A Fool and His Money

by George Barr McCutcheon

All attempts on my part to connect the lady in the east wing with the history of the extinct Rothhoefens were futile. He would not commit himself.

"Well," said I, yawning in helpless collusion with the sleepy Gretel, "we'll let it go over till morning. Call me at seven, Britton."

Conrad made haste to assure me that the lady would not receive me before eleven o'clock. He begged me to sleep till nine, and to have pleasant dreams.

I went to bed but not to sleep. It was very clear to me that my neighbour was a disturber in every sense of the word. She wouldn't let me sleep. For two hours I tried to get rid of her, but she filtered into my brain and prodded my thoughts into the most violent activity. She wouldn't stay put.

My principal thoughts had to do with her identity. Somehow I got it into my head that she was one of the female Rothhoefens, pitiable nonentities if Conrad's estimate is to be accepted. A descendant of one of those girl-bearing daughters of the last baron! It sounded very agreeable to my fancy's ear, and I cuddled the hope that my surmise was not altogether preposterous.

My original contention that she was a poor relation of old Schmick and somewhat dependent upon him for charity—to say the least—had been set aside for more reliable convictions. Instead of being dependent upon the Schmicks, she seemed to be in an exalted position that gave her a great deal more power over them than even I possessed: they served her, not me. From time to time there occurred to me the thought that my own position in the household was rather an ignoble one, and that I was a very weak and incompetent successor to baronial privileges, to say nothing of rights. A real baron would have had her out of there before you could mention half of Jack Robinson, and there wouldn't have been any sleep lost over distracting puzzles. I deplored my lack of bad manners.

It was quite reasonable to assume that she was young, but the odds were rather against her being beautiful. Pretty women usually adjure such precautions as veils. Still, this was speculation, and my reasoning is not always sound, for which I sometimes thank heaven. She had a baby. At least, I suppose it was hers. If not, whose? This set me off on a new and apparently endless round of speculation, obviously silly and sentimental.

Now I have humbly tried to like babies. My adolescent friends and acquaintances have done their best to educate me along this particular line, with the result that I suppose I despise more babies than any man in the world. My friends, it would appear, are invariably married to each other and they all have babies for me to go into false ecstasies over. No doubt babies are very nice when they don't squawk or pull your nose or jab you in the eye, but through some strange and prevailing misfortune I have never encountered one when it was asleep. If they are asleep, the parents compel me to walk on tip-toe and speak in whispers at long range; the instant they awake and begin to yawp, I am ushered into the presence, or vice versa, and the whole world grows very small and congested and is carried about in swaddling clothes.

There is but one way for a bachelor to overcome his horror of babies, and he shouldn't wait too long.

I went to sleep about four o'clock, still oppressed by the dread of meeting a new baby.