From Pillar to Post Part 16

"Oh, come now, Conductor!" said I. "Five minutes more isn't going to hurt anybody--"

"All right," said he, "go ahead. Only when you hear the whistle blow don't lose a minute, hungry or no hungry."

With that understanding I sped to the lunch counter, and in a few moments had a roll and a steaming cup of coffee before me; but, alas for all human expectations! the coffee was so fearfully hot nothing but a salamander could have hoped to drink it with safety, and I had hardly taken one scalding sip of it when the whistle blew sharply. There was but one thing to do, and I did it. I poured the coffee into my saucer and drained as much as I could of it from that, thrust the roll into my pocket, and darted after the train, which had already begun to move slowly, conscious all the while of the soft thud of pattering feet, like those of the white rabbit in "Alice in Wonderland," behind me. I caught the train, seizing the rear platform rail with one hand, and when swinging myself on board was projected almost flat on my face by another pa.s.senger who suddenly developed like an infant battering ram at the rear. He was a little man, and his breath came in appropriate pants.

Both completely winded, we gazed into each other's eyes.

"Bub-beg pardon," he gasped. "I dud-didn't mean to bub-b.u.mp into you.

Very grateful to you--yuh--you saved my life!"

"Saved your life?" said I. "How so?"

"Why," said he, "I was nearly gone for want of my coffee, and the stuff was so infernally hot I couldn't drink it, and then when I saw you pouring yours out into your saucer, I says to myself, '_Well, if a swell-lookin' guy like that kin do that, I kin,--an' b'gosh, I did!_"

A not infrequent source of terror to the platform speaker, if not a real peril, is the small boy one encounters en route, singly and alone or in groups. I am glad to say that I have always delighted in him, and so far, despite the possibilities, none of my contacts with him has resulted disastrously; but, while n.o.body ever need mark him "FRAGILE,"

it is none the less true that he should be handled with care, and kept right side up if possible, for the sake of the general comfort.

One of these youngsters once gave me a supreme example of intrinsic honesty which I shall never forget. I met him on the evening of my lecture in the town of Everett, Ma.s.sachusetts. I had somehow got the notion that Everett was farther afield from Boston than it really is, and starting early I arrived at the high school hall a full hour before the advertised time. The building was dark, and every door was locked; so that for some thirty or forty minutes I was compelled to pace the sidewalk in front of it, awaiting the arrival of somebody who could let me in. After several turns up and down the street I was accosted by a bright-faced little urchin who held a ticket for my lecture in his hand.

"Want to buy a ticket for to-night's lecture, mister?" said he.

"No, son," said I. "I've heard this lecture several times already, and I wouldn't go through it again for seven dollars."

"Gee!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "_If it's as bad as that, I guess I'd better tear this up._" And he destroyed the ticket on which he had doubtless expected to realize much soda-water money before my very eyes, and went whistling along upon his honest little way.

Perhaps this little lad does not come properly under the head of Hazards; but in one of the larger cities of Arkansas I once came upon a group of boys who did, and they kept me in a state of trepidation for a goodly part of the evening. It happened that simultaneously with my arrival in town there arrived also a snowstorm that for that section of the country was a heavy one. Heavy or light, it brought with it enough snow to provide these forty-odd youngsters with the kind of occupation that all healthy-minded youngsters find to their taste--that of snow-balling pa.s.sersby. When my motor arrived at the lecture hall the boys were on hand, and for two or three minutes the car was the object of a fierce fusillade of icy missiles that nearly put the chauffeur out of commission. The committee hustled me into the hall with no more damage than one rather slushy splosh of snow perilously close to my neck.

"It's a shame, Mr. Bangs," said the chairman, "and I apologize. These boys aren't a bad lot; but they are irrepressible. I'd advise you to go slow with them to-night. They've broken up two lectures already."

"Gracious!" said I. "Do they attend the lectures?"

"Yes," said the chairman. "By arrangement with the school authorities they have the first two rows reserved for them free."

And sure enough when I walked out upon the platform there they were, two solid rows of them, eying me like hungry birds of prey ready to pounce upon a particularly luscious morsel. I should have fled if flight had been possible; but it was not, and I looked forward to an hour and a half of trial. But as the chairman was introducing me an idea popped into my head which I am glad to say saved the day--or rather the night.

Instead of my usual opening I addressed a few words to the boys.

"It is an awful shame, my young friends," said I, "that the requirements of this lecture course and the necessities of my own engagements compel you and me to waste such a delightful evening as this indoors. I feel just as badly as you do about it; for while what few hairs I have are gray, I give you my word that I'd rather go into a good redhot s...o...b..ll fight with you than listen to the finest lecture that was ever delivered. If I didn't have to go on to Memphis to-night, I'd ask the committee and the audience to postpone this lecture until the snow melts, so that I could show you what a corking shot I am at any old beaver hat, moving or fixed, that ever crowned a mortal head."

The effect was instantaneous. A wave of enthusiasm swept over the lads, and the only interference I had from them during my talk was a somewhat too-ready inclination on their part to help me along with laughter and applause at points where tears and silence would have been more appropriate. Moreover, when at the close of my lecture I started with some reluctance to leave the hall, instead of the volley of arctic ammunition that I had expected, I found those youngsters lined up twenty on a side between the door and my motor with their hats off, forming a little alley of honor for me to tread, giving me three rousing cheers as I departed.

From which somewhat trying experience I deduce that there is a good deal more latent courtesy in Young America than certain despairing critics of modern manners would have us believe. It may be that the reason why we do not find it oftener is that we do not ourselves give it the opportunity to express itself.

I have spoken of our exposure to "battle, murder, and sudden death," and to some it may have seemed an exaggeration to claim anything of the sort as a platform peril; and yet there was one occasion upon which I was so uncomfortably tangent to such conditions that they seemed all too real.

It was in one of our far western States. Scheduled to lecture there at eight P.M., my train did not reach the town until nine-forty-five. I had telegraphed news of my delay ahead, and my audience with rare courtesy had voted to remain at the hall until I arrived.

I dressed on the train, and on descending from it was whisked to the opera house in a prehistoric hack, which shed one of its wheels en route, spilling the committee and myself into the road, but without damage; while my Only Muse went on to the hotel, a two-story affair, where she secured accommodations for the night. Later, on the conclusion of my talk, on my arrival at the hotel, I found the Muse sitting up in bed, pallid as a ghost, with a revolver at her side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Laughter where tears would have been more appropriate."]

"What on earth is the matter with you?" I demanded, more than startled at the sight.

She hardly needed to answer; for almost as I spoke from a saloon located immediately underneath our room came the sharp crack of pistols.

Somebody below there was engaged in the pleasing occupation of "shooting up" the place. Not having seen the plans and specifications of the hotel, I did not know how thick the floor was, or what were the prospects for a sudden eruption of bullets through the carpet. It was not any safer to venture out either; for there was no telling how far the trouble might spread. So I jumped into bed and trusted to a combination of Providence, floor, and hair mattress to hold me immune.

The disturbance did not last long, however, and shortly after midnight all was quiet, and sleep came.

Two hours later we were awakened by a snarling quarrel going on directly under our window. Two men were applying epithets of an uncomplimentary nature to each other, when suddenly one of them pa.s.sed the bounds of even occidental toleration. He called the other a name that no right-minded man could be expected to stand, and we heard three sharp cracks of a revolver zipping out in the air. We sprang from the bed and rushed to the window, and there lying flat on his back, on a light fall of snow, in the glare of an electric lamp, was a man, with a gradually widening red spot staining the white of the road on which he lay. There was no sign of an a.s.sailant anywhere; but in a few moments, in absolute, almost ghostly silence, black figures appeared from seemingly everywhere, and bent over the fallen victim. We could hear low whisperings, and then suddenly one of the black figures detached himself from the group, and ran off down the street, returning shortly with a covered carriage. Into this the murdered man was placed, the carriage was driven off, the snow m.u.f.fling the feet of the horses, the black figures vanished as silently as they had come, and all that was left of the tragedy was the red spot in the snow.

We had heard tales of witnesses to similar disturbances being detained for months under surveillance, practically prisoners of the law, pending the trial of the guilty, and were in no mind to suffer a similar experience ourselves. Wherefore when morning came we rose with the first glimmer of dawn, packed our suitcases, and, asking no questions of anybody, departed for other scenes on the earliest milk train we could catch; which happened, fortunately, to be going in the right direction for us.

Personally I have a horror of the Zeppelin and its powers to make things uncomfortable from its aerial thoroughfares; but as between it and the perils of being shot up from below by playful spirits in a frontier saloon I think I shall choose the Zeppelin if the choice must be made. At any rate, if either emergency should ever again enter into my life, I trust I shall have a bomb-proof roof overhead, or an armor-plated hair mattress underneath me; for I have no taste for a last end in which a coroner will be called upon to decide whether the victim of the affair was a mortal being, or a lifeless combination of porous plaster and human sieve.

XIII

EMBARRa.s.sING MOMENTS

I shall never forget the expression of serene immunity from care on the face of one of my editorial chiefs when some years ago I told him that I was very much embarra.s.sed by certain arrangements he himself had made over my head. They were such arrangements as to make my position frankly impossible.

"You have embarra.s.sed me more than I care to say," said I.

"Embarra.s.sment is a sign of weakness," he replied calmly. "Don't ever be embarra.s.sed."

"But what can I do?" said I. "You have made these arrangements, and--"

"Well, if I were you," said he, smiling, and putting considerable emphasis on the _you_, "rather than admit that anything under heaven embarra.s.sed me I'd tell _me_ to go to the devil with my arrangements."

I took him at his word. We both laughed, and the immediate awkwardness vanished. While I cannot truthfully say that telling him to "go to" was a wholly satisfactory ultimate solution of all our difficulties, I have as a matter of policy adopted that att.i.tude toward troublesome things ever since, to the material advantage at least of my own peace of mind.

I have found the philosophy involved a workable one, and more than helpful to me in the pursuit of my platform labors, especially that part of it involving the "laugh."

It certainly rescued me from a deal of unhappiness over a wasted date a year or so ago in Michigan, for which I was in no sense to blame, and which, had the various parties been inclined to quarrel over misfortune, might have resulted in much unpleasantness.

Following a Wednesday night engagement in mid-Ohio was a Thursday night in a more or less remote section of the Wolverine State. To reach the Thursday night scene of action I was required to rise at five o'clock in the morning and travel with one or two awkward changes of trains to Fort Wayne, going thence to Kalamazoo, and from there by a way train to the point in question. It was a long, tedious drive of a day, and when I reached Kalamazoo I unburdened myself vigorously to the Only Muse to the effect that if anybody, anywhere, would offer me a job as third a.s.sistant manager of a tolerably stationary peanut stand at two dollars a week, payable in deferred promises, I should consider the offer a most tempting one.

My comfort was not at all enhanced by my discovery on reaching Kalamazoo that I had completely misread the timetables, and that instead of arriving at our destination at five in the afternoon, leaving me plenty of time for rest, refreshment, and change of clothes, the only possible train, even if it ran on time, could not get me through to the haven of my desires until five minutes before eight, with the lecture scheduled to begin at eight-fifteen. So I rested, refreshed, and dressed at Kalamazoo, and perforce traveled over the last stage of that wearisome journey in full evening dress, slowly but surely acc.u.mulating en route a sufficient supply of soot, cinders, grit, and other appurtenances of travel on a soft-coal, one-horse railroad, to make me appear like a masterpiece of spatterwork when I arrived at the farther end.

By some odd mischance, never as yet satisfactorily accounted for, the train got through on time. The Only Muse and I hastily boarded an omnibus, and were whisked through the impenetrable depths of a dark night to the hotel, whence, after seeing her properly bestowed, I hastened to the Auditorium where the lecture was to be held. To my surprise when I got there I found the building wholly dark. There was not a sign of life anywhere about it. I banged, whacked, and thundered on the door like an invading artillery corps; but with no response of any sort. But a glance up the street a moment later relieved the pressure of my woe; for there my vision was cheered by a brilliantly lighted church.

"Of course," I thought, "the Auditorium is too small to accommodate the audience, and they've changed over to the church."

I glanced at my watch, and discovered that I had two minutes to spare. A goodly sprint brought me panting to the front door of the edifice, and with some unnecessary noise, perhaps due wholly to the impetuosity of my approach, I burst in upon the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude--to find, alas! that the very sizable audience gathered there with their heads bowed, and listening to an eloquent appeal for blessings desired by a gentleman wearing a long frock coat and a white necktie, were not for me. To my chagrin I soon learned that I had come within an ace of _breaking up_ a prayer meeting--if I may be allowed the use of such incongruous terms in the phrase. I backed out as gracefully as I could, and collided with a late comer.

"Is there more than one Auditorium in town?" I whispered, after apologizing for my reactionary behavior.

"Oh, yes," he replied politely, "there is the Auditorium, and the High School Auditorium."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I found the building wholly dark."]