 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Frenzied fiction by Stephen Leacock part 7 the caveman as he is I Think it likely that few people besides myself have ever actually seen and spoken with a caveman Yet everybody nowadays knows all about the caveman the 15 cent magazines and the new fiction have made him a familiar figure a Few years ago. It is true. Nobody had ever heard of him But lately for some reason or other there has been a run on the caveman No up-to-date story is complete without one or two references to it The hero when the hero and slights him is said to feel for a moment the wild primordial desire of the caveman The longing to seize her to drag her with him to carry her away to make her his When he takes her in his arms it is recorded that all the elemental passion of the caveman surges through him When he fights on her behalf against a drayman or a gunman or an ice man or any other Compound that makes up a modern villain. He is said to feel all the fierce fighting joy of the caveman If they kick him in the ribs He likes it if they beat him over the head He never feels it because he is for the moment a caveman and the caveman is and is known to be quite above Sensation the hero in two shares the same point of view Take me she murmurs as she falls into the hero's embrace be my caveman as She says it there is so the writer assures us Something of the fierce light of the cave woman in her eyes the primordial woman to be wooed in one only by force So like everybody else I had till I saw him a great idea of the caveman I had a clear mental picture of him huge brawny muscular a wolf skin thrown about him in a great war club in his hand I knew him as without fear with nerves untouched by our a feat civilization Fighting as the beasts fight to the death killing without pity and suffering without a moan It was a picture that I could not but admire I Like to I am free to confess it his peculiar way with women His system was as I understood it to take them by the neck and bring them along with him That was his fierce primordial way of wooing them and they liked it So at least we are informed by a thousand credible authorities They liked it and the modern woman so we are told would still like it if only one dared to try it on There's the trouble if only one dared. I see lots of them I'll be frank about it that I should like to grab to sling over my shoulder and carry away with me or What is the same thing allowing for modern conditions have an express man carry them? I noticed them at Atlantic City. I see them in Fifth Avenue. Yes everywhere, but would they come? That's the deuce of it Would they come right along like the cave woman merely biting off my ear as they came or are they degenerate enough to bring an action Against me in dining the express company as a party of the second part Doubts such as these prevent me from taking active measures, but they leave me as they leave many another man preoccupied and fascinated with the caveman One may imagine then my extraordinary interest in him when I actually met him in the flesh Yet the thing came about quite simply indeed more by accident than by design an adventure open to all It so happened that I spent my vacation in Kentucky the region as everybody knows of the great caves They extend it is a matter of common knowledge for hundreds of miles in some places dark and sunless tunnels The black silence broken only by the dripping of the water from the roof in other places great vaults like Subterranean temples with vast stone arches sweeping to the dome and with deep still water of unfathomed depth as the floor and Here and there again. They are lighted from above through rifts in the surface of the earth and Are dry and sand strewn fit for human habitation In such caves as these so has the obstinate legend run for centuries There's still dwell cavemen the dwindling remnant of their race and here it was that I came across him I had penetrated into the caves far beyond my guides I carried a revolver and had with me an electric lantern But the increasing sunlight in the cave as I went on had rendered the ladder needless There he sat a huge figure clad in a great wolf skin Besides him lay a great club Across his knee was a spear round which he was binding sinews that tightened under his muscular hand His head was bent over his task. His matted hair had fallen over his eyes He did not see me till I was close beside him on the sanded floor of the cave. I gave a slight cough Excuse me. I said The caveman gave a startled jump my goodness. He said you startled me. I could see that he was quite trembling You came along so suddenly he said it gave me the jumps Then he muttered more to himself than to me too much of this darned cave water. I must quit drinking it. I Sat down near to the caveman on a stone taking care to place my revolver carefully behind it I don't mind admitting that a loaded revolver especially as I get older makes me nervous I was afraid that he might start fooling with it. One can't be too careful as A way of opening conversation. I picked up the caveman's club. Say I said that's a great club You have a by G. It's heavy Look out said the caveman with a certain agitation in his voice as he reached out and took the club for me Don't fool with that club. It's loaded. You know, you could easily drop the club on your toes or on mine A man can't be too careful with a loaded club He rose as he said this and carried the club to the other side of the cave where he lent it against the wall Now that he stood up and I could examine him. He no longer looked so big In fact, he was not big at all the effective size must have come I think from the great wolfskin that he wore. I have noticed the same thing in grand opera I noticed too for the first time that the cave we were in seemed fitted up in a rude sort of way like a dwelling room This is a nice place. You've got I said Dandy, isn't it? He said as he cast his eyes around She fixed it up. She's got great taste see that mud sideboard That's the real thing a one mud none of your cheap rock about that We fetched that mud for two miles to make that and look at that wicker bucket. Isn't it great? Hardly leaks it all except through the sides and perhaps a little through the bottom She wove that she's a humdinger at weaving He was moving about as he spoke showing me all his little belongings He reminded me for all the world of a man in a Harlem flat showing a visitor how convenient it all is Somehow to the caveman had lost all appearance of size He looked in fact quite little and when he had pushed his long hair back from his forehead He seemed to wear that same worried apologetic look that we all have To a higher being if there is such our little faces one and all appear no doubt pathetic. I Knew that he must be speaking about his wife Where is she? I asked my wife. He said oh, she's gone out somewhere through the caves with the kid You didn't meet our kid as you came along. Did you know? Well, he's the greatest boy you ever saw He was only to this 19th of August and you should hear him say pop and mom just as if he was grown up He is really I think about the brightest boy. I've ever known I mean quite apart from being his father and speaking of him as if you were anyone else's boy You didn't meet them. No, I said I didn't oh Well the caveman went on there are lots of ways and passages through I guess they went in another direction The wife generally likes to take a stroll around in the morning and see some of the neighbors But say he interrupted I guess I'm forgetting my manners. Let me get you a drink of cave water Here take it in this stone mug. There you are. Say when Where do we get it? Oh, we find it in parts of the cave where it filters through the soil above Alcoholic oh, yes about 15% I think some say it soaks all through the soil of the state Sit down and be comfortable and say if you hear the woman coming just slip your mug behind that stone out of sight Do you mind now try one of these elm root cigars? Oh pick a good one. There are lots of them We seated ourselves in some comfort on the soft sand our backs against the boulders Sipping cave water and smoking elm root cigars. It seemed altogether as if one were back in civilization talking to a genial host Yes said the caveman and he spoke as it were in a large and patronizing way I generally let my wife trot about as she likes in the daytime She and the other women nowadays are getting up all these different movements And the way I look at it is that if it amuses her to run around and talk and attend meetings or let her do it Of course, he continued assuming a look of great firmness if I like to put my foot down Exactly exactly. I said it's the same way with us Is it now he questioned with interest I had imagined that it was all different outside You're from the outside aren't you a guest you must be from the skins you wear Have you never been outside? I asked no fear said the caveman not for mine Down here in the caves clean underground and mostly in the dark. It's all right. It's nice and safe He gave a sort of shutter gee You fellows out there must have your nerve to go walking around like that on the outside rim of everything Where the stars might fall on you or a thousand things happen to you But then you outside men have got a natural elemental fearlessness about you that we cavemen have lost I tell you I was pretty scared when I looked up and saw you standing there Had you never seen any outside men I asked well, yes, he answered but never close The most I've done is to go out to the edges of the cave sometimes and look out and see them Outside men and women in the distance, but of course in one way or another we cavemen know all about them and The thing we envy most in you outside men is the way you treat your women by gee you take no nonsense from them You fellows are the real primordial primitive men. We've lost it somehow Why my dear fellow I began but the caveman who had sat suddenly upright interrupted quick quick He said hide that infernal mug. She's coming. Don't you hear? As he spoke I caught the sound of a woman's voice somewhere in the outer passages of the cave Now Willie she was saying speaking evidently to the cave child You come right along back with me and if I ever catch you getting in such a mess is that again? I'll never take you anywhere. So there Her voice had grown louder She entered the cave as she spoke a big boned woman in a suit of skins leading by the hand a Pathetic little might in a rabbit skin with blue eyes and a slobbered face But as I was sitting the cave woman evidently couldn't see me for she turned at once to speak to her husband unconscious of my presence Well of all the idle creatures. She exclaimed loafing here in the sand She gave a sniff and smoking my dear began the caveman. Don't you my dear me? She answered look at this place nothing tied it up yet in the day half through did you put the alligator on to boil? I was just going to say began the caveman going to say yes I don't doubt you were going to say you'd go on saying all day if I'd let you what I'm asking you is is the alligator on to boil for dinner or is it not my gracious? She broke off all of a sudden as she caught sight of me Why didn't you say there was company land sakes and you sit there and never say there was a gentleman here? She had hustled across the cave and was busily arranging her hair with a pool of water as a mirror Gracious she said I'm a perfect fright. You must excuse me She added looking round toward me for being in this state I just slipped on this old fur blouse and run around to a neighbor's and I had no idea that he was going to bring in company Just like him. I'm afraid we've nothing but a plain alligator stew to offer you, but I'm sure if you'll stay to dinner She was hustling about already good primitive housewife that she was making the stone plates rattle on the mud table Why really I began but I was interrupted by a sudden exclamation from both the caveman and the cavewoman together Willie where's Willie? Gracious cried the woman. He's wandered out alone. Oh, hurry look for him. Something might get him. He may have fallen in the water Oh, hurry They were off in a moment shouting into the dark passages of the outer cave Willie Willie There was agonized anxiety in their voices and then in a moment as it seemed they were back again with Willie in their arms Blubbering his rabbit skin all wet Goodness gracious said the cavewoman. He'd fallen right in the poor little man Hurry dear and get something dry to wrap him in goodness. What a fright quick darling. Give me something to rub him with Anxiously the cave parents moved about beside the child all coral vanished But surely I said as they calmed down a little just there where Willie fell in beside the passage that I came through There was only three inches of water So there is they said both together, but just suppose it had been three feet Later on when Willie was restored. They both renewed their invitation to me to stay to dinner Didn't you say said the caveman that you wanted to make some notes on the difference between cave people and the people of your world of today? I thank you. I answered. I have already all the notes. I want End of part seven This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Frenzied fiction by Stephen Lee cock part 8 ideal interviews One with the European Prince With any European Prince traveling in America On receiving our card the Prince to our great surprise and pleasure Sent down a most cordial message that he would be delighted to see us at once this thrilled us Take us we said to the elevator boy to the apartments of the Prince We were pleased to see him stagger and lean against his wheel to get his breath back In a few moments we found ourselves crossing the threshold of the Prince's apartments The Prince who was a charming young man of from 26 to 27 Came across the floor to meet us with an extended hand and a simple gesture of welcome We have seldom seen anyone come across the floor more simply The Prince who was traveling incognito as the count of flim flam was wearing when we saw him The plain morning dress of a gentleman of leisure We learned that a little earlier He had appeared at breakfast in the costume of a unitarian clergyman under the incognito of the Bishop of Bonji While later on he appeared at lunch as a delicate compliment to our city in the costume of a Columbia professor of Yiddish The Prince greeted us with the greatest cordiality seated himself without the slightest Affectation and motion to us with indescribable bonomy his permission to remain standing Well said the Prince what is it? We need hardly say that the Prince who was a consummate master of ten languages Speaks English quite as fluently as he does Chinese Indeed for a moment. We could scarcely tell which he was talking What are your impressions of the United States we asked as we took out our notebook I Am afraid answered the Prince with a delightful smile Which is characteristic of him and which we noticed again and again during the interview that I must scarcely tell you that We realized immediately that we were in the presence not only of a soldier But of one of the most consummate diplomats of the present day May we ask then we resumed correcting our obvious blunder. What are your impressions Prince of the Atlantic Ocean ah? Said the Prince with that peculiar thoughtfulness which is so noticeable in him and which we observed not once but several times the Atlantic Volumes could not have expressed his thought better Did you we asked see any ice during your passage across ah? Said the Prince ice let me think We did so Ice repeated the Prince thoughtfully We realized that we were in the presence not only of a soldier a linguist and a diplomat But of a trained scientist accustomed to exact research Ice repeated the Prince did I see any ice no Nothing could have been more decisive more final than the clear simple brevity of the Prince's no He had seen no ice. He knew he had seen no ice. He said he had seen no ice Nothing could have been more straightforward more direct We felt assured from that moment that the Prince had not seen any ice The exquisite good taste with which the Prince had answered our question served to put us entirely at our ease and we presently found ourselves chatting with his Highness with the greatest freedom and Without the slightest Jenae or Movez Honte or in fact Melvoise of any kind We realized indeed that we were in the presence not only of a trained soldier a linguist and a diplomat But also of a conversationalist of the highest order His Highness who has an exquisite sense of humor indeed it broke out again and again during our talk with him Expressed himself as both amused and perplexed over our American money It is very difficult. He said with us. It is so simple six and a half Groner are equal to one and a third gross Groner or the quarter part of our rigs dollar Here it is so complicated We ventured to show the Prince a fifty cent piece and to explain its value by putting two quarters beside it I See said the Prince whose mathematical ability is quite exceptional Two twenty five cent pieces are equal to one fifty cent piece. I must try to remember that Meantime he added was a gesture of royal condescension putting the money in his pocket I will keep your coins as instructors We murmured our thanks and now explain to me, please your five dollar gold piece and your ten dollar eagle We felt it proper however to shift the subject and ask the Prince a few questions in regard to his views on American politics We soon found that his Highness Although this is his first visit to this continent is a keen student of our institutions in our political life Indeed his altitude showed by his answers to our questions that he is as well informed about our politics as we are ourselves on Being asked what he viewed as the uppermost tendency in our political life of today the Prince replied thoughtfully that he didn't know To our inquiry as to other in his opinion democracy was moving forward or backward the Prince after a moment of reflection Answered that he had no idea On our asking which of the generals of our civil war was regarded in Europe as the greatest strategist His Highness answered without hesitation George Washington Before closing our interview the Prince who like his illustrious father is an enthusiastic sportsman Completely turned the tables on us by inquiring eagerly about the prospects for large game in America We told him something as much as we could recollect of woodchuck hunting in our own section of the country The Prince was interested at once his eye lighted up and the peculiar air of fatigue or langer Which we had thought to remark on his face during our interview passed entirely off his features He asked us a number of questions quickly and without pausing with the air in fact of a man accustomed to command and not to listen How was the woodchuck hunted from horseback or from an elephant or from an armored car or turret? How many beaters did one use to beat up the woodchuck? What bearers was it necessary to carry with one? How great a danger must one face of having one's beaters killed? What percentage of risk must one be prepared to incur of accidentally shooting one's own beaters? What did a bearer cost and so on? All these questions we answered as best we could the Prince apparently seizing the gist or essential part of our answer before we had said it In concluding the discussion. We ventured to ask his highness for his autograph The Prince who has perhaps a more exquisite sense of humor than any other sovereign of Europe declared with a laugh that he had no pen Still roaring over this inimitable drollery. We beg to the Prince to honor us by using our own fountain pen Is there any ink in it asked the Prince which threw us into a renewed paroxysm of laughter The Prince took the pen and very kindly autographed for us seven photographs of himself He offered us more but we felt that seven was about all we could use We were still suffocated with laughter over the Prince's wit his highness was still signing photographs when an inquiry appeared and whispered in the Prince's ear His highness was a consummate tact to be learned only at a court turned quietly without a word and left the room We never in all our experience remember seeing a prince or a mere man for the matter of that Leave a room with greater suavity discretion or aplomb It was a revelation of breeding of race of long slavery to cast and yet with it all it seemed to have a touch of Finality about it a hint that the entire proceeding was deliberate planned not to be altered by circumstance He did not come back We understand that he appeared later in the morning at a civic reception in the costume of an alpine jagger And attended the matinee in the dress of a lieutenant of police Meantime he has our pen if he turns up in any costume that we can spot at sight. We shall ask him for it To with our greatest actor that is to say with any one of our 16 greatest actors It was within the privacy of his own library that we obtained need we say with infinite difficulty our Interview with the great actor. He was sitting in a deep armchair so buried in his own thoughts that he was oblivious of our approach On his knee before him lay a cabinet photograph of himself His eyes seemed to be peering into it as if seeking to fathom its unfathomable mystery We had time to note that a beautiful carbon Photographier of himself stood on a table at his elbow while a magnificent half-tone pastel of himself was suspended on a string from the ceiling It was only when we had seated ourself in a chair and taken out our notebook that the great actor looked up an Interview he said and we noted with pain the weariness in his tone another interview We bowed Publicity he murmured rather to himself than to us Publicity why must one always be forced into publicity? It was not our intention. We explained apologetically to publish or to print a single word a what? exclaimed a great actor not print it not publish it than one in Not we explained without his consent. Ah, he murmured rarely my consent. Yes. Yes I must give it the world demands it print publish anything you like. I am indifferent to praise Careless of fame Posterity will judge me, but he added more briskly Let me see a proof of it in time to make any changes. I might care to We bowed our assent and Now we began may we be permitted to ask a few questions about your art and first in which branch of the drama Do you consider that your genius chiefly lies in tragedy or in comedy in? Both said the great actor you excel then we continued in neither the one nor the other Not at all. He answered. I excel in each of them Excuse us. We said we haven't made our meaning quite clear What we mean to say is stated very simply that you do not consider yourself better in either of them than in the other Not at all said the actor as he put out his arm with that splendid gesture that we have known and admired for years At the same time throwing back his leonine head so that his leonine hair fell back from his leonine forehead Not at all. I do better in both of them. My genius demands both tragedy and comedy at the same time Ah, we said as a light broke in upon us Then that we presume is the reason why you are about to appear in Shakespeare the great actor frowned. I Would rather put it. He said that Shakespeare is about to appear in me Of course, of course we murmured ashamed of our own stupidity. I Appear went on the great actor in Hamlet. I expect to present. I may say an entirely new Hamlet We exclaimed fascinated a new Hamlet is such a thing possible Entirely said the great actor throwing his leonine head forward again I have devoted years of study to the part the whole conception of the part of Hamlet has been wrong We sat stunned All actors hitherto continued the great actor or rather. I should say all so-called actors I mean all those who tried to act before me have been entirely mistaken in their presentation They have presented Hamlet as dressed in black velvet Yes, yes, we interjected in black velvet. Yes Very good. The thing is absurd Continued the great actor as he reached down two or three heavy volumes from the shelf beside him Have you ever studied the Elizabethan era? The witch we asked modestly The Elizabethan era We were silent or the pre-shakespearian tragedy. We hung our head If you had you would know that a hamlet in black velvet is perfectly ridiculous in Shakespeare's day as I could prove in a moment if you had the intelligence to understand it There was no such thing as black velvet. It didn't exist and How then we asked intrigued puzzled and yet delighted do you present Hamlet in Brown velvet said the great actor Great heavens we exclaimed this is a revolution It is but that is only one part of my conception. The main thing will be my presentation of what I may call the psychology of Hamlet The psychology we said yes, resumed the great actor the psychology to make Hamlet understood I want to show him as a man bowed down by a great burden. He is overwhelmed with Welsh Mertz He carries in him the whole weight of the Zeke Geest. In fact everlasting negation lies on him You mean we said trying to speak as cheerfully as we could the things are a little bit too much for him His will went on the great actor Disregarding our interruption is paralyzed. He seeks to move in one direction and is hurled in another One moment. He sinks into the abyss the next he rises above the clouds his feet seek the ground But find only the air Wonderful we said, but will you not need a good deal of machinery? Machinery exclaimed the great actor with a leonine laugh the machinery of thought the mechanism of power of Magnetism. Ah, we said electricity Not at all said the great actor you fail to understand It is all done by my rendering take for example the famous soliloquy on death. You know it To be or not to be we began stop Said the great actor now observe it is a soliloquy Precisely that is the key to it. It is something that Hamlet says to himself Not a word of it in my interpretation is actually spoken all is done in absolute unbroken silence How on earth we began can you do that? Entirely and solely with my face Good heavens was it possible. We looked again this time very closely at the great actor's face We realized with a thrill that it might be done. I Come before the audience so he went on and soliloquy's thus follow my face, please as The great actor spoke he threw himself into a characteristic pose with folded arms Well gust after gust of emotion of expression of alternate hope doubt and despair swept We might say chase themselves across his features Wonderful we gas Shakespeare's lines said the great actor as his face subsided to its habitual calm are not necessary Not at least with my acting the lines indeed are mere stage directions nothing more. I leave them out This happens again and again in the play take for instance the familiar scene where Hamlet holds the skull in his hand Shakespeare here suggests the words alas poor Yorick. I knew him well Yes, yes, we interrupted in spite of ourself a fellow of infinite jest Your intonation is awful said the actor, but listen in my interpretation. I use no words at all I merely carry the skull quietly in my hand very slowly across the stage There I lean against a pillar at the side with the skull in the palm of my hand and look at it in silence Wonderful we said I then cross over to the right of the stage Very impressively and seat myself on a plain wooden bench and remain for some time looking at the skull Marvelous, I then pass to the back of the stage and lie down on my stomach still holding the skull before my eyes After holding this posture for some time I crawl slowly forward portraying by the movement of my legs and stomach the whole sad history of Yorick Finally, I turn my back on the audience still holding the skull and Convey through the spasmodic movements of my back Hamlet's passionate grief at the loss of his friend Why we exclaimed beside herself with excitement. This is not merely a revolution. It is a revelation Call it both said the great actor the meaning of it is we went on that you practically don't need Shakespeare at all Exactly, I do not I could do better without him Shakespeare cramps me What I really mean to convey is not Shakespeare, but something greater larger. How shall I express it bigger? The great actor paused and we waited our pencil poised in the air Then he murmured as his eyes lifted in an expression of something like rapture. In fact me He remained thus motionless without moving We slipped gently to our hands and knees and crawled quietly to the door and so down the stairs our notebook in our teeth three with our greatest Scientist as seen in any of our college laboratories It was among the retorts and test tubes of his physical laboratory that we were privileged to interview the great scientist His back was towards us when we entered was characteristic modesty He kept it so for some time after our entry Even when he turned round and saw us his face did not react off us as we should have expected He seemed to look at us if such a thing were possible without seeing us or at least without wishing to see us We handed him our card He took it read it dropped it in a bowl full of sulfuric acid and then was a quiet gesture of satisfaction Turned again to his work We sat for some time behind him this then we thought to ourselves We always think to ourselves when we are left alone is the man or rather is the back of the man who has done more Here we consulted the notes given to us by our editor To revolutionize our conception of atomic dynamics than the back of any other man Presently the great scientist turned towards us with a sigh that seemed to our ears to have a note of weariness in it Something we felt must be making him tired What can I do for you? He said Professor we answered we have called upon you in response to an overwhelming demand on the part of the public the great scientist nodded To learn something of your new research is in discoveries in here We consulted a minute card which we carried in our pocket in radioactive emanations which are already becoming we consulted our card again a household word The professor raised his hand as if to check us. I Would rather say he murmured Helio radioactive So would we we admitted much rather After all said the great scientist Helium shares in the most intimate degree the properties of radium So too for the matter of that he added an afterthought Deuthorium and Boreum Even Boreum we exclaimed delighted and writing rapidly in our notebook Already we saw ourselves writing up as our headline Boreum shares properties of thorium Just what is it said the great scientist that you want to know Professor we answered what our journal wants is a plain and simple explanation So clear that even our readers can understand it of the new scientific discoveries in radium We understand that you possess more than any other man the gift of clear and lucid thought the professor nodded And that you are able to express yourself with greater simplicity than any two men now lecturing The professor nodded again Now then we said spreading our notes on our knee go at it Tell us and through us tell a quarter of a million anxious readers just what all these new discoveries are about The whole thing said the professor warming up to his work as he perceived from the motions of our face and ears Our intelligent interest is simplicity itself. I can give it to you in a word That's it. We said give it to us that way It amounts if one may boil it down into a phrase boil it boil it we interrupted Amounts if one takes the mere gist of it take it we said take it Amounts to the resolution of the ultimate atom. Ha we exclaimed I must ask you first to clear your mind the professor continued of all conception of ponderable Magnitude we nodded we had already cleared our mind of this In fact added the professor with what we thought a quiet note of warning in his voice I need hardly tell you that what we are dealing with must be regarded as altogether ultramicroscopic We hastened to assure the professor that in accordance with the high standards of honor represented by our journal We should of course regard anything that he might say as Ultramicroscopic and treat it accordingly You say then we continued that the essence of the problem is the resolution of the atom Do you think you can give us any idea of what the atom is? The professor looked at us searchingly. We looked back at him openly and frankly The moment was critical for our interview. Could he do it? Were we the kind of person that he could give it to could we get it if he did? I Think I can he said let us begin with the assumption that the atom is an infinitismal magnitude Very good. Let us grant then that though it is imponderable and indivisible. It must have a spatial content You grant me this We do we said we do more than this. We give it to you Very well if spatial it must have dimension if dimension form Let us assume X Hypothesis the form to be that of a spheroid and see where it leads us The professor was now intensely interested. He walked to and fro in his laboratory His features work with excitement. We worked ours too as sympathetically as we could There is no other possible method in inductive science He added than to embrace some hypothesis the most attractive that one can find and remain with it We nodded even in our own humble life after our day's work. We had found this true Now said the professor planting himself squarely in front of us Assuming a spherical form and a spatial content Assuming the dynamic forces that are familiar to us and assuming the thing is bold. I admit We looked as bold as we could Assuming that the ions or nuclei of the atom. I know no better word Neither do we we said that the nuclei move under the energy of such forces. What have we got? Ha, we said What have we got why the simplest matter conceivable the forces inside our atom? Itself mind you the function of a circle mark that we did Becomes merely a function of pie The great scientist paused with a laugh of triumph a function of pie. We repeated in delight Precisely our conception of ultimate matter is reduced to that of an oblate spheroid Described by the revolution of early lips on its own minor axis Good heavens. We said merely that Nothing else and in that case any further calculation becomes a mere matter of the extraction of a root How simple we murmured Is it not said the professor in fact? I am accustomed in talking to my class to give them a very clear idea by simply taking as our root f F being any finite constant. He looked at us sharply. We nodded and Raising f to the log of infinity. I Find they apprehended it very readily Do they we murmured ourselves? We felt as if the log of infinity carried us to ground higher than what we commonly care to tread on Of course said the professor the log of infinity is an unknown of Course we said very gravely. We felt ourselves here in the presence of something that demanded our reverence But still continued the professor almost jauntily. We can handle the unknown just as easily as anything else This puzzled us. We kept silent. We thought it wiser to move on to more general ground in any case Our notes were now nearly complete These discoveries then we said are absolutely revolutionary They are said the professor You have now as we understand got the atom. How shall we put it got it where you want it? Not exactly said the professor with a sad smile. What do you mean we asked? Unfortunately our analysis perfect though it is stops short. We have no synthesis The professor spoke is in deep sorrow No synthesis we moaned. We felt it was a cruel blow But in any case our notes were now elaborate enough. We felt that our readers could do without a synthesis We rose to go Synthetic dynamics said the professor taking us by the coat is only beginning in that case We murmured disengaging his hand, but wait wait. He pleaded wait for another 50 years We will we said very earnestly but meantime as our paper goes to press this afternoon We must go now in 50 years. We will come back Oh, I see I see said the professor. You are writing all this for a newspaper. I see yes We said we mentioned that at the beginning Said the professor did you very possibly yes We proposed we said to feature the article for next Saturday Will it be long he asked about two columns we answered and How much said the professor in a hesitating way? Do I have to pay you to put it in? How much which we asked How much do I have to pay? Why professor we began quickly then we checked ourselves After all was it right to un-deceive him this quiet absorbed man of science with his ideals his atoms and his emanations No a hundred times. No let him pay a hundred times It will cost you we said very firmly ten dollars The professor began groping among his apparatus. We knew that he was looking for his purse We should like also very much. We said to insert your picture along with the article Would that cost much he asked no that is only five dollars The professor had meantime found his purse Would it be all right? He began that is would you mind if I pay you the money now? I am apt to forget Quite all right. We answered we said goodbye very gently and passed out We felt somehow as if we had touched a higher life Such we murmured as we looked about the ancient campus are the men of science Are there perhaps any others of them rounds this morning that we might interview? for with our typical novelists Edwin and Nethalinda afterthought husband and wife in their delightful home life It was at their beautiful country place on the one a gasset that we had the pleasure of interviewing the afterthoughts at their own Cordial invitation we had walked over from the nearest railway station a distance of some 14 miles Indeed as soon as they heard of our intention. They invited us to walk We are so sorry not to bring you in the motor they wrote but the roads are so frightfully dusty that we might get Dust on our chauffeur this little touch of thoughtfulness is the keynote of their character The house itself is a delightful old mansion giving on a wide garden which gives in turn on a broad terrace giving on the river The eminent novelist met us at the gate We had expected to find the author of Angela Rivers and the Garden of Desire a pale aesthetic type We have a way of expecting the wrong thing in our interviews We could not resist a shock of surprise indeed We seldom do at finding him a burly out-of-door man weighing as he himself told us a hundred stone in his stocking feet We think he said stone He shook hands cordially Come and see my pigs. He said We wanted to ask you we began as we went down the walk something about your books Let's look at the pigs first. He said are you anything of a pig man? We are always anxious in our interviews to be all things to all men, but we were compelled to admit that we were not much of a pig man So the great novelist perhaps you are more of a dog man Not all together a dog man. We answered Anything of a bee man. He asked Something we said we were once stung by a bee Ah, he said you shall have a go at the beehives then right away We assured him that we were willing to postpone a go at the beehives till later Come along then to the sties said the great novelist and he added perhaps you're not much of a breeder We blushed we thought of the five little faces around the table for which we provide food by writing our interviews No, we said we were not much of a breeder Now then said the great novelist as we reached our goal. How do you like this style? Very much indeed. We said I've put in a new tile draining my own plan. You notice how sweet it keeps the style We had not noticed this I Am afraid said the novelist that the pigs are all asleep inside We begged him on no account to awaken them He offered to open the little door at the side and let us crawl in we insisted that we could not think of intruding What we would like we said is to hear something of your methods of work in novel writing We said this with very peculiar conviction Quite apart from the immediate purposes of our interview We have always been most anxious to know by what process novels are written if we could get to know this We would write one ourselves Come and see my bowls first said the novelist I've got a couple of young bowls here in the paddock that will interest you We felt sure that they would He led us to a little green fence inside it were two ferocious looking animals eating grain They rolled their eyes upwards at us as they ate How do those strike you he asked we assured him that they struck us as our bow ideal of bulls Like to walk in beside them said the novelist opening a little gate. We drew back. Was it fair to disturb these bulls? The great novelist noticed our hesitation. Don't be afraid. He said they're not likely to harm you I send my hired man right in beside them every morning without the slightest hesitation We looked at the eminent novelist with admiration We realized that like so many of our writers actors and even our thinkers of today He was an open-air man in every sense of the word, but we shook our heads Bulls we explained we're not a department of research for which we were equipped what we wanted We said was to learn something of his methods of work My methods of work he answered as we turned up the path again. Well, really I hardly know that I have any What is your plan or a method we asked getting out our notebook and pencil of laying the beginning of a new novel? My usual plan said the novelist is to come out here and sit in the stye till I get my characters Does it take long we questioned? Not very I generally find that a quiet half hour spent among the hogs will give me at least my leading character And what do you do next? Oh after that I generally light a pipe and go and sit among the beehives looking for an incident Do you get it we asked? Invariably after that I make a few notes then go off for a 10 mile tramp with my Eskimo dogs and Get back in time to have a go through the cattle sheds and take a romp with the young bulls We sighed we couldn't help it novel writing seemed further away than ever Have you also a goat on the premises we asked? Oh Certainly a ripping old fellow come along and see him. We shook our heads. No doubt our disappointment showed in our face It often does we felt that it was all together right and wholesome that our great novels of today Should be written in this fashion with the help of goats dogs hogs and young bulls But we felt too that it was not for us We permitted ourselves one further question at what time we said do you rise in the morning? Oh Anywhere between four and five said the novelist And do you generally take a cold dip as soon as you are up even in winter? I do You prefer no doubt we said with a dejection that we could not conceal to have water with a good coat of ice over it Oh, certainly We said no more we have long understood the reasons for our own failure in life But it was painful to receive a renewed Corroboration of it. This ice question has stood in our way for 47 years The great novelist seemed to note our dejection come to the house. He said my wife will give you a cup of tea In a few moments. We had forgotten all our troubles in the presence of one of the most charming Chattelanes it has been our lot to meet We sat on a low stool Immediately beside ethyl into afterthought who presided in her own gracious fashion over the tea urn So you want to know something of my methods of work. She said as she poured hot tea over our leg We do we answered taking out our little book and recovering something of our enthusiasm We do not mind hot tea being poured over us if people treat us as a human being Can you indicate we continued what method you follow in beginning one of your novels? I always begin said ethyl into afterthought with a study a study we queried Yes, I mean a study of actual facts Take for example my leaves from the life of a steam laundry woman more key. No. No, we said Well to make that book. I first worked two years in a laundry two years We exclaimed and why to get the atmosphere the steam we questioned Oh, no said Mrs. Afterthought. I did that separately. I took a course in steam at a technical school Is it possible? We said our heart beginning to sing again. Was all that necessary? I don't see how one could do it. Otherwise the story opens as no doubt you remember tea in The boiler room of the laundry Yes, we said moving our leg. No, thank you So you see the only possible point that we was to begin with the description of the inside of the boiler We nodded a masterly thing. We said My wife interrupted the great novelist who was sitting with the head of a huge Danish hound in his lap Sharing his buttered toast with the dog while he adjusted a set of trout flies is a great worker Do you always work on that method? We asked Always she answered for Frederica of the factory. I spent six months in a knitting mill for Marguerite of the mud flats I made special studies for months and months of what sort we asked in mud Learning to model it. You see for a story of that sort the first thing needed is a thorough knowledge of mud all kinds of it And what are you doing next we inquired? My next book said the lady novelist is to be a study T of the pickle industry perfectly new ground a Fascinating field we murmured and quite new several of our writers have done this slaughterhouse and in England A good deal has been done in jam, but so far. No one has done pickles I should like if I could add a death Linda afterthought with the graceful modesty that is characteristic of her To make it the first of a series of pickle novels Showing don't you know the whole pickle district and perhaps following a family of pickle workers for four or five generations Four or five. We said enthusiastically make it ten and have you any plan for work beyond that? Oh, yes indeed left the lady novelist I am always planning ahead What I want to do after that is a study of the inside of a penitentiary of the inside we said with a shutter Yes to do it. Of course. I shall go to jail for two or three years But how can you get in we asked thrilled at the quiet determination of the frail woman before us I shall demand it as a right. She answered quietly I shall go to the authorities at the head of a band of enthusiastic women and demand that I shall be sent to jail Surely after the work I have done that much is coming to me It certainly is we said warmly We rose to go both the novelists shook hands with us with great cordiality Mr. Afterthought walked as far as the front door with us and showed us a shortcut past the beehives That could take us directly through the bull pasture to the main road We walked away in the gathering darkness of evening very quietly We made up our mind as we went that novel writing is not for us We must reach the penitentiary in some other way But we thought it well to set down our interview as a guide to others End of part eight This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Frenzied fiction by Stephen Leacock Part nine the new education So you're going back to college in a fortnight I said to the bright young thing on the veranda of the summer hotel Aren't you sorry In a way I am she said but in another sense. I'm glad to go back one can't loaf all the time She looked up from her rocking chair over her red cross knitting with great earnestness How full of purpose these modern students are I thought to myself In my time we used to go back to college as to a treadmill I know that I said but what I mean is that college after all is a pretty hard grind Things like mathematics and Greek are no joke. Are they in my day as I remember it We used to think spherical trigonometry about the hardest stuff of the lot She looked dubious I didn't elect mathematics. She said Oh, I said I see so you don't have to take it And what have you elected For this coming half semester that's six weeks, you know, I've elected social endeavor Ah, I said that's since my day. What is it? Oh, it's awfully interesting. It's the study of conditions What kind of conditions I asked All conditions perhaps I can't explain it properly But I have the prospectus of it indoors if you'd like to see it We take up society And what do you do with it? Analyze it. She said But it must mean reading a tremendous lot of books No, she answered we don't use books in this course. It's all laboratory work Now I am mystified. I said what do you mean by laboratory work? Well answered the girl student with a thoughtful look upon her face You see we are supposed to break society up into its elements In six weeks Some of the girls do it in six weeks. Some put in a whole semester and take 12 weeks at it So as to break up pretty thoroughly. I said Yes, she assented but most of the girls think six weeks is enough That ought to pulverize it pretty completely But how do you go at it? Well, the girl said it's all done with laboratory work We take for instance department stores. I think that is the first thing we do We take up the department store And what do you do with it? We study it as a social germ Ah, I said as a social germ Yes, said the girl delighted to see that I was beginning to understand as a germ All the work is done in the concrete The class goes down with the professor to the department store itself and then Then they walk all through it observing But have none of them ever been in a departmental store before? Oh, of course, but you see we go as observers Ah, now I understand you mean you don't buy anything and so you are able to watch everything No, she said it's not that we do buy things. That's part of it Most of the girls like to buy little knickknacks And anyway, it gives them a good chance to do their shopping while they're there But while they are there they are observing then afterwards they make charts Charts of what I asked Charts of the employees they're used to show the brain movement involved Do you find much? Well, she said hesitatingly the idea is to reduce all the employees to a curve To a curve I exclaimed and in or an out No, no, not exactly that Didn't you use curves when you were at college? Never I said Oh, well nowadays nearly everything you know is done into a curve. We put them on the board And what is this particular curve of the employee used for I asked Why said the student the idea is that from the curve we can get the norm of the employee Get his norm I asked Yes, get the norm that stands for the root form of the employee as a social factor And what can you do with that? Oh when we have that we can tell what the employee would do under any and every circumstance At least that's the idea though. I'm really only quoting she added Breaking off in a different way from what miss thinker the professor of social endeavors says She's really fine She's making a general chart of the female employees of one of the biggest stores To show what percentage in case of fire would jump out of the window and what percentage would run to the fire escape It's a wonderful course. I said we had nothing like it when I went to college And does it only take in departmental stores? No, said the girl the laboratory work includes for this semester ice cream parlors as well What do you do with them? We take them up as social cells nuclei. I think the professor calls them And how do you go at them? I asked Why the girls go to them in little laboratory groups and study them They eat ice cream in them They have to she said to make it concrete But while they are doing it, they are considering the ice cream parlor merely as a section of social protoplasm Does the professor go I asked oh, yes, she heads each group professor thinker never spares herself from work Dear me. I said you must be kept very busy and his social endeavor all that you are going to do No, she answered I'm electing a half course in nature work as well Nature work well, well that I suppose means cramming up a lot of biology and zoology does it not No, said the girl. It's not exactly done with books. I believe it is all done by fieldwork fieldwork Yes fieldwork four times a week and an excursion every Saturday And what do you do in the fieldwork? The girls she answered go out in groups anywhere out of doors and make a nature study of anything they see How do they do that? I asked Why they look at it? Suppose for example, they come to a stream or a pond or anything Yes Well, they look at it Had they never done that before I asked Uh, but they look at it as a nature unit each girl must take 40 units in the course I think we only do one unit each day. We go out It must I said be pretty fatiguing work. And what about the excursion? That's every Saturday. We go out with miss stock the professor of ambulation And where do you go? Oh anywhere one day we go perhaps for a trip on a steamer and another Saturday somewhere in motors And so on Doing what I asked Fieldwork the aim of the course. I'm afraid I'm quoting miss stock, but I don't mind. She's really fine Is to break nature into its elements. I see So as to view it as the external structure of society and make deductions from it Have you made any I asked Oh, no, she laughed. I'm only starting the work this term But of course I shall have to each girl makes at least one deduction at the end of the course Some of the seniors make two or three, but you have to make one It's a great course. I said no wonder you're going to be busy And as you say how much better than loafing around here doing nothing Isn't it said the girl student with enthusiasm in her eyes It gives one such a sense of purpose such a feeling of doing something It must I answered Oh goodness. She exclaimed there's the lunch bell. I must skip and get ready She was just vanishing from my side when the burly male student who was also staying in the hotel Came puffing up after his five mile run. He was getting himself into trim for enlistment. So he told me He noted the retreating form of the college girl as he sat down I've just been talking to her I said about her college work She seems to be studying a queer lot of stuff social endeavor and all that Awful piffle said the young man, but the girls naturally run to all that sort of rot, you know Now your work I went on is no doubt very different I mean what you were taking before the war came along I suppose you fellows have an awful dose of mathematics and philology and so on just as I did in my college days Something like a blush came across the face of the handsome youth Well, no, he said I didn't co-opt mathematics At our college, you know, we co-opt two majors and two minors I see I said and what were you co-opting? I co-opted turkish music and religion he answered Oh, yes, I said with a sort of reverential respect Fitting yourself for a position of choir master in a turkish cathed will no doubt No, no, he said I'm going into insurance But you see those subjects fit it in better than anything else fit it in Yes, turkish comes at nine music at 10 and religion at 11 So they make a good combination. They leave a man free to to develop his mind I said we used to find in my college days that lectures interfered with it badly But now turkish that must be an interesting language, eh Search me said the student all you have to do is answer the roll and go out 40 roll calls give you one turkish unit But say I must get on I've got to change so long I could not help reflecting as the young man left me on the great changes that have come over our college education It was a relief to me later in the day to talk with a quiet somber man himself a graduate student in philosophy on this topic He agreed with me that the old strenuous studies seemed to be very largely abandoned I looked at the somber man with respect Now your work I said is very different from what these young people are doing hard solid definite effort What a relief it must be to you to get a brief vacation up here I couldn't help thinking today as I watched you moving around doing nothing How fine it must feel for you to come up here after your hard work and put in a month of out and out loafing Loafing he said indignantly. I'm not loafing. I'm putting in a half summer course in introspection That's why I'm here. I get credit for two majors for my time here Ah, I said as gently as I could you get credit here He left me. I am still pondering over our new education Meantime, I think I shall enter my little boy's name on the books of Tuskegee college where the education is still old fashion end of part nine This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org frenzied fiction by Stephen Leacock part 10 the errors of santa claus It was christmas eve The browns who lived in the adjoining house had been dining with the jones's Brown and jones were sitting over wine and walnuts at the table the others had gone upstairs What are you giving to your boy for christmas asked brown A train said jones new kind of thing automatic Let's have a look at it said brown jones fetched a parcel from the sideboard and began unwrapping it In genius thing, isn't it? He said Goes on its own rails queer. How kids love to play with trains, isn't it? Yes, a senate brown How were the rails fixed? Wait, I'll show you said jones. Just help me to shove these dinner things aside and roll back the cloth there See you lay the rails like that and fasten them at the ends so Oh, yes, I catch on makes a grade doesn't it just the thing to amuse the child, isn't it? I got willy a toy aeroplane I know they're great I got edwin one on his birthday, but I thought I'd get him a train this time I told him santa claus was going to bring him something altogether new this time Edwin, of course believes in santa claus absolutely Say look at this locomotive. Would you it has a spring coiled up inside the firebox? Winder up said brown with great interest. Let's see her go All right, said jones Just pile up two or three plates or something to lean the end of the rails on There notice the way it buzzes before it starts. Isn't that a great thing for a kid? Yes said brown And say see this little string to pull the whistle. I get it too say just like real Now then brown jones went on you hitch on those cars and I'll starter I'll be engineer a Half an hour later brown and jones were still playing trains on the dining room table But their wives upstairs in the drawing room hardly noticed their absence They were too much interested Oh, I think it's perfectly sweet said mrs. Brown. Just the loveliest doll I've seen in years I must get one like it for alvina won't clorice be perfectly enchanted Yes answered mrs. Jones And then she'll have all the fun of arranging the dresses children love that so much Look, there are three little dresses with the dial. Aren't they cute all cut out and ready to stitch together How perfectly lovely exclaimed mrs. Brown I think the mauve one would suit the dial best. Don't you with such golden hair Only don't you think it would make it much nicer to turn back the collar so And to put a little band so What a good idea said mrs. Jones do let's try it Just wait i'll get a needle in a minute I'll tell clorice that santa claus sewed it himself the child believes in santa claus absolutely And half an hour later mrs. Jones and mrs. Brown were so busy stitching dolls clothes That they could not hear the roaring of the little train up and down the dining table and had no idea what the four children were doing Nor did the children miss their mothers Dandy aren't they edwin jones was saying to little willy brown as they sat in edwin's bedroom A hundred in a box with cork chips and see an amber mouthpiece that fits into a little case at the side Good present for dad eh Fine said willy appreciatively I'm giving father cigars I know I thought of cigars too men always like cigars and cigarettes you can't go wrong on them Say would you like to try one or two of these cigarettes? We can take them from the bottom You'll like them. They're russian way ahead of egyptian Thanks answered willy. I'd like one immensely I only started smoking last spring on my twelfth birthday I think a fella's a fool to begin smoking cigarettes too soon. Don't you it stunts him I waited till I was 12 Me too said edwin as they lighted their cigarettes in fact I wouldn't buy them now if it weren't for dad I simply had to give him something from santa claus. He believes in santa claus. Absolutely, you know And while this was going on Clarisse was showing little alvina the absolutely lovely little bridge set that she got for her mother Aren't these markers perfectly charming said alvina and don't you love this little dutch design or is it flemish darling dutch said Clarisse isn't it quaint And aren't these the dearest little things for putting the money in when you play I needn't have got them with it. They'd have sold the rest separately But I think it's too utterly slow playing without money. Don't you? Oh abominable shuttered alvina, but your mama never plays for money. Does she mama? Oh gracious No, mama's far too slow for that But I shall tell her that santa claus insisted on putting in the little money boxes I suppose she believes in santa claus just as my mama does Oh absolutely said Clarisse and added What if we play a little game with a double dummy the french way or Norwegian scat if you like that only needs to All right agreed alvina and in a few minutes. They were deep in a game of cards with a little pile of pocket money beside them About half an hour later all the members of the two families were again in the drawing room But of course nobody said anything about the presents In any case, they were all too busy looking at the beautiful big bible with maps in it that the joneses had brought to give to grandfather They all agreed that with the help of it grandfather could hunt up any place in palestine in a moment day or night But upstairs a way upstairs in a sitting room of his own Grandfather jones was looking with an affectionate eye at the presence that stood beside him There was a beautiful whiskey decanter with silver filigree outside And whiskey inside for jones and for the little boy a big nickel plated jew's harp Later on far in the night the person or the influencer whatever it is called santa claus Took all the presents and placed them in the people's stockings And being blind as he always has been he gave the wrong things to the wrong people In fact he gave them just as indicated above But the next day in the course of christmas morning the situation straightened itself out just as it always does Indeed by ten o'clock brown and jones were playing with the train and mrs. Brown and mrs. jones were making doll's clothes And the boys were smoking cigarettes and chrysanal dino were playing cards for their pocket money And upstairs a way up grandfather was drinking whiskey and playing the jew's harp And so christmas just as it always does turned out all right after all End of part 10 This is a libravox recording All libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit libravox.org Frenzied fiction by steven lee cock part 11 lost in new york A visitor's soliloquy Well, well whatever has been happening to this place to new york changed changed since i was here in 86 Well, i should say so The hack driver of the old days that i used to find waiting for me at the station curb with that impossible horse of his The hack driver with his bulbous red face and the nice smell of rye whiskey all round him for yards gone So it seems forever And in place of him this what is it they call it taxi with a clean shaven cut throat steering it Get in he says just that he doesn't offer to help me or lift my satchel. All right young man. I'm crawling in That's the machine that marks today I suppose they have them rigged up so they can punch up anything they like I thought so he hits it up to 50 cents before we start, but I saw him do it Well, I can stand for it this time. I'll not be caught in one of these again The hotel all right i'm getting out My hotel, but what is it they have done to it? They must have added 10 stories to it. It reaches to the sky But i'll not try to look to the top of it not with the satchel in my hand No, sir. I'll wait till i'm safe inside in there. I'll feel all right. They'll know me in there They'll remember right away my visit in the fall of 86 They won't easily have forgotten that big dinner. I gave nine people at a dollar 50 a plate with a cigars extra The clerk will remember me all right No, me not they The clerk know me how could he for it seems now there isn't any clerk or not as there used to be They have subdivided him somehow into five or six There is a man behind a desk a majestic sort of man waving his hand It would be sheer madness to claim acquaintance with him There was another with a great book adjusting cards in it and another behind glass labeled cashier And busy as a bank. There are two with mail and telegrams. They are all too busy to know me Shall I sneak up near to them keeping my satchel in my hand? I wonder do they see me can they see me a mere thing like me? I am within 10 feet of them, but I am certain that they cannot see me. I am and I feel it Absolutely invisible Ha One has seen me he turns to me or rather he rounds upon me with the words well, sir That and nothing else sharp and hard There is none of the ancient kindly pretense of knowing my name No reaching out a welcome hand and calling me mr Till he has read my name upside down while I am writing it and can address me as a familiar friend No friendly questioning about the crops in my part of the country the crops for sooth What do these young men know about crops a room? had I any reservation any witch Any reservation? Oh, I see Had I written down from home to say that I was coming? No, I had not because the truth is I came at very short notice I didn't know till a week before that my brother-in-law He is not listening. He has moved away. I will stand and wait till he comes back I am intruding here. I had no right to disturb these people like this Oh, I can have a room at 11 o'clock When it is which is vacated. Oh, yes, I see when the man in it gets up and goes away I didn't for the minute catch on to what the word he has stopped listening Never mind. I can wait from 8 to 11 is only three hours. Anyway, I will move about here and look at things If I keep moving they will notice me less Ha books and newspapers and magazines. What a stack of them like a regular bookstore I will stand here and take a look at some of them Hey, what's that? Did I want to buy anything? Well, no, I hadn't exactly I was just oh, I see they're on sale All right. Yes. Give me this one 50 cents. All right And this and these others that's all right miss. I'm not stingy They always say of me up in our town that when I She has stopped listening Never mind. I will walk up and down again with the magazines under my arm. That will make people think I live here Better still if I could put the magazines in my satchel But how there was no way to set it down and undo the straps I wonder if I could dare put it for a minute on that table the polished one Or no, they wouldn't likely allow a man to put a bag there Well, I can wait. Anyway, it's eight o'clock and soon surely breakfast will be ready As soon as I hear the gong I can go in there I wonder if I could find out first where the dining room is It used always to be marked across the door, but I don't seem to see it Darn it. I'll ask that man in uniform If I'm here prepared to spend my good money to get breakfast I guess I'm not scared to ask a simple question of a man in uniform Or no, I'll not ask him. I'll try this one. I know he's busy I'll ask this other boys. Say, would you mind if you please telling me, please? Which way the dining room? A what? Do I want which? The grill room or the palm room Well, I tell you young man. I just wanted to get some breakfast if it's what Do I want what? I didn't quite get that a la carte No, thanks And what's that table to what in the palm room? No, I just wanted but it doesn't matter I'll wait around here and look about till I hear the gong. Don't worry about me What's that? What's that boy shouting out that boy with the tray a call for mr. Something or other Say must be something happened pretty serious a call for mr. Why that's for me Hello, here. I am here. It's me here. I am wanted at the desk. All right. I'm coming. I'm hurrying I guess something's wrong at home. Hey here. I am. That's my name. I'm ready Oh a room you've got a room for me. All right The 15th floor good heavens a way up there Never mind. I'll take it can't give me a bath That's all right. I had one Elevator over this way. All right. I'll come along Thanks. I can carry it, but I don't see any elevator. Oh this door in the wall while I'm hanged This the elevator it certainly has changed the elevator that I remember had a rope in the middle of it And you pulled the rope up as you went wheezing and clanking all the way to the fifth floor But this looks a queer sort of machine How do you do? Oh, I beg your pardon. I was in the road of the door. I guess excuse me I'm afraid I got in the way of your elbow. It's all right. You didn't hurt or not bad Gee whiz it goes fast. Are you sure you can stop it better be careful young man There was an elevator once in our town that 15th floor. All right This room a great scottets high up Say better not go too near that window boy. That would be a hell of a drop if a fella fell out You needn't wait. Oh, I see. I beg your pardon. I suppose a quarter is enough a Well, it's a relief to be alone But say this is high up and what a noise What is it? They're doing out there a way out in the air with all that clatter building a steel building. I guess Well, those fellers have their nerve. All right, I'll sit further back from the window It's lonely up here in the old days I could have run the bell and had a drink sent up to the room But a way up here on the 15th floor. Oh, no, they'd never send a drink clean up to the 15th floor Of course in the old days I could have put on my canvas slippers and walked down to the bar and had a drink and talk to the bartender But of course they wouldn't have a bar at a place like this I'd like to go down and see but I don't know that I'd care to ask anyway No, I guess I'll just sit and wait. Someone will come for me. I guess after a while If I were back right now in our town I could walk into ed clancy's restaurant and have ham and eggs or steak and eggs or anything for 35 cents Our town up home is a peach of a little town. Anyway Say I just feel as if I'd like to take my satchel and jump clean out of that window It would be a good rebuke to them But shaw what would they care? End of part 11 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Frenzied fiction by Steven Leacock Part 12 this strenuous age Something is happening I regret to find to the world in which we used to live The poor old thing is being speeded up. There is efficiency in the air Offices open at eight o'clock millionaires launch on a baked apple bankers eat practically nothing A college president has declared that there are more foot pounds of energy in a glass of peptonized milk than in Something else. I forget what All this is very fine. Yet somehow I feel out of it My friends are failing me. They won't sit up after midnight They have taken to sleeping out of doors on porches and pergolas Some I understand merely roost on plain wooden bars They rise early. They take deep breathing. They bathe in ice water There are no good This change I am sure is excellent. It is I am certain just as it ought to be I am merely saying quietly and humbly that I am not in it I am being left behind Take for example the case of alcohol That at least is what it is called now There were days when we called it bourbon whiskey and tom jinn and when the very name of it breathes romance That time is passed The poor stuff is now called alcohol and none so low that he has a good word for it Quite right. I am certain I don't defend it alcohol They are saying today if taken in sufficient quantities tears all the outer coating off the diaphragm It leaves the epigastric tissue. So I am informed a useless wreck This I don't deny It gets they tell me into the brain. I don't dispute it It turns the prosincephalon into mere punk. I know it. I felt it doing it They tell me and I believe it that after even one glass of alcohol Or shall we say scotch whiskey and soda a man's working power is lowered by 20 percent This is a dreadful thing After three glasses so it is held his capacity for sustained rigid thought is cutting two And after about six glasses the man's working power is reduced by at least a hundred percent He merely sits there in his armchair at his club Let us say with all power even all desire to work gone out of him not thinking rigidly not sustaining his thought A mere shapeless chunk of geniality half hidden in the blue smoke of his cigar Very dreadful not a doubt alcohol is doomed it is going it is gone Yet when I think of a hot scotch on a winter evening or a tom Collins on a summer morning Or a gin rickie beside a tennis court or a stein of beer on a bench beside a bowling green I wish somehow that we could prohibit the use of alcohol and merely drink beer and whiskey and gin as we used to But these things that appears interfere with work. They have got to go But turn to the broader and simpler question of work itself In my time one hated it it was viewed as the natural enemy of man Now the world has fallen in love with it My friends I find take their deep breathing and their porch sleeping because it makes them work better They go for a week's vacation in virginia not for its own sake But because they say they can work better when they get back I know a man who wears very loose boots because he can work better in them And another who wears only soft shirts because he can work better in a soft shirt There are plenty of men now who would wear dog harness if they thought they could work more in it I know another man who walks away out into the country every sunday not that he likes the country He wouldn't recognize a bumblebee if he saw it But he claims that if he walks on sunday his head is as clear as a bell for work on monday Against work itself I say nothing, but I sometimes wonder if I stand alone in this thing Am I the only person left who hates it? Nor is work all take food I admit here and now that the lunch I like best I mean for an ordinary plain lunch not a party Is a beef steak about one foot square and two inches thick Can I work on it? No, I can't but I can work in spite of it That is as much as one used to ask 25 years ago Yet now I find that all my friends boast ostentatiously about the meager lunch they eat One tells me that he finds a glass of milk in a prune is quite as much as he cares to take Another says that a dry biscuit and a glass of water is all that his brain will stand One lunch is on the white of an egg another eats merely the yolk I have only two friends left who can eat a whole egg at a time I understand that the fear of these men is that if they eat more than an egg or a biscuit they will feel heavy after lunch Why they object to feeling heavy. I do not know personally. I enjoy it I like nothing better than to sit round after a heavy lunch with half a dozen heavy friends Smoking heavy cigars. I am well aware that that is wicked I merely confess the fact that you're not palliated Nor is food all nor drink nor work nor open air There has spread abroad along with the so-called physical efficiency a perfect passion for information Somehow if a man's stomach is empty and his head clear as a bell And if he won't drink and won't smoke he reaches out for information. He wants facts He reads the newspapers all through instead of only reading the headings He clamors for articles filled with statistics about illiteracy and alien immigration And the number of battleships in the japanese navy I know quite a lot of men who have actually bought the new encyclopedia britannica What is more they read the thing They sit in their apartments at night with a glass of water at their elbow reading the encyclopedia They say that it is literally filled with facts Other men spend their time reading the statistical abstract of the united states They say the figures in it are great and the acts of congress and the list of presidents since washington Or was it washington? Spending their evenings thus and topping it off with a cold baked apple and sleeping out in the snow They go to work in the morning. So they tell me with a positive sense of exhilaration I have no doubt that they do but for me I confess that once and for all I am out of it. I am left behind Add to it all such rising dangers as total prohibition and the female franchise the daylight saving and eugenic marriage Together with proportional representation The initiative and the referendum and the duty of the citizen to take an intelligent interest in politics And I admit that I shall not be sorry to go away from here But before I do go I have one hope I understand that down in Haiti things are very different Bullfights cock fights dog fights are openly permitted Business never begins till 11 in the morning. Everybody sleeps after lunch and the bars remain open all night Marriage is but a casual relation In fact the general condition of morality. So they tell me is lower in Haiti than it has been anywhere since the time of nero Me for Haiti end of part 12 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org frenzied fiction by Stephen Leacock Part 13 the old old story of how five men went fishing This is a plain account of a fishing party. It is not a story. There is no plot Nothing happens in it and nobody is hurt. The only point of this narrative is its peculiar truth It not only tells what happened to us The five people concerned in it But what has happened and is happening to all the other fishing parties That at the season of the year from Halifax to Idaho Go gliding out on the unruffled surface of our canadian and american lakes in the still cool of early summer morning We decided to go in the early morning because there is a popular belief that the early morning is the right time for bass fishing The bass is said to bite in the early morning. Perhaps it does In fact, the thing is almost capable of scientific proof The bass does not bite between eight and twelve It does not bite between twelve and six in the afternoon nor does it bite between six o'clock and midnight All these things are known facts The inference is that the bass bites furiously at about daybreak At any rate our party were unanimous about starting early Better make an early start said the colonel when the idea of the party was suggested Oh, yes, said george popley the bank manager. We want to get right out on the show while the fish are biting When he said this all our eyes glistened everybody's do There's a thrill in the words To get right out on the show at daybreak when the fish are biting is an idea that goes to any man's brain If you listen to the men talking in a pullman car or in hotel corridor Or better still at the little tables in a first class bar You will not listen long before you hear one say well We got out early just after sunrise right on the show And presently even if you can't hear him You will see him reach out his two hands and hold them about two feet apart for the other man to admire He is measuring the fish No, not the fish they caught. This was the big one that they lost But they had him right up to the top of the water. Oh, yes He was up to the top of the water all right The number of huge fish that have been heaved up to the top of the water in our lakes is almost incredible Or at least it used to be when we still had bar rooms and little tables for serving that vile stuff scotch whiskey and such foul things as gin rickies and john collins's It makes one sick to think of it, doesn't it? But there was good fishing in the bars all the winter But as I say we decided to go early in the morning Charlie Jones the railroad man said that he remembered how when he was a boy up in Wisconsin They used to get out at five in the morning not get up at five, but be on the shoal at five It appears that there is a shoal somewhere in Wisconsin where the bass lie in thousands Kernan the lawyers said that when he was a boy, this was on Lake Rosso They used to get out at four It seems there is a shoal in Lake Rosso where you can haul up the bass as fast as you can drop your line The shoal is hard to find very hard. Kernan can find it But it is doubtful. So I gather if any other living man can The wisconsin shoal too is very difficult to find once you find it you are all right, but it's hard to find Charlie Jones can find it if you were in wisconsin right now He'd take you straight to it, but probably no other person now alive could reach that shoal In the same way colonel morris knows of a shoal in lake simcoe Where he used to fish years and years ago in which I understand he can still find I have mentioned that kernan is a lawyer and jones a railroad man and poplia banker What I need didn't have any reader would take it for granted in any fishing party There is always a lawyer you can tell him at sight He is the one of the party that has a landing net and a steel rod in sections with a wheel that is used to wind The fish to the top of the water And there is always a banker you can tell him by his good clothes Popli in the bank wears his banking suit when he goes fishing he wears his fishing suit It is much the better of the two because his banking suit has ink marks on it and his fishing suit has no fish marks on it As for the railroad man Quite so the reader knows it as well as I do You can tell him because he carries a pole that he cut in the bush himself with a 10 cent line wrapped around the end of it Jones says he can catch as many fish with this kind of line as kernan can with his patent rod and reel So he can too just the same number But kernan says that with his patent apparatus if you get a fish on you can play him Jones says to hate he's with playing him give him a fish on his line, and he'll haul him in all right Kernan says he'd lose him, but jones says he wouldn't in fact he guarantees to haul the fish in Kernan says that more than once in lake raso. He has played a fish for over half an hour I forget now why he stopped. I think the fish quit playing I have heard kernan and jones argue this question of their two rides As to which rod can best pull in the fish for half an hour Others may have heard the same question debated. I know no way by which it could be settled Our arrangement to go fishing was made at the little golf club of our summer town on the veranda where we sit in the evening Oh, it's just a little place nothing pretentious The links are not much good for golf. In fact, we don't play much golf there So far as golf goes and of course we don't serve meals at the club It's not like that and no we've nothing to drink there because of prohibition But we go and sit there. It is a good place to sit and after all what else can you do in the present state of the law So it was there that we arranged the party The things somehow seemed to fall into the mood of each of us Jones said he had been hoping that some of the boys would get up a fishing party It was apparently the one kind of pleasure that he really cared for For myself I was delighted to get in with a crowd of regular fishermen like these four Especially as I hadn't been out fishing for nearly 10 years Though fishing is a thing I am passionately fond of I know no pleasure in life like the sensation of getting a four pound bass on the hook And hauling him up to the top of the water to weigh him But as I say I hadn't been out for 10 years Oh, yes, I live right beside the water every summer and yes, certainly I am saying so I am passionately fond of fishing But still somehow I hadn't been out Every fisherman knows just how that happens the years have a way of slipping by Yet I must say I was surprised to find that so keen a sport as jones hadn't been out So it presently appeared for eight years I had imagined he practically lived on the water and colonel morris and cernan I was amazed to find hadn't been out for 12 years Not since the day so it came out in conversation when they went out together in lake raso And cernan landed a perfect monster a regular corker five pounds and a half. They said Or no, I don't think he landed him. No, I remember he didn't land him He caught him and he could have landed him. He should have landed him, but he didn't land him. That was it Yes, I remember cernan and morris had a slight discussion about it Oh perfectly amicable as to whether morris had fumbled with the net or whether cernan the whole argument was perfectly friendly Had made an ass of himself by not striking soon enough Of course, the whole thing was so long ago that both of them could look back on it without any bitterness or ill nature In fact, it amused them Cernan said it was the most laughable thing he ever saw in his life to see poor old jack That's morris's name Shoving away with the landing net wrong side up and morris said he'd never forget seeing poor old cernan Yanking his line first this way and then that and not knowing where to try to haul it made him laugh to look back at it They might have gone on laughing for quite a time But charlie jones interrupted by saying that in his opinion a landing that is a piece of darn foolishness Here poply agrees with him cernan objects that if you don't use a net you'll lose your fish at the side of the boat jones says no give him a hook well through the fish and a stout line in his hand and that fish has got to come in poply says so too He says let him have his hook fast through the fish's head with a short stout line And put him poply at the other end of that line and that fish will come in it's got to Otherwise poply will know why that's the alternative Either the fish must come in or poply must know why there's no escape from the logic of it But perhaps some of my readers have heard the thing discussed before So as I say we decided to go the next morning and to make an early start All of the boys were at one about that When I say boys I use the word as it is used in fishing to mean people from say 45 to 65 There's something about fishing that keeps men young if a fellow gets out for a good morning's fishing Forgetting all business worries once in a while say once in 10 years. It keeps him fresh We agreed to go in a launch a large launch to be exact the largest in the town We could have gone in rowboats, but a rowboat is a poor thing to fish from Kernan said that in a rowboat it is impossible properly to play your fish The side of the boat is so low that the fish is apt to leap over the side into the boat when half played Popply said that there is no comfort in a rowboat In a launch a man can reach out his feet and take it easy Charlie Jones said that in a launch a man could rest his back against something and Morse said that in a launch a man could rest his neck Young inexperienced boys in the small sense of the word never think of these things So they go out and after a few hours their necks get tired Whereas a group of expert fishers in a launch can rest their backs and necks And even fall asleep during their pauses when the fish stop biting Anyway, all the boys agreed that the great advantage of a launch would be that we could get a man to take us By that means the man could see to getting the worms and the man would be sure to have spare lines And the man could come along to our different places We were all beside the water and pick us up In fact the more we thought about the advantage of having a man to take us the better we liked it As a boy gets old he likes to have a man around to do the work Anyway Frank rolls the man we decided to get Not only has the biggest launch in town, but what is more Frank knows the lake We called him up at his boat house over the phone and said we'd give him five dollars to take us out first thing in the morning Provided that he knew the shoal. He said he knew it I don't know to be quite candid about it who mentioned whiskey first In these days everybody has to be a little careful I imagine we had all been thinking whiskey for some time before anybody said it But there is a sort of convention that when men go fishing they must have whiskey Each man makes the pretense that one thing he needs at six o'clock in the morning is cold raw whiskey It is spoken of in terms of affection One man says the first thing you need if you're going fishing is a good snort of whiskey Another says that a good snifter is the very thing and the others agree that no man can fish properly without a horn Or a bracer or an eye opener Each man really decides that he himself won't take any but he feels that in a collective sense the boys need it So it was with us the colonel said he'd bring along a bottle of booze Popply said no let him bring it Kernan said let him and charlie jones said no he'd bring it It turned out that the colonel had some very good scotch at his house that he'd like to bring Oddly enough popply had some good scotch in his house too And queer though it is each of the boys had scotch in his house When the discussion closed we knew that each of the five of us was intending to bring a bottle of whiskey Each of the five of us expected the other to drink one and a quarter bottles in the course of the morning I suppose we must have talked on that verandah till long after one in the morning It was probably nearer two than one when we broke up But we agreed that that made no difference popply said that for him three hours sleep The right kind of sleep was far more refreshing than ten Kernan said that a lawyer learns to snatch his sleep when he can and jones said that in railroad work a man pretty well cuts out sleep So we had no alarms whatever about not being ready by five our plan was simplicity itself Men like ourselves in responsible positions learn to organize things easily In fact popply says it is that faculty that has put us where we are So the plan simply was that frank rolls should come along at five o'clock and blow his whistle in front of our places And at that signal each man would come down to his wharf with his rod and kit And so we'd be off to the show without a moment's delay The weather we ruled out it was decided that even if it rained that made no difference Kernan said that fish bite better in the rain and everybody agreed that man was a couple of snorts in him He'd have no fear of a little rain water So we parted all keen on the enterprise Nor do I think even now that there was anything faulty or imperfect in that party as we planned it I heard frank rolls blowing his infernal whistle opposite my summer cottage at some ghastly hour in the morning Even without getting out of bed I could see from the window that it was no day for fishing No, not raining exactly. I don't mean that but one of those peculiar days I don't mean wind. There was no wind But a sort of feeling in the air that showed anybody who understands bass fishing that it was a perfectly rotten day for going out The fish I seemed to know it wouldn't bite When I was still fretting over the annoyance of the disappointment I heard frank rolls blowing his whistle in front of the other cottages I counted 30 whistles altogether. Then I fell into a light dose Not exactly sleep, but a sort of dose I can find no other word for it. It was clear to me that the other boys had thrown the thing over There was no use in my trying to go out alone. I stayed where I was my dose lasting till 10 o'clock When I walked uptown later in the morning I couldn't help being struck by the signs in the butcher's shops and the restaurants Fish fresh fish fresh lake fish Where in blazes do they get those fish anyway? End of part 13