Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

CHAPTER XXXI.

VARIOUS THINGS.

It is a notorious fact that itinerant circus companies pay very poorly, and that the man who does not get his money from them in advance is not very likely to get it at all. Major Slott of The Patriot has suffered a good deal from these concerns; and when "The Great European Circus and Metropolitan Caravan" tried to slip off the other day without settling its advertising bill, he called upon the sheriff and got him to attach the Bengal tiger for the debt. The tiger was brought in its cage and placed in the composing-room, where it consumed fifteen dollars' worth of meat in two days—the major's bill was only twelve dollars—and scratched one trouser leg off of the reporter, who was standing in front of the cage stirring up the animal with a broom. On the third day the bottom fell out of the cage; and as the tiger seemed to want to roam around and inquire into things, the whole force of compositors all at once felt as if they ought to go suddenly down stairs and give the animal a chance. With that mysterious instinct which distinguishes dumb animals, and which goes far to prove that they have souls, the tiger went at once for the door of the major's sanctum, and it broke in just as Slott was in the middle of a tearing editorial upon "Our Tendencies toward Cæsarism." The major, however, did not hesitate to knock off. He stopped at once, and emerged with a fine, airy grace through the window, bringing the sash with him; and then he climbed up the water-spout to the roof, where he sat until a hook-and-ladder company came and took him off. The Patriot did not issue for a week; for although the major bombarded the tiger with shot-guns pointed through the windows, and although the fire-engine squirted hot water at him, the brute got along very comfortably until Saturday night, when he tried to swallow a composing-stick and choked to death. When they entered the room, they found that the animal had upset all the type and had soaked himself in ink and then rolled over nearly every square inch of the floor, while the major's leader on "Cæsarism" was saturated with water and perforated with shot-holes. After this circus advertisements in The Patriot will be paid for in advance.

[Illustration: MAJOR SLOTT'S TIGER]

In one of the issues of his paper, just after the trouble with the tiger, the major offered some reflections upon the general subject of "Tigers," in which he gave evidence that he had recovered his good-humor to some extent. He said,

"We have read with very deep interest a description of how Van Amburgh used to obtain control over tigers and other wild beasts. All he did was to mesmerize them two or three times, and they soon recognized his power and obeyed him. The thing seems simple and easy enough, now that we understand it, and we have a mysterious impression that we could walk out into a jungle and subdue the first tiger we met by making a few passes at him with our hands. But we are not anxious to do this—for one reason, because the Indian jungles are so far away, and for another, because we do not want to hurt an innocent tiger. If we have to meddle with such animals, we always prefer to operate with those that are stuffed. Show us a tiger with sawdust bowels, and we will stand in front of him and make mesmeric motions for a week without the quiver of a nerve. Not that we are timid when the tiger is alive, but simply because a fur-store is more convenient than a jungle, and there is less danger of wetting our feet. If we happened to be in India and we wanted a tiger, we should unhesitatingly go out and stand boldly in front of the very first one we saw—tied to a tree—and we should bring him home instantly if we could find a man willing to lead him with a string. But this kind of courage is born in some men. It cannot be acquired; and timid persons who intend to practice Van Amburgh's method will find it more judicious to begin the mesmerizing operation by soothing the animal with a howitzer."

[Illustration: FACING THE TIGER]

* * * * *

The lightning-rod man haunts our county as he does the rest of the civilized portion of the country; and although occasionally he secures a victim, sometimes it happens that he gets worsted in his attempts to beguile his fellow-men. Such was his fate upon a recent occasion in our village.

The other day a lightning-rod man drove up in front of a handsome edifice standing in the midst of trees and shrubs in Millburg, and spoke to Mr. Potts, who was sitting on the steps in front. He accosted Potts as the owner of the residence, and said,

"I see you have no lightning-rods on this house."

"No," said Potts.

"Are you going to put any on?"

"Well, I hadn't thought of it," replied Potts.

"You ought to. A tall building like this is very much exposed. I'd like to run you up one of my rods; twisted steel, glass fenders, nickel-plated tips—everything complete. May I put one up to show you? I'll do the job cheap."

"Certainly you may, if you want to. I haven't the slightest objection," said Potts.

During the next half hour the man had his ladders up and his assistants at work, and at the end of that time the job was done. He called Potts out into the yard to admire it. He said to Potts,

"Now, that is all well enough; but if it was my house, I'd have another rod put on the other side. There's nothing like being protected thoroughly."

"That's true," said Potts; "it would be better."

"I'll put up another, shall I?" asked the man.

"Why, of course, if you think it's best," said Potts.

Accordingly, the man went to work again, and soon had the rod in its place.

"That's a first-rate job," he said to Potts as they both stood eyeing it. "I like such a man as you are. Big-hearted, liberal, not afraid to put a dollar down for a good thing. There's some pleasure in dealin' with you. I like you so much that I'd put a couple more rods on that house, one on the north end and one on the south, for almost nothin'."

"It would make things safer, I suppose," said Potts.

"Certainly it would. I'd better do it, hadn't I, hey?"

"Just as you think proper," said Potts.

So the man ran up two more rods, and then he came down and said to
Potts, "There! that's done. Now let's settle up."

"Do what?"

"Why, the job's finished, and now I'll take my money."

"You don't expect me to pay you, I hope?"

"Of course I do. Didn't you tell me to put those rods on your house?"

"My house!" shouted Potts. "Thunder and lightning! I never ordered you to put those rods up. It would have been ridiculous. Why, man, this is the court-house, and I'm here waiting for the court to assemble. I'm on the jury. You seemed to be anxious to rush out your rods; and as it was none of my business, I let you go on. Pay for it! Come, now, that's pretty good."

The people who were present say that the manner in which that lightning-rod man tore around and swore was fearful. But when he got his rods off of the court-house, he left permanently. He don't fancy the place.

Keyser had lightning-rods placed upon his barn three or four years ago; but during last summer the building was struck by lightning and burned. When he got the new barn done, a man came around with a red wagon and wanted to sell him a set of Bolt & Burnam's patent lightning-rods.

"I believe not," said Keyser; "I had rods on the barn at the time of the—"

"I know," exclaimed the agent—"I know you had; and very likely that's the reason you were struck. Nothin's more likely to attract lightnin' than worthless rods."

"How do you know they were worthless?"

"Why, I was drivin' by yer in the spring, and I seen them rods, and I says to myself, 'That barn'll be struck some time, but there's no use in tryin' to convince Mr. Keyser;' so I didn't call. I knowed it, because they had iron tips. A rod with iron tips is no better'n a clothes-prop to ward off lightnin'."

"The man who sold them to me said they had platinum tips," remarked
Keyser.

"Ah! this is a wicked world, Mr. Keyser. You can't be too cautious. Some of these yer agents lie like a gas-meter. It's awful, sir. They are wholly untrustworthy. Them rods was the most ridicklus sham I ever see—a regular gouge. They wa'n't worth the labor it took to put 'em up. They wa'n't, now. That's the honest truth."

"What kind do you offer?"

"Well, sir, I've got the only genuine lightnin'-rod that's made. It's constructed on scientific principles. Professor Henry says it's sure to run off the electric fluid every time—twisted charcoal iron, glass insulators, eight points on each rod, warranted solid platinum. We give a written guarantee with each rod. Never had a house struck since we began to offer this rod to the public. Positive fact. The lightnin'll play all around a house with one of 'em and never touch it. A thunder-storm that'd tear the bowels out of the American continent would leave your house as safe as a polar bear in the middle of an iceberg. Shall I run you one up?"

"I don't know," said Keyser, musingly.

"I'll put you up one cheap, and then you'll have somethin' reliable—somethin' there's no discount on."

"You say the old rod was a fraud?"

"The deadliest fraud you ever heard of. It hadn't an ounce of platinum within a mile of it. The man that sold it ought to be prosecuted, and the fellow that put it up without insulators should be shot. It's too bad the farmers should be gouged in this sort of way."

"And Bolt & Burnam's rod is not a fraud?"

"A fraud? Why, really, my dear sir, just cast your eye over Professor Henry's letter and these certificates, and remember that we give a written guarantee—a positive protection, of course."

"Just cast your eye over that," said Keyser, handing him a piece of paper.

"Well, upon my word! This is indeed somewhat—that is to say it is, as it were—it looks—it looks a little like one of our own certificates."

"Just so," said Keyser. "That old rod was one of Bolt & Burnam's. You sold it to my son-in-law; you gave this certificate; you swore the points were platinum, and your man put it up."

"Then I suppose we can't trade?"

"Well, I should think not," said Keyser. Whereupon the man mounted the red wagon and moved on.

* * * * *

When Benjamin P. Gunn, the life insurance agent, called upon Mr.
Butterwick, the following conversation ensued:

Gunn. "Mr. Butterwick, you have no insurance on your life, I believe? I dropped in to see if I can't get you to go into our company. We offer unparalleled inducements, and—"

Butterwick. "I don't want to insure."

Gunn. "The cost is just nothing worth speaking of; a mere trifle. And then we pay enormous dividends, so that you have so much security at such a little outlay that you can be perfectly comfortable and happy."

Butterwick. "But I don't want to be comfortable and happy. I'm trying to be miserable."

Gunn. "Now, look at this thing in a practical light. You've got to die some time or other. That is a dreadful certainty to which we must all look forward. It is fearful enough in any event, but how much more so when a man knows that he leaves nothing behind him! We all shrink from death, we all hate to think of it; the contemplation of it fills us with awful dread; but reflect, what must be the feelings of the man who enters the dark valley with the assurance that in a pecuniary sense his life has been an utter failure? Think how—"

Butterwick. "Don't scare me a bit. I want to die; been wanting to die for years. Rather die than live any time."

Gunn. "I say, think how wretched will be the condition of those dear ones whom you leave behind you! Will not the tears of your heartbroken widow be made more bitter by the poverty in which she is suddenly plunged, and by the reflection that she is left to the charity of a cold and heartless world. Will not—"

Butterwick. "I wouldn't leave her a cent if I had millions. It'll do the old woman good to skirmish around for her living. Then she'll appreciate me."

Gunn. "Your poor little children, too. Fatherless, orphaned, they will have no one to fill their famished mouths with bread, no one to protect them from harm. You die uninsured, and they enter a life of suffering from the keen pangs of poverty. You insure in our company, and they begin life with enough to feed and clothe them, and to raise them above the reach of want."

Butterwick. "I don't want to raise them above the reach of want. I want them to want. Best thing they can do is to tucker down to work as I did"

Gunn. "Oh, Mr. Butterwick, try to take a higher view of the matter. When you are an angel and you come back to revisit the scenes of earth, will it not fill you with sadness to see your dear ones exposed to the storm and the blast, to hunger and cold?"

Butterwick. "I'm not going to be an angel; and if I was, I wouldn't come back."

Gunn. "You are a poor man now. How do you know that your family will have enough when you are gone to pay your funeral expenses, to bury you decently?"

Butterwick. "I don't want to be buried."

Gunn. "Perhaps Mrs. Butterwick will be so indignant at your neglect that she will not mourn for you, that she will not shed a tear over your bier."

Butterwick. "I don't want a bier, and I'd rather she wouldn't cry any."

Gunn. "Well, then, s'posin' you go in on the endowment plan and take a policy for five thousand dollars, to be paid you when you reach the age of fifty?"

Butterwick. "I don't want five thousand dollars when I'm fifty. I wouldn't take it if you were to fling it at me and pay me to take it."

Gunn. "I'm afraid, then, I'll have to say good-morning."

Butterwick. "I don't want you to say good-morning; you can go without saying it."

Gunn. "I'll quit."

Butterwick. "Aha! now you've hit it! I do want you to quit, and as suddenly as you can."

Then Mr. Gunn left. He thinks he will hardly insure Butterwick.

[Illustration: FINIS]

End of Project Gutenberg's Elbow-Room, by Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)