 14 The old young woman and the new. Providence has granted what I dared not hope for," wrote Cecilia to the President. If she had hoped for it Providence would not have granted it, interpolated the honorary trier. This is hardly the moment for jesting, said Lily with marked peak. Pardon me, the moment for jesting is surely when you have received a blow. In a happy crisis jesting is a waste of good jokes. The retiring candidate does not state what Providence has granted, does she? No, said Lily savagely. She was extremely reticent about her history, reticent almost to the point of indiscretion, but I dare say it's a husband. Ah, then it can hardly be Providence that has granted it, said Silverdale. Providence is not always kindly, said Lily, laughing. The jibot Benedict restored her good humor, and when the millionaire strolled into the club she did not immediately expel him. Well, Lily, he said, when are you going to give the soiree to celebrate the foundation of the club? I am staying in town expressly for it. As soon as possible, Father, I am only waiting for some more members. Why, have you any difficulty about getting enough? I seem always to be meeting young ladies on the staircases. We are so exclusive. So it seems you exclude even me, grumbled the millionaire. I can't make out why you are so hard to please, a more desirable lot of young ladies I never wish to see. I should never have believed it possible that such a number of pretty girls would be anxious to remain single merely for the sake of a principal. You see, said Lily eagerly, we shall be a standing proof to men of how little they have understood our sex. Men do not need any proof of that, remarked Lord Silverdale dryly. This time it was Lily whom Turple the Magnificent prevented from making the retort, which was not on the tip of her tongue. A gentleman who gives his name as a lady is waiting in the anti-room, he announced. They all stared hard at Turple the Magnificent, almost tempted to believe he was joking and that the end of the world was at hand. But the countenance of Turple the Magnificent was as stolid and expressionless as a bath-bun. He might have been beaming behind his face, possibly even the Old Maid's Club tickled him vastly so that his mental midriff was agitated convulsively, but this could not be known by outsiders. Lily took the card he tendered her and read aloud, Nellie Nimrod. Nellie Nimrod, cried the honorary trier, why that's the famous girl who traveled from Charing Cross to China Tartary on an elephant, and wrote a book about it under the pen name of Wee Winnie. Shall I show him in, interposed Turple the Magnificent? Certainly, said Lily eagerly, Father, you must go. Oh, no, not if it's only a gentleman. It may be only no lady, murmured Silverdale. Lily caught the words and turned upon him the dusky splendors of her fulminant eyes. At two, Brutee, she said, do you two hold that false theory that womanliness consists in childishness? No, nor that other false theory that it consists in manliness, retorted the honorary trier. The entry of Nellie Nimrod put an end to the dispute. In the excitement of the moment, no one noticed that the millionaire was still leaning against an epigram. Good morning, Miss Dalsamer, I am charmed to make your acquaintance, said Wee Winnie, gripping the president's soft hand with painful cordiality. She was elegantly attired in a white double-breasted waistcoat, a Zouave jacket, a Czech tweed skirt, gaiters, a three-inch collar, a tricorner hat, a pair of tanned gloves, and an eyeglass. In her hand she carried an ebony stick. Her hair was parted at the side. Nellie was nothing if not original, so that when the spectator looked down for the divided skirt he was astonished not to find it. Wee Winnie, in fact, considered it ungraceful, and divide at impera a contradiction in terms. She was a tall girl, and looked handsome even under the most masculine conditions. I am happy to make yours, returned the president. Is it to join the Old Maid's Club that you have called? It is, wherever there is a crusade you will always find me in the van. I don't precisely know your objects yet, but any woman who strikes out anything new commands my warmest sympathies. Be seated, Miss Nimrod, allow me to introduce Lord Silverdale, an old friend of mine. End of mine, replied Nellie, bowing with a sweet smile. Indeed! cried Lily, flushing. In the spirit, only in the spirit, said Nellie, his lordship's poems of passion formed my soul reading in the deserts of China Tartary. In the letter you should say then, said the peer, by the way, you are confusing me with a minor poet, Silver Plume, and his book is not called Poems of Passion, but Poems of Compassion. Ah, well, there isn't much difference, said Nellie. No, according to the proverb, compassion is akin to passion, admitted Silverdale. Well, Miss Nimrod, put in Lily, our object is easily defined. We are an association of young and beautiful girls devoted to celibacy in order to modify the meaning of the term old maid. Nellie Nimrod started up enthusiastically. Bravo, old girl! she cried, slapping the president on the back. Put me down for a flag. I catch the conception of the campaign. It is magnificent. But it is not war, said Lily. Our methods are peaceful, unaggressive. Our platform is merely metaphorical. Our lesson is the self-sufficiency of spinsterhood. We preach it by existing. Not exist by preaching it, added Silverdale. This is not one of the clicks of the shrieking sisterhood. What do you mean by the term shrieking sisterhood, said Nellie? I use it to denote the mice-fearing classes. Here, here, said Lily, it is true, Miss Nimrod, that our members are required not to exhibit in public, but only because that is a part of the old unhappy signification of old maid. I quite understand. You would not call a book a public exhibition of one's self, I suppose. Certainly not, if it is an autobiography, said Silverdale. That's all right, then. My book is autobiographical. I knew a celebrity once, said Silverdale, a dreadfully shy person. All his life he lived retired from the world, and even after his death he concealed himself behind an autobiography. Lily frowned at these ironical insinuations, though Miss Nimrod appeared impervious to them. I have not concealed myself, she said simply. All I thought and did is written in my book. I liked that part about the fleas, murmured the millionaire. What's that? Didn't catch that, said Nellie, looking round in the direction of the voice. Good gracious father, haven't you gone? cried Lily, no less startled. It's too bad. You are spoiling one of my best epigrams. Could you lean against something else? Before the millionaire could be got rid of, Turple the Magnificent reappeared. A lady who gives the name of a gentleman, he said. The assemblage pricked up its ears. What name, said Lily? Miss Jack, she said. That's her surname, said Lily, in a disappointed tone. Until the Magnificent stood reproved a moment, then he went out to fetch the lady. The gathering was already so large that Lily thought there was nothing to be gained by keeping her waiting. Miss Jack proved to be an extremely eligible candidate so far as appearances went. She bowed stiffly on being introduced to Miss Nimrod. May I ask if that is to be the uniform of the Old Maid's Club? She inquired of the President. As if so, I am afraid I have made a mistaken journey. It is as a protest against unconventional females that I designed to join you. Is it to me you are referring as an unconventional female? asked Miss Nimrod, bridling up. Certainly, replied Miss Jack, with exquisite politeness, I lay stress upon your sex merely because it is not obvious. Well, I am an unconventional female, and I glory in it, said Lily Nimrod, seating herself astride the sofa. I did not expect to hear the provincial suburban note struck within these walls. I claim the right of every woman to lead her own life in her own toilettes. And a pretty life you have led! I have indeed, cried Miss Nimrod, goaded almost to oratory by Miss Jack's taunts. Not the ugly, unlovely life of the average woman. I have exhausted all the sensations which are the common gwarden of youth and health and high spirits, and which have for the most part been selfishly monopolized by man. The splendid audacity of youth has burnt in my veins and fired me to burst my swaddling clothes and strike for the emancipation of my sex. I have not merely played cricket in a white shirt, and lawn tennis in a blue-surge skirt. I have not only skated in low-heeled boots and fenced in corduroy and knicker-bockers, but I have sailed the seas in an oil-skin jacket and a sowester, and swum them in nothing, and walked beneath them in the diver's mail. I have waited after salmon in long boots and caught trout in tweed knicker-bockers and spats. Nay more! I have proclaimed the dignity of womanhood upon the moors, and have shot grouse in brown leather-gaters and a sweet Norfolk jacket with half-inch tux. But this is not the climax. I have— Yes, I know. You are we-winny. You have traveled alone from Charing Cross to China Tartary. I have not read your book, but I have heard of it. And what have you heard of it? That it is in bad taste. Your remark is in worse, interposed lily severely. Ladies, ladies, murmured Silverdale, this is the first time we have had two of them in the room together. He thought, I suppose when the thing is once started we shall change the name to the Kilkeny Cats Club. In bad taste is it, said Miss Nimrod, promptly whipping a book out of her skirt pocket. Well, here is the book. If you can find one passage in bad taste, I'll—I'll delete it in the next edition. There! She pushed the book into the hands of Miss Jack, who took it rather reluctantly. What's this? Asked Miss Jack, pointing to a weird illustration. That's a picture of me on my elephant, sketched by myself. Do you mean to say there's any bad taste about that? Oh, no, I merely asked for information. I didn't know what animal it was. You astonish me, said the artist. Have you never been to a circus? Yes, this is Mumbo Jumbo himself. Surely, Miss Jack, said Lord Silverdale gravely, you must have heard, if you have not read, how Miss Nimrod chartered an elephant, packed up her Kodak and a few bonnet boxes, and wrote him on the curb through Central Asia. But may I ask, Miss Nimrod, why you did not enrich the book with more sketches? There is only this one, all the rest are Kodaks. Well, you see, Lord Silverdale, it's simpler to photograph. Perhaps, but your readers miss the artistic quality that pervades this sketch. I am glad you made an exception in its favour. Oh, only because one can't Kodak oneself, everything else I caught as I flew past. Did you catch any Tartars? Hundreds! I destroyed most of them. By the way, you did not come across Mr. Flatpick in Tartary? The English Shakespeare? Oh, yes, I lunged with him. He is charmed. Ah, here are fleas, interrupted Miss Jack. The millionaire started as if he had been stung. I won't have them taken apart from the context, I warn you. That wouldn't be fair, said Miss Nimrod. Very well I will read the whole passage, said Miss Jack. Mumbo-jumbo bucked violently, see illustration, but I settled myself tightly on the saddle, and gave myself up to meditations on the vanity of lifeguard's men. Mumbo-jumbo seemed, however, determined to have his fling, and bounded about with the agility of an India rubber ball. At last his convulsions became so terrific that I grew quite nervous about my fragile bonnet boxes. They might easily dash one another to bits. I determined to have leather-hat boxes the next time I traveled in untrodden paths. Steady my beauty, steady, I cried. Recognizing my familiar accents, my pet eased a little. To pacify him entirely, I whistled, ba-ba-ba-boodle-dee to him, but his contortions recommend and became quite grotesque. First he lifted one paw high in the air, then he twirled his trunk round the corner. Then the first paw came down with a thud that shook the desert, while the other three paws flew upwards towards the sky. It suddenly occurred to me that he was dancing to the air of ba-ba-ba-boodle-dee, and I laughed so hard and long that any stray Mahatma who happened to be smoking at the door of his cave in the cool of the evening must have thought me mad. But while I was laughing, Mumbo-jumbo continued to stand upon his tail, so that I sigh could not be, ba-ba-ba-boodle-dee, he was suffering from. I wondered whether perhaps he could be teething, or should I say tusking? I do not know whether elephants get a second set, or whether they cut their wisdom tusks, but as they are so sagacious I suppose they do. Suddenly the consciousness of what was really the matter with him flashed sharply upon my brain. I looked down upon my hand, and there, poised lightly but firmly, like a butterfly on a lily, was a giant flea. Instantly without uttering a single cry or reeling in my saddle, I grasped the situation. And coolly seizing the noxious insect with my other hand, I choked the life out of him, while Mumbo-jumbo cantered along in restored calm. The sensitive beast had evidently been suffering untold agonies. Now, Lord Silverdale, said Miss Nimrod, I appeal to you, is there anything in that passage in the least calculated to bring a blush to the cheek of the young person? No, there is not, said his lordship, emphatically. Only I wish you had caught that flea with your Kodak. Why? said Miss Nimrod. Because I have always longed to see him, a flea that could penetrate the Pachydermatous height of an elephant, must have been indeed a monster. In England we only see that sort under microscopes. They seem to thrive nowhere else. Yours must have been one that had escaped from under the lens. He was magnified three thousand diameters, and he never recovered from it. You probably took him over in your trunk. Oh, no, I'm sure I didn't, protested Miss Nimrod. Well then, Mumbo-jumbo did in his. Excuse me, interposed Miss Jack, we are getting off the point. I did not say the passage was calculated to raise a blush. I said it was a grave error of taste. It is a mere flea-bite, broke in the millionaire impatiently. I liked it when I first read it, and I like it now I hear it again. It is a touch of nature that brings the tartary traveller home to every fireside. Besides, added Lord Silverdale, the introduction of the butterfly in the lily makes it quite poetical. Ladies and gentlemen, interposed the President at last, we are not here to discuss entomology or aesthetics. You stated, Miss Jack, that you thought of joining us as a protest against female unconventionality. I said unconventional females, persisted Miss Jack. Even so, I do not follow you, said Lily. It is extremely simple. I am unable to marry because I have a frank nature, not given to feigning or fawning. I cannot bring a husband what he expects nowadays in a wife. What is that? inquired Lily curiously. A chum, answered Miss Jack. Formerly, a man wanted a wife. Now he wants a woman to sympathize with his intellectual interests, to talk with him intelligently about his business, discuss politics with him, nay, almost to smoke with him. Tobacco for two is destined to be the ideal of the immediate future. The girls he favors are those who flatter him by imitating him. It is women like Wee Winnie who have depraved his taste. There is nothing the natural man craves less for than a clever, learned wife. Only he has been talked over into believing that he needs intellectual companionship, and now he won't be happy till he gets it. I have escaped politics and affairs all my life, and I am determined not to marry into them. What a humiliating confession, sneered Miss Nimrod. It is a pity you don't wear dolls' clothes. I claim for every woman the right to live her own life in her own toilettes, retorted Miss Jack. The sneers about dolls are threadbare. I have watched these intellectual camaraderies, and I say they are a worse injustice to women than any you to cry. That sounds a promising paradox, muttered Lord Silverdale. The man expects the woman to talk politics, but he refuses to take a reciprocal interest in the woman's sphere of work. He will not talk nursery or servants. He will preach economy, but he will not talk it. That is true, said Lily, impressed. What reply could you make to that, Miss Nimrod? There is no possible reply, said Miss Jack, hurriedly. So much for the mock equality which is the cant of the new husbandry. How stands the account with the new young womanhood? The young ladies who are clamoring for equality with men want to eat their cake and to have it, too. They want to wear masculine hats, yet to keep them on in the presence of gentlemen. To compete with men in the marketplace, yet to take their seats inside omnibuses on wet days and outside them on sunny. To be pals with men in theatres and restaurants and shirk their share of the expenses. I once knew a girl named Miss Frisco who cultivated platonic relations with young men, but never once did she pay her half of the handsome. Pardon me, interrupted we, Winnie. My whole life gives the lie to your superficial sarcasm, in my anxiety to escape these obvious objugations, I have even, I admit it, gone to the opposite extreme. I have made it a point to do unto men as they would have done unto me if I had not anticipated them. I always defray the bill at the restaurants, buy the stalls at the box-office, and receive the curses of the cab man. If I see a young gentleman to the train, I always get his ticket for him and help him into the carriage. If I convey him to a ball, I bring him a button-hole, compliment him on his costume, and say soft nothings about his mustache. While if I go to a dance alone, I stroll in about one in the morning, survey mankind through my eyeglass, lull a few minutes in the doorway, then go downstairs to interview the supper, and having sated myself with chicken, champagne, and trifle, return to my club. Do your club?" exclaimed the millionaire. Yes, do you think the Old Maids is the only one in London? Mine is the Lady Travellers. Do you know it, Miss Dalsamer? No, said Lily shame-facedly. I only know the writers. Why are you a member of that? I'm a member, too. It's getting a great club now, what with Ella-Lyn Rand, Andrew Dibden, you know, and Frank Maddox and Lily Dalsamer. I wonder we haven't met there. I'm so taken with my own club, explained Lily. Naturally, but you must come and dine with me one evening at the Lady Travellers, snug little club, much cozier than the junior widows, and they give you a better bottle of wine, and then the decorations are so sweetly pretty. The only advantage the junior widows has over the Lady Travellers is the lovely smoking room lined with mirrors, which makes it much nicer when you have men to dinner. I always ask them there. Why, are you allowed to have men? asked Miss Jack. Certainly, in the dining and smoking rooms. Then of course there are special gentlemen's nights. We get down a lot of musical talent just to give them a peep into Bohemia. But how can you be a member of the junior widows? asked the millionaire. Oh, I'm not an original member, but when they were in want of funds they let a lot of married women and girls in without asking questions. I suppose, though, they all look forward to becoming widows in time, observed Silverdale cheerfully. Oh, no! replied Miss Nimrod emphatically. I don't say that if they hadn't let me in, the lovely smoking room lined with mirrors mightn't have tempted me to marry so as to qualify myself. But as it is, thank heaven, I'm an old maid for life. Why should I give up my freedom and the comforts of my club and saddle myself with a husband, who would want to monopolize my society, and who would be jealous of my bachelor friends, and want me to cut them, who would hanker to read my letters, who would watch my comings and goings, and open my parcels of cosmetics marked confectionery. Doubtless in the bad old times, which Miss Jack has the inaptitude to regret, marriage was the key to comparative freedom. But in these days, when women has at last emancipated herself from the thraldom of mothers, it would be the height of folly to replace them by husbands. Do you tell me, Miss Jack, what marriage has to offer to a woman like me?" Nothing, replied Miss Jack. Ah ha! you admit it! cried Miss Nimrod triumphantly. Why should I embrace a profession to which I feel no call? Marriage has practically nothing to offer any independent woman, except a true so, wedding presence, and the jealousy of her female friends. But what are these weighed against the cramping of her individuality? Perhaps even children come to fetter her life still more, and she has daughters who grow up to be younger than herself. No, the future lies with the old maid, the woman who will retain her youth and her individuality till death, who dies but does not surrender. The ebbing tide is with you, Miss Jack, the flowing tide is with us. The old maid's club will be the keystone of the arch of the civilization of tomorrow, and Miss Dalsamer's name will go down to posterity linked with— Lord Silverdale's, said the millionaire. Father, what are you saying? murmured Lily, abashed before her visitors. I was reminding Miss Nimrod of the part his lordship has played in the movement. It is not fair posterity should give you all the credit. I have done nothing for the club, nothing, said the peer modestly. And I will do the same, said Miss Jack. I came here under the delusion that I was going to associate myself with a protest against the defeminization of my sex, with a band of noble women who were resolved never to marry till the good old times were restored, and marriages became true marriages once more. But instead of that, I find we winny. You are indeed fortunate beyond your deserts, replied that lady. You may even hope to encounter a suitable husband some day. I do hope, said Miss Jack, frankly, but I will never marry till I meet a thoroughly conventional man. There I have the advantage of you, said Miss Nimrod, I shall never marry until I meet a thoroughly unconventional man. A thoroughly unconventional man would never want to marry at all, said Lily. Of course not. That is the beauty of the situation. That is the paradox which guarantees my spinster hood. Well, I've had a charming afternoon, Miss Dalsamer, but I must really run away now. I hate keeping men waiting, and I have an appointment with a couple of friends at the junior widows. Such fun! While riding in the park before lunch, I met Guy Fledgley out for a constitutional with his father, the baronet. I asked Guy if he would have a chop with me at the club this evening. And what do you think? The baronet coughed and looked at Guy meaningly. And Guy blushed and hemmed in hod, and looked sheepish, and at last gave me to understand he never went out to dine with a lady unless accompanied by his father. So I had to ask the old man, too. Isn't it awful? By the way, Miss Jack, I should be awfully delighted if you would join our party. Thank you, we winny, said Miss Jack, disdainfully. But think how thoroughly conventional the baronet is! He won't even let his son go out without a chaperone. That is true, admitted Miss Jack, visibly impressed. He is about the most conventional man I ever heard of. A widower, too, pursued Miss Nimrod, pressing her advantage. Miss Jack hesitated. And he dines seven sharp at the junior widows. Ah, then, there is no time to lose, said Miss Jack. They went out arm in arm. Have you seen Patrick Boyle's poem in the Playgoers' review, asked Lily when the club was clear? You mean the great dramatic critics? No, I haven't seen it, but I have seen extracts and eulogies in every paper. I have it here complete, said Lily. It is quite interesting to find there is a heart beneath the critic's waistcoat. Read it aloud. No, you don't want the banjo. Lord Silverdale obeyed. The poem was entitled, Criticus insta bullis. Lilying point of all Playgoers' earnest, packed with incongruous types of humanity, easily pleased yet of critics the sternest, crudely ignoring that all things are vanity. Pit, in thee laughter and tears blend in medley, would I could sit in thy cozy concavity. No, to the stalls I am drawn, to the deadly center of gravity. Villain or shilling or sixpence admission, often I've paid in my raw juvenility. Purchasing banberry cakes in addition, ginger beer, too, to my highest ability. Villains I hissed like a venomous gander, virtue I loved next to cheesecakes or chocolate. Now no atrocity raises my dander, no crime can shock a late. Then I could dote on a red melodrama. Now I demand but limelight on philosophy. Learned allusions to Buddha and Brahma, science and faith and a touch of theosophy. Farses I slate on burlesque I am scathing, pantomime shakes for a week my serenity. Nothing restores my composure but bathing deep in obscenity. Actors were gods to my boyish devotion, actresses angels in tights and lobottices. Ground is that pretty and puerile notion, thrown overboard in the first of my odysseys. Sirens may sing submarine fascinations, adult Ulysses remain analytical, flat notes recording or reedy vibrations, tranquilly critical. Here in the stalls we are stiff as if starch meant only for shirt fronts to faces had mounted up, dowagers' wills may be red on their parchment, beautiful busts on your thumbs may be counted up. Girls in the pit are remarkably rosy, each clasped by lover who passes the paper bag. Here I can't even, the girls are so prosy, one-digit taper bag. Yet could I sit in the pit of the suri, munching in orange or spooning with ariette? Really I fear I should be in no hurry, backward to drive my existences chariot. Squeezes are ill compensated by crushes, stalls may be dull but they're jolly luxurious. Really the way or past joys we can gush is awfully curious. Life is a chaos of comic confusion, past things alone take a halo harmonious. So from illusion we wake to illusion, each as the rest just as true and erroneous. Fin de se clay I am and so be it. Here's to the problems of sad sociology. This is my weird, like a man I must dre it, great is chronology. Even so once the great drama allured me, which we all play on the stage universal. Being behind the green curtain has cured me. All my hope now is to not a rehearsal. Still I've played on, to old men's parts I grew from, juvenile lead as I'd risen from small boy. So I'll play on till I get my last cue from, death, the old call-boy. Hmm, not at all bad, concluded Lord Silverdale. I wonder who wrote it. CHAPTER 15 THE MISTERIOUS ADVERTISER Junior Widow's Club, midnight. Here Miss Dalsimer. Just a line to tell you what a lovely evening we have had. The baronet seemed greatly taken with Miss Jack and she with him, and they behaved in a conventional manner. Guy and I were able to have a real long chat and he told me all his troubles. It appears that he has just been thrown over by his promised bride under circumstances of a most peculiar character. I gave him the sympathy he needed, but at the same time thought to myself, ah-ha, here is another member for the Old Maid's Club. You rely on me, I will build you up a phalanx of old maids that shall just swamp the memory of Hippolyte and her Amazons. I got out of Guy the name and address of the girl who jilted him. I shall call upon Miss Sybil Hotspur the first thing in the morning, and if I do not land her, my name is not, yours cheerily, Wee Winnie. This may be awkward, said the honorary trier, returning the letter to the President. Miss Nimrod seems to take her own election for granted. And to think that we are anxious for members, added Lily. Well, we ought to have somebody to replace Miss Jack, said Silverdale, with a suspicion of a smile. What do you propose to accept, Wee Winnie? I don't know. She is certainly a remarkable girl, such originality and individuality. Suppose we let things slide a little. Very well, we will not commit ourselves yet by saying anything to Miss N... Miss Nimrod, announced Turple the Magnificent. Ah-ha, here are we again, cried Wee Winnie. How are you, everybody? How is the old gentleman, isn't he here? He is very well, thank you, but he is not one of us, said Lily. Oh, well, anyhow, I've got another of us. Miss Sybil Hotspur? The same, I found her raging like a volcano. What, smoking? queried Silverdale. No, no, she is one of the old sort, she merely fumes, said Wee Winnie, laughing as if she had made a joke. She was raving against the infidelity of men. Poor guy, how his ears must have tingled. He has sent her a long explanation, but she laughs it to scorn. I persuaded her to let you see it. It is so quaint. Have you it with you? asked Lily eagerly. Her appetite for tales of real life was growing by what it fed upon. Yes, here is his letter, several choirs long, but before you can understand it, you must know how the breach came about. Lord Silverdale, pass Miss Nimrod the chocolate creams, or would you like some lemonade? Lemonade, by all means, replied Wee Winnie, taking up her favorite attitude astride the sofa. With just a wee drappy of whiskey in it, if you please, I dare say I shall be as dry as a lime kiln before I finished the story and read you this letter. Turple the Magnificent duly attended to Miss Nimrod's wants. Whatever he felt he made no sign. He was simply Turple the Magnificent. One fine day, said Wee Winnie, or rather, one day that began fine, a merry party made an excursion into the country. Civil Hotspur and her fiancée, Guy Fledgley, and, of course, the baronet, were of the party. After picnicking on the grass the party broke up into twos till tea time. The baronet was good enough to pair off with an unattached young lady, and so Sybil and Guy were free to wander away into a copse. The sun was very hot and the young man had not spared the fizz. First he took off his coat to be cooler. Then with an afterthought he converted it into a pillow and went to sleep. Meantime Sybil, under the protection of her parasol, steadily pursued one of Adipur's early works, chased her in style then in substance, and sneering in exquisitely chiseled epigrams at the weaknesses of his sex. Sybil stole an involuntary glance at Guy, sleeping so peacefully like a babe in the wood, with the squirrels peeping at him trustfully. She felt that Adipur was a jaundiced cynic, that her Guy, at least, would be faithful unto death. At that instant she saw a folded sheet of paper on the ground near Guy's shoulder. It might have slipped from the inner pocket of the coat on which his head was resting. But if it had, she could not put it back without disturbing his slumbers. Besides, it might not belong to him at all. She picked up the paper, opened it, and turned pale as death. This is what she read. Manager of Daily Hurry Graph, please insert enclosed stories in order named on alternate days commencing today week. Postal order enclosed. 1. Dearest, dearest, dearest, remember the grotto, Popsie. 2. Dearest, dearest, dearest, this is worse than silence, sobs are cheap today, Popsie. 3. Dearest, dearest, dearest, only Anastasia and the dog thought I should have died, cruel heart hope on, the white band of hope. Watchmen, what of the night? Shall we say eleven-fifteen from Paddington, since the sea will not give up its dead? I have drained the dregs, the rest is silence. Answer to-morrow or I shall dream my weird, Popsie. There was no signature to the letter, but the writing was that which had hitherto borne to poor Sibyl the daily assurances of her lover's devotion. She looked at the sleeping trader so savagely that he moved uncomfortably, even in his sleep. Like a serpent that scrap of paper had entered into her Eden, and she put it in her bosom that it might sting her. Then noticed the shadows had been lengthening, the sky had grown gray, as if in harmony with her blighted hopes. Roughly she roused the sleeper, and hastily they wended their way back to the rendezvous to find tea just over and the rush to the station just beginning. There was no time to talk till they were seated face to face in the railway carriage. The party had just caught the train, and bundling in anyhow had become separated. Sibyl and Guy were alone again. Then Sibyl plucked from her breast the serpent and held it up. Guy, she said, what is this? He turned pale. Well, where did you get that from? He stammered. What is this? She repeated, and read in unsympathetic accents. Dearest, dearest, dearest, remember the grotto, Popsie. Who is dearest? She continued. You, of course, he said, with ghastly playfulness. Indeed, then allow me to say, sir, I will remember the grotto. I shall never forget it, Popsie. If you wish to communicate with me, a penny postage stamp is, I believe, adequate. Perhaps I am also Anastasia to say nothing of the dog. Or shall we say the eleven-fifteen from Paddington, Popsie? Sibyl, darling, he broke in piteously. Give me back that paper, you wouldn't understand. Sibyl silently replaced the serpent in her bosom and leaned back haughtily. I can explain all, he cried wildly. I am listening, Sibyl said. The fact is, I—I—the young man flushed and stammered. Sibyl's pursed lips gave him no assistance. It may seem incredible, you will not believe it. Sibyl made no sign. I—I am the victim of a disease. Sibyl stared scornfully. I—I don't look at me like that, or I can't tell you. I—I—I didn't like to tell you before, but I always knew you would have to know some day. Perhaps it is better it has come out before our marriage, listen. The young man leaned over and breathed solemnly in her ear. I suffer from an hereditary tendency to advertise in the agony column. Sibyl made no reply. The train drew up at a station. Without a word, Sibyl left the carriage and rejoined her friends in the next compartment. What an extraordinary excuse! exclaimed Lily. So Sibyl thought, replied we Winnie. From that day to this, almost a week, she has never spoken to him, and yet Guy persists in his explanation even to me, which is so superfluous that I am almost inclined to believe in its truth. At any rate I will now read you his letter. Dear Sibyl, perhaps for the last time I address you thus, for if after reading this you still refuse to believe me, I shall not trespass upon your patience again. But for the sake of our past love I beg you to read what follows in a trusting spirit, and if not in a trusting spirit, at least to read it. It is the story of how my father became a baronet, and when you know that you will perhaps learn to pity and to bear with me. When a young man, my father was bitten by the passion for contributing to the agony column. Some young men spend their money in one way, some in another. This was my father's dissipation. He loved to insert mysterious words and sentences in the advertisement columns of the newspapers, so as to enjoy the sensation of giving food for speculation to a whole people. To sit quietly at home, and with a stroke of the pen influence the thoughts of millions of his countrymen, this gave my father the keenest satisfaction. When you come to analyze it, what more does the greatest author do? The agony column is the royal rote to successful authorship if the publication of fiction in leading newspapers be any test of success, for my father used sometimes to conduct whole romances by correspondence after the fashion of the then-raining Wilkie Collins. And the agony column is also the most innocuous method for satisfying that crave for supplying topics of conversation which sometimes leads people to crime. I make this analysis to show you that there was no antecedent improbability about what you seem to consider a wild excuse. The desire to contribute to this department of journalism is no isolated psychical freak. It is related to many other manifestations of mental activity, and is perfectly intelligible. But this desire, like every other, may be given its head till it runs away with the whole man. So it was with my father. He began, half in fun, with a small advertisement, one insertion. Unfortunately, or fortunately, he made a little hit with it. He heard two men discussing it in a café. The next week he tried again, unsuccessfully this time so far as he knew. But the third advertisement was again a topic of conversation. Even in his own office, he was training for an architect. He heard the fellows saying, Did you see that funny advertisement this morning? Be careful not to break the baby. You can imagine how intoxicating this sort of thing is, and how the craving for the secret enjoyment it brings may grow on a man. Gradually my father became the victim of a passion fiercer than the gamblers, yet akin to it. Before he never knew whether his money would procure him the gratification he yearned for or not. It was all a fluke. The most promising mysteries would attract no attention, and even a carefully planned novelette that ran for a week with as many as three characters intervening would fall stillborn upon the tappies of conversation. But every failure only spurred him to fresh effort. While his spare coin, all his savings, went into the tills of the newspaper cashiers, he cut down his expenses to the uttermost farthing, living epistemously and dressing almost shabbily and sacrificing everything to his ambitions. It was lucky he was not in a bank, for he had only a moderate income, and who knows to what he might have been driven. At last my father struck oil, tired of the unfruitful field of romance, whose best days seemed to be over, my father returned to that rudimentary literature which pleases the widest number of readers, while it has the never-failing charm of the primitive for the jaded disciples of culture. He wrote only polysyllabic unintelligibilities. Thus for a whole week in every morning agony column he published in large capitals the word, paddle pinto sefiros gedadepoid. This was an instantaneous success, but it was only a success day steam. People talked of it, but they could not remember it. It had no seeds of permanence in it. It could never be more than a nine-day's wonder. It was an artificial esoteric novelty that might please the clicks, but could never touch the masses. It lacked the simplicity of real greatness, that unmistakable elemental cachet which commends things to the great heart of the people. After a bit this dawned upon my father, and profiting by his experience he determined to create something which should be immortal. For days he wracked his brains, unable to please himself. He had the critical fastidiousness of a true artist, and his ideal ever hovered before him unceasable. Grotesque words floated about him in abundance. Every current of air brought him new suggestions. He lived in a world of strange sounds. But the great combination came not. Late one night as he sat brooding by his dying fire there came a sudden wrapping at his chamber door. A flash of joy illumined his face. He started to his feet. I have it! he cried. Have what! said his friend Marple, bursting into the room without further parley. Influenza! Surly answered my father, for he was not to be caught napping, and Marple went away hurriedly. Marple was something in the city. The two young men were great friends, but there are some things which cannot be told even to friends. It was not influenza my father had got. To his fevered onomatopoeic fancy, Marple's quick quadruple wrap had translated itself into the word, allotutu. At this hour of the day, my dear Sybil, it is superfluous to say anything about this word, with which you have been familiar from your cradle. It has now been before the public over a quarter of a century, and it has long since won immortality. Little did you think, when we sat in the railway carriage yesterday, that the allotutu that glared at you from the partition was the faraway cause of the cloud now hanging over our lives. But it may be interesting to you to learn that in the early days many people put the accent on the second syllable, whereas all the world now knows the accent is on the first, and the O of all is short. When my father found he had set the Thames on fire, he was almost beside himself with joy. At the office the clerks, in the intervals of wondering about allotutu, wondered if he had come into a fortune. He determined to follow up his success, to back the winning word, to consecrate his life to allotutu, to put all his money on it. Thence forwards for the next three months you very rarely opened a paper without seeing the word allotutu. It stood always by itself, self-complete and independent, rigid and austere, in provoking sphinx-like solitude. Sybil imagine to yourself my father's rapture, to be the one man in all England who had the clue to the enigma of allotutu. At last the burden of his secret became intolerable. He felt he must breathe a hint of it or die. One night while Marple was smoking in his rooms and wondering about allotutu, my father proudly told him all. Great heavens, exclaimed Marple, tip us your flipper, old man, you are a millionaire. A what? gasped my father. A millionaire. Are you a lunatic? Are you an idiot? Don't you see that there is a fortune in allotutu? A fortune? How? By bringing it out as a joint-stock company. But, but, but you don't understand, allotutu is only, only an income for life, interrupted Marple excitedly. Look here, old boy, I'll get you up a syndicate to run it in twenty-four hours. Do you mean to say, no, I mean to do. I'm an ass not to quietly annex it all to myself, but I always said I was too honest for the city. Give me allotutu and we'll divide the profits. Glory, hooray! He capered about the floor wildly. But what profits, where from? Asked my father, still unenlightened, for outside architecture he was a green horn. Marple sang the ba-ba-ba-boodle-dee of the day and continued his wild career. My father seized him by the throat and pushed him into a chair. Speak, man! He cried agitatedly. Stop your tumfoolery and talk sense. I am talking sense, which is better! Said Marple, with a boisterous burst of laughter. A word that all the world is talking about is a gold mine, a real gold mine. I mean, not one on a prospectus. Don't you see that allotutu is a household word and that everybody imagines it is the name of some new patent, something which the proprietor has been keeping dark? I did myself. When at last allotutu is put upon the market, it will come into the world under a fierce light that beats upon a boom, and it will be snapped up like current cake at a tea fight. Why Nemo's fruit-pepper, which has been on every hoarding for twenty years, is not half so much talked about as allotutu. What you achieved is an immense preliminary advertisement, and you were calmly thinking of stopping there, within sight of Pactolus. I had achieved my end, replied my father with dignity. Art for art's sake! I did not work for money. Then you refuse half the profits? Oh, no, no! If the artist's work brings him money, he cannot help it. I think I catch your idea now. You wish to put some commodity upon the market attached to the name of allotutu. We have a pedestal but no statue, a cloak but nothing to cover. We shall have plenty to cover soon, observed Marple winking, and he sat himself unceremoniously at my writing desk and began scribbling away for dear life. I suppose, then, went on my father, we shall have to get a hold of some article and manufacture it. Nonsense, jerked Marple. Where are we to get the capital from? Oh, I see you will get the syndicate to do it. Good gracious man, yelled Marple. Do you suppose the syndicate will have any capital? Let me write in peace. But who is going to manufacture allotutu, then? persisted my father. The British public, of course, thundered Marple. My father was silenced. The feverish scratching of Marple's pen continued, working my father up to an indescribable nervous tension. But what will allotutu be, he inquired at last, a patent medicine, a tobacco, a soap, a mine, a comic paper, a beverage, a tooth powder, a hair restorer? Look here, old man, roared Marple. How do you expect me to bother about details? This thing has got to be worked at once. The best part of the company's season is already over. But allotutu is going to make it up. Mark my words, the shares of allotutu will be at a premium on the day of issue. Another sheet of paper, quick. What for? I want to write to a firm of chartered accountants and valuers to get an estimate of the profits. An estimate of the profits? Don't talk like a parrot. But how can they estimate the profits? How? What do you suppose they're chartered for? You or I couldn't do it, of course not. But it's the business of accountants. That's what they're for. Pass me more writing paper, reams of it. Marple spent the whole of that night writing letters to what he called his tame guinea pigs, and the very next day large bills bearing the solitary word allotutu were posted up all over London till the public curiosity mounted to frenzy. The bill posters earned many a half-crown by misinforming the inquisitive. Marple worked like a horse. First he drew up the prospectus, leaving blanks for the board of directors of the company. Then he filled up the blanks. It was not easy. One lord was only induced to serve on Marple's convincing representations of the good allotutu would do to the masses. When the board was complete, Marple had still to get the syndicate from which the directors were to acquire allotutu. But he left this till the end, knowing there would be no difficulty there. I have never been able to gather from my father exactly what went on, nor does my father profess to know exactly himself, but he tells with regret how he used to worry Marple daily by inquiring if he had yet decided what allotutu was to be, as if Marple had not his hands full enough without that. Marple turned round on him one day and shrieked, That's your affair, not mine. You're selling allotutu to me, aren't you? I can't be buyer and seller, too. This, by the way, does not seem to be as impossible as it sounds. For according to my father, when the company came out, Marple bought and sold allotutu in the most mysterious manner, rigging the market, watering the shares, cornering the bears, and doing other extraordinary things, each and all at a profit. He was not satisfied with his share of the price paid for allotutu by the syndicate, nor with his share of the enormously higher price paid to the syndicate by the public, but went in for stock exchange maneuvers six deep, earning out an easy winner on settling day. One of my father's most treasured collections is the complete set of proofs of the prospectus. It went through thirteen editions before it reached the public. No author could revise his work more lovingly than Marple revised that prospectus. What tales printers could tell to be sure? The most noticeable variations in the text of my father's collection are the omission or addition of ciphers. Some of the editions have 120,000 pounds for the share capital of the company, where others have 1,200,000 pounds and others 12,000 pounds. Sometimes the directors appear to have extenuated not, sometimes to have set down not in malice. As for the number of debenture shares, the amounts to be paid up on allotment, the contracts with divers obscure individuals, the number of shares to be taken up by the directors and the number to be accepted by the vendors in part payment, these vary indefinitely, but in no addition, not even in those still void of the names of the directors, do the profits guaranteed by the directors fall below 25%. Sometimes the complex and brain baffling calculations that fill page three result in a bigger profit, sometimes in a smaller, but they are always cheering to contemplate. There is not very much about allotutu itself even in the last edition, but from the very first there is a great deal about the power of the company to manufacture, import, export and deal in all kinds of materials, commodities and articles necessary for and useful in carrying on the same. To carry on any other operations or business, which the company might from time to time deem expedient in connection with its main business for the time being. To purchase, take an exchange or on lease, hire or otherwise in any part of the world for any estate or interests, any lands, factories, buildings, easements, patent rights, brands and trademarks, concessions, privileges, machinery, plant, stock in trade, utensils, necessary or convenient, for the purposes of the company, or to sell, exchange, let or rent royalty, share of profits or otherwise use and grant licenses, easements and other rights of and over, and in any other manner deal with or dispose of the whole or any part of the undertaking, business and property of the company, and in consideration to accept cash or shares, stock, debenture or securities of any company whose objects were or included objects similar to those of the company. The actual nature of Olotutu does not seem to have been settled till the ninth edition, but all the additions include the analysts' report, certifying that Olotutu contains no injurious ingredients and is far purer and safer than any other. Here there was a blank in the first eight additions in the market. From this it is evident that Marple has made up his mind to something chemical, though it is equally apparent that he kept an open mind regards its precise character, for in the ninth edition the blank is filled up with purgative, in the tenth with meat extract, in the eleventh with hair dye, in the twelfth with cod liver oil, and it is only in the thirteenth edition that the final decision seems to have been arrived at in favor of soap. This of course, my dear Sybil, you already know. Indeed, if I mistake not, Olotutu, the only absolutely sentless soap on the market, is your own pet soap. I hope it will not shock you too much if I tell you in the strictest confidence that except in price, stamp, and copious paper wrapping, Olotutu is simply bars of yellow soap chopped small. It was here perhaps that Marple's genius showed to the highest advantage. The public was overdone with patent-scented soaps. There seemed something unhealthy or at least molly-cottling about their use. The time was ripe for return to the rude and primitive. Absolutely sentless became the trademark of Olotutu, and the public, being absolutely senseless, Pache, my dear Sybil, somehow concluded that because the soap was devoid of scent it was impregnated with sanitation. Is there need to prolong the story? My father, so unexpectedly enriched, abandoned architecture and married almost immediately. Soon he became the idol of the popular constituency, and voting steadily with his party was made a baronette. I was born a few months after the first dividend was announced. It was a dividend of 33 percent, for Olotutu had become an indispensable adjunct to every toilet table, and the financial papers published leaders boasting of having put their clients up to a good thing, and Olotutu was on everybody's tongue and got into everybody's eyes. Can you wonder, then, that I was born with a congenital craving for springing mysteries upon the public? Can you still disbelieve that I suffer from an hereditary tendency to advertise in the agony column? At periodic intervals an irresistible prompting to force uncouth words upon the universal consciousness seizes me. At other times I am driven to beguile the public with pseudo-sensational communications to imaginary personages. It was fortunate my father early discovered my penchant, and told me the story of his life, for I think the very knowledge that I am the victim of heredity helps me to defy my own instincts. No man likes to feel he is the shuttlecock of blind forces. Still they are occasionally too strong for me, and my present attack has been unusually severe and protracted. I have been passing through my father's early phases, and conducting romances by correspondence. Complimentary to the series of messages signed Popsie, I had prepared a series signed Wopsie to go in on alternate days, and if you had only continued your search in my coat pocket you would have discovered these proofs of my innocence. May I trust it is now re-established, and that all a tutu has washed away the apparent stain on my character? With anxious heart I await your reply. Ever yours devotedly, guy! Sibyl's reply was, I have read your letter. Do not write to me again. She was so set against him, concluded Miss Nimrod. She would not even write this, but wired it. Then she does not believe the story of how Guy Fledgely's father became a baronet, said Lord Silverdale. She does not. She says all a tutu won't wash stains. Well, I suppose you will be bringing her up, said the President. I will, in the way she should go, answered we Winnie. Today is Saturday. I will bring her on Monday. Meantime, as it is getting very late, and as I have finished my lemonade, I will bid you good afternoon. Have you used all a tutu? And with this facetious inquiry Miss Nimrod twirled her stick and was off. An hour later Lily received a wire from we Winnie. All a tutu, wretches just reconciled, letter follows. And this was the letter that came by the first post on Monday. My poor President! We have lost Sibyl. She takes in the hurrygraph and reads the agony column religiously. So all the week she has been exposed to a terrible bombardment. As thus, Tuesday. My lost darling, a thousand demons are knocking at my door. Say you will forgive me, or I will let them in, bobo. Or thus, Wednesday. My lost darling, you are making a terrible mistake. I am innocent. I am writing this on my bended knees. The Fathers have eaten a sour grape. Misery cordia. Bobo. The bitter cry of the outcast lover increased daily in intensity. Till on Saturday it became delirious. My lost darling, save, oh, save! I have opened the door. They are there, in their thousands. The children's teeth are set on edge. The grave is dug. Betwixt two worlds, I fall to the ground. Adieu for ever, bobo. Will you believe that the poor little fool thought all this was meant for her, and that in consequence she thought day by day, till on Saturday she melted entirely and gushed on Guy's shoulder? Guy admitted that he had inserted these advertisements, but he did not tell her, as he afterwards told me in confidence, and as I now tell you in confidence, that they had been sent in before the quarrel occurred, and constituted his agony-column romance for the week, the popsy-wopsy romance not being intended for publication till next week. He had concocted these cries of despairing passion without the least idea they would so nearly cover his own case. But he says that as his hereditary craze got him into the scrape, it was only fair his hereditary craze should get him out of it. So that's the end of Sibyl Hotspur. But let us not lament her too much. One so frail and fickle was not of the stuff of which old maids are made. Courage, we winny, is on the war-path. Yours affectionately, Nellie. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of The Old Maids Club by Israel's Angle Chapter 16 The Club Becomes Popular The influence of we-winny on the war-path was soon apparent. On the following Wednesday morning the anti-rum of the club was as crowded with candidates as if Lily had advertised for a clerk with three tongues at ten pounds a year. Silverdale had gone down to Fleet Street to inquire if anything had been heard of Miss Ella-Lyn Rand's projected paper, and Lily grappled with the applicants single-handed. Turple the Magnificent was told to usher them into the confessional one-by-one, but the first two candidates insisted that they were one, and as he could not tell which one he gave way. It is said that the shepherd knows every sheep of his flock individually, and that a superintendent can tell one policeman from another. Some music hall managers even profess to distinguish between one pair of singing sisters and all the other pairs. But even the most trained eye would be puzzled to detect any difference between these two lovely young creatures. They were as like as two peas or two cues, or the two gentlemen who mount and descend together the mirror-lined staircase of a restaurant. My sister and myself are twins. We were born so. When the news was announced to our father, he is reported to have exclaimed, What a misfortune! His sympathy was not misplaced, for from our nursery days upward our perfect resemblance to each other has brought us perpetual annoyance. Do what we would, we never could never get mistaken for each other. The pleasing delusion that either of us would be saddled with the misdeeds of the other has got us into scrapes without number. At school we each played all sorts of pranks, making sure the other would be punished for them. Alas, the consequences have always recoiled on the head of the guilty party. We were not even whipped for neglecting each other's lessons. It was always for neglecting our own. But in spite of the stern refusal of experience to favour us with the usual in Broglio, we always went on hoping that the luck would turn. We read Shakespeare's comedy of errors, and that confirmed us in our evil courses. When we grew up it would be hard to say which was the gittier, for each hoped that the other would have to bear the burden of her escapades. You will have gathered from our friskiness that our parents were strict Puritans, but at last they allowed an eligible young Curit to visit the house with a view to matrimony. He was too good for us. Our parents were as much as we wanted in that line. Unfortunately, in this crisis, unknown to each other, the old temptations seized us. Each felt it a unique chance of trying if the thing wouldn't work. When the other was out of the room each made love to the unwelcome suitor so as to make him fall in love with her sister. We had victims of mendacious farce writers. The result was that he fell in love with us both. She paused a moment, overcome with emotion, then resumed. He proposed to us both simultaneously, vowed he could not live without us. He exclaimed passionately that he could not be happy with either, were tothered dear charmer away. He said he was ready to become a Mormon for love of us. And what was your reply, asked Lily anxiously. The fresh young voices broke out into a duet. We told him to ask Papa. We were both so overwhelmed by this catastrophe, pursued the storyteller, that we vowed for mutual self-protection against our besetting temptation to fribble at the other's expense never to let each other out of sight. In the farces all the mistakes happened through the twins being on only one at a time. Thus we have balanced each other's tendencies to indiscretion before it was too late and saved ourselves from ourselves. This necessity of being always together, imposed on us by our unhappy resemblance, naturally excludes either from marriage. Lily was not favorably impressed with these skittish sisters. I sympathize intensely with the sufferings of either, she said slyly, and being constrained to the society of the other, but your motives of celibacy are not sufficiently pure, nor have you fulfilled our prime condition, for even granting that your reply to the eligible young churchmen was tantamount to a rejection, it still only amounts to half a rejection each, which is fifty percent below our standard. She rang the bell, turple the magnificent, ushered the twins out, and the next candidate in. She was an ethereal blonde in a simple white frock, and her story was as simple. Read this rondeau, she said, it will tell you all. Lily took the lines, they were headed, the lovely May, an old maid's plant. The lovely May at last is here, long summer days are drying near, and nights with cloudless moonshine rich, in woodlands green on waters clear, soft couched in fern or on the mirror, gliding like some white water witch, or lunching in a leafy niche, I see my sweet-faced sister-deer, the lovely May. She is engaged, and her career is one of skittles blend with beer, while I, plain sowing left to stitch, can never expect those pleasures which, at this bright season of the year, the lovely May. Lily looked up interrogatively. "'But surely you have nothing to complain of in the way of loveliness?' she said. "'No, of course not. I am the lovely May. It was my sister who wrote that. She died in June, and I found it among her manuscripts. Remorse set in at the thought of Maria's ditching while I was otherwise engaged. I disengaged myself at once. What's fair for one is fair for all. Men should combine. While there's one woman who can't get a husband, no man should be allowed to get a wife.' "'Here, here!' cried Lily enthusiastically. Only I am afraid there will always be black legs among us who betray their sex for the sake of a husband.' "'Alas, yes,' agreed the lovely May. I fear such was the nature of my sister Maria. She coveted even my first husband.' "'What?' gasped the president. "'Are you a widow?' "'Certainly. I left off black when I was engaged again, and when I was disengaged I dared not resume it for fear of seeming to mourn my fiance.' "'We cannot have widows in the Old Maid's club,' said Lily regretfully. "'Then I shall start a new widow's club and old maids shall have no place in it.' Then the lovely May sailed out, all smiles and tears. The newcomer was a most divinely tall and most divinely fair brunette with a brooding, morbid expression. Candidate gave the name of Miss Summerson. Being invited to make a statement, she said, "'I have abandoned the idea of marrying. I have no money. Ergo! I cannot afford to marry a poor man. And I am resolved never to marry a rich one. I want to be loved for myself, not for my want of money. You may stare, but I know what I am talking about. What other attraction have I? Good looks? Plenty of girls with money have that, who would be glad to marry the men I have rejected. In the town I came from I lived with my cousin, who was an heiress. She was far lovelier than I. Yet all the moneyed men were at my feet. They were afraid of being suspected of fortune-hunting and anxious to vindicate their elevation of character. Why should I marry to gratify a man's vanity, his cravings after cheap quixotism? Your attitude on the great question of the age does you infinite credit, but as you have no banking account to put it to, you traverse the regulation requiring a property qualification," said the President. Is there no way over the difficulty? I fear not, unless you marry a rich man, and that disqualifies you under another rule. And Miss Somerson passed sadly into the outer darkness, to be replaced by a young lady who gave the name of Nell Lightfoot. She wore a charming hat and a smile like the spreading of sunshine over a crystal pool. I met a young Scotchman, she said, at a New Year's dance, and we were favourably impressed by each other. On the fourteenth of the following February I received from him a Valentine, containing a proposal of marriage and a revelation of the degradation of masculine nature. It would seem he had two strings to his bow, the other being a rich widow whom he had met in a Devonshire lane. Being a Scotchman, he had for economy's sake composed a Valentine with which a few slight alterations would do for both of us. Unfortunately for himself he sent me the original draft by mistake, and here is his voracious Valentine. Though the weather is snowy and dreary and a shiver careers down my spine, yet the heart in my bosom is cheery, for I feel I've exchanged mine for thine. Do not call it delusion, my dearie, but become my own loved Valentine. A. For that stormy June day you remember. B. For that New Year's dance you must remember. When we A. Sheltered together from rain. B. Whilst to a languorous strain. A. While the sky like the fifth of November. B. And our souls glowed despite twas December. A. Gleamed with a lightning out rivalling pain. B. With a burning but glorious pain. A. Me, in my fire's dying ember, I can see that. A. Dank Devonshire lane. B. Bright ballroom again. A. And I spoke of the love that I bore you. B. Yet I spoke not then fearing to bore you. A. And of how for a widow I yearned. B. Though for maidenly love my heart yearned. Not a schoolgirl, A. And fealty I swore you. B. I'd gazed on before you. A. And you listened till sunshine returned. B. Had my heart with such sweet madness turned. A. Then you parted from me who adore you. B. Then we parted, but still I adore you. A. And my heart and umbrella you spurned. B. Though you may not my love have discerned. A. Not repelled by hoarded-up money. B. Not repelled by having no money. I adore you, my A. Bell. B. Nell. For yourself. You are sweeter than music or honey. And Dan Cupid's assentuous elf, who is drawn to the fair and the sunny, and is blind unto nothing but pelf. Need we feel a less genuine passion, because we, A, shall live in Mayfair. B. Can't live in Mayfair. Love, A, blooms rich. B. Oft fades in the hot house of fashion. Tis, A, an orchid that flourishes there. B. A moss rose that needs the fresh air. Yet I would not my own darling last shun, were she even as A. Poor as she's fair. B. Rich as she's rare. There are fools who adore a complexion. A. That's like strawberries mingled with cream. B. As with newbie and blacking a gleam. A. A brunette. B. But a blonde. Is my own predilection. And the glances from A. Dark. B. Blue eyes. That beam. Then refuse not my deathless affection. Neither shatter my amorous dream. You're my very first A woman, B maiden, who's thrilled me with the passion that tongue cannot tell. Of none else have I thought since you filled me with A, despair in that Devonshire dell. B, unrest when the waltz wove its spell. When your final refusal has killed me, on my heart will be found graven. A. Bell. B. Nell. How strange, said Lily. You combine the disqualifications of two of the previous candidates. You are apparently poor, and you have received only half a proposal. A flaming blonde, whose brow was crowned with an aurora of auburn hair, was the next to burst upon the epigrammatic scene. She spoke English with an excellent Parisian accent. One has called me a young woman in a hurry, she said, and the description does not want of truth. I am impatient. I have large ideas. I am ambitious. If I were a grocer, I should contract for the Sahara. I fall in love, and when Alice LaRue falls in love, it is like the volcano which goes to make eruption. Figure to yourself that my man is shy, but of a shyness of the most ridiculous, that it is necessary to make a thousand sweet eyes at him before he comprehends that he loves me. And when he comprehends it, he does not speak. Mon Dieu, he does not speak, though I speak, me, with fan, my eyes, my fingers, almost with my lips. He walks with me, but he does not speak. He takes me to the spectacle, but he does not speak. He promonades himself in boat with me, but he does not speak. I encircle him with my arms, and I speak with my lips at last. One, two, three, four, five kisses. Overwhelmed, astonished, he returns me my kisses, hesitatingly, stupidly. But in fine, he returns them. And then at last, with our faces together, my arm round his graceful waist, he speaks. The first words of love comes from his mouth. And what do you think that he say? Say, then. I love you, murmured Lily. A thousand thunders, no! He says, Miss LaRue, Alice, may I call you Alice? I see nothing to wonder in it that, replied Lily quietly. Remember that for a man to kiss you is a less serious step than for him to call you Alice. That were a stage on the road to marriage, and should only be reached through the gate of betrothal. Changes of name are the outward marks of a woman's development, as much as changes of form accompany the growth of the caterpillar. You, for instance, began life as Alice. In due course you became Miss Alice. If you were the eldest daughter, you became Miss LaRue at once. If you were not, you inherited the name only on your sister's death or marriage. When you are betrothed, you will revert to the simple Alice, and when you are married, you will become Mrs. Something Else. And every time you get married, if you are careful to select husbands of varying patronymics, you will be furnished with a change of name, as well as of address. Providence, which has conferred so many sufferings upon woman, has given her this one advantage over man, who, in the majority of instance, is doomed to the monotony of ossified nomenclature, and has to wear the same name on his tombstone, which he bore on his eaten collar. That is all a heap of gallimatias, replied the Parisienne with the flaming hair. If I kiss a man, I, surely he may call me Alice without demanding it. Bah, let him love your Mrs. with oh sucre in their veins. When he insulted me with his stupidity, I became furious. I threw him, how you say, overboard on the instant. Good heavens, gassed Lily, then you are a murderess. Figure you to yourself that I speak at the foot of the letter. Know you not the idioms of your own barbarian tongue? It seems to me you are as mad as he. Perhaps you are his sister. Certainly our rules require us to regard all men as brothers. He, what? We have rejected the love of all men. Consequently we have to regard them all as our brothers. That men there, my brother, shrieked Alice. Never, never of my life. I would rather marry first. And she went off to do so. The last of these competitors for the old maiden stakes was a whirlwind in petticoats who welcomed the president very affably. Good morning, Miss Dalsamer. She said, I've heard of you. I'm from Boston Way. You know I travel about the world in search of culture. I'm spending the day in Europe, so I thought I'd look you up. Would you be so good as to epitomize your scheme in 20 words? I've got to see the Madonna del Cardolino in the Uffizi at Florence before 10 tomorrow, and I want to hear an act of the Meister Singers at Bay Ruth after tea. I'm rather tired, pleaded Lily, overwhelmed by the dynamic energy radiating from every square inch of the Bostonians' super-fishies. I have had a hard morning's work. Couldn't you call again tomorrow? Impossible. I have just wired to Damietta to secure rooms commanding a view of Professor Tinkledrop's excavations on the banks of the Nile. I doad on archeological treasures, and I thought I should like to see the old maids. Are they on view? No, they are not here, said Lily evasively. But do you want to join us? Shall I have time? I remember I once wasted a week getting married. Some women waste their whole lives that way. Marriage is an incident of life's novel. They make it the whole plot. I don't say it isn't an interesting experience. Every woman ought to go through it once, but with the infinite possibilities of culture lying all round us, it's mere Philistineism to give one husbandman more than a week of your society. Mine is a physician practicing in Philadelphia. Judging by the checks he sends me, he must be a successful man. Well, I am real glad to have had this little talk with you. It's been so interesting. I will become an honorary member of your charming club with pleasure. You cannot if you are married. You can only be a visitor. What's my being married got to do with it? Inquired the American in astonishment. This is the first time I have ever heard that a name of a club has anything to do with the membership. Are the members of the Savage Club savages? Of the Garrick, Garrick's? Of the Supper Club suppers? We are not men, Lily said, hotly. I could pass over your relation to the hub of the universe, but when it comes to having a private hub, I have no option. Well, this may be your English idea of hospitality to travelers of culture, replied the Bostonian warmly, but if you come to our crack Crane Club in the fall, you shall be as welcome as a brand new poet. Goodbye, hope we shall meet again. I shall be in Hong Kong in June if you like to drop in. Goodbye. Goodbye, said Lily, pressing one hand against the visitors and the other to her aching forehead. Silverdale found her dissolved in tears. In future, he said when she had explained her troubles, I shall hang the rules and bylaws in the waiting room. The candidates will then be able to eliminate themselves. By the way, Ella-Lyn Rand's Cherub is going to sit up aloft on the third floor in Fleet Street. End of Chapter 16. Chapter 17 of The Old Maid's Club by Israel's Angwill. This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 17 A Musical Bar When Turple the Magnificent, looking uneasy, brought up Frank Maddox's card, Lily uttered a cry of surprise and pleasure. Frank Maddox was a magic name to her as to all the elect of the world of sweetness and light. After a moment of nervous anxiety, lest it should not be THE Frank Maddox, her fears were dispelled by the entry of the great authority on art and music, whose face was familiar to her from frontispiece portraits. Few critics possessed such charms of style and feature as Frank Maddox, who had a delicious Raytrusay nose, a dainty rosebud mouth, blue eyes, and a wealth of golden hair. Lily's best hopes were confirmed, the famous critic wished to become an Old Maid. The president and the new and promising candidate had a delightful chat over a cup of tea and the prospects of the club. The two girls speedily became friends. But if you join us, hadn't you better go back to your maiden name? inquired Lily. Perhaps so, said Frank Maddox thoughtfully. My pen name does sound odd under the peculiar circumstances. On the other hand, to revert to Laura's sprague now, might be indiscreet. People would couple my name with Frank Maddox's. You know the way of the world. The gossips get their facts so distorted and I couldn't even deny the connection. But of course you have had your romance, asked Lily. You know one romance per head is our charge for admission? Oh yes, I have had my romance in three volumes. Shall I tell it you? If you please. Listen then, volume the first. Frank Maddox is in her study. Outside, the sun is setting in furrows of gold-laced sagging storm clouds. Done, and— Oh please, I always skip that. Laughed Lily. I know that two lovers cannot walk in a lane without the author seeing the sunset, which is the last thing in the world the lovers see. But when the sky begins to look black, I always begin to skip. Forgive me, I didn't mean to do it. Remember, I'm an habitual art critic. I thought I was describing a harmony of whistlers or a movement from a sonata. It shall not occur again. To the heroine enter the hero. Shabby, close cropped, pale. Their eyes meet. He is thunderstruck to find the hero in a woman, blushes, stammers, and offers to go away. Struck by something of innate refinement in his manner, she presses him to avow the object of his visit. At last, indignified language, infinitely touching in its reticence, he confesses he called on Mr. Frank Maddox, the writer he admires so much, to ask a little pecuniary help. He is starving. Original, isn't it, to have your hero hungry in the first chapter? He speaks vaguely of having ambitions, which, unless he goes under in the struggle for existence, may someday be realized. There are so many men in London like that. However, the heroine is moved by his destitute condition and sitting down to her desk, she writes out a note, folds it up, and gives it to him. There, she says, there's a prescription against starvation. But how am I to take it, he asked? It must be taken before breakfast, the first thing in the morning, she replied, to the editor of the moon, give him the note, he will change it for you, don't mention my name. He thanked me and withdrew. And what was in the note? Asked Lily curiously. I can't quite remember, but something of this sort. The numerous admirers of Frank Maddox will be gratified to hear that she has in the press a volume of essays on the part played by colorblindness in the symphotic movements of the time. The great critic is still in town, but leaves for Torquay next Tuesday. For that the editor of the moon gave him half a crown. Do you call that charity? Said Lily, astonished. Certainly, charity begins at home. Do many people give charity except to advertise themselves? Philanthropy by paragraph is a perquisite of fame. Why, I have a pensioner who comes in for all my acadium paragraphs. That moon part saved our hero from starvation. Years afterwards I learned he had frittered away two pence in having his hair cut. It seems strange for a starving man to get his hair cut, said Lily. Not when you know the cause, replied Frank Maddox. It was his way of disguising himself, and this brings me to volume two. The years pass. Once again I am in my study. There is a breath of wind among the elms in the front garden, and the sky is strewn with vaporous sprays of apple blossom. I beg your pardon. Re-enter the hero, spruce, frot-coated, dignified. He recalls himself to my memory, but I remember him only too well. He tells me that my half-crown saved him at the turning point of his career, that he has now achieved fame and gold, that he loves my writing more passionately than ever, and that he has come to ask me to crown his life. The whole thing is so romantic that I am about to whisper, yes, when an instinct of common sense comes to my aid, and my half-open lips murmur instead. But the name you sent up, Horace Paul, it is not known to me. You say you have won fame. I at least have never heard of you. Of course not, he replies, how should you? If I were Horace Paul, you would not marry me, just as I should certainly not marry you if you were Ford Maddox. But what of Paul Horace? Paul Horace, cried Lily, the great composer! That is just what I exclaimed, and my hero answers, the composer, great or little. None but a few intimates connect me with him. The change of name is too simple. I always had a longing, call it morbid, if you will, for obscurity in the midst of renown. I have weekly harvests of hair to escape any suspicion of musical attainments. But you and I, dearest, think of what our life will be enriched by our common love of the noblest of the arts. Outside, the marigolds nod to the violets, the sapphire, excuse me, I mean to say, thus he rambled on, growing in enthusiasm with every ardent phrase, the while a deadly coldness was fastening around my heart, for I felt that it could not be. And why, inquired Lily in astonishment, it seems one of the marriages made in heaven. I dared not tell him why, and I can only tell you on condition you promise to keep my secret. I promise. Listen, whispered the great critic, I know nothing about music or art, and I was afraid he would find me out. Lily fell back in her chair, wide and trembling, another idol shivered. But how, she gasped. There, then, don't take on so, said the great critic, kindly. I did not think you, too, were such an admirer of mine, else I might have spared you the shock. You ask how it is done. Well, I didn't set out to criticize. I can at least plead that in extenuation. My nature is not willfully perverse. There was a time when I was as pure and above criticism as yourself. She paused and furtively wiped away a tear, then resumed more calmly. I drifted into it, for years I toiled on without ever a thought of musical and art criticism sullying my maiden meditations. My downfall was gradual. In early maidenhood I earned my living as a typewriter. I had always had literary yearnings, but the hard facts of life allowed me only this rough approximation to my ideal. Accident brought excellent literature to my machine, and it required all my native honesty not to steal the plots of the novelists and the good things of the playwrights. The latter was the harder temptation to resist, for when the play was good enough to be worth stealing from, I knew it would never be produced, and my crime never discovered. Still, in spite of my honesty, I benefited indirectly by my typewriting, for contact with so much admirable work fostered the graceful literary style which, between you and me, is my only merit. In time I plucked up courage to ask one of my clients, a journalist, if he would put some newspaper work in my way. "'What can you do?' he asked in surprise. "'Anything,' I replied with made an honesty. "'I see, that's your special line,' he said musingly. "'Unfortunately we are full up in that department. "'You see, everyone turns his hand to that. "'It's like school mastering, the first thing people think of. "'It's a pity you are a girl, "'because the way to journalistic distinction "'lies through the position of office boy. "'Office girl sounds strange. "'I doubt whether they would have you, "'except on a free thought organ. "'Our office boy has to sweep out the office "'and review the novels. "'Else you might commence humbly "'as a critic of literature. "'It isn't a bad post either, "'for he supplements his income "'by picking rejected matter out of the waste-paper basket "'and surreptitiously lodging it "'in the printer's copy pigeon-haul. "'His income in fees from journalistic aspirants "'must be considerable. "'Yes, had you been a boy, "'you might have made a pretty good thing out of literature. "'Then there is no chance at all for me on your paper?' "'I inquired desperately. "'None,' he said sadly. "'Our editor is an awful old foggy. "'He is vehemently opposed to the work of outsiders, "'and if you were to send him his own leaders in envelopes, "'he would say they were rot. "'For once he would be a just critic. "'You see, therefore, what your own chance is. "'Even I, who have been on the staff for years, "'couldn't do anything to help you. "'No, I am afraid there is no hope for you "'unless you approach our office boy.' "'I thanked him warmly for his advice and encouragement, "'and within a fortnight an article of mine "'appeared in the paper. "'It was called The Manuscripts of Authors, "'and revealed in a refined and lady-like way "'the secrets of the chirographic characteristics "'of the manuscripts I had to type right. "'My friend said I was exceedingly practical.' "'Exceedingly practical,' "'agreed Lily with a suspicion of a sneer. "'Because most amateur journalists "'write about abstract principles, "'whereas I had sliced out for the public "'a bit of concrete fact, "'and the great heart of the people went out "'to hear the details of the way Brown wrote his books, "'Jones' his jokes, and Robinson' his recitations. "'The article made a hit "'and annoyed the authors very much.' "'So I should think,' said Lily, "'didn't they withdraw their custom from you, Instanter?' "'Why, they didn't know it was I. "'Only my journalistic friend knew, "'and he was too much of a gentleman "'to give away my secret. "'I wrote to the editor under the name of Frank Maddox, "'thanking him for having inserted my article, "'and the editor said to my friend, "'Ee, Gad, I fancy I've made a discovery there. "'Why, if I were to pay any attention "'to your idea of keeping strictly to the old grooves, "'the paper would stagnate, my boy, simply stagnate.' "'The editor was right. "'For my friend assured me, "'the paper would have died long before "'if the office boy had not condescended to edit it. "'Anyhow, it was to that office boy "'I owed my introduction to literature. "'The editor was very proud of having discovered me, "'and, being instilled in his good graces, "'I passed rapidly into dramatic criticism, "'and was even allowed to understudy "'the office boy as literary reviewer. "'He could not stomach historical novels, "'and handed over to me all works "'with pronouns in the second person. "'Gradually I rose to hire things, "'but it was not until I had been musical and art critic "'for over eighteen months that the editor learned "'that the writer, whose virile style "'he had often dilated upon to my friend, was a woman. "'And what did he do when he learned it?' asked Lily. "'He swore, profane man,' cried Lily. "'That he loved me, me whom he had never seen. "'Of course, I declined him with thanks. "'Happily there was a valid excuse "'because he had written his communication "'on both sides of the paper. "'But even this technical touch did not malify him, "'and he replied that my failure to appreciate him "'showed I could no longer be trusted as a critic. "'Fortunately, my work had been signed, "'my fame was established. "'I collected my articles into a book "'and joined another paper.' "'But you haven't yet told me how it is done.' "'Oh, that is the least. "'You see, to be a critic it is not essential "'to know anything. "'You must simply be able to write. "'To be a great critic you must simply be able to write well. "'In my omniscience, or Catholic ignorance, "'I naturally looked about for the subject "'on which I could most profitably employ my gift of style "'with the least chance of being found out. "'A moment's consideration will convince you "'that the most difficult branches of criticism "'are the easiest. "'Of musical and artistic matters, "'not one person in a thousand understands "'ot but the rudiments. "'Here, then, is the field in which "'the critical ignoramus may expatiate at large "'with the minimum danger of discovery. "'Nay, with no scintilla of danger, "'for the subject matter is so obscure and obstruse "'that the grossest of errors may put on a bold face "'and parade as a profundity, "'or, driven to bay, proclaim itself a paradox. "'Only say what you have not got to say "'authoritatively and well, "'and the world shall fall down and worship you. "'The place of art in religion has undergone "'a peculiar historical development. "'First men worshiped the object of art, "'then they worshiped the artist, "'and nowadays they worship the art critic.' "'It is true,' said Lily reflectively. "'This age has witnessed the apotheosis of the art critic.' "'And of all critics, and yet what can be more evident "'than that the art of criticism "'was never in such a critical condition? "'Nobody asks to see the critic's credentials. "'He is taken at his own valuation. "'There ought to be an examination to protect the public. "'Even schoolmasters are now required to have certificates, "'while those who pretend to train the larger mind "'in the way it should think "'are left to work their mischief uncontrolled. "'No dramatic critic should be allowed to practice "'without an elementary knowledge of human life, "'law, Shakespeare, and French. "'The musical critic should be required "'to be able to perform on some one instrument "'other than his own trumpet, "'to distinguish tune from tonality, "'to construe the regular sonata, "'to comprehend the plot of Il Trovatore, "'and to understand the motives of Wagner. "'The art critic should be able to discriminate "'between a pastel and a watercolor, "'an impressionist drawing and a rough sketch, "'to know the Dutch school from the Italian "'and the female figure from the male, "'to translate the morbidesa and ciascuro, "'and failing this to be aware of the existence "'and uses of a vanishing point. "'A doctor's certificate should also be produced "'to testify that the examinee "'is in possession of all the normal faculties, "'deafness, blindness, and color blindness "'being regarded as disqualifications. "'And no one should be allowed to practice "'unless he enjoyed a character for common honesty, "'supplemented by a testimonial from a clergyman. "'For although art is non-moral, "'the critic should be moral. "'This would be merely the pass-man stage. "'There could always be examinations "'in honors for the graduates. "'Once the art critics were educated, "'the progress of the public would be rapid. "'They would no longer be ready "'to admire the canvases of Michelangelo, "'who, as I learned the other day for the first time, "'painted frescoes, nor would they prefer him "'as unhesitatingly as they do now to Buonarrati, "'which is his surname, "'nor would they imagine Raphael's cartoons "'appeared in Puccinello. "'All these mistakes I have myself made, "'though no one discovered them, "'while in the realm of music "'no one has more misrepresented the masters, "'more discouraged the overtures of young composers. "'But I still do not understand how it is done,' urged Lily. "'You shall have my formula in a nutshell. "'I had to be a musical critic and an art critic. "'I was ignorant of music and knew nothing of art, "'but I was a dab at language. "'When I was talking of music, "'I used the nomenclature of art. "'I spoke of light and shade, color and form, "'delicacy of outline, depth and atmosphere, "'perspective, foreground and background, "'nocturns and harmonies in blue. "'I analyzed symphonies pictorially "'and explained what I saw defiling before me "'as the music swept on. "'Sunsets and Belvedere Towers, "'sworthy panims on Shetland ponies, "'cypress plumes and Fra Angelico's cherubs, "'lumps of green clay and delicate pillored logeas, "'Fennell Tufts and Rococo and Scarlet Anemones, "'and over all the Trail of the Serpent. "'Thus I created an epoch in musical criticism. "'On the other hand, when I had to deal with art, "'I was careful to eschew every suggestion "'of the visual vocabulary "'and to confine myself to musical phrases. "'In talking of pictures, "'I dwelt upon their counterpoint and their orchestration, "'their changes of key and the evolution of their ideas, "'their piano and forte passages, "'and their bars of rest, "'their allegro and diminuendo aspects, "'their suspensions on the dominant. "'I spoke of them as symphonies and sonatas and masses, "'said one was two staccato "'and another two full of consecutive sevenths, "'and a third in need of transposition to the minor. "'Thus I created an epoch in art criticism. "'In both departments, the vague and shifting terms I introduced, "'enabled me to evade mistakes and avoid detection, "'while the creation of two epochs "'gave me the very first place in contemporary criticism. "'There is nothing in which I would not undertake "'to create an epoch. "'I do not say I have always been happy, "'and it has been a source of constant regret to me "'that I had not even learned to play the piano when a girl, "'and that unplayed music still remained to me little black dots. "'And so you did not dare to marry the composer?' "'No, nor tell him why. "'Volume III. "'I said I admired him so much "'that I wanted to go on devoting critical essays to him, "'and my praises would be discounted by the public "'if I were his wife. "'Was it not imprudent for him "'to alienate the leading critic by marrying her? "'Rather would I sacrifice myself "'and continue to criticize him. "'But I love him, and it is for his sake "'I would become an old maid.' "'I would rather you didn't,' said Lily, her face still white. "'I have found so much inspiration in your books "'that I could not bear to be daily reminded "'I ought not to have found it.' "'Poor president! "'The lessons of experience were hard. "'The club taught her much she were happier without. "'That day Lord Silverdale appropriately intoned, "'with Banjo Obligato, a patter's song "'which he pretended to have written at the academy, "'whence he had just come "'with the conventional splitting headache. "'After the academy, a jingle, not by Alfred Jingle.' "'Brain a whirling, pavement twirling, "'cranium aching, almost baking, "'mind a muddle, puddle, fuddle. "'Million pictures, million mixtures, "'grade in smallons, browns and latens. "'Sky and wallons, short and tallons, "'sudo classic for, alas, "'sick transit gloria subvictoria. "'Landscape figure, white or nigger, "'steely etchings, inky sketchings, "'genre portrait, not one-caught trait, "'eek historic, king's plethoric, "'realistic, prize-fight-fistic, "'entazoic, nude heroic, "'course poetic, homiletic, "'still life, flowers, tropic bowers, "'peer domestic, making breast tick with emotion, "'enless ocean, glaze or scrumble, "'jays and jumble, varnish mastic, "'sculpture plastic, canvas paper, "'oh, for taper, oil and water, "'oh, for slaughter, children, cattle, "'buses, battle, seamen, saders, lions, "'waiters, nymphs and peasants, "'peers and pheasants, dogs and flunkies, "'gods and monkeys, half-dressed ladies, "'views of Hades, phyllis tripping, "'seas and shipping, hearth and meadow, "'brooks and bread-dough, doves and dreamers, "'stars and steamers, saucepans, blossoms, "'rags, opossums, tramway, cloudland, "'wild and plowed land, gents and mountains, "'clocks and fountains, pan and pansy. "'These of fancy have possession in procession, "'never-ending, ever-blending, "'all a-flitter and a-glitter, "'ever-prancing, ever-dancing, "'ever-whirling, ever-curling, "'ever-swirling, ever-twirling, "'ever-bobbing, ever-throbbing. "'Oh, some brandy, is it handy? "'Ear seems tainting, I am fainting. "'Hang all, no, don't hang all, painting.'" End of Chapter 17