The Dreamers Part 5

_Mr. Edwards._ "I have; and if I'm to die respected and honored, if my family is to have any regard for my memory, I've got to get out of farcing. That's all. Did you sew the b.u.t.ton on my overcoat?"

_Mrs. Edwards._ "I did. I'll go get it."

She goes out. Mrs. Billis throws herself sobbing on sofa. Billis dances a jig. Forty minutes elapse, during which Billis's dance may be encored.

Enter Mrs. Edwards, triumphantly, with overcoat.

_Mrs. Edwards._ "There's your overcoat."

_Mr. Edwards._ "But--but the b.u.t.ton isn't sewed on. I can't go out in this."

_Mrs. Edwards._ "I knew it, Robert. I sewed the b.u.t.ton on the wrong coat."

Billis and Robert fall in a faint. Mrs. Billis rises and smiles, grasping Mrs. Edwards's hand fervently.

_Mrs. Billis._ "n.o.ble woman!"

_Mrs. Edwards._ "Yes; I've saved the farce."

_Mrs. Billis._ "You have. For, in spite of these--these strikers--these theatric Debses, you--you got in the point! _The b.u.t.ton was sewed on the wrong overcoat!_"

CURTAIN.

"When the farce was finished," said Mr. Parke, "and the applause which greeted the fall of the curtain had subsided, I dreamed also the following author's note: 'The elapses' in this farce may seem rather long, but the reader must remember that it is the author's intention that his farce, if acted, should last throughout a whole evening. If it were not for the elapses the acting time would be scarcely longer than twenty minutes, instead of two hours and a half."

"I mention this," Mr. Parke added, "not only in justification of myself, but also as a possible explanation of certain shortcomings in the work of the original master. Sometimes the action may seem to drag a trifle, but that is not the fault of the author, but of life itself. To be real one must be true, and truth is not to be governed by him who holds the pen."

Mr. Parke's explanation having been received in a proper and appreciative spirit by his fellow-Dreamers, Mr. Jones announced that Mr.

Monty St. Vincent was the holder of the sixth ball, whereupon Mr. St.

Vincent arose and delivered himself as follows:

V

THE SALVATION OF FINDLAYSON

_Being the story told by the holder of the sixth ball, Mr. Monty St. Vincent._

A donkey engine, next to a Soph.o.m.ore at a football match that is going his way, is the noisiest thing man ever made, and No. 4-11-44, who travelled first-cla.s.s on the American liner _New York_, was not inclined to let anybody forget the fact. He held a commanding position on the roof of the deck state-room No. 10, just aft of the forecastle stringer No. 3, and over the main jib-stay boom No. 6-7/8, that held the rudder-chains in place. All the little Taffrails and Swashbucklers looked up to him, and the Capstan loved him like a brother, for he very often helped the Capstan to bring the Anchor aboard, when otherwise that dissipated bit of iron would have staid out all night. The Port Tarpaulins insisted that the Donkey Engine was the greatest humorist that ever lived, although the Life Preservers hanging by the rail did not like him at all, because he once said they were Irish--"Cork all through," said he. Even the Rivets that held the Top Gallant Bilges together used to strain their eyes to see the points of the Donkey Engine's jokes, and the third Deputy-a.s.sistant Piston Rod, No. 683, in the hatchway stoke-hole, used to pound the cylinders almost to pieces trying to encore the Donkey Engine's comic songs.

The Main Mast used to say that the Donkey Engine was as bright as the Starboard Lights, and the Smoke Stack is said to have told the Safety Valve that he'd rather give up smoking than lose the constant flow of wit the Donkey Engine was always giving forth.

Findlayson discovered all this. After his Bridge had gone safely through that terrible ordeal when the Ganges rose and struck for higher tides, Findlayson collapsed. The Bridge--But that is another story. This is this one, and there is little profit in telling two stories at once, especially in a day when one can get the two stories printed separately in the several magazines for which one writes exclusively.

After the ordeal of the Kashi Bridge, Findlayson, as I have said, collapsed, and it is no wonder, as you will see for yourself when you read that other story. As the Main Girder of the Bridge itself wrote later to the Suspension Cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, "It's a wonder to me that the Sahib didn't have the _Bashi-bazouks_ earlier in the game.

He suffered a terrible strain that night."

To which the Cables of the Brooklyn Bridge wittily replied that while they sympathized with Findlayson, they didn't believe he really knew what strain was. "Wait until he has five lines of trolley-cars running over him all day and night. That _is_ a strain! He'd be worse cut up than ever if he had that. And yet we thrive under it. After all, for solid health, it's better to be a Bridge than a Man. When are you coming across?"

Now Findlayson might have collapsed a dozen times before the Government would have cared enough to give him the vacation he needed. Not that Government is callous, like an elephant, but because it is conducted, as a witty Cobra once remarked in the jungle as he fascinated a Tigress, by a lot of Red Tapirs. Findlayson put in an application for a six months'

vacation, but by the time the necessary consent had reached him the six months were up. Everybody remembers the tale of Dorkins of the Welsh Fusileers and his appointment to the Department of the Poloese, how his term of office was to be six years, and how by the time his credentials reached him his term of office had expired. So with Findlayson. On the very date of the expiration of his desired leave he received permission to go, and of course could not then do so, because it was too late.

Fortunately for Findlayson, however, the Viceroy himself happened to be pa.s.sing through, and Findlayson entertained him at a luncheon on the Bridge. By some curious mistake, when the nuts and raisins were pa.s.sed, Findlayson had provided a plateful of steel nuts, designed to hold rivets in place, instead of the usual a.s.sortment of almonds and _hiki-ree_.

"This man needs a rest," said the Viceroy, as he broke his front tooth trying to crack one of the steel nuts, and he immediately extended Findlayson's leave to twenty years without pay, for which Findlayson was very grateful.

"What is the matter with the man?" asked the Viceroy, as he drove to the station with the practising Jinrikshaw of the place.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VICEROY EXAMINES HIS RUINED SMILE]

"It's my professional opinion," replied the Jinrikshaw, "that the Sahib has a bad attack of melancholia. He hasn't laughed for six months. If we could only get him to laugh, I think he'd recover."

"Then it was not in a jocular spirit that he ruined my teeth with those nuts?" demanded the Viceroy, taking a small mirror out of his pocket and gazing ruefully on his ruined smile.

"No, your most Excellent Excellency," replied the Jinrikshaw. "The fact that he ate five of them himself shows that it was an error, not a jest."

It was thus that Findlayson got his vacation, and even to this day the Kaskalooloo folk are laughing over his error more heartily than they ever laughed over a joke.

A month after leaving his post Findlayson reached London, where he was placed under the care of the most famous physicians. They did everything they could to make him laugh, without success. _Punch_ was furnished, and he read it through day after day, and burst into hysterical weeping.

They took him to the theatres, and he never even smiled. They secured a front seat in the House of Commons for him during important debates, and he merely sobbed. They took him to the Army and Navy Stores, and he shivered with fear. Even Beerbohm Tree as Lady Macbeth, or whatever role it was he was playing at the time, failed to coax the old-time dimple to his cheek. His friends began to whisper among themselves that "old Findlayson was done for," when Berkeley Hauksbee, who had been with him in the Soudan, suggested a voyage to the United States.

"He'll see enough there to laugh at, or I'm an unshod, unbroken, saw-backed, shark-eating skate!" he a.s.serted, and as a last resource Findlayson was packed, bag and baggage, aboard the liner _New York_.

The first three days out Findlayson was dead to the world. He lay like a fallen log in the primeval forest. Stewards were of no avail. Even the repeated calls of the doctor, whose apprehensions were aroused, could not restore him to life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY GAVE HIM _PUNCH_]

"They'll be sewin' him up in a jute bag and droppin' him overboard if he doesn't come to by to-morrow," observed the Water Bottle to the Soap Dish, with a sympathetic glance at the prostrate Findlayson.

"He'll be seasicker than ever if they do," returned the Soap Dish. "It's a long swim from here to Sandy Hook."

But Findlayson came to in time to avert the catastrophe, and took several turns up and down the deck. He played horse-billiards with an English curate, but showed no sign of interest or amus.e.m.e.nt even at the curious aspect of the ladies who lay inert in the steamer chairs ranged along the deck.

"I'm afraid it's hopeless," said Peroo, his valet, shaking his head sadly. "Unless I take him in hand myself." And Peroo was seized with an idea.

"I'll do it!" he cried.

He approached Findlayson.

"The Sahib will not laugh," he said. "He will not smile even. He has not snickered all day. Take these, then. They're straight opium, but there's fun in them."

He took a small zinc bait-box from his fishing-kit and handed it to Findlayson, who, on opening it, found a dozen or more brown pellets.

Hastily swallowing six of them, the sick man turned over in his bunk and tried to go to sleep, while Peroo went into the smoking-room for a game of _Pok-Kah_ with a party of _Drummerz_ who were crossing to America.