AN AROUSER OF THE SLEEPY.
In the Press Club Henry found Mr. Flummers haranguing a party of men who sat about the round table. He stood that he might have room in which to scallop his gestures, and he had reached a climax just as Henry joined the circle. He waited until all interruptions had ceased and then continued: "Milwaukee was asleep, and I was sent up there to arouse it. But I shook it too hard; I hadn't correctly measured my own strength. The old-timers said, 'Let us doze,' but I commanded, 'Wake up here now, and get a move on you,' and they had to wake up. But they formulated a conspiracy against me, and I was removed."
"How were you removed, Mr. Flummers?" McGlenn asked.
"Oh, a petition, signed by a thousand sleepy citizens, was sent down here to my managing editor, and I was requested to come away. Thus was my Milwaukee career ended, but it ended in a blaze that dazzled the eyes of the old-timers." He cut a scallop. "But papa was not long idle. The solid South wanted him. They knew that papa was the man to quiet a disturbance or compel a drowsy municipality to get up and rub its eyes. Well, I went to Memphis. What was the cause of the great excitement that followed?" He tapped his forehead. "Papa's nut. But again had he underestimated himself; again was he too strong for the occasion. He tossed up the community in his little blanket, and while it was still in the air, papa skipped, and the railroad train didn't go any too fast for him."
"And was that the time you went over into Arkansas and murdered a man?" Richmond asked.
"Oh, no; you are mixing ancient history with recent events. But say, John, you haven't bought anything to-day."
"Why, you paunch-bulging liar, I bought you a drink not more than ten minutes ago."
"But you owed me that one."
"Get out, you nerveless beef! Under the old law for debt I could put you in prison for life."
"Oh, no."
"Do you really need a drink, Mr. Flummers?" McGlenn asked.
"Yes."
"And you don't think that there is any mistake about it?"
"No."
"Well, then, as one who has been compelled to love you, I will buy you a drink."
"Good stuff. Say, Whit, touch the bell over there, will you?"
"Touch it yourself, you lout!"
With a profane avowal that he had never struck so lazy a party, Flummers rang the bell, and when the boy appeared, he called with hearty hospitality: "See what the gentlemen will have."
"Would you like something more?" Henry asked of Flummers, when the drinks had been served.
"Oh, I've just had one. But wait a minute. Say, boy, bring me a cigar."
When the cigar was brought, Flummers said, "That's the stuff!" and a moment later he broke out with, "Say, Witherspoon, why don't you kill the geyser that does the county building for your paper?"
"Why so?"
"Oh, he flashes his star and calls himself a journalist. What time is it? I must hustle; can't stay here and throw away time on you fellows. Say, John"—
Richmond shut him off with: "Don't call me John. A man—I'll say man out of courtesy to your outward form—a man that hasn't sense enough to lift a bass into a boat is not to be permitted such a familiarity. Out in a boat with him last summer and caught a big bass," Richmond explained to the company, "and brought it up to the side of the boat and told Flummers to lift it in, not thinking at the time that he hadn't sense enough, and he grabbed hold of the line and let the fish get away. It made me sick, and I had a strong fight with myself to keep from drowning him."
Flummers tapped his forehead. "Papa's nut says, 'Keep your hand out of a fish's mouth.' Oh, I don't want to go fishing with you again. No fun for me to pull a boat and see a man thrash the water. Say, did I take anything on you just now?" he suddenly broke off, addressing Henry.
"Yes, but you can have something else."
"Well, not now. I'll hold it in reserve. In this life it is well to have reserve forces stationed here and there. Who's got a car-ticket? I've got to go over on the West Side. What, are you all broke? What sort of a poverty-stricken gang have I struck? Well, I've given you as much of my valuable time as I can spare."
"I suppose you are getting used to this town," said Mortimer, when Flummers was gone.
"Yes, I am gradually making myself feel at home," Henry answered.
"You find the weather disagreeable, of course. We do, I know."
"I think that Chicago is great in spite of its climate," said Henry.
"If great at all, it is great in spite of a great many absences," McGlenn replied; "and in these absences it is mean and contemptible. To money it gives worship; to the song and dance man it pays admiring attention, but to the writer it gives neglect—the campaign of silence."
Richmond put his hand to his month and threw his head back. "The trouble with you, John"—
"There's no trouble with me."
"Yes, there is, and it is the trouble that comes to all men who form an estimate without having first taken the trouble to think."
"Gentlemen," said McGlenn, "I wish to call your attention to that remark. John Richmond advising people to think before they form their estimates. John, you are the last man to think before you form an estimate. Within a minute after you meet a man you are prepared to give your estimate of his character; you'll give a half-hour's opinion on a minute's acquaintance."
"Some people can't form an opinion of a man after a year's acquaintance with him, but I can. I go by a certain instinct, and when the wrong sort of man rubs up against me I know it. I don't need to wait until he has worked me before I find out that he is an impostor. But, as I was going to say, the trouble with you is that you forget the difference that exists between new and old cities. A new community worships material things; and if it pays tribute to an idea, it must be that idea which appeals quickest to the eye—to the commoner senses. And in this Chicago is no worse than other raw cities. Fifty years from now "—
"Who wants to live fifty years in this miserable world?" McGlenn broke in. "There is but one community in which the writer is at ease, and that is the community of death. It is populous; it is crowded with writers, but it holds an easy place for every one. The silence of that community frightens the rich but its democracy pleases the poor."
"I suppose, then, that you want to die."
"I do."
"But you didn't want to die yesterday?"
"Yes, it was the very time when I should have died—I had just eaten a good dinner. You don't know how to eat, John. You stuff yourself, John. Yes, you stuff yourself and think that you have dined. The reason is that you have never taken the trouble to become civilized. It's my misfortune to have friends who can't eat. But some of my friends can eat, and they are therefore great men. Tod Cowles strikes a new dish at a house on the North Side and softens his voice and says, 'Ah hah.' He is a great man, for he knows that he has discovered an additional pleasure to offset another trouble of this infamous life; and Colonel Norton is a great man—he knows how to eat; but you, John, are an outcast from the table, and therefore civilization cannot reach you. Civilization comes to the feast and asks, 'Where is John Richmond, whom I heard some of you say something about?' and we reply, 'He holds us in contempt,' and Civilization pronounces these solemn words: 'He who holds ye in contempt, the same will I banish.'"
"But," rejoined Richmond, "civilization teaches one of two things—to think or to become a glutton. Somehow I was kept away from the feast and had to accept the other teaching. I don't go about deifying my stomach and making an apostle of the palate of my month. When I eat"—
"But you don't eat; you stuff. I have sat down to a table with you, and after giving your order you would fill yourself so full of bread and pickles or anything within reach that you couldn't eat anything when the order was brought."
"That was abstraction of thought instead of hunger," Richmond replied.
"No, it was the presence of gluttony. Can you eat, Mr. Witherspoon?"
"I fear that I must confess a lack of higher civilization. I am not well schooled in anything, and I suppose that you must class me with Richmond—as a barbarian. I lack"—
"Art," McGlenn suggested. "But for you there is a chance. John Richmond is hopelessly gone."
"I sometimes feed my dogs on stewed tripe," said Whittlesy, "and the good that it does them teaches me that man is to be judged largely by what he eats."
"There is absolutely no use for all this bloody rot," Mortimer declared. "Eating is essential, of course, but I don't see how men can talk for an hour on the subject, and talk foolishly, at that."
"If eating is essential," Richmond replied, "it is a wonder that you don't kick against it."
"Ah, but isn't it a good thing that I don't kick against non-essentials? Wouldn't I be obliged to kick against this assemblage and its beastly rot?"
Mortimer sometimes emphasized his walk with a peculiar springiness of step, and with this emphasis he walked off, biting the stem of his pipe.
"I thought that by this time you would begin to show a weariness of the Press Club," McGlenn said to Henry.
"I don't see why you should have thought that. I said at first that I was one of you."
"Yes, but I didn't know but by this time you might have discovered your mistake."
"I made no mistake, and therefore could discover none. Let me tell you that between George Witherspoon's class and me there is but little affinity. You may call me a crank, and perhaps I am, but I was poor so long that I felt a sort of pride in the fight I was compelled to make. Poverty has its arrogance, and foppery is sometimes found in rags. I don't mind telling you that I have been strongly urged to take what is called my place in the world; but that place is so distasteful to me that I look on it with a shudder. I despise barter—I am compelled to buy, but I am not forced to sell. I am not a sentimentalist—if I were I should attempt to write poetry. I am not a philosopher—if I were I shouldn't attempt to run a newspaper. I am simply an ordinary man who has passed through an extraordinary school. And what I think are virtues may be errors."
McGlenn replied: "John is your friend. John thinks that you are a strong man—I don't know yet, but I do know that you please me when you are silent and that you don't displease me when you talk. You are strong enough to say, 'I don't know,' and a confession of ignorance is a step toward wisdom. Ask John a question to-day and he may say, 'I don't know,' but to-morrow he does know—he has spent a night with it. You are a remarkable man, Mr. Witherspoon," he added after a moment's reflection, "a very remarkable man. Your life up to a short time ago, you say, was a struggle; your uncle was a poor man. Suddenly you became the son of a millionaire. A weak nature would straightway have assumed the airs of a rich man; you remained a democrat. It was so remarkable that I thought the decision might react as an error, and therefore I asked if you had not begun to grow weary of this democracy, the Press Club."
McGlenn smiled, and his smile had two meanings, one for his friends and another for his enemies. His friends saw a thoughtful countenance illumined by an intellectual light; his enemies recognized a sarcasm that had escaped from a sly and revengeful spirit. But Henry was his friend.
"John," said Richmond, "you think"—
McGlenn turned out his thumb and began to motion with his fist. "I won't submit to the narrow dictum of a man who presumes to tell me what I think."
"But if nobody were to tell you, how would you find out what you think? Oh," he added, "I admit that it was presumption on my part. I was presuming that you think."
"I do think, and if some one must tell me what I think, let him be a thinking man."
"John, you cry out for thought, and are the first to strike at it with your dogmatism. You don't think—you dogmatize."
McGlenn turned to Henry. "I had two delightful days last week. John Richmond was out of town."
"Yes," said Richmond, putting his feet on a chair. "Falsehood gallops in riotous pleasure when Truth is absent. Hold on! I can stand one wrinkle between your eyes, but I am afraid of two."
"A man of many accomplishments, but wholly lacking in humor," said McGlenn, seeming to study Richmond for the purpose of placing an appraisement on him. "A man who worships Ouida and decries Sir Richard Steele."
"No, I don't worship Ouida, but I read her sometimes because she is interesting. As for Steele, he is decried by your praise. Say, John, you advised me to change grocers every month, and I don't know but it would be a good plan. An old fellow that I have been trading with has sent me a bill for eighty-three dollars."
"John, he probably takes you for a great man and wants to compliment you."
"I don't object to a compliment, but that was flattery," Richmond, replied, taking his feet off one chair and putting them on another. "Let's ride home, John; it's 'most too slippery to walk."
"All right. You have ruined my health already by making me walk with you. Come on; we'll go now."