The Wit and Humor of America Volume IX Part 25

"Blest if I don't believe we could actually fake the thing through if we should try," said Jimaboy. "There are plenty of people in this world who would take it seriously."

"I don't doubt it," was Isobel's reply. "People are so ready to be gold-bricked--especially by mail. But it's twelve o'clock! Shall I light the stove for luncheon?--or can we stand Giuseppe's?"

Jimaboy consulted the purse.

"I guess we can afford stuffed macaroni, this one time more," he rejoined. "Let's go now, while we can get one of the side tables and be exclusive."

They had barely turned the corner in the corridor when Lantermann's door opened and the cartoonist sallied out, also luncheon-stirred. He was a big German, with fierce military mustaches and a droop in his left eye that had earned him the nickname of "Bismarck" on the _Times_ force. He tapped at the Jimaboy door in pa.s.sing, growling to himself in broken English.

"I like not dis light housegeeping for dese babies mit der wood. Dey starf von day und eat nottings der next. I choost take dem oud once und gif dem sauerkraut und wiener."

When there was no answer to his rap he pushed the door open and entered, being altogether on a brotherly footing with his fellow-lodgers. The pen-drawings with their pendant squibs were lying on Jimaboy's desk; and when Lantermann comprehended he sat down in Jimaboy's chair and dwelt upon them.

"_Himmel!_" he gurgled; "dot's some of de liddle voman's fooling. Goot, _sehr_ goot! I mus' show dot to Hasbrouck." And when he went out, the copy for the two advertis.e.m.e.nts was in his pocket.

Jimaboy got a check from the _Storylovers_ that afternoon, and in the hilarity consequent upon such sudden and unexpected prosperity the Post-Graduate School of W. B. was forgotten. But not permanently. Late in the evening, when Jimaboy was filing and sc.r.a.ping laboriously on another story,--he always worked hardest on the heels of a check,--Isobel thought of the pen-drawings and looked in vain for them.

"What did you do with the W. B. jokes, Jimmy?" she asked.

"I didn't do anything with them. Don't tell me they're lost!"--in mock concern.

"They seem to be; I can't find them anywhere."

"Oh, they'll turn up again all right," said Jimaboy; and he went on with his polishing.

They did turn up, most surprisingly. Three days later, Isobel was glancing through the thirty-odd pages of the swollen _Sunday Times_, and she gave a little shriek.

"Horrors!" she cried; "the _Times_ has printed those ridiculous jokes of ours, _and run them as advertis.e.m.e.nts_!"

"What!" shouted Jimaboy.

"It's so; see here!"

It was so, indeed. On the "Wit and Humor" page, which was half reading matter and half advertising, the Post-Graduate School of W. B. figured as large as life, with very fair reproductions of Isobel's drawings heading the displays.

"Heavens!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jimaboy; and then his first thought was the jealous author's. "Isn't it the luckiest thing ever that the spirit didn't move me to sign those things?"

"You might as well have signed them," said Isobel. "You've given our street and number."

"My kingdom!" groaned Jimaboy. "Here--you lock the door behind me, while I go hunt Hasbrouck. It's a duel with siege guns at ten paces, or a suit for damages with him."

He was back again in something under the hour, and his face was haggard.

"We are lost!" he announced tragically. "There is nothing for it now but to run."

"How ever did it happen?" queried Isobel.

"Oh, just as simply and easily as rolling off a log--as such things always happen. Lantermann saw the things on the desk, and your sketches caught him. He took 'em down to show to Hasbrouck, and Hasbrouck, meaning to do us a good turn, marked the skits up for the 'Wit and Humor' page. The intelligent make-up foreman did the rest: says of course he took 'em for ads. and run 'em as ads."

"But what does Mr. Hasbrouck say?"

"He gave me the horse laugh; said he would see to it that the advertising department didn't send me a bill. When I began to pull off my coat he took it all back and said he was all kinds of sorry and would have the mistake explained in to-morrow's paper. But you know how that goes. Out of the hundred and fifty thousand people who will read those miserable squibs to-day, not five thousand will see the explanation to-morrow. Oh, we've got to run, I tell you; skip, fly, vanish into thin air!"

But sober second thought came after a while to relieve the panic pressure. 506 Hayward Avenue was a small apartment-house, with a dozen or more tenants, lodgers, or light housekeepers, like the Jimaboys. All they would have to do would be to breathe softly and make no mention of the Post-Graduate School of W. B. Then the other tenants would never know, and the postman would never know. Of course, the non-delivery of the mail might bring troublesome inquiry upon the _Times_ advertising department, but, as Jimaboy remarked maliciously, that was none of their funeral.

Accordingly, they breathed softly for a continuous week, and carefully avoided personal collisions with the postman. But temporary barricades are poor defenses at the best. One day as they were stealthily scurrying out to luncheon--they had acquired the stealthy habit to perfection by this time--they ran plump into the laden mail carrier in the lower hall.

"h.e.l.lo!" said he; "you are just the people I've been looking for. I have a lot of letters and postal cards for The Post-Graduate School of something or other, 506 Hayward. Do you know anything about it?"

They exchanged glances. Isobel's said, "Are you going to make _me_ tell the fib?" and Jimaboy's said, "Help!"

"I--er--I guess maybe they belong to us"--it was the man who weakened.

"At least, it was our advertis.e.m.e.nt that brought them. Much obliged, I'm sure." And a breathless minute later they were back in their rooms with the fateful and fearfully bulky packet on the desk between them and such purely physical and routine things as luncheon quite forgotten.

"James Augustus Jimaboy! What have you done?" demanded the accusing angel.

"Well, somebody had to say something, and you wouldn't say it," retorted Jimaboy.

"Jimmy, did you want me to lie?"

"That's what you wanted me to do, wasn't it? But perhaps you think that one lie, more or less, wouldn't cut any figure in my case."

"Jimmy, dear, don't be horrid. You know perfectly well that your curiosity to see what is in those letters was too much for you."

Jimaboy walked to the window and shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

It was their first quarrel, and being unfamiliar with the weapons of that warfare, he did not know which one to draw next. And the one he did draw was a tin dagger, crumpling under the blow.

"It has been my impression all along that curiosity was a feminine weakness," he observed to the windowpanes.

"James Jimaboy! You know better than that! You've Said a dozen times in your stories that it was just the other way about--you know you have.

And, besides, I didn't let the cat out of the bag."

Here was where Jimaboy's sense of humor came in. He turned on her quickly. She was the picture of righteous indignation trembling to tears. Whereupon he took her in his arms, laughing over her as she might have wept over him.

"Isn't this rich!" he gasped. "We--we built this thing on our specialty, and here we are qualifying like cats and dogs for our great mission to a quarrelsome world. Listen, Bella, dear, and I'll tell you why I weakened. It wasn't curiosity, or just plain, every-day scare. There is sure to be money in some of these letters, and it must be returned.

Also, the other people must be told that it was only a joke."

"B-but we've broken our record and qu-quarreled!" she sobbed.

"Never mind," he comforted; "maybe that was necessary, too. Now we can add another course to the curriculum and call it the Exquisite Art of Making Up. Let's get to work on these things and see what we are in for."

They settled down to it in grim determination, cutting out the down-town luncheon and munching crackers and cheese while they opened and read and wrote and returned money and explained and re-explained in deadly and wearisome repet.i.tion.

"My land!" said Jimaboy, stretching his arms over his head, when Isobel got up to light the lamps, "isn't the credulity of the race a beautiful thing to contemplate? Let's hope this furore will die down as suddenly as it jumped up. If it doesn't, I'm going to make Hasbrouck furnish us a stenographer and pay the postage."

But it did not die down. For a solid fortnight they did little else than write letters and postal cards to anxious applicants, and by the end of the two weeks Jimaboy was starting up in his bed of nights to rave out the threadbare formula of explanation: "Dear Madam: The ad. you saw in the _Sunday Times_ was not an ad.; it was a joke. There is no Post-Graduate School of W. B. in all the world. Please don't waste your time and ours by writing any more letters."

The first rift in the cloud was due to the good offices of Hasbrouck. He saw matter of public interest in the swollen jest and threw the columns of the _Sunday Times_ open to Jimaboy. Under the racking pressure, the sentimentalist fired volley upon volley of scathing ridicule into the ma.s.sed ranks of anxious inquirers, and finally came to answering some of the choicest of the letters in print.