Part 5

But it is time to get down to the point of our story. Martha has left the Hall. Poor Fred, in his bereavement, has taken pen in hand. We can see him, sitting at his desk down there in the ancient cellar, with all his emblems, souvenirs, and clippings posted up above him and an oblong of gold-and-green brightness shining down through the doorway from the leafy sunshine of the Square. We can see him talking it over with his comrades “the boys”--the State House carpenter and the gardeners, as they sit at their lunch in the cellar. There is the empty saucer, dry and dusty now; in the good old days Fred always brought in a little bottle of milk every morning for Martha. And this is what Fred writes us, word for word:

PHILA Aug 3, 21.

DEAR FRIEND: I thought I would write you a few lines to let you know that I am still at the Hall but the Black cat is gone--without a press agent Martha just became a cat the boys miss her as we had a bag of grass seed the mice got in and they have to hang their lunch on a string but we have a pair of Robbins that sing in the square they would not be long there if Martha was strolling around. We kept one of her kittens when I was on my vacation it was sent to the Morris Refuge with one of the men, on a Friday the next day he got a yellow slip (good bye). Lot of people ask me about her and a Friend of yours left this card: _Dear friend It looks as if Martha is going to have a family--Will you save me two kittens if they are black like their ma!_ But she did not have a black kitten so he did not get one.

She left them for a few days came back when they were sent away this was what got her in wrong, but when a fight between two Thomas cats on the lawn was pulled off Martha’s doom was sealed. She had the same sleek black coat the same bright eyes but she was in wrong with our Superintendant so I called up and had a boy from the cat home call for her they said it would cost 50 cents so I left the cents and the job of putting her in the basket to one of the men, but her picture is still on the wall.

We are making changes and repairs about the buildings if the tower would interest you would be pleased to take you up when over in Phila had a party from New York up and they said they knew you.

The old janitor lived in the tower because he had to ring the bell for fires funerals and most everything that went on they tell me one son was born there he had three children, the rafter alongside the open fireplace is burned and we found some old shoes worn by children under the floor, and some bones we thought ment a Crime but upon investigation turned out to be soup bones from Sheep Legs. This is about all. Your Friend

FRED ECKERSBERG Engineer, Independence Hall.

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ACCORDING TO HOYLE

“If it be true” (remarks old John Mistletoe, in his little known _Life of Edmund Hoyle_) “that a happy life leaves behind it little material for the biographer, and only those whose careers have been marked by the pangs of ambition and the wearinesses of achievement offer maxims for the moralist, then there is little to be said of Edmund Hoyle. And yet it is odd that a man whose name has become proverbial, who lived to the age of close upon a century (1672–1769), and who standardized and codified the chief social amusement of his age into an etiquette which remained unchanged for six generations--it is odd, I say, that this great peaceful benefactor has left so slight a trace in biographical annals. For I ask you, which of Hoyle’s contemporaries conferred a more placable and sedentary boon upon the world than he?”

“Hoyle” (continues Mr. Mistletoe) “was a man of very speechless humour. It was his wont to say that he had been lured into the study and metaphysic of whist because it was a silent game. As is well known, the game was originally called _whisk_; it was Mr. Hoyle who, by his continual utterance of the imperative and hushing monosyllable _Whist!_ when gaming with those whose tongues were apt to wag irrelevantly, caused the diversion, at first only in sport, and then in genuine earnest, to be rechristened. It was a sight not to be forgotten, by contemporary account, to see the Master (as he was known) sitting down at the Three Pigeons tavern for his afternoon rubber. The mornings he spent in tutoring wealthy ladies in the rudiments of the fashionable game, this being the chief source of his income. He was very particular, moreover, as to the standing and rank of his pupils; he was much in demand, and could afford to take only such students as satisfied his fastidious taste for youth and beauty. In fact, he anticipated the doctrine announced many years later by John Keats, who remarked, ‘I intend henceforth to have nothing to do with the society of ladies unless they be handsome. You lose time to no purpose.’

“It was, I repeat, an agreeable spectacle to witness the Master driving up to the Three Pigeons about the hour of (as we would now say) luncheon, in his white hackney coach with his emblem--the Ace of Hearts--blazoned on the panel. Before the gaming began he would always take a leisurely meal; indeed, it was his habit to say that no gentleman would ever spend less than three hours at the table. One of his humours was to insist that warm weather was dangerous to his constitution, and that in summer it was desirable to eat sparingly and with deliberation. On days that had, as someone has put it, the humidity of Uriah Heep, this was an example of his menu, which I have found filed in the old papers kept in the vaults of the Three Pigeons:

_Service to Mr. Edmund Hoyle, this 28th July 1730, on acct_:

_A capon broth, with toasted bread_

_A flagon of small ale_

_Fricassee of sweetbreads, with currant jelly_

_A flask of cool Canary_

_Rosted wild ducks, with cheesecake and parsnips_

_A jugg of malmsey, from the special butt_

_A sallet of shrimpes and candyed cherries_

_A hot rabbit pye, with buttered pease and a pottle of mulled claret_

_Rhubarbe pasty, with barley wine to ease Mr. Hoyle’s digestions_

_Plague water for the hott weather_

“Having done suitable homage to this judicious nourishment” (Mr. Mistletoe proceeds), “Mr. Hoyle would have brought to him his own yard of clay, which he would leisurely fill with the best pure Virginia leaf, gazing about him the while upon the impatient faces of his friends who were anxious to get to the cards. ‘Never indulge the carnal appetites immoderately in hot weather,’ he would say, blowing out a long blue whiff into the cool twilight of the old taproom, panelled in magnificent dark walnut. This was the last word uttered, for when the Master took his seat at the card table no man dared speak. A sacred quiet filled the place as he reached for the pasteboards and deftly cut for the deal, tossing back his lace cuffs over his lean yellowish wrists, the colour (he was something bilious) of old piano keys. The rest was silence, with only the fall of the cards and the occasional clink of a bottle when Mr. Hoyle refilled his vase of Burgundy, which he always drank while gaming. A life of abstemious control, he said, was needful for one who must keep his wits alert.”

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L. E. W.

We are continually obtaining new and piercing glimpses into human life and character. We are now able to assert, without fear of rebuttal, that even men of unblemished intellect and lofty, serene understanding have always some particular point of frailty at which morals, virtue, and integrity collapse in a dark confusion of spiritual wreckage.

Reconsidering the above sentence it seems to need a little clarification. We shall have to explain what we mean, and can only do so by referring, with painful verity, to the Leading Editorial Writer.

L. E. W. came into our kennel yesterday morning and saw lying on our desk a newly published detective novel that a publisher had sent us. “Oh,” he said, “What’s this?” and began looking it over. We were rather busy at the moment, and paid no particular heed, but looked up a minute later to see him slipping out of our hutch with the book under his arm.

“Here!” we cried, “what are you doing with that book?”

“I’m going to read it,” he said, with bland composure.

“Nothing doing,” we asserted sternly. “We began to read that in the subway this morning, and we’re just getting interested in it. You’ll have to wait until we’ve finished it.”

“But you can’t read it in the office,” he said; “you’re too busy.”

“So are you,” we replied; “but we’re going to read it to-night; after an exhausting day we shall need an innocent diversion of that sort.”

We did not think of it at the time, but we now remember that there was a curious evasive lustre in his eye. We wish we could make it plain to you how this person, generally a highly cultivated and responsible citizen, occasionally exhibits himself as naïvely unscrupulous, in a way so charming and unashamed that, with lesser men than ourself, he successfully gets away with it.

A little later in the day, again comes L. E. W. into our nook. He looks about in an absent-minded way, giving much the appearance of the _animula vagula blandula_ the Roman emperor told about. He made one or two random remarks, and seemed to be pretending that he had intended to say something important but had forgotten what it was. We may say that we penetrated his game immediately. We kept an eye on him, and as soon as he had retired we took the detective story and put several newspapers on top of it.

But after all, one cannot sit around the office all day watching the book one is saving for evening reading. By and by we had to go out to lunch, and thought no more of the matter until 5 o’clock. Then, hastily gathering our effects for the trek uptown, we looked for the novel. It was gone.

We could not quite believe it, at first. We thought we must have mislaid it somewhere on top of our desk. We rummaged briskly. No sign of it. With a sudden vile suspicion we ran to L. E. W.’s room. He was gone, too.

Well, we had to console ourself on the ride uptown by reading something else; but you know how it is--when you have set your heart on finishing a particular story....

This morning L. E. W. has just come into our coop, with his usual enigmatic smile, and laid the book before us. We assailed him with bitter reproach and contumely. But we made no impression on him. There is some mysterious knot of villainy in his bosom that leads him to believe that any detective story left within his reach.... Of course it is true that writing Leading Editorials for a number of years may well undermine a man’s character. But that is what we mean when we say that even men of unblemished intellect and lofty, serene understanding have always some particular point of frailty at which morals, virtue, and integrity collapse in a dark confusion of spiritual wreckage.

We haven’t mentioned the title of the book, because L. E. W. says it isn’t much good. But we are not certain whether that is not just his quaint way of trying to minify the gruesomeness of his offence. It is a perverted form of conscience: he thinks that if he tells us the book is punk we will not regret that our reading was brutally postponed. But we are going to tell him that he missed a trick there. It would have been much more in line with the delightful humour for which he is famous if he had said: “It’s a great yarn. You ought to read it.”

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OUR EXTENSION COURSE

This has been a pleasantly serene quiet morning in the office, and we have been sitting here tenderly educating ourself by studying the catalogue of University Extension Courses given at Columbia. We may not have admitted it before, but we are rather ambitious, and find a great deal in this fasciculus that appeals to our necessities.

Among the courses we should like to enroll in, first we come to _Business e163--Personnel methods for office executives_ (Fee $24). This would be highly advantageous to us, to teach us how to get along tactfully with office boys, proof-readers, leading editorial writers, and sudden, unexpected telephone calls. We look somewhat wistfully upon _Business e13--Advertising Display and Mechanics, and Business e17--Salesmanship_. (“The student is given a grounding in the principles of selling and practice in the presentation of a selling proposition from its inception in the customer’s mind throughout its development and final consummation as a sale.”) But the course for us, austerely denying ourself the lectures on _Advanced Advertising Writing_, is _Business e19-20--Sales promotion_ (Fee $24). This “includes a thorough study of merchandising, direction of a sales force, methods of breaking down sales resistance.” It specializes in “dealer helps” and regards “consumer advertising” as only secondary. We agree.

The Graduate Courses in Psychology of Advertising and Selling we feel are probably too advanced for us.

So we pass eagerly on to literary topics. _English elf-2f_ has an agreeably elvish sound--_Advanced short story writing_; but it’s a bit expensive (Fee $48. We might not get that much for the story after we had written it.). _Juvenile story writing_ is only $32; but we elect _English e3f-4f--Play Production_. The fee for that is only $24, which shows you how much money a lot of theatrical managers waste; moreover, it is held in the Attic of Hamilton Hall, which sounds very jolly. The Attic playwrights were always pretty good. And certainly we must have _English e11-12--Public speaking_, which is only $16, and gives us “drill in breathing, articulation, gesture and reading aloud, after-dinner speaking; how to stir the emotions and move to action.” Philosophy, of course, must not be neglected: we rather like the look of _Philosophy e135--Radical, conservative, and reactionary tendencies in present-day morals_, which seems to cover the ground. (Fee $24.) _Photoplay composition e3--Advanced course_ “deals with the finer phases of character delineation” (Fee $24) and ought to be a pleasant relaxation, for “Scenario editors and directors will address the students from time to time.” _Physical education eY1-Y2--Swimming_ ($16) will very happily conclude that part of our course.

A great need in our life would obviously be filled by _Secretarial Correspondence e2--Letter writing_ (Fee $24). This studies the methods adopted by “Huxley, Lanier, Lowell, Henry James, William James, Mark Twain, Cicero, Pliny the Younger, and the letter writers of the World War” in dealing with their correspondence. But we are anxious to get on to even more congenial subjects. _Cookery e3L--General Principles of cookery and their application. Lectures and laboratory work_ (Fee $30) appeals to us. Also _Cookery 41xL--Principles of candy making_ ($10) and _Cookery e75L--Large quantity cookery_ (Fee $30). The only difficulty here is that the costume required for laboratory courses in cooking is “white cotton clothing, plain skirt; tailored waist; plain white collar; long plain white apron with bib.” That presents difficulties.

We thought that we had outlined a very full curriculum for ourself, but then we see that our old friend Professor Roger Loomis is giving a course (_English eB10_) on _Argumentative writing_, “planned especially for those interested in the writing of editorials and controversial articles.” That certainly we must also have (Fee $24).

The total seems to be $270, and certainly the excitement sounds well worth it.

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SOME RECIPES

I. MULLED CIDER

On a clear, cold afternoon towards the end of October go to the Cider Mill at Jericho, Long Island, and obtain a gallon jug of cider.

Take this home and put in a cool place in the cellar, away from observation. Cider is rather a bold and forward beverage: ever since Eden was first established in an apple orchard the fruit has been tainted with a secret capsule of sin: it is well to let the jug work (in the fine old brewmaster’s sense of that word) in private, where its conduct need not be a source of scandal.

Drive the cork in as tightly as possible; but, since Man is no match for Nature, it will not be possible to prevent its extrusion. The best way to deal with this problem is to keep chained in the cellar a trained Cider Hound, a breed of dog known only on the North Shore of Long Island. This is an animal which, by long instruction, has been taught to howl when he hears the whoop of a cider cork blown out by accumulating gases. When the dog howls hasten to the cellar, restopper the jug, fondle the animal, and give him a small piece of Roquefort cheese to keep him keen.

Continue this process until the cider has worked for five days--not longer, or you may (like Faust) unchain dark forces with which you cannot cope. At the end of the Fifth Day release the animal and carry the jug upstairs.

Late that night, after the family has retired, pour a pint of cider into a saucepan and heat it--preferably over the glowing logs of a wood fire--until it steams. Then stir in three tablespoons of granulated sugar. Do not be startled by the violence of the foaming and hissing that ensues--this is only Nature at her inscrutable tasks of making life puzzling for dogmatists.

Into the steaming sweetened cider pour as much brandy from the family medicine chest as you think you can spare. If brandy is not obtainable, whiskey will serve. If whiskey is not obtainable, invite some friend who has recently made a transatlantic voyage and ask him to breathe gently upon the saucepan while it is heating.

Serve the beverage hot, and, while drinking, utter any toast or sentiment that is a favourite in your family. Reckon quantities at the rate of not more than one pint per person. Mulled cider is recommended during years of coal shortage, when the house may be chilly; but it is not to be trifled with save by the most hardy.

Before retiring walk three times round the house and try to name all the constellations. If you don’t know the names, give them new ones. This quiets the pulse.

(_P. S.--This is an old recipe, swallowed down through several generations, which accounts for some of its anachronisms._)

II. STEWED RHUBARB

Early in the spring buy a rhubarb root on Vesey Street. The root itself, an uncouth, gnarled object, is not beautiful, but it bears small red and yellow shoots that are highly decorative, like little Spanish flags.

This root must be planted in a churchyard, preferably Episcopalian, which gives the rhubarb a pleasantly Athanasian flavour, much esteemed by connoisseurs. We specially recommend St. Paul’s churchyard, partly because the high buildings round about keep the sharp winds of early spring away from the tender sprouts, but also because the pleasant hum of young women reading Keable and Ruby M. Ayres aloud at lunch time on the benches encourages the plant and hastens its growth.

The stalks must not be picked prematurely. Wait until they are a brilliant red. The best way to get this right is to test them with a leather-bound copy of one of Kipling’s books, in that scarlet leather edition. When the stalks are exactly the same colour as _Stalky & Co._, pick them.

Take them home, wash them, cut them into cylindrical lengths, and have them stewed in the usual manner.

III. HAGGIS AND BAGPIPES

Haggis should always be served with bagpipes. The reason for this will be explained later.

In our recipes we always try to give the easiest way in which our favourite dishes may be attained. The easiest way to enjoy Haggis is to enlist the assistance of a number of Scotsmen, who by tradition, training, temperament, and centuries of romantic strife have fitted themselves to prepare and eat this sovereign piece of resistance.

Make friends, therefore, with as many prominent local Scots as possible. Season the mixture by adding a few directors of some well-known Scottish steamship companies. These friendships must be cultivated gently and cannot be unduly hurried. Subscribe to the _Caledonian_ or some other Scottish-American magazine. Eventually, if all goes well, you may be invited to a dinner of the Caledonian Club or the St. Andrews Society, or a luncheon on an Anchor Line steamship. At this dinner The Haggis will be served.

The bagpipes are for the purpose of muffling any metaphysical argument that may arise round the tables, and also to drown out any stories that begin “There was a man frae Aberdeen----”

Do not ask your neighbour at table why it is that the pipes always play the same tune. If you do, you will not be invited again. It is better to garnish the occasion with a few carefully chosen Scottish phrases--such as _’Tis a braw day the day_; _I’ll no can keep that appointment for three o’clock_; _Let the world gang tapsalteerie_; _Whaur’s Wullie Shaksper noo?_

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ADVENTURES OF A CURRICULAR ENGINEER

Having made up our mind to become an engineer, we thought it would be a mistake not to take advantage of all possible aid. We were passing the corner of Church and Fulton streets just now when we saw, in a drugstore, a fair young lady sitting in the window conducting a demonstration of Violet Rays. She wore a most appealing expression, held in her hand a glass tube with a bulbous end which was filled with pale blue electrical excitement, and was displaying various placards inviting the public to enjoy a free treatment of the Violet Ray. This Ray, her placards said, confers all imaginable pleasures and animations upon the user. It subdues inflammations and tumescences; it imparts the vigorous glow of health and beauty; it dispels lethargy and that Omar Khayyám kind of feeling that we get on a warm day in spring; it confers (so we gathered) all the benefits of Pelmanism without having to read George Creel’s little essays.

A large crowd of loitering gentry stood at the window watching the lady who was applying the Violet Ray to her own person and getting more seemly every moment. But none of them, self-satisfied chaps apparently, seemed eager to try the effect of the sparks when she pushed them towards the pane. But we, in our humility, feeling the need of greater ambition and resoluteness, offered our hand to the thunder-stone and absorbed as much of the life-giving current as she was willing to give away. We felt sure, somehow, that the Violet Ray would help us in learning to understand our new self-propelled vehicle. (We have to call it that, for to call it a _car_ is a little too imposing; and to call it a flivver is a little too degraded; besides, it isn’t. Hereafter we shall call her by her given name, which is Dame Quickly.)