Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

CHAPTER XXV.

A PERSECUTED JOURNALIST.

That the editor of every daily paper is persecuted by poetasters is an unquestionable fact; and it is probable that some of the worst of the sufferers would be justified in taking extreme measures to protect themselves from such outrages. But that Major Slott of The Patriot ever proposed to murder a poet in self-defence I doubt. The editor of a rival sheet in our county declares, however, that the major actually thirsts for blood; and in proof of the assertion he has printed the following narrative, which, he says, he obtained from Mr. Grady, the policeman:

"One day recently the major sent for a policeman; and when Mr. Grady, of the force, arrived, the major shut the door of his sanctum and asked him to take a seat.

"Mr. Grady," he said, "your profession necessarily brings you into contact with the criminal classes and familiarizes you with them. This is why I have sent for you. My business is of a confidential nature, and I trust to your honor to regard it as a sacred trust confided in you. Mr. Grady, I wish to ascertain if among your acquaintances of the criminal sort you know of any one who is a professional assassin—who rents himself out to any one who wants to destroy a fellow-creature? Do you know of such a person?'

"'I dunno as I do,' said Mr. Grady, thoughtfully rubbing his chin.
'There's not much demand for murderers now.'

"'Well,' said the editor, 'I wish you'd look around and see if you can light on such a man, and get him to do a little job for me. I want a butcher who will slay a person whom I will designate. I don't care how he does it. He may stab him, or drown him, or bang him with a shot-gun. It makes no difference to me; I will pay him all the same. Now, will you get me such a man?'

"'I s'pose I might. I'll look round, any way.'

"'Between you and me,' said the editor, 'the chap I'm going to assassinate is a poet—a fellow named Markley. He has been sending poetry to this paper every day for eight months. I never printed a line, but he keeps stuffing it in as if he thought I was depositing it in the bank and drawing interest on it. Well, sir, it's got to be so bad that it annoys me terribly. It keeps me awake at night. I'm losing flesh. That man and his poetry haunt me. I'm getting gloomy and morose. Life is beginning to pall upon me. I seem to be under the influence of a perpetual nightmare. I can't stand it much longer, Mr. Grady; my reason will totter upon its throne. Here, only this morning, he sent me a poem entitled "Lines to Hannah." Are you fond of poetry, Grady?'

"'Oh, I dunno; I don't care so very much about it.'"

"'Well, I'll read you one verse of the "Lines to Hannah." He says—to
Hannah, mind you—

"The little birds sing sweetly
In the weeping willows green,
The village girls dress neatly—
Oh, tell me, do I dream?"

Now, you see, Grady, that is what is unseating my mind. A man can't stand more than a certain amount of that kind of thing. What do the public care whether he is dreaming or whether he is drunk? What does Hannah care? Why, they don't care a cent. Now, do they?

"'Not a red cent.'

"'Of course not. And yet Markley sends me another poem, entitled
"Despondency," in which he exclaims,

"Oh, bury me deep in the ocean blue,
Where the roaring billows laugh;
Oh, cast me away on the weltering sea,
Where the dolphins will bite me in half."

Now, Mr. Grady, if you can find a competent assassin, I wouldn't make it a point with him to oblige Mr. Markley. I don't care particularly to have the poet buried in the weltering sea. If he can't find a roaring billow, I'll be perfectly satisfied to have him chucked into a creek. And I dare say that it'll make no material difference whether the dolphins gobble him or the catfish and eels nibble him up. It's all the same in the long run. Mention this to your murderer when you speak to him, will you? Now, I'll show you why this thing takes all the heart out of me. In his poem entitled "Longings" he uses this language:

"Oh, sing to me, darling, a sweet song to-night,
While I bask in the smile of thine eyes,
While I kiss those dear lips in the dark silent room,
And whisper my saddening good-byes."

Now, you see how it is yourself, Grady, don't you? How is she going to sing to him while he kisses those lips, and how is he going to whisper good-bye? Isn't that awful slush? Now, isn't it? And then, if the room is dark, what I want to know is how he's going to tell whether her eyes are smiling or not? Mr. Grady, either the man is insane or I am; and if your butcher is going to stab Markley, you'll oblige me by telling him that I want him to jab him deep, and maybe fill him up with poison or something to make it absolutely certain.

"'I know that when he sent me that poem about "The Unknown" I parsed it, and examined it with a microscope, and sent it around to a chemist's to be analyzed, but hang me if I know yet what he's driving at when he says,

"The uffish spectral gleaming of that wild resounding clang
Came hooting o'er the margin of the dusky moors that hang
Like palls of inky darkness where the hoarse, weird raven calls,
And the bhang-drunk Hindoo staggers on and on until he falls."

Isn't that—Well, now, isn't that just the most fearful mess of stuff that was ever ground out of a lunatic asylum?'

"'It's the awfullest I ever saw.'

"'Well, then, I get eighteen of them a week, and they madden me. They keep my brain in a frenzied whirl. Grady, this man must die. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. I have a wife and children; I conduct a great paper; I educate the public mind. My life is valuable to my country. Destroy this poet, and future generations will praise your name. He must be wiped out, exterminated, obliterated from the face of the earth. Kill him dead and bury him deep, and fix him in so's he will stay down, and bring in the bill for the tombstone. I leave the case to you. You need not tell me you have done this job. When the poems cease to come to me, I will know that he is dead. That will settle it. Good-morning.'"

It is believed that the poet must have been warned by Grady, for the supplies suddenly ceased; and Markley is saving up his effusions for some other victim.

* * * * *

But the major has other persecutors. One of them came into the editorial-room of the Patriot during one of those very hot days in June. Major Slott was perspiring in an effort to hammer out an article on "The Necessity for Speedy Resumption." The visitor seized a chair and nudged up close to the major. Then he said,

"My name is Partridge. I called to show you a little invention of mine."

"Haven't got time to look at it. I'm busy."

"I see you are. Won't keep you more'n a minute" (removing his hat).
"Look at that hat and tell me how it strikes you."

"Oh, don't bother me! I'm not interested in hats just now."

"I know you ain't, and that's not a hat. That's Partridge's Patent Atmospheric Refresher. Looks exactly like a high hat, don't it? Now, what's the thing you want most this kind of weather?"

"The thing I want most is to have you skip out of here."

"What everybody wants is to keep cool, of course. Now, how are you going to do it? Why, if you know when you are well off, you will do it with this hat. But how? I will explain. If you compress air until it attains a considerable pressure, and then suddenly release it, the rapid expansion causes the air to absorb heat and to produce quite a marked degree of cold. You know this, of course?"

"I wish you'd compress your air, and then expand it in the ears of somebody besides me."

"Now, in my invention I have utilized this beautiful law of nature in a manner that is certain to confer an inestimable blessing upon the human race. This hat is really made of light boiler iron covered with silk. The compressed air is contained in it. At the present moment it is subjected to a pressure of eighty-seven pounds to the square inch. If that hat should explode while I am sitting here, it would blow the roof off of this building."

"So it killed you I wouldn't care."

"Well, sir, the way I work this wonderful appliance is this: The air-pump is concealed in the small of my back, under my coat. A pipe connects it with the receiver in my hat, and there is a kind of crank running down my right trouser leg and fastened to my boot, so that the mere act of walking pumps the air into the receiver. But how do I effect the cooling process? Listen: Another pipe comes from the receiver and empties into a kind of a sheet-iron undershirt, perforated with holes, which I wear beneath my outside shirt—"

"If you'd wear something over that shirt, so as to hide the dirt, you'd be more agreeable."

"Now, s'posin' it's a warm day. I'm going along the street with the air-crank in operation. The receiver is full. I want to cool off. I pull the string which runs down my left sleeve; the air rushes from the receiver, suddenly expands about my body, and makes me feel so cold that I wish I had brought my overcoat with me."

"I wish to gracious you'd go home and get it now."

"You see, then, that this invention is of the utmost value and importance, and my idea in calling upon you was to give you a chance to mention and describe it in your paper, so that the public might know about it. You are the only editor I have revealed the secret to. I thought I'd give you the first chance to become a benefactor of your race."

"I'm the kind of benefactor that charges one dollar a line for such philanthropy."

"To assure yourself that the machine is perfect you must try it for yourself. Just stand up and take your coat off. Then I'll put the hat on your head, screw the pump into the small of your back and fix the other machinery down your legs."

"I'll see you hanged first."

"Well, then, I'll put it on myself and illustrate the theory for you. You see the rod here in my trousers? This is the air-pump here, just above my suspender buttons. The hat now contains about six atmospheres. Now I am ready to move. See? You observe how it works? The only noise you hear is a slight click of the valve in the pump. A couple more turns, and you put your hand on my shirt-collar and feel how near zero it is. I will get the pressure up to one hundred pounds before I——"

BANG!!!

As soon as the major began to realize the situation he crawled out from beneath his overturned desk, wiped the contents of the inkstand from his face and hair with the copy of that unfinished article upon "The Necessity for Speedy Resumption," and looked about him. Mr. Partridge was lying in the corner with a splintered table over his legs, his head in a spittoon, and fragments of ruined machinery bursting out through enormous rents in his trousers and his coat. His cast-iron undershirt protruded in jagged points from a dozen orifices in his waistcoat. As the major took him by the leg to haul him out of the débris Partridge opened his eyes wearily and said,

"Awful clap, wasn't it? You ought to've had lightning-rods on this building. Struck by lightning, wasn't I?"

[Illustration: BANG!!!]

"You intolerable ass!" exclaimed the major as the clerks and reporters came rushing in and began to place Partridge on his legs; "it wasn't lightning. It was that infernal machine that you wanted me to put on my head. If it had driven you under ground about forty feet, I'd have been glad, even if it had also demolished the building."

"What! the receiver exploded, did it? Too bad, ain't it? Blamed if I didn't think she was strong enough to bear twice that pressure. I must have made a mistake in my calculations, however," said Partridge, pinning up his clothes and holding his handkerchief to his bloody nose; "I'll have another one made, and come around to show you the invention to better advantage."

"If you do, I'll brain you with an inkstand," said the major.

Then Partridge limped out, and the major, abandoning the subject of resumption, began a fresh editorial upon "The Extraordinary Prevalence of Idiots at the Present Time."

* * * * *

The Patriot has shown a remarkable amount of enterprise lately in obtaining, or professing to obtain, an interview with the Wandering Jew. The reader can form his own estimate of the value of the report, which appeared in the Patriot in the following fashion:

Reports were floating about the city yesterday to the effect that the Wandering Jew had been seen over in New Jersey. A reporter was sent over at once to hunt him up, and to interview him if he should be found. After a somewhat protracted search the reporter discovered a promising-looking person sitting on the top rail of a fence just outside of Camden engaged in eating some crackers and cheese. The reporter approached him and addressed him at a venture:

"Beautiful day, Cantaphilus!"

This familiarity seemed necessary; because if the Wandering Jew has any family name, the fact has not been revealed to the public.

"Bless my soul, young man, how on earth did you know me?" exclaimed the Jew.

"Oh, I don't know; something about your appearance told me who it was.
I'm mighty glad to see you, any way. When did you arrive?"

"I came on here yesterday. Been down in Terra del Fuego, where I heard about the Centennial, and I thought I'd run up and have a look at it. Be a good thing, I reckon. Time flies, though, don't it? Seems to me only yesterday that a man over here in Siberia told me that you people were fighting your Revolutionary war."

[Illustration: THE WANDERING JEW]

He sat upon the fence as he talked; his feet, cased in gum shoes, rested on the third rail from the bottom; his umbrella was under his arm; his face was deeply wrinkled, and his long white beard bobbed up and down as he ate his lunch voraciously, diving into his carpet-bag every now and then for more. The reporter remarked that he feared that such a liberal diet of cheese would disagree with the eater, but the old man said,

"Why, my goodness, sonny, I've been hunting all over the earth for seventeen centuries for something to disagree with me. That's what I yearn for. If I could only get dyspepsia once, I might hope to wear myself out. But it's no use. I could lunch on a pound of nails and feel as comfortable as a baby after a bottle of milk. That's one of my peculiarities. You know nothing ever hurts me. Why, I've been thrown out of volcanoes—lemme see: well, dozens of times—and never been singed a bit. 'Most always, in real cold weather, I step over to Italy and roost around inside of Vesuvius; and then, maybe, there's an eruption, and I'm heaved out a couple of hundred miles or so, but always safe and sound. What I don't know about volcanic eruptions, my child, isn't worth knowing. I went sailing around through the air when Pompeii was destroyed. Yes, sir, I was there; saw the whole thing. Why, I could tell you the most wonderful stories. You wouldn't believe."

"How do you travel generally?"

"Oh, different ways. I have gone around some in sleeping-cars, and had my baggage checked through; but generally I prefer to walk. I'm never in a hurry, and I like to take my own route. I'm a mighty good walker. I did think of getting up some kind of a pedestrian match with some of your champion walkers, but it's no use; it'd only create an excitement."

"How do people treat you usually?"

"Well, I can't complain. Snap me up for a tramp sometimes, or make disagreeable remarks about me. But generally I get along well enough. The undertakers are hardest on me. They say I exercise a depressing influence on their business by setting a bad example to other people; and one of 'em, over in Constantinople, he said a man who'd defrauded about fifty-four generations of undertakers ought to be ashamed to show his face in civilized society. But bless you, sonny, I don't mind them. Business, you know, is business. It's perfectly natural for them to feel that way about it; now, isn't it?"

"Will you have a cigar, after eating?"

"No; none for me. Raleigh wanted me to learn to smoke when he was in Virginia, but I didn't care for it. You remember him, of course? Oh no; I forgot how young you are. Pleasant man, but a little too chimerical. I liked Columbus better. Nero was a man who'd've suited you newspaper people. 'Most always a murder every day. And then that fire in Rome when he fiddled; made a splendid report for the papers, wouldn't it? Poor sort of a man, though. The only time I ever saw him was when he was drowning his mother. Dropped the old lady over and let her drift off as if he didn't care a cent."

"Talking of newspapers, how would you like to make an engagement as the traveling correspondent of the Patriot?"

"Well, I dunno. I wouldn't mind sending you a letter now and then, but I don't care to make any regular engagement. You see I haven't written a great deal for about eighteen hundred years, and a man kind of gets out of practice in that time. I write such an awful poor hand, too. No; I guess I won't contribute regularly. I have thought sometimes maybe I might do a little work as a book-agent, so's to pick up a few stray dollars. But I never had a fair chance offered to me, and I didn't care enough about it to hunt it up; and so nothing ever came of it. I could make a good book fairly hum around this globe, though, don't you think?"

"Were you ever married? Did you ever have a wife?"

"See here, my son, I never did you any harm, and what's the use of your bringing up such disagreeable reminiscences? The old lady died in Egypt in 73. They made her up into a mummy, and I reckon they put a pyramid on her to hold her down. That's enough; that satisfies me."

"Is your memory generally good?"

"Well, about fair; that's all. I know I used to get Petrarch mixed up in my mind with St. Peter, and I've several times alluded to Plutarch as the god of the infernal regions. I'm often hazy about people. The queerest thing! You know that once, in conversation with Benjamin Franklin, I confounded Mark Antony with Saint Anthony, and actually alluded to the saint's oration over the dead body of Cæsar. Positive fact. I'll tell you how I often keep the run of things: I say of a certain event, 'That happened during the century that I was bilious,' or, 'It occurred in the century when I had rheumatism.' That's the way I fix the time. I did commence to keep a diary back in 134, but I ran up a stack of manuscript three or four hundred feet high, and then I gave it up. Couldn't lug it round with me, you know."

"I suppose you have known a great many celebrated people?"

"Plenty of 'em—plenty of 'em, sir. By the way, did anybody ever tell you that you looked like Mohammed? Well, sir, you do. Astonishing likeness! Now, there was an old scalawag for you. A perfect fraud! I lent that man a pair of boots in 598, and he never returned them; said I'd get my reward hereafter. I've regretted those boots for nearly thirteen hundred years."

"Did it ever occur to you to lecture?"

"Oh yes; I've turned it over in my mind. But I guess I won't. You see, my son, I'm so crammed full of information that if I began a discourse I could hardly stop under a couple of years; and that's too long for a lecture, you know. Then they might encore it; and so I hardly think I'd better go in. No, I'll just trudge along in the old fashion."

"Have you any views about the questions of the day? Are you in favor of soft money or hard?"

"Young man, the advice to you of a man who has studied the world for nearly two thousand years is to take any kind you can get. That's solid wisdom."

Then, as the old man babbled on, he descended from the fence, shouldered his umbrella, and together the two started for the ferry. He said he wanted to buy a new suit of clothes. That he had on he had bought in 1807 in Germany, and it was beginning to get threadbare. So the reporter led him over the river, put him in a horse-car, asked him to send his address to the office, and the aged pilgrim nudged up into a corner seat, put his valise on the floor and sailed serenely out of sight amid the reverberation of the oaths hurled by the driver at an Irish drayman who occupied the track in front of the car.