CHAPTER VIII
Did You Have at Pleasant Trip?
Home at Last—Too much Tropics—The Hold-up—Explaining about It at Home, per Telephone, at the Hospital, at the Office—The Time of My Life—An Exhausting Office Hour—Easier to Stay at Home—A Formulated Answer—Its Nauseating Repetition—Talking It over with Another Victim.
I arrived at home late in the afternoon tired out mentally by six weeks of discomfort and change of habits, and weakened physically by bodily inactivity and continuous tropical heat. Even the enjoyment of the medical meetings was associated with loss of sleep and overwork of the digestive organs, and did nothing to rest the mind or invigorate the body. I was in that excitable state of mind that usually accompanies an impoverished state of blood in active people. And when my wife asked me if I had had a pleasant trip I had to go into considerable unpleasant detail to enable her to ask me why I went.
By the time I had divested myself of the dust and dilapidation of travel, my son, who was as large as I, but not as old, came home and startled me with the information that he had been held up by two footpads at eleven o’clock the night before on the corner of Drexel Boulevard and Forty-sixth Street.
“How dared you?” I exclaimed. “And within half a block of home. How did you do it?”
“Oh, it was easy enough. I ran up against the muzzle of a pistol and they did the rest.”
“But you should not have done it—you are too young. I am two and a half times as old as you, and I haven’t done it yet. I never ran up to two footpads on a deserted boulevard at 11 P. M. One should always reserve such experiences for the future. Don’t you know that it’s dangerous to get frightened in that way?”
“Oh, I wasn’t frightened. They were frightened. They were in such haste to run away that they only took my carfare and pocketbook.”
“So they took your carfare, your last nickel. It was a mean trick. They ought to have been shot.”
“No; they were quite decent and friendly. When I asked them to give back my fraternity meal ticket, which was all my pocketbook contained, they said ‘Sure!’ and handed it out to me. They did not even take my fraternity pin which was in plain sight.”
“Good for them! Fraternities originated among thieves, as fraternity methods indicate. They showed, however, that there is something good about fraternities by sharing your pocketbook with you. I suppose that they also returned your watch?”
“No; they didn’t find it for I do not carry my fob by night. In their hurry they forgot to feel of the watch pocket in my pants.”
“Don’t say pants, Heath; say trousers. Or, if you will talk Dago, say pantaloons. Pants and panties are undignified abbreviations. One would think that you had been fraternizing with footpads all of your life.”
“And they did not discover my ring, which was concealed by my glove.”
“Well, my son, now that you have accomplished your object in coming home so late of nights, I hope that you will consider that you have no further excuse for making the street pavements work by night as well as by day. And I trust you will also profit by the example of your fraternal footpads never to do things in a hurry, even when you are doing wrong. How did you get away from them?”
“They told me to hand over my bills. But when they learned that receipted bills were the only kind I had, they told me to run. I said ‘Sure!’ and ran. And they ran in the opposite direction as fast as they could. I ran to Forty-seventh Street and saw a policeman as far away as I could see toward Fiftieth Street, walking toward me.”
“Well, I congratulate you,” I said, growing calmer as I realized that he had had a useful experience, one that is not vouchsafed to every college boy. “You are smarter than your father; your business horizon is not bounded by the payment of bills. You came out ahead in your bargain with the footpads; you gave them a nickel and they gave you a meal ticket. Keep on getting the better of people and you will die rich. I discovered the method too late to adopt it as a principle. If I had my life to live over again, I would take a lesson from you. But don’t forget to profit by this experience, viz., to wear gloves when you wear a ring, and to spend all but your carfare before coming home at night.”
He then asked me if I had had a nice time while away. After I had explained to him that I had not derived as much of a sensation from my six weeks and hundreds of dollars as he had from his five minutes and a nickel, my younger son arrived and asked me the same question, and thus made another explanation necessary.
Dinner was then ready. After dinner my married daughter called up my wife by telephone and asked her if I had had a pleasant trip. My wife answered:
“Oh, yes; but he is very tired. Traveling is so tiresome, etc., etc.,” and thus evaded a direct answer. She couldn’t tell a lie, and she wouldn’t tell the truth.
A little later Doctor Doering called me up and asked me if I had had a pleasant trip. I explained in detail how storms at sea and the inevitable and invariable miscalculations and misconnections of Southern travel had interfered more or less with the accomplishment of the objects of my medico-social holiday enterprise.
The next morning I stopped at the Woman’s Hospital and met Doctor Martin, the great medical handshaker, at the hall door. He stepped up to me with a radiant accentuated smile, shook me thoroughly and said:
“Why, hello, Byford! Did you have a pleasant trip?”
He had me by the hand and is stronger than he looks. Hence I could not quickly get away, and proceeded to explain that I had seen the place where it was thought that the canal was going to be dug, and where it was thought that the meeting of the Medical Congress had been held, and was more or less satisfied with my trip, particularly with the getting back end of it.
After a few other evasive answers, applauded by genuine shakes, I escaped from his grip and ran almost into the arms of the housekeeper. She stopped a minute, looked at me with animated eyes and an expansive smile and said:
“Why, Doctor Byford, how do you do? Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“Why—y-yes, very pleasant—that is—considering that I had to be away from the hospital and my work. Very pleasant, but quite warm and sunshiny, thank you.”
I escaped up stairs, but Doctor Steele stood grinning at the top. “Why, how are you, Byford? Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“Yes, of course. It was a great success and I got back safely. I met the Panama women and the Panapa men and saw the site of the Panamañana canal and many other strange sights.”
I hurried away toward the wards as if very busy, although I had but one patient in the hospital. She was there when I left for Panama, and had apparently waited, womanlike, to ask me the question, for there seemed to be nothing else the matter with her. But she paid me for my answer and was welcome to it.
Before I could escape from the building Doctor Paddock caught sight of me in time to stop me. He slowed up for a good talk, and exclaimed in his hail-fellow-well-metest manner:
“Why, Byford, how are you, old fellow? Did you have a pleasant trip?”
I threw up my right hand in Patrick Henry style and cried as I rushed by him toward the door:
“Did I? I had the time of my life, the very time of my life! Ha, ha!”
I shot out of the door, lost my footing, and slid all the way down the icy iron steps, reckless of life and limb, and was off for my office. It is strange how one will forget one’s dignity and risk one’s life for things and people that don’t pay. One should never lose one’s patience, or one’s equilibrium in a hurry.
At the office the young lady attendant greeted me effusively (more so, I thought, than the mere fact that I had come to keep my regular office hour really called for), and wanted to know if I had had a pleasant trip.
“The time of my life; the very loveliest time of my life,” I said, and locked myself in my private room.
On account of having returned later than I had announced, I had an unusually large number of patients that morning. Each one delayed me at the end of the consultation by politely and kindly asking the question. Evidently they considered it a sort of tail or tale to the consultation, as a dessert belongs to a dinner or a wag to a dog.
Before I had gotten through with my patients Doctor Isham caught a glimpse of me as I ushered one of them out, and rushed into me and shook my hand with the spontaneous cordiality of true politeness. He said that he did not wish to take up my time while patients were waiting, but just wanted to ask me if I had had a pleasant trip.
“Why, sir,” I said jubilantly, “I just had the time of my life, that’s all. Banquets, highballs and fancy balls enough to drown us and bury us and decorate our graves. The Panamanians spent $25,000 on twenty-five of us in four days, and seven of the twenty-five were from Chicago. Chicago got a third, and probably more. In short, we had a hot time. If you don’t believe it, go to Panama next Christmas and find out.”
After thus beating time for a while longer I got him out. When I had taken the “dessert” with my last patient I felt quite exhausted, for, as I have intimated before, life in the tropics thins the blood and softens the muscles, and thus had diminished my powers of endurance. While there I had not felt the need of good blood and firm muscles, but upon assuming active duties in zero weather I missed them. When, therefore, I started for home I was in a neurasthenic, irritable state of mind. As I passed through the reception-room the sister of the office attendant, who happened to be there, smiled and bowed to me and wanted to know if I had had a pleasant trip.
“What’s that?” I said, less ceremoniously than I intended.
“Did you have a pleasant trip, Doctor?”
“Oh—why certainly. Why not? Do you suppose,” I said gaily, as I backed toward the door, “that I could travel 2,400 miles and spend $25,000 in four days without having a pleasant trip? Just spend $25,000 and travel 2,400 miles in four days and you’ll know what a pleasant trip I had; you’ll have the time of your life. Then every one will ask you if you had a pleasant trip, and you’ll have the time of your life again. Good day.”
And so for several days my life was dominated by this conventionality of polite speech. It would have been much easier to have staid at home than to have gone through what I had, viz., five days of sickness on the S. S. Limón; one night on the seasick Italian steamship; nearly two weeks in the blood-hot city of Panama, dodging mosquitoes and not daring to light the candle in my bedroom, laboriously tucking in the mosquito bar all around every night in the dark, and hiding under it for three hours in the middle of each day; perspiring continuously; bathing in a washbowl; forced to eat and drink two banquets daily, that kept me thin; treating and being treated to highballs half a dozen times daily, that made me sick; being cheated by Chinamen, that made me ashamed; having to see a brave rooster murdered and a tame bull tortured and assassinated; spending a week stowed away in the S. S. Brighton, while rocked by the trade-winds, tossed by a “norther” and bedeviled by insomnia; becalmed for twelve hours between New Orleans and Chicago; losing a bunch of keys, two umbrellas, five handkerchiefs, my railroad ticket, a ten-dollar bill and a necktie fastener; being caught fifty-five times in the rain and once in the water,—and then having to write a book about it. But to be asked forty times a day for forty days, “Did you have a pleasant trip?” cured me of all desire for travel. Travel and travail are of the same origin. The next time I want to go to Panama I will stay at home and read about it, and then talk about it. Let others who care to go, read my book instead. The book isn’t half as bad as the trip, and nobody will ask them about it, and thus they will not be obliged to tell lies about it. In order to clear my conscience for all time, I formulated an answer that I chose not to consider a lie. I replied to everybody thus, “Pleasant trip? Why, I had the time of my life. Read my book about it—’tis just like it.”
But even the repetition of the formula became as nauseating as forty squabs (or squalls) in forty days, and I sometimes made myself ridiculous by inventing uncompromising variations. But finally I learned to be patient, and now feel that my trip to the tropics was worth while, for it finished the development of my character. I have become a man of patience, and say nothing whenever I feel as if I ought to talk back.
I met Doctor Brower on the street one day and asked him if he had had a pleasant trip. He stopped breathing for a second and looked at me queerly, but finally smiled.
“Byford, do you know, I have heard that remark before.”
“Shake!” said I. “Misery loves company. I suppose that you have become a confirmed liar by this time, and are writing a text-book full of lies and bad advice.”
“Well, it’s terribly monotonous,” he answered, “to have to repeat to every one you meet what a fine time you have had. But our trip was not such a very bad one after all.”
“What? Come now, you don’t have to lie to me. You’re overdoing it. Beware of the lying habit.”
“Well, it wasn’t very sweet but it was short. You ought to travel with Doctor Senn to the North Pole, Lake Baikal, Vladivostok, tropical India, and every other God-forsaken place on the footstool. You’d consider this trip an interesting little nightmare to be laughed at and forgotten, when compared with the prolonged punishment of trotting around the globe after Senn, whose legs are made of solid steel. But I’ve done with Senn as a traveling companion. His notion of joy and mine are constitutionally different. Something is wrong with his idea of enjoyment. I can’t diagnose his case because he has no nerves. There’s something uncanny about him. He can’t be discouraged, killed or made seasick. I’ve no patience with him.”
Transcriber’s Notes:
Due to a printer’s error the first two lines of page 66 were repeated (and misplaced) on to the top of page 65. Thus ‘which lay alongside the pier, brought our task however to a most agreeable ending.’ has been removed and a fullstop added to ‘full of passive praise’ at the bottom of page 64. Whether two lines have been lost is unknown as all editions of this work carry the same error.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.