Mr. Bingle

by George Barr McCutcheon

"Now, see here, Mr. Bingle," Flanders would say, "you went into partnership with me last winter, that's the long and short of it. It wasn't your fault that you couldn't put up the money according to our agreement, but I want to say to you that if it hadn't been for your encouragement and advice I never would have finished the play and I certainly could not have scraped up the courage to get married when I did. Amy and I have always looked upon you as a partner in our success. Now, I'll tell you precisely what we've decided upon as a fair division of the royalties that I am receiving. You are to take the author's royalty from the number three company—the one that is to play the 'road' for this season and next. It is to be a three cornered arrangement. Amy helped to develop the play, so she is to have the royalty from the Chicago company, while I shall receive all that comes out of the New York run. This arrangement will hold good for two seasons. After that, we'll make a new arrangement, taking in the stock rights, moving pictures and—"

But Mr. Bingle would listen to no more. Always when Flanders got just so far in his well-meant, earnest propositions, the object of his concern would stop him in such a gentle, dignified manner that the young playwright would flush with the consciousness that he had given offence to an honest soul.

Mr. Bingle defeated every enterprise on the part of his few friends that had the appearance of charity. He accepted their good intentions, he delighted in their thoughtfulness and esteem, but he never permitted them to go beyond a certain well-defined line. The argument that he had been generous, even philanthropic, in his days of prosperity was invariably met by the quaint contention that while the Good Book teaches charity, the dictionary makes a point of defining it, and "you can't spell charity, my friend, with the letters that are allotted to generosity. So don't quote the Bible to me."

He put a stop to the cunning schemes of Diggs and Watson, who, with Melissa's connivance, began a regular and systematic attempt to smuggle bacon, eggs, butter and potatoes into the kitchen. This project of theirs at first comprehended vegetables of every description and fruits as well, but the sagacious house-maid vetoed anything so wholesale as all that. She agreed that the accidental delivery of a side of bacon, or a mistake in the counting of a dozen eggs, or the overweighing and undercharging of a pound of butter, or the perfectly natural error of sending a peck and a half of potatoes when only a peck was ordered, might escape the keen observation of Mr. Bingle, but that anything more noticeable would cause the good gentleman to take his trade elsewhere. As she said to the distressed Diggs one evening, after carefully observing that the kitchen door was closed: "When I order a half ton of coal from you for the parlour stove, there's no sense in you weighing it out by ounces. Guess at it, and then after you've guessed as near right as you know how, double the amount. Mr. Bingle isn't going to weigh the coal, you know. And when it comes to rice and hominy and cooking apples and all such things, just let your imagination do the measuring. If a pound of coffee happens to look like a pound and a half to you, don't forget the extra cups you used to have every afternoon at Seawood. And if I should happen to send for the cheapest tea you've got in stock, don't overlook the fact that there is an expensive kind. Once in a while you might make ME a present of a couple of dozen oranges, some bananas and nuts, and you might sometimes ask Mr. Bingle to sample a new brand of smoking tobacco you're thinking of carrying."

"But we sha'n't carry tobaccos," said Mr. Diggs, who aside from being a good soul was also British.

"All the more reason why you should be THINKING of carrying 'em, isn't it, you stupid?"

Mr. Bingle saw the opening performance of the Flanders play and went behind the scenes afterward. He did this, he explained, so that he could describe his sensations to Mrs. Bingle. He was introduced to all of the players and they were so uniformly polite that he fell into a fine fury the next morning on reading the newspaper review in which they were described as "unintentionally adequate."

He knew as well as every one else that it would be impossible for him to keep the children on the salary he was receiving at the bank. He knew that the day was not far off when he would have to give them up. His fellow bookkeepers harangued him from morning till night. They made themselves obnoxious with their everlasting talk about being unable to support families one-fourth the size of his; and one or two slyly inquired whether he hadn't "salted away" a part of the Hooper money for a perpetual spell of rainy weather. In justice to the children themselves it would be necessary for him, before long, to set about finding suitable, respectable homes for them. It was this unhappy sense of realisation that put the new furrows in his brow and took the colour out of his cheek, the lustre from his eyes.

One day he was approached by Rouquin, volatile and cheery as in the days of old. The sprightly Frenchman was beaming with friendliness and good spirits. He conveyed a startling bit of personal news to Mr. Bingle without the slighest trace of shame or embarrassment.

"Well, Mr. Bingle, I have married her," he said shrugging his shoulders in a manner that might have signified either extreme satisfaction with himself or lamentation over the inevitable. "The day before yesterday. I am now a proud and happy father, old friend."