The Hills of Hingham

by Dallas Lore Sharp

"No matter," he rejoined, "look at me! Six feet three, and thin as a lath. I 'm what you might call a walking skeleton, ready to disjoint, as the poet says, and eat all my meals in fear, which I would do if 't wa'n't for this little 'Friend.' I can't eat without it. I miss it more when I am eatin' than I miss the victuals. I carry one with me all the time. Awful handy little thing. Now—"

"But—" I put in.

"Certainly," he continued, with the smoothest-running motor I ever heard, "but here's the point of the whole matter, as you might say. This thing is up to date, Professor. Now, the old-fashioned way of tying a knot in the corner of your napkin and anchoring it under your Adam's apple—that's gone by. Also the stringed bib and safety-pin. Both those devices were crude—but necessary, of course, Professor—and inconvenient, and that old-fashioned knot really dangerous; for the knot, pressing against the Adam's apple, or the apple, as you might say, trying to swallow the knot—well, if there isn't less apoplexy and strangulation when this little Friend finds universal application, then I 'm no Prophet, as the Good Book says."

"But you see—" I broke in.

"I do, Professor. It's right here. I understand your objection. But it is purely verbal and academic, Professor. You are troubled concerning the name of this indispensable article. But you know, as well as I—even better with your education, Professor—that there 's nothing, absolutely nothing in a name. 'What's in a name?' the poet says. And I 'll agree with you—though, of course, it's confidential—that 'The Fat Man's Friend' is, as you literary folks would say, more or less of a nom de plume. Isn't it? Besides,—if you 'll allow me the language, Professor,—it's too delimiting, restricting, prejudicing. Sets a lean man against it. But between us, Professor, they 're going to change the name of the next batch. They're—"

"Indeed!" I exclaimed; "what's the next batch going to be?"

"Oh, just the same—fifteen cents each—two for a quarter. You could n't tell them apart. You might just as well have one of these, and run no chances getting one of the next lot. They'll be precisely the same; only, you see, they're going to name the next ones 'Every Bosom's Friend,' to fit lean and fat, and without distinction of sex. Ideal thing now, is n't it? Yes, that's right—fifteen cents—two for twenty-five, Professor?—don't you want another for your wife?"

No, I did not want another for her. But if she had been at home, and I had been away, who knows but that all six of us had come off with a "Friend" apiece? They were a bargain by the half-dozen.

A bargain? Did anybody ever get a bargain—something worth more than he paid? Well—you shall, when you bring home a Dustless-Duster.

And who has not brought it home! Or who is not about to bring it home! Not all the years that I have searched, not all the loads that I have collected, count against the conviction that at last I have it—the perfect thing—until I reach home. But with several of my perfections I have never yet reached home, or I am waiting an opportune season to give them to my wife. I have been disappointed; but let no one try to tell me that there is no such thing as Perfection. Is not the desire for it the breath of my being? Is not the search for it the end of my existence? Is not the belief that at last I possess it—in myself, my children, my breed of hens, my religious creed, my political party—is not this conviction, I say, all there is of existence?