"I wish I were beginning life all over again," said the Idiot one spring
morning, as he took his accustomed place at Mrs. Pedagog's table.
"I wish you were," said Mr. Pedagog from behind his newspaper. "Then your
parents would have you shut up in a nursery, and it is even conceivable
that you would be receiving those disciplinary attentions with a slipper
that you seem to me so frequently to deserve, were you at this present
moment in the nursery stage of your development."
"My!" ejaculated the Idiot. "What a wonder you are, Mr. Pedagog! It is a
good thing you are not a justice in a criminal court."
"And what, may I venture to ask," said Mr. Pedagog, glancing at the Idiot
over his spectacles--"what has given rise to that extraordinary remark,
the connection of which with anything that has been said or done this
morning is distinctly not apparent?"
"I only meant that a man who was so given over to long sentences as you
are would probably make too severe a judge in a criminal court," replied
the Idiot, meekly. "Do you make use of the same phraseology in the
class-room that you dazzle us with, I should like to know?"
"And why not, pray?" said Mr. Pedagog.
"No special reason," said the Idiot; "only it does seem to me that an
instructor of youth ought to be more careful in his choice of adverbs
than you appear to be. Of course Doctor Bolus here is under no obligation
to speak more grammatically or correctly than he does. People call him in
to prescribe, not to indulge in rhetorical periods, and he can write his
prescriptions in a sort of intuitive Latin and nobody be the wiser, but
you, who are said to be sowing the seeds of knowledge in the brain of
youth, should be more careful."
"Hear the grammarian talk!" returned Mr. Pedagog. "Listen to this
embryonic Samuel Johnson the Second. What have I said that so offends the
linguistic taste of Lindley Murray, Jun.?"
"Nothing," returned the Idiot. "I cannot say that you have said anything.
I never heard you say anything in my life; but while you can no doubt
find good authority for making use of the words 'distinctly not
apparent,' you ought not to throw such phrases around carelessly. The
thing which is distinct is apparent, therefore to say 'distinctly not
apparent' to a mind that is not given to analysis sounds strange. You
might as well say of a beautiful girl that she is plainly pretty, meaning
of course that she is evidently pretty; but those who are unacquainted
with the idiomatic peculiarities of your speech might ask you if you
meant that she was pretty in a plain sort of way. Suppose, too, you were
writing a novel, and, in a desire to give your reader a fair idea of the
personal appearance of a homely but good creature, you should say, 'It
cannot be denied that Rosamond Follansbee was pretty plain?' It wouldn't
take a very grave error of the types to change your entire meaning. To
save a line on a page, for instance, it might become necessary to
eliminate a single word; and if that word should chance to be the word
'plain' in the sentence I have given, your homely but good person would
be set down as being undeniably pretty. Which shows, it seems to me, that
too great care cannot be exercised in the making of selections from our
vocabu--"
"You are the worst I _ever_ knew!" snapped Mr. Pedagog.
"Which only proves," observed the Idiot, "that you have not heeded the
Scriptural injunction that you should know thyself. Are those buckwheat
cakes or doilies?"
Whether the question was heard or not is not known. It certainly was not
answered, and silence reigned for a few minutes. Finally Mrs. Pedagog
spoke, and in the manner of one who was somewhat embarrassed. "I am in an
embarrassing position," said she.
"Good!" said the Idiot, _sotto-voce_, to the genial gentleman who
occasionally imbibed. "There is hope for the landlady yet. If she can be
embarrassed she is still human--a condition I was beginning to think she
wotted not of."
"She whatted what?" queried the genial gentleman, not quite catching the
Idiot's words.
"Never mind," returned the Idiot. "Let's hear how she ever came to be
embarrassed."
"I have had an application for my first-floor suite, and I don't know
whether I ought to accept it or not," said the landlady.
"She has a conscience, too," whispered the Idiot; and then he added,
aloud, "And wherein lies the difficulty, Mrs. Pedagog?"
"The applicant is an actor; Junius Brutus Davenport is his name."
"A tragedian or a comedian?" asked the Bibliomaniac.
"Or first walking gentleman, who knows every railroad tie in the
country?" put in the Idiot.
"That I do not know," returned the landlady. "His name sounds familiar
enough, though. I thought perhaps some of you gentlemen might know of
him."
"I have heard of Junius Brutus," observed the Doctor, chuckling slightly
at his own humor, "and I've heard of Davenport, but Junius Brutus
Davenport is a combination with which I am not familiar."
"Well, I can't see why it should make any difference whether the man is a
tragedian, or a comedian, or a familiar figure to railroad men," said Mr.
Whitechoker, firmly. "In any event, he would be an extremely objec--"
"It makes a great deal of difference," said the Idiot. "I've met
tragedians, and I've met comedians, and I've met New York Central stars,
and I can assure you they each represent a distinct type. The tragedians,
as a rule, are quiet meek individuals, with soft low voices, in private
life. They are more timid than otherwise, though essentially amiable.
I knew a tragedian once who, after killing seventeen Indians, a
road-agent, and a gross of cowboys between eight and ten P.M.
every night for sixteen weeks, working six nights a week, was afraid of a
mild little soft-shell crab that lay defenceless on a plate before him on
the evening of the seventh night of the last week. Tragedians make
agreeable companions, I can tell you; and if J. Brutus Davenport is a
tragedian, I think Mrs. Pedagog would do well to let him have the suite,
provided, of course, that he pays for it in advance."
"I was about to observe, when our friend interrupted me," said Mr.
Whitechoker, with dignity, "that in any event an actor at this board
would be to me an extremely objec--"
"Now the comedians," resumed the Idiot, ignoring Mr. Whitechoker's
remark--"the comedians are very different. They are twice as bloodthirsty
as the murderers of the drama, and, worse than that, they are given to
rehearsing at all hours of the day and night. A tragedian is a hard
character only on the stage, but the comedian is the comedian always.
If we had one of those fellows in our midst, it would not be very long
before we became part of the drama ourselves. Mrs. Pedagog would find
herself embarrassed once an hour, instead of, as at present, once a
century. Mr. Whitechoker would hear of himself as having appeared by
proxy in a roaring farce before our comedian had been with us two months.
The wise sayings of our friend the School-Master would be spoken nightly
from the stage, to the immense delight of the gallery gods, and to the
edification of the orchestra circle, who would wonder how so much
information could have got into the world and they not know it before.
The out-of-town papers would literally teem with witty extracts from our
comedian's plays, which we should immediately recognize as the dicta of
my poor self."
[Illustration: "THEY ARE GIVEN TO REHEARSING AT ALL HOURS"]
"All of which," put in Mr. Whitechoker, "but proves the truth of my
assertion that such a person would be an extremely objec--"
"Then, as I said before," continued the Idiot, "he is continually
rehearsing, and his objectionableness as a fellow-boarder would be
greater or less, according to his play. If he were impersonating a
shiftless wanderer, who shows remarkable bravery at a hotel fire, we
should have to be prepared at any time to hear the fire-engines rushing
up to the front door, and to see our comedian scaling the fire-escape
with Mrs. Pedagog and her account-books in his arms, simply in the line
of rehearsal. If he were impersonating a detective after a criminal
masquerading as a good citizen, the School-Master would be startled some
night by a hoarse voice at his key-hole exclaiming: 'Ha! ha! I have him
now. There is no escape save by the back window, and that's so covered
o'er with dust 'twere suffocation sure to try it.' I hesitate to say what
would happen if he were a tank comedian."
[Illustration: "'HA! HA! I HAVE HIM NOW!'"]
"Perhaps," said Mr. Whitechoker, with a trifle more impatience than was
compatible with his calling--"perhaps you will hesitate long enough for
me to state what I have been trying to state ever since this soliloquy
of yours began--that in any event, whether this person be a tragedian, or
a comedian, or a walking gentleman, or a riding gentleman in a circus, I
object to his being admitted to this circle, and I deem it well to say
right here that as he comes in at the front door I go out at the back. As
a clergyman, I do not approve of the stage."
"That ought to settle it," said the Idiot. "Mr. Whitechoker is too good
a friend to us all here for us to compel him to go out of that back door
into the rather limited market-garden Mrs. Pedagog keeps in the yard. My
indirect plea for the admission of Mr. Junius Brutus Davenport was based
entirely upon my desire to see this circle completed or nearer completion
than it is at present. We have all the professions represented here but
the stage, and why exclude it, granting that no one objects? The men
whose lives are given over to the amusement of mankind, and who are
willing to place themselves in the most outrageous situations night after
night in order that we may for the time being seem to be lifted out of
the unpleasant situations into which we have got ourselves, are in my
opinion doing a noble work. The theatre enables us to woo forgetfulness
of self successfully for a few brief hours, and I have seen the time when
an hour or two of relief from actual cares has resulted in great good.
Nevertheless, the gentleman is not elected; and if Mrs. Pedagog will
kindly refill my cup, I will ask you to join me in draining a toast to
the health of the pastor of this flock, whose conscience, paradoxical as
it may seem, is the most frequently worn and yet the least thread-bare
of the consciences represented at this table."
This easy settlement of her difficulty was so pleasing to Mrs. Pedagog
that the Idiot's request was graciously acceded to, and Mr. Whitechoker's
health was drank in coffee, after which the Idiot requested the genial
gentleman who occasionally imbibed to join him privately in eating
buckwheat cakes to the health of Mr. Davenport.
"I haven't any doubt that he is worthy of the attention," he said; "and
if you will lend me the money to buy the tickets, I'll take you around
to the Criterion to-night, where he is playing. I don't know whether he
plays Hamlet or A Hole in the Roof; but, at any rate, we can have a good
time between the acts."