 
 never accepted in good faith except by very early 
 Christians. Neither the Catholic Church nor any of 
 the Protestant churches have ever failed to show their 
 disbelief in the soundness of these teachings, and, in- 
 deed, their contempt for the same, except perhaps in 
 the instance of some few minor (and in the common 
 judgment foolish) unorthodox groups such as the 
 
THE EIGHTH MEETING 85 
 
 Quakers. Although their religion teaches that the ob- 
 servance of these rules is essential to the salvation of 
 their immortal souls, they don't believe it. They 
 don't even believe in the immortality of the soul." 
 
 Jones: ''You are not a Christian, I take it, and 
 don't believe in giving the young religious instruc- 
 tion." 
 
 Brown : "I believe in not teaching obviously false 
 doctrines and believe in teaching the truth, but above 
 all I believe in teaching youth to seek the truth. I 
 don't believe in teaching doctrines that nobody be- 
 lieves in. It isn't necessary to teach children that the 
 distinctive Christian morality furnishes no practical 
 rules for life. They know better from the time they 
 leave the cradle. No amount of teaching by parents 
 or priests has ever converted one child in a thousand 
 to a belief in the wisdom of the precepts of Christ that 
 I have quoted, yet such is the effect upon our impres- 
 sionable youth of teaching by priests and educators 
 that most of us feel that we are not wholly good when 
 we violate them. 
 
 "Now this I regard as an unmixed evil. Whenever 
 you make a law that cannot be observed by reasonable 
 people; whenever you lay down a moral doctrine or 
 precept for conduct that nobody can or will comply 
 with — you are making the world worse instead of 
 better. Any man who deliberately does an act which 
 he helieves to be wrong is harmed although the act be 
 in fact innocuous, or perhaps beneficial and altogether 
 good and commendable. If a man takes a dollar that 
 he believes belongs to another, he becomes a thief al- 
 though it turn out that the dollar was really his own. 
 So any man who does any act that he believes to be 
 wrong is morally damaged, though there be no other 
 harm done. We should be careful therefore not to 
 teach that acts are wrong which all men in our state 
 
86 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 of civilization will be practically compelled to do in 
 order to live." 
 
 Jones : ' ' Then you are for lowering our present 
 standard of morality?" 
 
 Brown: "I don't consider that a standard is low- 
 ered in any fair sense when hypocrisy is dropped and 
 it conforms to the general opinion of what is justi- 
 fiable in the times in which we live. We will not 
 cease to condemn murder, theft, arson or bearing false 
 witness when we teach that it is justifiable and right- 
 eous for a man to act in self-defense to the point of 
 killing his enemy if necessary to save his own life, and 
 making the punishment fit the crime, where the injury 
 is of less consequence. I insist that the legal standard 
 is the only one by which a man's conduct can prop- 
 erly be judged by others or liimself, and if a man shall 
 conform to the law he will be sufficiently good for this 
 world, and to be better than that is to be too good for 
 this world. 
 
 "When it is considered that any interference with 
 a man's health, liberty or property is prohibited by 
 law and that all forms of misrepresentation and de- 
 ceit are condemned by the law where they work injury, 
 and that in all trust relations the utmost good faith 
 and fidelity to that trust are exacted, it would seem 
 that one conforming to such laws needs not be troubled 
 in his conscience because he insists that others shall 
 do likewise. He need not turn the other cheek. It 
 is not manly, decent, nor the act of a good citizen to 
 turn the other cheek. It may be prudent to run away, 
 but it is assinine to remain for the purpose of turning 
 the other cheek. 
 
 "Do unto others as you would have them do unto 
 you. Sound sense or not according to the interpreta- 
 tion put upon it. As ordinarily interpreted it is 
 foolish and harmful advice. But if it could be taken 
 
THE EIGHTH MEETING 87 
 
 to mean that you should accord to others freely the 
 right to treat you as you treat them, it is unobjection- 
 able, for no man has any right to insist that others 
 shall be bound by more strict rules than himself in 
 like circumstances." 
 
 Jones : ' ' IMr. Brown, while much that you say con- 
 cerning the conditions of business success is no doubt 
 true, the whole effect of your discourse is depressing 
 and discouraging and I don't know of anything that 
 would be more likely to convert a band of hopeful 
 young men into a lot of cynical damned rascals than 
 to have you for their instructor in morals and ad- 
 visor upon conduct at an impressionable age. I'm 
 sorry that I can 't disagree with you in toto as to what 
 is the generally accepted code of business morality 
 amongst business men. But what is that code as you 
 expound it? Simply this: the law contains com- 
 plete definition of right and wrong in business trans- 
 actions. If a man's conscience troubles him respect- 
 ing his conduct where the law does not condemn it, his 
 conscience is necessarily at fault and he not only im- 
 perils his business career by regarding it, but is acting 
 upon a false standard of morals. Now it may be that 
 a scrupulously honest man is at a disadvantage when 
 dealing with a body of business men who accept and 
 act upon your views, but you go to the length of as- 
 serting that it is right for business men generally to 
 look at the law alone for the test of the righteousness 
 of their transactions. You discard conscience entirely 
 and a man's personal convictions, and lay it down 
 that no man need be, and no wise man will be, any 
 better than the law as promulgated by legislative high 
 priests educated in the school that has produced you. 
 That for a man to have a conscience which requires 
 anything finer than this is mistake for him and the 
 result of pernicious teaching in early youth of the 
 
88 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 
 
 golden rule and other impracticable and therefore 
 wicked doctrines. 
 
 ' ' What warrant have you for saying that the stand- 
 ard of business morality must always remain w^here 
 it now is ? You suggest that as the public demands a 
 more exacting standard the public voice will find its 
 expression in the law. But what hope is there that 
 there will ever be any public demand for improvement 
 if youth be not taught that a higher standard is de- 
 sirable and may become practicable? 
 
 * ' Is it true that the golden rule requires a course of 
 conduct impossible to man in a social state? Would 
 the human race perish if the golden rule were adopted 
 and acted upon by all men? You and philosophers 
 of your school answer that trade — exchange — neces- 
 sarily involves a loss to one of the parties to it and 
 cannot be beneficial to both. The truth, of course, is 
 that one man's loss is not necessarily another man's 
 gain and that one man's gain is not necessarily an- 
 other man's loss. When the shoemaker makes the 
 doctor a new pair of shoes and in return the doctor 
 attends and cures the shoemaker's sick child, a good 
 man's feet are better protected from flints and from 
 the wet, and his health is preserved to the great ad- 
 vantage of the whole community ; while the shoemaker 
 has restored to him what is of greater value to him 
 than all of the shoes in the world. 
 
 "You will not deny that if all men were to observe 
 the golden rule, the plow would still turn the soil and 
 ships would still plow the oceans carrying the produce 
 of one land to another. And you wull further admit 
 that labor would receive a just recompense and the 
 wealth of the world be equitably distributed amongst 
 its inhabitants. 
 
 "I say that the golden rule prescribes the only prac- 
 ticable rule for a social state. Civilization is a failure 
 
THE EIGHTH MEETING 89 
 
 just in-so-far as the rule is departed from, and chil- 
 dren should be taught this fundamental truth and led 
 to see that it is a fundamental condition of right liv- 
 ing. Nor will a young man who is fully persuaded of 
 this be a mollycoddle or impracticable fool. He will 
 have a proper sense of justice. He will not turn the 
 other cheek. He will not give his cloak also. In my 
 opinion there is nothing impracticable to-day in busi- 
 ness in doing unto others what you would have them 
 do unto you. I grant you that the man who wants to 
 swindle his neighbors must reject the golden rule, but 
 it doesn't follow that the man who accepts the golden 
 rule will submit to be swindled or is any more likely 
 to be swindled than the man who thinks honesty in 
 man is non-existent or impracticable." 
 
 Smith: "I call your attention, gentlemen, to the 
 hour of the night, — long past time to adjourn." 
 
 THE END 
 
015 9300997