MONROE AND COBB VISIT PETER DIEMAN'S HOME TOGETHER.
Peter Dieman sat in his high-backed leather-cushioned chair smoking a black cigar, surrounded with all the ease and sumptuousness of a successfully domesticated gentleman. As he smoked his favorite weed, the circumambient gray was as a smudge in the midst of a fruiting orange grove. And above it all, he smelled like one who had been soused in aromatic oils.
A pair of satin-embroidered slippers encased his broad flat feet; a red skull-cap, with a maroon tassel on top of it, bore down upon his rufous head of hair; a purple-flowered mandarin-like robe enfolded his pudgy body. The hairsuite appendage that had gone neglected for years, had been unceremoniously removed from his chin; a yellow stubby moustache, closely cropped, hung above his lips like clipped porcupine quills, and a new set of hand-made teeth filled his sprawling mouth. The rubicundity of his face might have been taken as a danger sign on a dark night, with his green-gray eyes lighted up as a companion signal. A masseur had rubbed the scowl of years and the hate of time out of his face, till its rotundity was equaled only by the full moon recovering from a case of the dumps. So, all that were necessary to complete his personification of Old King Cole were the long-stemmed pipe and the serrated crown. While the latter would not have been essential to the enhancement of his kingly appearance, it might have been a fitting part toward the completion of his princely makeup.
Thus he sat and thus he looked in his spectacular pomp of power—a sub-king of the grafters—since he went into the soul-quieting business of matrimony. Thus he sat and thus he looked, when Miram Monroe, the genteel ghost, was let into his presence. Thus he sat and thus he looked, when Jacob Cobb, the ring-master, was ushered in—one following the other.
Would the visitors smoke? asked His Majesty. Yes, the visitors would smoke, as a favor to this potentate. And they smoked, and they smoked till they filled the air so full of toxic fumes that the fair king was almost obscured by the baleful haze.
"Before we get down to business, gentlemen," said Peter, in all his suavity of new refinement, as he slapped his fat right leg with his heavy right hand, and scratched his head behind the ear with his left, "I must escort you through my palace. I've got a place—" waving now his right hand above his head in indication of the building that enclosed him—"good as any man's; and I want you two old friends to see it before we get down to business. Pleasure first, gentlemen, you know; pleasure first, to me, now."
"I'll be glorified to see it," said the ghost.
"I'll be sanctified to see it," said the ring-master.
Peter arose with kingly mien, shaking the rheumatism out of his joints and the gout out of his toes, and then swelling out his breast to a boa constrictor size after swallowing a goat, wheezing like a horse with the heaves. He led the way, with his robe dragging on the carpet, to circumnavigate the building, the ghost and the ring-master following, respectively, with the sanctimonious bearing of laymen following a high-priest.
"The kiddies are out this evening attending a party, and I have all this great house to myself—" waving his right hand around like a preacher of the Word. "We will go up the stairs first."
Up the stairs Peter went, the ghost next after him, looking ahead and considering fearfully what he would feel like should the king lose his balance, in mounting the steps, which he seemed likely to do constantly as he elevated himself lift after lift, so clumsily did Peter climb; and the circus-master took his time, a safe distance behind, with a sweet air of passivity in his patience over Peter's laughable pomposity.
Peter led the way through brilliant halls and brilliant rooms, without a dark corner in any of them, nor even a blind closet in which to conceal the proverbial family ghost; which shadowy being, however, was not likely to seek a place of concealment in this home, since, as it happens, he had evaded all these pure pleasures of domesticity for so many years; so it would be an hazardous presumption to expect the stalker of family trouble to abide with him.
"Where're you going to keep the family ghost?" asked the real ghost.
"You old batch! Do you think I'd tolerate him round here?" said Peter, with connubial pride. "Cobb has a cinch on them all; eh, Cobb?" with a refreshened squint towards Cobb.
"Don't be so rude, Peter, as to bring me into your argumentations with Monroe here, whose own reputation needs a little stringing up," responded Cobb.
"Never mind your moralizing—show us your house," replied the ghost, without being the least irritated.
When they came to the bath room, they all stepped within; and the visitors were charmed. Peter took on a new halo of beamingness as he saw how delighted his patrons were over this dream of modern bathery, with its shining fixtures and alabastine walls.
"Do you bathe, Peter?" asked the ghost.
"I guess, yes—every morning at eight," answered Peter, with a swell.
"Humph!" responded the ghost; "and you didn't catch cold the first time?" with no attempt to be facetious.
"Alcohol is a great preventative," answered Peter.
"Within, or without?" asked the ghost.
"Without; you mummy," retorted Peter.
"You surprise me, Peter," said Cobb, as he was testing one of the faucets; "the last time I saw you, you looked as if you hadn't touched water in years."
"Once a year then; once a day now; three hundred and sixty-five days in the year," said Peter, grinning.
"I always believed you had some redeeming qualities," said Cobb; "but how does it come you have clean water?" he asked, holding up a glassful between his eyes and the light.
"Private filter," answered the king.
"That's infernal water to turn into the public trough," remarked Cobb. "I mean this, before it was filtered," pointing to the glassful still in his hand.
"It's all they deserve," said the king, snapping his eyes.
"When ought we to work them for a new system?" asked Cobb, emptying the glass. "Pretty decent water, this—when filtered," he observed, washing his hands.
"We'll talk about water systems when we get back to business," answered the king.
"Do you wash your feet in water or alcohol?" asked the ghost.
"Don't get too fresh, Monroe, or I'll loosen up your face with some soap and water," with a hearty chuckle.
"Oh, sometimes I forget, Peter, seeing you heretofore as a bear," as a mollifier to his allusions.
"You're a corrugated donkey, Monroe," said the king, with a louder chuckle than before, rubbing his hands, this time with a towel between them.
"You're a convoluted mule," returned the ghost, tapping the enameled wall with his knuckle, as a clincher to his assertion.
"Here, here! You fellows are getting too personal," said Cobb, stepping forward, as if he expected trouble, so as to be ready as a queller of what he thought might lead to a melee.
"Hah, ha, ha!" roared Peter, strutting out like a gallinaceous cock. "Cobb, you must pay no attention to Monroe's foolishness," as he swept theatrically along the hallway to the stairs; but still presenting the incongruous habits of a waddling duck.
Monroe followed languidly, puckering his mouth into a low whistle, that might have meant more than the blowing out of good humor. With most men, whistling means the venting of a superfluity of joy; but with Monroe, it might have meant a cooling drop in his cup of anger. Cobb came lolling after them, in his usual undisturbed forbearance.
Debouching into the parlor, with the stellar lights trailing, the king touched a button; presto! starlight, moonlight, sunlight, all together, in one grand aurora borealis, flashed mute darkness into palpitating day.
"This is my universe," cried the king, throwing up both hands, as if he were beginning the Sermon on the Mount.
"Grand!" whispered the ghost.
"Grand!" said the ring-master.
"Grand" cried back The Moses, The Napoleon, The Wellington, The Washington, The Roosevelt, The Pathfinder, The Man With the Hoe, The Babes in the Woods, The Doves, The Dieman, on the walls.
"Grand!" echoed Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Shakespeare, Milton, Poe, Irving, Longfellow, Emerson, standing about in corners and alcoves in their statuary dumbness.
"Grand!" pealed the Giant Grand resting on four legs, like an exhibition slab of mahogany, in a corner.
"Grand!" laughed the settees, the tete-a-tetes, the rockers, the cushions, the chairs, as if they were ready to jump up and slap the visitors on the back and seat them down.
"Grand!" shouted the king. "Well, I should eat a bedbug, if you can surpass it in this old town for dazzle." And everything hung its head in mortification.
"Grand!" they all said, as the king entered the dining room, with its glitter and its glimmer and its splendor and its grandeur. "Here is where I eat," he remarked, after seeing his friends dumfounded and speechless.
Dumfounded? Why, of course!
Speechless? Why, to be sure!
Shucks! Who said the average man isn't a pompous idiot?
"To business, now, gentlemen; to business," said Peter, waving his hand toward his private den, where first he was greeted in his royal robes by the genteel ghost and the ring-master.
"Well?" said Peter, after seating himself in his chair of state, directing his question to Cobb.
"Let Monroe speak," said Cobb.
"Let Cobb speak," said Monroe.
"Gentlemen, my proposition is the proposed new water system," said Cobb, venturing forth. "What about it?"
"Well, what about it?" asked Peter.
"Can we pull it off?" asked Cobb.
"How much is there in it?" asked the generous Peter.
"Couple hundred thousand," said Cobb.
"Pull her off, then," decided Peter.
"How much do I get out of it?" asked Monroe.
"Aren't you working your little stunt for bigger game, Monroe?" asked Peter.
"What new stunt you up to now?" asked Cobb, suspiciously.
"That's a private matter," replied Monroe.
"What is it, Peter?" asked Cobb. Then to Monroe: "Not scheming behind my back, Monroe?"
"No such intention," answered Monroe.
"What is it, Peter?" asked Cobb, feelingly.
"Monroe, I told you to keep no secrets from Cobb," said Peter.
"What is it. Peter?" asked Cobb.
"Shall I tell, Monroe?" said Peter.
"Dogged if I care," said the unimpressionable Monroe.
"He's after Jarney's daughter and her money," said Peter, rubbing his hands on his legs, and pulling hard on a freshly lighted cigar.
"Ho, that's why young Winthrope was sent to the New York office, was it?" said Cobb, carelessly.
"Yes; it looked too serious seeing him going to her home every day," replied Monroe. "While I also went, sometimes, I never got a squint at her."
Cobb became serious at this piece of intelligence. He thought of young Jasper Cobb, his son, as being entitled to a share of the spoils that might be obtained by an alliance with the Jarneys. He thought all plans had been laid for this catch, and all that were needed was to draw in the net and sort the fishes. He thought that, as a matter of course, there could be no failure. He never thought that his son was unfit for a young lady of the graces of Miss Jarney. He never thought children had a right to be heard in making their choice of a life partner. He never thought that Jarney should be consulted. Men of Cobb's stripe never think of the ethical side of a question. They never think of anything but money—how to get it, and how to spend it. They never think of anything, aside from getting money, but of the voluptuous side of life. And this astounding statement of Peter's, relative to Monroe's plotting, came as a cross-complaint to him. Baseless wretch is Mr. Monroe!
"What're your prospects, Monroe?" asked Cobb, leaning his head far back in his chair, and blowing smoke upwards, indolently meditating over something that did not go down very well.
"Good," said Monroe.
"Explain?" said Cobb.
"Oh; why, that's a private matter, Mr. Cobb," said Monroe, looking more uncommunicable than ever.
"I must know," insisted Cobb, fidgeting in his chair, with a fine interrogative smile of assertive power.
"Tell him, Monroe; tell him," said Peter, rubbing his hands, and blowing smoke like a whale spouting water.
"There's nothing tangible yet," said the yielding Monroe.
"Tell it, Monroe!" commanded Peter.
"What is it?" asked Cobb, sarcastically.
"Well; here goes. First, I am working into the good graces of the father first," said he. "When I accomplish that feat, having Winthrope out of my way, I shall press my suit for the young lady's hand. I have been to the Jarney home a great many times for dinner this winter"—he looked as if he wanted to keep the matter a secret—"and I have always found young Winthrope there. He was permitted to see her, as Mr. Jarney explained, as the result of an hallucination caused by an auto accident, and her illness following it. I never got an opportunity to see her. Of course—" he seemed to be unconcerned about her illness, so listlessly did he talk—"it would have been a delicate matter for me to have attempted to have seen her while ill; so I concluded to abide my time. Getting him away was my first scheme. This accomplished, and, she recovering as I am told, I shall take the first opportunity presented to ask her."
During the recital of the above. Monroe acted more like an automatic talking machine, than a human, so inanimate was his facial expression.
"Would she throw herself away on you?" asked Cobb, drawing one eyelid down as an accompaniment to a mental sneer.
"Am I not as worthy as anybody else, especially Winthrope, who is poor, and has no ancestry?" said Monroe, without a rising or falling inflection in his voice.
"Bully, Monroe; well said!" roared Peter, rubbing and smoking. "But you fellows forget that a woman is usually made a party to such little affairs of the heart. I've had experience, gentlemen; experience; and look at this grand house," waving his hand, with a flourish, around the maroon tassel.
"That's true," assented Monroe, without a tremor.
Cobb assented too, as it suited him to assent. Peter assented to his own theory, looking through his own mirror of experience. They all assented, and reassented, acquiesced, agreed, yielded—to this assertion, time after time.
"Still, I have a fighting chance, like all dogs," soliloquized Monroe.
"Ah, you must win," said Peter, not yet discouraged, like Monroe appeared to be; "I never lost hope."
"But what did you get, Peter?" said Monroe, without a glint that would indicate that he meant a jest; "a woman and ten kids!"
"That's all I wanted," replied Peter, grinning. "Why, you old poltroon, I don't pretend to have ancestry; but I do pretend to have money and gratitude."
"Don't get personal, Peter," said the admonitory Monroe.
"Don't, don't get personal," said the pacifying Cobb.
"Oh, no, Cobb; I do not mean to be personal; but how is the money coming from the dives?" answered Peter, rubbing his hands first, then scratching his ear, then pulling an extra pull on his pipe, then spitting, then squinting, then sneezing as if to give three cheers for his observations on the various subjects up for discussion, in all of which he seemed to have the best of the results.
"Fine!" exclaimed Cobb, with his eyes lighting up. "The police are just rolling it into our coffers."
"I need ten thousand more for Jim Dalls," said Peter, looking gloomy, and ceasing to rub his hands.
"It would be cheaper to send a man over there to kill him," answered Cobb.
"Maybe it would; maybe it wouldn't," said Peter; "but he will be back, if he don't get it."
"Well, send it, then," said Cobb, relenting of his grim suggestion as to the best means of disposing of Dalls.
The door bell rang. A servant answered it. Into the house filed ten children, in all stages of wildness, accompanied by the mother. Seeing them rushing in like an invading army of young Turks, the visitors retreated with as little loss to their dignity as they could spare. And Peter was happy again in the bosom of his family—a Prince at home; a King at the office of Graft.
Mrs. Dieman was now the acme of reincarnation. The jaundice of a sorrowed life had been burned out of her face by the new brand of cosmetics, and she now stood before the world a justly deserving woman. But such is the passage of poverty when embellished by a little of the olive oil of good treatment, fairer living, and a chance. Instead of the downcast woman, with a heart laden with lead, as she once was, she was now an upcast personage, with a heart that was a jardiniere of roses, doing her duty, and bearing her old sorrows silently as the mistress of a mansion. Chance was all that were needed. But still she loved Billy Barton, the drunkard. And this is the way of woman, sometimes.