Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

CHAPTER VI.

THE EDITOR OF THE PATRIOT.

The editor of the village paper, The Patriot and Advertiser, is Major Slott; and a very clever journalist he is. Even his bitterest adversary, the editor of The Evening Mail, in the town above us on the river, admits that. In the last political campaign, indeed, The Mail undertook to tell how it was that the major acquired such a taste for journalism. The story was that shortly after he was born the doctor ordered that the baby should be fed upon goat's milk. This was procured from a goat that was owned by an Irish woman who lived in the rear of the office of The Weekly Startler and fed her goat chiefly upon the exchanges which came to that journal. The consequence, according to The Mail, was that young Slott was fed entirely upon milk formed from digested newspapers; and he throve on it, although when the Irish woman mixed the Democratic journals carelessly with the Whig papers they disagreed after they were eaten, and the milk gave the baby colic. Old Slott intended the boy to be a minister; but as soon as he was old enough to take notice he cried for every newspaper that he happened to see, and no sooner did he learn how to write than he began to slash off editorials upon "The Need of Reform," etc. He ran away from school four times to enter a newspaper office, and finally, when the paternal Slott put him in the House of Refuge, he started a weekly in there, and called it the House of Refuge Record; and one day he slid over the wall and went down to the Era office, where he changed his name to Blott, and began his career on that paper with an article on "Our Reformatory Institutions for the Young." Then old Slott surrendered to what seemed to be a combination of manifest destiny and goat's milk, and permitted him to pursue his profession. The major, The Mail alleges, has the instinct so strong that if he should fall into the crater of Vesuvius his first thought on striking bottom would be to write to somebody to ask for a free pass to come out with. "But," continued The Mail, "you would hardly believe this story if you ever read The Patriot. We often suspect, when we are looking over that sheet, that the nurse used to mix the goat's milk with an unfair proportion of water."

The major has a weekly edition in which he publishes serial stories of a stirring character, and he is always looking out for good ones. Recently a tale was submitted by a certain Mr. Stack, a young man who had high ambition without much experience as a writer of fiction. After waiting a long while and hearing nothing about the story, Mr. Stack concluded to call upon the major in order to ascertain why that narrative had not attracted attention. When Stack mentioned his errand, the major reached for the manuscript; and looking very solemn, he said,

"Mr. Stack, I don't think I can accept this story. In some respects it is really wonderful; but I am afraid that if I published it, it would attract almost too much attention. People would get too wild over it. We have to be careful. For instance, here in the first chapter you mention the death of Mrs. McGinnis, the hero's mother. She dies; you inter Mrs. McGinnis in the cemetery; you give an affecting scene at the funeral; you run up a monument over her and plant honeysuckle upon her grave. You create in the reader's mind a strong impression that Mrs. McGinnis is thoroughly dead. And yet, over here in the twenty-second chapter, you make a man named Thompson fall in love with her, and she is married to him, and she goes skipping around through the rest of the story as lively as a grasshopper, and you all the time alluding to Thompson as her second husband. You see that kind of thing won't do. It excites remark. Readers complain about it."

"You don't say I did that? Well, now, do you know I was thinking all the time that it was Mr. McGinnis that I buried in the first chapter? I must have got them mixed up somehow."

"And then," continued the major, "when you introduce the hero, you mention that he has but one arm, having lost the other in battle. But in chapter twelve you run him through a saw-mill by an accident, and you mention that he lost an arm there, too. And yet in the nineteenth chapter you say, 'Adolph rushed up to Mary, threw his arms about her, and clasped her to his bosom;' and then you go on to relate how he sat down at the piano in the soft moonlight and played one of Beethoven's sonatas 'with sweet poetic fervor.' Now, the thing, you see, don't dovetail. Adolph couldn't possibly throw his arms around Mary if one was buried in the field of battle and the other was minced up in a saw-mill, and he couldn't clasp her to his bosom unless he threw a lasso with his teeth and hauled her in by swallowing the slack of the rope. As for the piano—well, you know as well as I do that an armless man can't play a Beethoven sonata unless he knows how to perform on the instrument with his nose, and in that case you insult the popular intelligence when you talk about 'sweet poetic fervor.' I have my fingers on the public pulse, and I know they won't stand it."

"Well, well," said Stack, "I don't know how I ever came to—"

"Let me direct your attention to another incendiary matter," interrupted the major. "In the first love-scene between Adolph and—and—let me see—what's her name?—Mary—you say that 'her liquid blue eye rested softly upon him as he poured forth the story of his love, and its azure was dimmed by a flood of happy tears.' Well, sir, about twenty pages farther on, where the villain insults her, you observe that her black eyes flashed lightning at him and seemed to scorch him where he stood. Now, let me direct attention to the fact that if the girl's eyes were blue they couldn't be black; and if you mean to convey the impression that she had one blue eye and one black eye, and that she only looked softly at Adolph out of the off eye, while the near eye roamed around, not doing anything in particular, why, she is too phenomenal for a novel, and only suitable for a place in the menagerie by the side of the curiosities. And then you say that although her eye was liquid yet it scorched the villain. People won't put up with that kind of thing. It makes them delirious and murderous."

"Too bad!" said Stack. "I forgot what I'd said about her eyes when I wrote that scene with the villain."

"And here, in the twentieth chapter, you say that Magruder was stabbed with a bowie-knife in the hands of the Spaniard, and in the next chapter you give an account of the post-mortem examination, and make the doctors hunt for the bullet and find it embedded in his liver. Even patient readers can't remain calm under such circumstances. They lose control of themselves."

"It's unfortunate," said Stack.

"Now, the way you manage the Browns in the story is also exasperating. First you represent Mrs. Brown as taking her twins around to church to be christened. In the middle of the book you make Mrs. Brown lament that she never had any children, and you wind up the story by bringing in Mrs. Brown with her grandson in her arms just after having caused Mr. Brown to state to the clergyman that the only child he ever had died in his fourth year. Just think of the effect of such a thing on the public mind! Why, this story would fill all the insane asylums in the country."

"Those Browns don't seem to be very definite, somehow," said Stack, thoughtfully.

"Worst of all," said major, "in chapter thirty-one you make the lovers resolve upon suicide, and you put them in a boat and drift them over Niagara Falls. Twelve chapters farther on you suddenly introduce them walking in the twilight in a leafy lane, and although afterward she goes into a nunnery and takes the black veil because he has been killed by pirates in the Spanish West Indies, in the next chapter to the last you have a scene where she goes to a surprise-party at the Presbyterian minister's and finds him there making arrangements for the wedding as if nothing had ever happened; and then, after you disclose the fact that she was a boy in disguise, and not a woman at all, you marry them to each other, and represent the boy heroine as giving her blessing to her daughter. Oh, it's awful—awful! It won't do. It really won't. You'd better go into some other kind of business, Mr. Stack."

Then Stack took his manuscript and went home to fix it up so as to make the story run together better. The Patriot will not publish it even if Stack reconstructs it.

* * * * *

Major Slott, like most other editors, is continually persecuted by bores, but recently he was the victim of a peculiarly dastardly attack from a person of this class. While he was sitting in the office of the Patriot, writing an editorial about "Our Grinding Monopolies," he suddenly became conscious of the presence of a fearful smell. He stopped, snuffed the air two or three times, and at last lighted a cigar to fumigate the room. Then he heard footsteps upon the stairs, and as they drew nearer the smell grew stronger. When it had reached a degree of intensity that caused the major to fear that it might break some of the furniture, there was a knock at the door. Then a man entered with a bundle under his arm, and as he did so the major thought that he had never smelt such a fiendish smell in the whole course of his life. He held his nose; and when the man saw the gesture, he said,

"I thought so; the usual effect. You hold it tight while I explain."

"What hab you god id that buddle?" asked the major.

"That, sir," said the man, "is Barker's Carbolic Disinfecting Door-mat. I am Barker, and this is the mat. I invented it, and it's a big thing."

"Is id thad thad smells so thudderig bad?" asked the major, with his nostrils tightly shut.

"Yes, sir; smells very strong, but it's a healthy smell. It's invigorating. It braces the system. I'll tell you—"

"Gid oud with the blabed thig!" exclaimed the major.

"I must tell you all about it first. I called to explain it to you. You see I've been investigating the causes of epidemic diseases. Some scientists think they are spread by molecules in the air; others attribute them to gases generated in the sewers; others hold that they are conveyed by contagion; but I—"

"Aid you goig to tague thad idferdal thig away frob here?" asked the major.

"But I have discovered that these diseases are spread by the agency of door-mats. Do you understand? Door-mats! And I'll explain to you how it's done. Here's a man who's been in a house where there's disease. He gets it on his boots. The leather is porous, and it becomes saturated. He goes to another house and wipes his boots on the mat. Now, every man who uses that mat must get some of the stuff on his boots, and he spreads it over every other door-mat that he wipes them on. Now, don't he?"

"Why dode you tague thad sbell frob udder by dose?"

"Well, then, my idea is to construct a door-mat that will disinfect those boots. I do it by saturating the mat with carbolic acid and drying it gradually. I have one here prepared by my process. Shall I unroll it?"

"If you do, I'll blow your braids out!" shouted the major.

"Oh, very well, then. Now, the objection to this beautiful invention is that it possesses a very strong and positive odor."

"I'll bed it does," said the major.

[Illustration: THE CARBOLIC DOOR-MAT]

"And as this is offensive to many persons, I give to each purchaser a 'nose-guard,' which is to be worn upon the nose while in a house where the carbolic mat is placed. This nose-guard is filled with a substance which completely neutralizes the smell, and it has only one disadvantage. Now, what is that?"

"Are you goig to quid and led me breathe, or are you goig to stay here all day log?"

"Have patience, now; I'm coming to the point. I say, what is that? It is that the neutralizing substance in the nose-guard evaporates too quickly. And how do I remedy that? I give to every man who buys a mat and a nose-guard two bottles of 'neutralizer.' What it is composed of is a secret. But the bottles are to be carried in the pocket, so as to be ready for every emergency. The disadvantage of this plan consists of the fact that the neutralizer is highly explosive, and if a man should happen to sit down on a bottle of it in his coat-tail pocket suddenly it might hist him through the roof. But see how beautiful my scheme is."

"Oh, thudder add lightnig! aid you ever goig to quid?"

"See how complete it is! By paying twenty dollars additional, every man who takes a mat has his life protected in the Hopelessly Mutual Accident Insurance Company, so that it really makes no great difference whether he is busted through the shingles or not. Now, does it?"

"Oh, dode ask me. I dode care a ced about id, adyway."

"Well, then, what I want you to do is to give me a first-rate notice in your paper, describing the invention, giving the public some general notion of its merits and recommending its adoption into general use. You give me a half-column puff, and I'll make the thing square by leaving you one of the mats, with a couple of bottles of the neutralizer and a nose-guard. I'll leave them now."

"Whad d'you say?"

"I say I'll just leave you a mat and the other fixings for you to look over at your leisure."

"You biserable scoundrel, if you lay wod ob those blasted thigs dowd here, I'll burder you od the spod! I wod stad such foolishness."

"Won't you notice it, either?"

"Certaidly nod. I woulded do id for ten thousad dollars a lide."

"Well, then, let it alone; and I hope one of those epidemic diseases will get you and lay you up for life."

As Mr. Barker withdrew, Major Slott threw up the windows, and after catching his breath, he called down stairs to a reporter,

"Perkins, follow that man and hear what he's got to say, and then blast him in a column of the awfulest vituperation you know how to write."

Perkins obeyed orders, and now Barker has a libel suit pending against The Patriot, while the carbolic mat has not yet been introduced to this market.

* * * * *

Mr. Barker was not a more agreeable visitor than the book-canvasser who, upon the same day, circulated about the village. He came into my office with a portfolio under his arm. Placing it upon the table, removing a ruined hat, and wiping his nose upon a ragged handkerchief that had been so long out of wash that it was positively gloomy, he said,

"Mister, I'm canvassing for the National Portrait Gallery; splendid work; comes in numbers, fifty cents apiece. Contains pictures of all the great American heroes from the earliest times to the present day. Everybody's subscribing for it, and I want to see if I can't take your name.

"Now, just cast your eyes over that," he said, opening his book and pointing to an engraving. "That's—lemme see—yes, that's Columbus. Perhaps you've heard sumfin about him? The publisher was telling me to-day, before I started out, that he discovered—No; was it Columbus that dis—Oh yes! Columbus, he discovered America. Was the first man here. He came over in a ship, the publisher said, and it took fire, and he stayed on deck because his father told him to, if I remember right; and when the old thing busted to pieces, he was killed. Handsome picture, ain't it? Taken from a photograph; all of 'em are; done specially for this work. His clothes are kinder odd, but they say that's the way they dressed in those days.

"Look here at this one. Now, isn't that splendid? William Penn; one of the early settlers. I was reading the other day about him; when he first arrived, he got a lot of Indians up a tree, and when they'd shook some apples down, he set one on top of his son's head and shot an arrow plumb through it, and never fazed him. They say it struck them Indians cold, he was such a terrific shooter. Fine countenance, hasn't he? Face shaved clean; he didn't wear a mustache, I believe, but he seems to've let himself out on hair. Now, my view is that every man ought to have a picture of that patriarch, so's to see how the first settlers looked and what kind of weskits they used to wear. See his legs, too! Trousers a little short, maybe, as if he was going to wade in a creek; but he's all there. Got some kind of a paper in his hand, I see. Subscription list, I reckon.

"Now, how does that strike you? There's something nice. That, I think, is—is—that is—a—a—yes, to be sure, Washington. You recollect him, of course. Some people call him 'Father of his Country,' George Washington. Had no middle name, I believe. He lived about two hundred years ago, and he was a fighter. I heard the publisher telling a man about him crossing the Delaware River up yer at Trenton, and seems to me, if I recollect right, I've read about it myself. He was courting some girl on the Jersey side, and he used to swim over at nights to see her, when the old man was asleep. The girl's family were down on him, I reckon. He looks like the man to do that, now, don't he? He's got it in his eye. If it'd been me, I'd a gone over on the bridge, but he probably wanted to show off before her; some men are so reckless. Now, if you'll go in on this thing, I'll get the publisher to write out some more stories about him, and bring 'em around to you, so's you can study up on him. I know he did ever so many other things, but I've forgot 'em; my memory's so thundering poor.

"Less see; who have we next? Ah, Franklin! Benjamin Franklin. He was one of the old original pioneers, I think. I disremember exactly what he is celebrated for, but I believe it was flying a—oh, yes! flying a kite, that's it. The publisher mentioned it. He was out one day flying a kite, you know, like boys do nowadays, and while she was flickering up in the sky, and he was giving her more string, an apple fell off a tree and hit him on the head, and then he discovered the attraction of gravitation, I think they call it. Smart, wasn't it? Now, if you or me'd a been hit, it'd just a made us mad, like as not, and set us a-cussing. But men are so different. One man's meat's another man's pison. See what a double chin he's got. No beard on him, either, though a goatee would have been becoming to such a round face. He hasn't got on a sword, and I reckon he was no soldier; fit some when he was a boy, maybe, or went out with the home-guard, but not a regular warrior. I ain't one myself, and I think all the better of him for it.

"Ah, here we are! Look at that! Smith and Pocahontas! John Smith. Isn't that just gorgeous? See how she kneels over him and sticks out her hands while he lays on the ground and that big fellow with a club tries to hammer him up. Talk about woman's love! There it is. Modocs, I believe. Anyway, some Indians out West there somewheres; and the publisher tells me that Shacknasty, or whatever his name is, there, was going to bang old Smith over the head with that log of wood, and this girl here, she was sweet on Smith, it appears, and she broke loose and jumped forward, and says to the man with the stick, 'Why don't you let John alone? Me and him are going to marry; and if you kill him, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live,' or words like them; and so the man, he give it up, and both of them hunted up a preacher and were married, and lived happily ever afterward. Beautiful story, ain't it? A good wife she made him, too, I bet, if she was a little copper-colored. And don't she look just lovely in that picture? But Smith appears kinder sick. Evidently thinks his goose is cooked; and I don't wonder, with that Modoc swooping down on him with such a discouraging club.

"And now we come to—to—ah—to Putnam—General Putnam. He fought in the war, too; and one day a lot of 'em caught him when he was off his guard, and they tied him flat on his back on a horse, and then licked the horse like the very mischief. And what does that horse do but go pitching down about four hundred stone steps in front of the house, with General Putnam laying there nearly skeered to death. Leastways, the publisher said somehow that way, and I oncet read about it myself. But he came out safe, and I reckon sold the horse and made a pretty good thing of it. What surprises me is he didn't break his neck; but maybe it was a mule, and they're pretty sure-footed, you know. Surprising what some of these men have gone through, ain't it?

"Turn over a couple of leaves. That's General Jackson. My father shook hands with him once. He was a fighter, I know. He fit down in New Orleans. Broke up the rebel legislature, and then, when the Ku-Kluxes got after him, he fought 'em behind cotton breastworks and licked 'em till they couldn't stand. They say he was terrific when he got real mad. Hit straight from the shoulder, and fetched his man every time. Andrew his first name was; and look how his hair stands up! And then here's John Adams and Daniel Boone and two or three pirates, and a whole lot more pictures, so you see it's cheap as dirt. Lemme have your name, won't you?"

"I believe not to-day."

"What! won't go in on William Penn and Washington and Smith, and the other heroes?"

"No."

"Well, well! Hang me if I'd a-wasted so much information on you if I'd a knowed you wouldn't subscribe. If every man was like you, it'd break up the business."

Then he wiped his nose and left. I hope he is doing better with the work than he did with me.