The Main Chance

by Meredith Nicholson

There was a cup of tea at the Whipples' for any one that dropped in at five o'clock. The general kept a syphon in the icebox, and his wife's tea, which he loathed, gave him his excuse. He was fond of saying that an exacting government made it impossible for an army officer to get acquainted with his wife until after his retirement, and then, he declared, there was nothing to discuss but the opportunities in life which they had missed. They talked a great deal to each other about their neighbors, and about their friends in the army whose lives they were able to follow through the daily list of transfers in the newspapers, and the ampler current history of the military establishment in the Army and Navy Journal. Few men in Clarkson had time for the general. He found the club an unsocial place, and he preferred his own battered copies of "Pendennis" and "Henry Esmond" to anything in the club library. Occasionally when Mrs. Whipple was out for luncheon he went to the club for midday sustenance, but the other men who hurried through their forty cents' worth of table d'hôte, talked of matters that were as alien to him as marine law. It would have suited the general much better to live in Washington, where others with equally little to do assembled in force; but his wife would not hear to it. She would not have her husband, she said, becoming a professional pall bearer, and this was the occupation of retired officers of the army and navy at the capital. He submitted to her superior authority, as he always did, and settled in Clarkson, where one could get much more for one's money than in Washington.

The general usually remained in the Indian room at the tea hour, particularly if he liked the talk of the women who appeared, or if they were good to look at; otherwise he carried his syphon to the dining-room, where there was a bottle of the same brand of rye whisky which he kept back of "The Life of Peter the Great" in a book case in the Indian room. He and Mrs. Whipple had gone to the opera without Evelyn, and the general was now settling himself to his domestic routine. He had dodged a woman whose prattle vexed him and whose call had been prolonged, and having heard the door close upon her, he was returning to his own preserve with the intention of getting some hot water from Mrs. Whipple's tea kettle for use in compounding a punch, when Bishop Delafield came in, bringing a great draft of cold air with his huge figure. The bishop was a friend of many years' standing. His sonorous voice filled the room and aided the fire in promoting cheeriness. Mrs. Whipple brewed her tea, and the general made his punch,—for two—for it was certainly snowing somewhere in the Diocese of Clarkson, the bishop said, and he had established his joke with the general that he might allow himself spirits in bad weather, as a preventive of the rheumatism which he never had. The three made a cozy picture as they grouped themselves about the bright hearth. They were discussing the marriage of an old officer whom they all knew, a man of Whipple's own age, who had just married a woman much his junior.

"It's easy for us all to philosophize adversely about such things," said the general, sitting up straight in his camp chair. "I have a good deal of sympathy with Bixby. He was lonely and his children were all married and scattered to the four winds. I suppose there's nothing worse than loneliness."

His wife frowned at him; their friend's long sorrow and his fidelity to his memories appealed to all the romance in her.

"It's very different," Mrs. Whipple made haste to say, "where there are children at home. Now there's Mr. Porter; he has Evelyn and Grant."

"But that probably won't last long," said the bishop. "Girls have a way of leaving home."

"Well, there's nothing imminent?" asked Mrs. Whipple, anxiously.

"Oh, no! And girls that have been educated as she has been are likely to choose warily, aren't they?"

"Nothing in it," said the general, stirring his glass. "They all go when they get ready, without notice. Education doesn't change that."

"It strikes me that there aren't many eligible men here," said the bishop. "To be explicit, just whom shall a girl like Evelyn Porter marry?" He did not intend this for the general, who was refilling the glasses, but the general refused to be ignored.