 Part 2, Chapter 7 and 8 of Perkins the Faker A Travesty on Reincarnation by Edward S. Vanzile. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. How Schopen came to Remsen, Chapter 7. A Preliminary Canter. So comes at last the answer from the Vast, Maurice Thompson. Do you really intend to go, Tom? But suppose, dear, you don't feel like playing, what will happen then? Do be sensible, old fellow, and stay home with me. You always shunned notoriety, and now you go in search of it. What is the matter with you, Tom? You haven't been frank at all with me since—since— Since when, my dear? asked my husband, smiling at me kindly over his demitas. Since you played that duet with Signora Molatti in the music room, I answered, ashamed of the feeling of jealousy that I had nourished for several days. As I gazed at Tom's honest face, the absurdity of the accusation that I had brought against him in this undirect way forced itself upon me. My husband at that moment struck me as the least flirtatious-looking man I had ever seen. But facts are stubborn things. I had good reason to believe that Tom had accompanied a famous violinist, not only in our music room, but in the Signorina's own drawing-room. It is astonishing how quickly a suspicious wife develops into a female Sherlock Holmes. I plead guilty to the indictment, said Tom presently, lighting a cigar. Suppose we go into the library, Winifred. We can have a quiet half-hour at least before we start. I derived both pleasure and pain from this suggestion. It was satisfactory to find Tom more inclined to be companion-bolt than he had been for nearly a week. On the other hand, I was disappointed at discovering that his determination to attend the meeting of the Schopen Society remained unshaken. That any further protest from me would be futile I fully realized, and it was with the feeling of apprehension and disquietude that I seated myself in the library and watched Tom as he dreamily blew smoke into the air, seemingly forgetful of my presence. After a time he began to speak, more like a poet soliloquizing than an unimaginative lawyer addressing his wife, it was a strangely vivid vision. I have had dreams that were like reality, but none that approached this one in intensity. I passed first through a doorway that led into old, picturesque crumbling cloisters forming a quadrangle. Stretching away from these cloisters ran long corridors with vaulted roofs. Down one of the corridors I hurried toward a light that seemed to come through a rose window, intensifying the grim darkness surrounding me. It was bitterly cold, the chill of death seemed to clutch at my heart. And always I heard the sound of mournful voices through the resounding galleries. Tom, I cried, shocked by the queer gleam in his eyes. But he went on as if he had not heard me. There were other noises, some harsh, others majestically musical. There came to me the mighty roaring of a storm-swept sea beating against a rocky shore. The winds sobbed and thundered and whistled and fell away. Then I could hear the plaint of notes of sea-birds outside the stone walls of the monastery. But always it was the chill dampness that appalled me. I was forever hurrying toward the rose window where warmth and love and joy awaited me. But always it fled before me and the long black corridor lay between me and my goal. It was horrible. What had you been doing, Tom? I asked in a desperate effort to recall him to his present environment. Had you been eating a Welsh rabbit at the club? He gazed at me defiantly. No, he said gloomily. I had been playing Shopen with Signorina Moletti. By an effort of will I restrained the words that rushed to my lips and asked quietly, and which of his works had you been playing? I don't know, he answered wearily. I think the Signorina said our last rendition was number one of Opus 40, whatever that may mean. Tom glanced at me sheepishly, for all the world like a mischievous schoolboy who has been forced to make a confession. My mind was hard at work trying to recall the details of my recent researches into the life of Shopen. To refresh my memory I opened a book that lay among other lives of the master on the library table. Number one of Opus 40, I presently found myself reading aloud, is an A major and is throughout an intensely martial composition. There is a spirit of victory and conquest about it. The most remarkable circumstances attached to it seems to lie in the fact that it is supposed to have been written during Shopen's sojourn at the Carthusian monastery on the island of Mallorca with George Sand. Bitterly did I regret my indiscreet quotation. Tom had turned white and there had come into his eyes an appealing despairing expression that reminded me of a deer I had once seen brought to bay in the Adirondack forest. Mrs. Van Corleer announced the butler at the door of the library and Mrs. Jack, who had the run of the house, came toward us gaily. And how is our boy of wonder this evening? She cried laughingly. I'm backing Tom Rampson for the great Shopen handicap tonight. Are you quite fit, Tom? Do I get a run for my money? How easy it is for our most intimate friends to take our troubles lightly. Although I realized that underlying Mrs. Jack's levity was a kindly motive, a desire to carry off an awkward situation with the least possible friction, I could not help feeling annoyed at her flippant words. Grateful as I was to her for her loyal interest in my peculiar affliction, it was unpleasant to feel that Mrs. Jack was treating as a light comedy what seemed to me to involve all the elements of a tragedy. There was nothing farcical surely in Tom's appearance as he stood there, pale, silent, smiling perfunctorily at our guest every inch a modern gentleman, but strangely like the agonist of some classic drama, the rebellious but impotent plaything of vindictive gods. Come, let us go! I cried nervously, anxious to put an end to a most uncomfortable situation. Do you really feel up to it, Tom? There is still time to back out of it, you know. A solo before a crowd is much more trying than a duet in private. I had not intended to hurt Tom's feelings, but my words had displayed a plentiful lack of tact. And the worst of it was that Mrs. Jack seemed to be in a diabolical mood for she at once jumped at the chance to make mischief. I have heard of your fondness for duets, Tom, she remarked, and I was reminded of the soft purring of a cat preparing to pounce on a helpless mouse. What a delighted must be to Signorina Molatti to find an interpreter of Chopin worthy of her fiddle. You find her a very interesting personality, do you not? Tom stopped short, we were slowly making our exit from the library, and gazed at Mrs. Jack with a puzzled expression in his eyes. Signorina Molatti, he queried musingly, what do I think of her? I really don't know. I never considered the question before. She's merely a part of the music, not an individual, don't you see? Suddenly his face changed, and he put his hand to his brow as if a sharp pain had tormented him. Wait a moment, don't go, he implored us in a labored unnatural voice. What does it all mean, tell me? What am I doing? I can't play Chopin, I can't play anything. Have I been hypnotized? I tell you, Winifred, Mrs. Jack, it is all a mistake, a mystery, an uncanny, hideous bedevilment. It's demonic possession, or something of that kind. And what'll the Chopin society think if I make a horrible flunk? At this moment I don't feel as if I could play a note. Come into the music room, he ended, a touch of wildness in his voice and manner. Mrs. Jack and I followed him silently. There was in Tom's way of hurrying across the drawing room a mingling of eagerness and dread that was wholly uncharacteristic of the man. As he hastened feverishly toward the piano, a hectic flush on his cheeks and his eyes aglow, he reminded me of a youth I had seen at Monte Carlo staking his whole fortune on a turn of the roulette wheel. For a time Tom sat at the instrument, his head bowed low and his hands hanging listlessly at his side. Mrs. Jack's arm was round my waist and I could hear her deep, hurried breathing and feel the nervous tremor of her slender, well-knit form. It was indeed a most trying crisis that could disturb the poise of the athletic woman beside me. He doesn't connect, she whispered to me presently. I wish Dr. Woodruff were here. But Mrs. Jack had spoken prematurely. Suddenly Tom's hands were raised and he struck the opening chords of Chopin's Scherzo in B minor, Opus 20. The fury of the following measures he rendered with stunning effect. Then the vigor of the rushing quaver figure lessened gradually and at the repeat Tom sprang erect and turned toward us an expression of weird ecstasy on his face. It's all right, girls. He cried with a boyish lack of dignity. Come on, we're late as it is. I'll show those Chopin people something they'll never forget. Come on. He's fifth, whispered Mrs. Jack to me. It wasn't much of a preliminary canter, but he's in the running fast enough. Chapter 8 The Chopin Society In this dark world where now I stay, I scarce can see myself. The radiant soul shines on my way as my fair guiding elf. Victor Hugo. Molatti was a marvel of beauty that evening. Great as was my prejudice against the girl, I was forced to admit to myself as we entered the crowded rooms of the Chopin Society that I had never seen a handsomer creature nor one more radiant with the joy of life. The glory of youth, the fire of genius were in her eyes. There were many striking faces in evidence that evening. Faces full of the subtle charm that the worship of music frequently begets. Ugly faces, a light with an inward glow, symmetrical faces whose regularity was not insipid, plebeian faces stamped by an acquired distinction, patrician faces warmed by an aesthetic enthusiasm, faces that told their story of struggle and defeat, and others that bore the mysterious imprint of success. But there was only one countenance in all that picturesque throng to which my gaze constantly returned, paying unwilling homage to a fascination against which I vainly rebelled. I found it difficult to believe that Tom had never noticed the Sinyanina's wonderful beauty of face and form, that he had always considered her, as he had said, merely a part of music. Mrs. Jack, who had been watching me closely, seemed to read my mind, for she whispered to me teasingly, Tom will sit up and take notice tonight, don't you think? She's well groomed and shows blood, doesn't she? From Mrs. Jack Van Corleer this was high praise indeed, and Mulatti deserved it. The studied simplicity of her low-cut black gown, relieved by a small cluster of diamonds below the neck, harmonized with a quiet arrangement of her luxuriant dark hair, seemingly held in place by a miniature agrette of small diamonds. The marmoral rightness of her perfect neck and firm well-routed arms was emphasized by a sharp contrast. Of color there was none, safe with a slight flush of health in her cheeks and the rich red line of her strong, sensitive mouth. I glanced at Tom, who stood not far from me, listening to the words of the president of this society, a short, slender, nervous-looking man whose mobile countenance at that moment suggested the joy of a lion-hunter who has achieved unexpectedly a difficult feat. Tom was pale, and there was a wrinkle in his brow just between the eyes that assured me he was not completely at ease. But he seemed to be wholly indifferent to the presence of Signorina Molatti, that he had not glanced at her since our entrance to the hall I felt quite sure. Was Tom really a great actor? It was a question that was constantly recurring to me, despite the weight of evidence against an affirmative answer. Presently Tom returned to my side and Mrs. Jack deliberately stuck a pinnant to him, or rather us. His music antagonistic demeanors Tom Remson. Go over and speak to Signorina Molatti. It is your duty, sir. And my pleasure, Mrs. Jack, said Tom with a smile that recalled his former self, my Tom of the anti-shopened days. He left us at once to make his way through the crowd to Molatti's corner. I take it, madam, that that is your husband, remarked a deep, low, carefully modulated voice. I turned to find Dr. Emerson Woodruff beside me. He doesn't look musical. No, but he is, Mrs. Jack put in hastily. We've heard him play to-night, doctor. He's good for any distance with something to spare. Mark my word, sir. Have you reached any conclusion about the case, Dr. Woodruff? I whispered nervously. Mrs. Van Corleer is right. He wasn't splendid form just before we left home. He seemed to be delighted at the prospect of astonishing these people. But he had had a curious outbreak. He had remarked rather wildly that he was not a musician, couldn't play a note, and was, he believed, suffering from demoniac possession. I saw that my statement had made a deep impression on the psychologist. His face was very grave as he watched Tom, who stood beside Molatti, evidently conversing with her with more vivacity than I had ever seen him display before. He's a phlegmatic, well-balanced man in perfect health, muttered the doctor amusingly. I am inclined to think, he went on addressing me directly, that your husband's case, madam, is the most remarkable that has ever come under my personal observation. I am very anxious to hear and see him play before saying anything further about it. You feel sure that he intends to perform tonight? Before I could answer this question I found myself beset by the fussy little president of the society who appeared to believe that he owed me a great debt of gratitude. I tried to thank Mr. Rampson for coming here to our so great joy, but he referred me to you, madam. Oh, how much I owe you! And it is so charming to find the wife of a man of genius wholly in sympathy with his career. It is not always thus you know, Mrs. Rampson. I could feel the internal laughter that I knew Mrs. Jack was suppressing behind me. I longed to turn round and glare at her, but I was forced to smile down into the excited face of the showpin enthusiast, who, ex-officio, was my host for the evening. I trust you will not find Mr. Rampson a great disappointment, I managed to say weakly. For an instant a hot, almost irresistible inclination stuck me to tell this overwrought undersized bundle of nerves the plain truth, to assure him that Tom Rampson, my husband, couldn't tell a nocturne from a negro lullaby, and that he was as ignorant of music as I was of law. I am sure, commented the President politely, that no disappointment awaits us, rather great and wholly joy. But I regret that our pleasure must be deferred for a few moments. Won't you and your friends find seats, please? I have prepared, at the request of the society, a short paper on the personality of showpin. It will take not more than ten minutes for me to read it. After that, Mrs. Rampson, we are to have a most wonderful duet from Signorina Mullati and Mr. Rampson. The little man disappeared, and I was glad to rest myself in the chair that Dr. Woodruff had found for me. I turned toward Mrs. Jack, who had seated herself beside me. She saw the gleam of annoyance in my eyes as they met hers, but smiled sweetly. Why, are you angry with me, my dear? She whispered. Am I responsible if nature granted me a sense of humor? You must acknowledge that the situation is amusing. Even if it is a bit uncanny, Tom had seated himself beside Mullati to listen to the President's essay. Presently I found myself hearkening with almost feverish interest to the latter. I have thought it well, my friends, the President was saying, to confine my remarks this evening to showpin in his great general relations to the world. I shall endeavour to draw a picture of the man rather than of the musician, and first of all let me quote from Lis in regard to the master's appearance. I glanced at Tom. He sat motionless, almost rigid with a face so lacking in expression that it was hard to believe he had caught the significance of the speaker's words. The ensemble of his person, quoted the President, was harmonious and called for no special comment. His eye was more spiritual than dreamy. His bland smile never writhed into bitterness. The transparent delicacy of his complexion pleased the eye. His fair hair was soft and silky. His nose slightly aquiline. His bearing so distinguished and his manner stamped was so much of high-breeding that involuntarily he was always treated en prince. He was generally gay. This caustic spirit caught the ridiculous rapidly and far below the surface at which it usually strikes the eye. His gait he was so much the more pecan't because he always restrained it within the bounds of good taste, holding at a distance all that might tend to wound the most fastidious delicacy. To this quotation the President added a few words from Orlovsky. Shopen is full of health and vigor. All the French women dot on him and all the men are jealous of him. In a word he is the fashion and we shall no doubt shortly have gloves à la chapelle. The President paused and I saw with consternation that he was glaring at my husband. The cause of this interruption was apparent at once as I shifted my gaze. Tom was rocking back and forth in his chair shaking with laughter. His effort to keep his merriment in check, to restrain the loud guffaws that seemed to rack his very frame, was painfully in evidence. There was something almost heroic in his endeavour to repress an outbreak that would have been brutally rude. Tom had become the centre of all eyes through the President's lack of tact. What's the matter with him? whispered Mrs. Jack hysterically. I don't know, I answered lamely. He's had a funny thought. Is he better? I had turned away from him. He's growing worse, I think, answered Mrs. Jack despondently. Why doesn't the President go on? There, it's all right. He's quiet now. Mrs. Jack spoke truly. The President had resumed his lecture and I turned and saw that Tom was no longer swaying with mirth. How did it happen? I murmured in Mrs. Jack's ear. I'm not sure, she whispered, but I think Milady touched his hand. Oh, isn't it weird? I can't help feeling it's like breaking a colt. End of Chapter 7 and 8. Part 2, Chapters 9 and 10 of Perkins the Faker, A Travesty on Reincarnation by Edward S. Van Zyl. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. How Chopin came to Remson, Chapter 9. An unrecorded opus. Me thought it was a glorious joy indeed to shut and open heaven as he did. Emma Tatham. However a number of men and women whose lives are devoted to some one line of art are gathered together, the social atmosphere becomes surcharged with electricity. If one is impressionable, acutely sensitive to an environment, it is best perhaps to avoid the haunts of genius. I am inclined to believe that sociologists will investigate eventually the eternal antagonism between Belgravia and Bohemia by strictly scientific methods. How large an infusion of genius can be safely sustained by a throng in search of social relaxation it would be well to know. One fact at least in this connection has been repeatedly demonstrated, as I had learned, to my cost, namely, that a social function based on music rests on a powdermine. Belgravia had witnessed an explosion at my recent musical, and now I felt convinced Bohemia was to undergo a like or deal. Tatham was at the root of this disquieting conviction. His hysterical attack of holy irrelevant hilarity, his quick response to Malati's soothing touch, and now the tense unnatural expression of his face filled me with painful apprehension. I both craved and dreaded the end of the president's discourse, and my forebodings were darkened by a remark made by Mrs. Jack, who seemed to derive real pleasure from the excitement of the crisis. Look at Tom, she whispered, he's fretful at the post, he'll get the bit in his teeth presently. Do you see Dr. Woodruff over there? He's taking notes. Before she had ceased to speak, Tom was out of hand and had bolted down the track as Mrs. Jack would have put it. In other words, he had sprung from Malati's side as the president entered his discourse and had rushed to the piano at the end of the room. I caught the look of amazement on the president's quaint face and laughed aloud nervously. Utterly ashamed of my lack of self-control, I glanced at the crowd surrounding me but nobody had noticed my touch of hysteria. Every eye in the room was fastened on Tom, who was seated motionless at the piano in an apparently dazed condition. His eyes were closed and the corners of his mouth drawn down. He looked at that moment like the very incarnation of all that was unmusical in the universe. I feared that Mrs. Jack would comment on his ridiculous appearance but she was kind enough to keep quiet. She told me afterward that my raucous laugh had frightened her. Suddenly Tom's gin went up. He opened his eyes, fixed them on Malati's white face and began to play. Such weird intoxicating harmonies as filled the room, setting every soul therein a throb with an ecstasy that was close again to agony no earthly audience had ever heard before. Men and women were there who had memorized each and every note that Schopen wrote for there was not among them one who could identify this marvellous improvisation, this strange exposition of a great master in his most inspired mood. It was Schopen but Schopen unrecorded, his genius in its most characteristic tendency but raised as a mathematician would say to the nth power. It was as if the soul of the composer, dissatisfied with the heritage that he had left to us, had returned to earth to exhibit to his worships the one perfect flower of his creative spirit. How long Tom played I have never known. I had forgotten all about him before many minutes had passed, losing in my impressionability to music my sensitiveness as the wife of a man misunderstood. There were in the universe only my soul and a throbbing splendor of great music, mighty harmonies that filled all space, magic chords that awakened dim memories of a lifelong past, filled to overflowing with joy and sorrow, tossing waves of melody that bore me to the stars or sank me into vast mysterious realms peopled by gray shadows that I had learned to love. Presently I felt Mrs. Jack's hand clasping mine. Don't go to him, dear, he has only fainted. I heard her saying her voice seeming to reach me from a remote distance. He was all out and collapsed under the wire, but it's nothing serious. Tom had sunk back into Malati's arms and his head rested against her shoulder. She had sprung toward him as I learned later just in time to save him from a fall. She now stood gazing mournfully down at his white upturned face, sorrow, pity, and I imagined remorse in her glance. For an instant a hot rage swept over me and I strove to stand erect despite Mrs. Jack's restraining hand. Don't make a scene, she whispered to me passionately in earnest. He is in no danger. See, Dr. Woodruff is feeling his pulse. Even at that awful moment when I knew not whether Tom was alive or dead, I remember that my mind dwelt for a moment on the tendency of new schools of medicine to cling to old traditions. Of what significance to a psychologist could the rapidity of Tom's pulse be? I heard people all around me talking excitedly. Did you ever hear anything like it? I tell you it's one of the master's posthumous works. I couldn't identify it, but perhaps it was discovered by Remson. That's absurd, where could he find it? He's better now, see? He opens his eyes. I don't wonder he fainted. I was just on the verge of collapse myself. Par bleu, choper à la diable? Non, non, non, more, pour moi, s'il vous plaît. I can now die so very happy. I have just once heard of the master himself. I have a nothing left for to live. Who is this wonderful Remson? Never heard of him before. You'll hear of him again, then. He is the only man living who can interpret the master. It was all of it intolerable. How I hated these chattering idiots who were making an idol of Clay setting up my poor Tom, who was to me at that moment an object of pity as the incarnation of their cult to whom they must pay reverent homage. I longed to cry aloud to them that they had been tricked that my husband was a sensible, common-place lovable man as far removed from a musical crank as he was from a train robber or a pirate. All my former love for music seemed to have turned suddenly into detestation and I longed to get away from this nest of Chopin-yaks into the noisy, wholesome atmosphere of the outside world. It seemed to me that nothing could restore my equilibrium but the uproar of the street and the unmelodious clotter of my coach. We must get out of this at once, I said to Mrs. Jack, changing erect and checking the dizziness in my head by an effort of will. I saw that Tom had fully recovered his senses and that he seemed to be actually enjoying the homage the excited throng pressing toward him offered to his vicarious genius. Beside him stood Malati, her face radiant as if her mission on earth were to reflect the glory of Tom Remson's musical miracle. We must get out of this. I found myself saying again as I urged Mrs. Jack toward the exit, I'll send the carriage back for Tom. But it's such bad form to run away like this, protested Mrs. Jack. What will the President think of us? And Dr. Woodruff, surely you want to ask him what he thinks of the—uh—case? But my will for the time being was stronger than hers and presently we were seated in my carriage homeward bound and I was fighting back the hot tears that had rushed to my eyes. I—I don't care what—what Dr. Woodruff thinks about the—the case, I sobbed. I—I know what I think about it. Mrs. Jack said nothing for a time, but it was pleasant to feel the pressure of her hand and to realize that she could be tactful now and again. We had nearly reached the house before she ventured to ask. And what, my dear, do you think of the case? I pulled myself together and restrained my sobs. I am not of the weeping variety of woman and I was ashamed of my hysterical exhibition of weakness. I think—I began and then I hesitated, weighing my words carefully. I think that Signorina Molatti is in love with Tom. Mrs. Jack laughed outright, both to my amazement and anger. You've wholly lost the scent, my dear," she remarked, while I removed my hand from hers. Signorina Molatti is not in love with Tom. She's in love with Chopin. CHAPTER X TOM'S RECOVERY At length the man perceives it die away and fade into the light of common day. William Wordsworth After re-reading the foregoing deposition I am forced to the conclusion that I was designed by nature neither for a novelist nor a historian. I can see that my narrative fails to be convincing, considered either as a work of fiction or as a statement of fact. But may I not comfort myself with the thought that I have given my testimony conscientiously and that if the outcome of my literary efforts is unsatisfactory my failure is due rather to the inexplicable phenomena with which I have been obliged to deal than to my own defects as an analyst and witness. I have endeavored to inscribe simply and in chronological order the unadorned tale of my husband's sudden attack of genius and its consequences and I realize now that my data will not be accepted by the scientific nor will their arrangement appeal to the artistic. But I have told the truth and if not the whole truth, at least nothing but the truth. As literature my story belongs to the realistic school and is one of the present. As a contribution to science it will have no standing today but I am firmly convinced that the psychologist of the future will read the details of Tom Remsen's case with enlightened interest. I have felt too deeply the nervous strain of setting down in black and white the story of the greatest crisis in my life to go into details here and now regarding the ups and downs of the long illness that Tom underwent after his triumphant appearance before the Schopen society. For two days before he collapsed I saw that he was fighting in grim silence against weakness and fever. He was like a man struggling to overcome an unnatural appetite and growing constantly more weary of the contest. He would stroll with reluctant steps into the music room, stand for a time gazing defiantly at the piano, with his hands clenched and beads of perspiration on his troubled brow. Then he would turn away, meeting my gaze with a melancholy smile, and hurry off to his office or his club to return to me after a time pale and listless but always stubbornly silent as to the cause of his evident suffering. Only once before he was forced to take to his bed were he tossed for a week in delirium did he refer, even indirectly, to the cause of his disquietude. "'Has Sr. Ina Molati been here to-day?' he asked me abruptly one evening at dinner. "'No, Tom.' I answered a note in my voice that I'm sure he did not like. Did you expect her?' "'I always expect her.' He muttered speaking more to himself than to me. That evening the magnetism of the open piano in the music room proved irresistible to him. To my mingled consternation and delight he played selections from Schopen until long after midnight the while I sat behind him fascinated by his renditions but appalled by the persistent recurrence of his seizures. "'Tomorrow,' I said to myself, I will consult Dr. Woodruff again. Perhaps he has made his diagnosis and can suggest some line of treatment.' But on the moral Tom was in charge of our family doctor and two trained nurses. The morning had found him hot with fever and by noon he was out of his head and inclined to be violent. Then followed days and nights of alternating hope and fear during which there came to me a complete revelation of what the old Tom had been to me, the Tom who had bored me at times, ungrateful woman that I was, by his practical, unimaginative, inartistic personality. How I treasured a word of encouragement from the Dr. Orr Nurse. How bitterly I repented my former discontent, my disloyal longing for something in Tom's makeup that nature had not vouchsafe to him. It had come to him, this, something, and it had well nigh ruined our lives. Whatever it had been, demoniac possession, hypnotism, or whatnot, it had been a thing of evil, despite the uncanny beauty of its manifestation. In my heart of hearts I craved one of two alternatives, either Tom's death or his restoration to his former self, freed forever from the black shadow of Chopin's genius. It was not until one afternoon, well on in his convalescence that I knew my fondest hopes had been realized. We had betaken ourselves to the library, not to read, but to enjoy in an indolent way our new freedom from trained nurses and the discipline of the sick room. Tom, leaning back comfortably in a reclining chair and puffing a cigarette, wore on his invalid's face an expression of supreme contentment. Not once, I was glad to note, did his eyes monitor to the distant shelf on which stood our Chopin literature, books that I had doomed in my mind to an auto-defeat when a fitting opportunity for their sacrifice should arise. Isn't this cozy? remarked Tom, presently glancing at me affectionately. But I suppose I must hasten my recovery, my dear. The pepper and salt trust and other enterprises don't take much stock in sick men. Don't worry about business matters, Tom Remsen, I said with playful sternness. We could get on very well if you never do another stroke of work in your life. A shadow passed over Tom's face and he puffed a cigarette nervously. I'm not fitted for a life of leisure, my dear, he remarked grimly. A man may get into so many kinds of mischief if he isn't busy. I hasten to change the subject. Remember, sir, that you are under orders. You are to do as you are told to do. You may not know it, Tom, but the fact is that you and I sail for Europe just as soon as you are strong enough to stand the voyage. Where are we going? He asked apprehensively. Not to Paris. No, not to Paris, I answered, understanding him. We'll spend all our time in Scotland and Ireland. They're the only countries over there that we have not seen, Tom. The next day I discharged our butler for an indiscretion that he committed at this moment. Signorina Molatti. He announced from the doorway of the library, and, turning my head, I saw the violinist with her Cremona under her arm coming toward us. I glanced at Tom. The two red spots that had leaped into his white cheeks seemed to be an outward manifestation, not of joy but of hot anger. I rose and went toward our visitor, a question in my face. "'Will you not forgive me, Signora?' cried Molatti in soft, pleading tones. "'It is what you call a vera bad form, but I have been so vera unhappy.' They told me that Signor Empson was dying. Can you not forgive me?' "'But he is on the road to recovery, Signorina,' I said perfunctorily. It would not do to give way to my inclination to chide this insinuating girl for her presumption. A scene might cost Tom to have a relapse.' "'Ah, see,' she cried, and I am so glad, and I have a brought of my violin, that the Signor would like to hear the voice of the maestro. "'Stop right there, will you, ah, Signorina,' exclaimed Tom gruffly and evering as I saw, to control his annoyance and show no discurdicy to even an unwelcome guest. "'I'm not it, young woman. He's gone away whomever he was. If he comes back, wish God forbid, I'll notify you. But you won't catch me drumming any more on a piano. My musical career is at an end. I'm under the care of a doctor, and he says that I'm on the road to recovery. Forgive me if I have spoken too plainly. You're a very charming young woman, and I admire your, ah, genius. But mine's gone, and I'll take good care that it doesn't come back. If you'd like that piano in the music room, Signorina Molatti, I'm sure that my wife would be glad to send it over to your apartments. We're through with it, for ever.' I was sorry for the girl. The expression of amazement, even horror, that had come into her dark, expressive face touched my heart, and I laid my hand gently on her arm. It's a great mystery, Signorina. I whisper to her as I led her from the library. I can't explain it to you very clearly, for I don't understand it myself. But Mr. Remson told you the truth. He is no longer musical. In his normal condition he is the most unmusical man in the world. The senior Remson that you have known, with whom you have played duets, is dead. I can hardly believe that he ever existed. Will you, Signorina Molatti, grant me the great privilege of presenting to you yonder piano? Frankly, it would be a great relief to me to be rid of it. There were tears in her splendid black eyes as she turned her face toward me. I do not understand, she said mournfully. You do not know what it all meant to me. I cannot take a your piano. There is nobody in the whole wide world to play it now that he is gone. And you are telling me the truth. I was dreaming. It did not really happen. But, Signora, there were so many who heard of him, heard of me, heard of us. It could not have been a dream. What was it? Her voice broke with a sob, and I bent down and kissed her tear-stained face. I cannot tell you, Signorina. But do not let your heart break. You may find him again some day. Navera again. She sighed, seizing my hands impossibly. Navera again. But I thank you so much. Farewell. My heart was heavy as I returned to Tom, uncertain of the state in which I should find him. To my delight I saw as I entered the library that he had suddenly made a great stride toward renewed health. He was sitting erect, and there was little of the invalid in his face or voice. That's over, my dear! He cried gaily, and I am going to celebrate Schopen's utter route. Order me a brandy and soda, will you? And push that box of cigars toward me. Then we'll read up a bit, little woman, about Scotland and Ireland. On the whole I'm inclined to believe you, and I will have a very jolly outing. I leaned forward and kissed the dear fellow's smiling lips. It's so good to have you back again, Tom, I murmured. And the senorina, he asked presently, how did she take it? I'm afraid I was cruel to her, my dear. Did I speak too harshly to her? You had no alternative, Tom, I assured him soothingly. You had been placed in a very awkward position. I had, in a very awkward position, he acknowledged. And who the deuce put me there? I wonder. Don't wonder, Tom, I cried sharply. The less wondering you do, the better it will be for us both. You're right, Winifred, as you always are, he said raising aloft the glass of bubbling brandy that the butler had brought to him and nodding toward me. Here's your good health, my dear, and bon voyage to us both. End of chapters nine and ten. End of part two. How Schopen came to Remsen. Part three, chapters one and two of Perkins the Faker, a travesty-ondary incarnation by Edward S. Vanzile. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part three, Clarissa's troublesome baby. For while the wheel of birth and death turns round, past things and thoughts and buried lives come back, I now remember Mariad Reigns ago, what time I roamed Himalas hanging woods, a tiger with my striped and hungry kind, the light of Asia. Chapter one, my late husband. And while the wheel of birth and death turns round, that which hath been must be between us too, Sir Edwin Arnold. I was alone in the nursery with the baby, a chubby boy whose eight months of life had amazingly increased his weight and vigor when I heard the crack of dew mischewing from his miniature mouth. I wonder if your imagination is strong enough to put you for a moment in my place. Suppose that you had dismissed the nurse for a time that you might have a mother's frolic in the twilight with your only child, the blessing that had come to you as a reward for marrying again after five years of widowhood. Suppose that the baby, opening his little eyes to their widest extent had said to you as my baby said to me, you don't seem to recognize me, my dear, but I've come back to you. Wedded to Tom, all ready jealous of your maternal fondness for the boy, what effect would Jack's voice silence five years ago by death have had upon you, rising in gruff maturity from a baby's tiny throat? Was it strange that I came within a hair's breadth of dropping the uncanny child to the floor? Mechanically, I glanced over my shoulder in cold dread lest the nurse might return at any moment. Then I found courage to glance down into the baby's upturned face. There was something in the child's eyes so old and wise that I realized my ears had not deceived me. I had not been the victim of an hallucination resulting from the strain of an afternoon of calls and tees. The conviction came to me, like a nicey douche, that I was standing there in a stunning afternoon costume holding my first hazement in my arms and liable to let him fall if our weird tate-a-tate should be sharply interrupted. You aren't glad to see me, grumbled Jack, wiggling uneasily against my gloves and coat, but it isn't my fault that I'm here, Clarissa. There's a lot of reincarnation going on, you know, and a fellow has to take his chances. Softly I stole to a chair and seated myself holding the baby on my trembling knees. Are you, are you comfortable, Jack? I managed to whisper falteringly the thought flashing through my mind that I had gone suddenly insane. Keep quiet, can't you? He pleaded, don't shake so. I'm not a rattle-box. I wish you'd tell the nurse, Clarissa, to put a stick in my milk, will you? There's a horrible sameness to my present diet that is absolutely glowing. Will you stop shaking? I can't stand it. By a strong effort of will I controlled my nervous tremors, glancing apprehensively at the door through which the nurse must presently return. There, that's better, commented Jack contentedly. You don't know much about us, do you, Clarissa? About, about who? I gasped, wondering if he meant spirits. About babies, he said with a wiggle and a chuckle that both attracted and repelled me. Where's your handkerchief? Wipe my nose. Pardon me, Clarissa, that sounds vulgar, doesn't it? But what the do's am I to do? I'm absolutely helpless, don't you know? I could feel the tears near my eyes as I gently touched the puckered baby face with a bit of lace. There was only one chance in 10,000 millions that I should come here, went on Jack apologetically. It's tough on you, Clarissa. Do you think that you can stand it? I've heard the nurse say that I make a pretty good baby. I sat speechless for a time, trying to adapt myself to new conditions so startling and fantastic that I expected to wake in presently from a dream. A dream that promised to become a nightmare. But there was an infernal realism about the whole affair that had impressed me from the first. Jack's matter-of-fact way of accepting the situation was so strikingly characteristic of him that I felt at once a strong temptation to laugh aloud. I want you to make me a promise, Clarissa. He said presently, seizing one of my gloved fingers with his fat little dimpled hand and making queer mouths as if he were trying to whistle. You won't tell Tom, will you? He wouldn't understand it at all. I don't myself and I've been through it, don't you see? In a way, of course, it's mighty bad form. I know that. I feel it deeply. But I was powerless, Clarissa. You know I never took any stock in those oriental philosophies. I was always laughing at Buddhism, at MCCOSIS and that kind of thing. But there's really something in it, don't you think? Keep quiet, will you? You're shaking me up again. There's more in it than I had ever imagined, Jack. I remarked gloomily. Of course I'll say nothing to Tom about it. It'll have to be our secret. I understand that. You'll have to be very careful about what you call me before people, Clarissa, said the baby presently. My name's Horatio, isn't it? What the dickens did you call me that for? I always hated the name Horatio. It was Tom's choice, I murmured. I'm sorry you don't like it, Jack. If you called me Jack for short, no, that wouldn't do. Tom wouldn't like it, would he? Your hand could shift again, please. Thank you, my dear. By the way, Clarissa, I wish you'd tell the nurse that she gets my bath too hot in the morning. I'd like a cold shower if she doesn't mind. You'll have to adapt yourself to circumstances, my child. I remarked wearily, wondering if this horrible ordeal would never come to an end. I longed to get away by myself, to think it all over and quiet my nerves, if possible, before I should be forced to meet Tom at dinner. Adapt myself to circumstances, exclaimed Jack bitterly, kicking savagely with his tiny feet at his long white gown. Don't get sarcastic, Clarissa, or I'll yell. If I told the nurse the truth, word you be. Jack, I cried in consternation. There seemed to be a hideous threat in his words. You'd better call me Horatio for practice, he said calmly, but I could feel him chuckling against my arm. I'll get used to it after a time. But it's a fool name just the same. How about the cold shower? Jack, I said angrily, I'll put you in your crib and leave you alone in the dark if you annoy me. You must be good. Your nurse knows what kind of a bath you should have. And she'll know who I am if you leave me here alone, Clarissa. He exclaimed, doubling up his funny little fists and shaking them in the air. I've got the whip hand of you, my dear, even if I am only a baby. By the way, Clarissa, how old am I? Eight months, Jack, I managed to answer, a chill sensation creeping over me as the shadows deepened in the room and a mysterious horror clutched at my heart. I am not a dreamer by temperament. I am in fact rather practical and commonplace in my mental tendencies, but there was something awful in the revelation made to me which seemed to change my whole attitude toward the universe and failed me, for the moment, with a novel dread of my surroundings. I was recalled sharply to a less fantastic mood by Jack's quarelless voice. Will you stop shaking, Clarissa? He cried petulantly. You make me feel like a milk bottle with delirium tremens. Call the nurse, will you? She hasn't got palsy in her knees. I want to go to sleep. At that instant, the nurse bustled into the room apologizing for her long absence. I am going to make a slight change in his diet, Mrs. Mintern. She explained, taking Jack from my arms and gazing down with professional satisfaction at his cherubic face. He's in fine condition. Aren't you, you tiny little baby boy? But he's old enough to have a bit of variety now and then. There are several preparations that I've found very satisfactory in other cases and I've ordered one of them for their, their little Horatio. Don't you cry. Kiss you, mama, and then you'll go seepie-bye. As I bent down to press my lips against the baby's fat cheeks, I caught a gleam in his eyes that the nurse could not see and unless my ears deceived me, Jack whispered, damn, under his breath. Chapter two, A Fond Father. As in the world of dream, whose mystic shades are cast by still more mystic substances, we oftentimes have an unreflecting sense, a silent consciousness of some things past. Richard Moncton-Millens. I remember that Tom impressed me as an extremely handsome man as he faced me across the dinner table and smilingly congratulated me on my appearance. You must have had an interesting day, Claire. You look very animated. I'm so glad that you are beginning to get around a bit. There's a golden mean, you know. A woman should become a slave to neither society nor the nursery. I realized that there was an abnormal vivacity in my manner as I added, nor to her husband, Tom. Do you accept the amendment? Do you imply that I'm inclined to be tyrannical, my dear? He asked, laughingly. It's not that, Claire. But I can't help being jealous of you. How's the baby? My wine-glass trembled in my hand and I replaced it on the table, not daring to raise it to my lips. He grows more interesting every day, Tom. I answered truthfully. You don't appreciate him. I wanted to laugh hysterically but managed to control myself. Don't I, though? cried Tom, protestingly. He's the finest boy that ever happened, Claire, and I'm the proudest father. But I don't believe in a man's making an ass of himself all over the place because there's a baby in the house. After all, it's hereditary, so to speak, and quite common. I glanced at the butler, but his wooden face showed no comprehension of the bad taste of Tom's remarks. I was glad of that, for Tom has earned a reputation among all classes for always saying and doing the right thing at the right time. I could not help wondering how he would act if I should tell him over our coffee that my first husband was in the nursery, doomed to another round of earthly experience in the outward seeming of Horatio Mintern. Forgive me, Claire, implored Tom is interpreting the expression of my face. I didn't intend to hurt your feelings, my dear, and you mustn't do me an injustice. You have hinted several times of late that I am not as fond of the baby as I should be. Now I know exactly what you mean, and I... Suppose, Tom, that we defer further discussion of the subject until later on, I suggested, realizing that I was losing rapidly my grip on my nerves. Tell me about your day. Where have you been? What have you done? Whom have you seen? It was not until we were seated in the smoking room and Tom had lighted a long black cigar that he returned to a topic I had learned to dread. Here, too, for Tom's interest in the baby had seemed to me to be intermittent and never very intense. Tonight it struck me as persistent and painfully strong. What I was going to say, Claire, when you interrupted me at the table, he recommended gazing at me thoughtfully through a nimbus of tobacco smoke. Was this? Theoretically I am a fond and enthusiastic father. Practically I haven't seen the baby more than a dozen times, and he has always yelled at sight of me. I laughed aloud, nervously, and Tom's glance had in it much astonishment and a little annoyance. It's hardly a subject for merriment, is it? He queried coldly. You accused me of not appreciating her ratio. May I ask you, my dear, when I have had an opportunity of observing his, ah, good point, so to speak? To be frank with you, Claire, and to paraphrase a popular song, all babies look alike to me. But there are great differences among them, Tom, I cried impulsively, and again a touch of hysteria got into my voice. And ours, of course, is the finest in the world, he remarked good-naturedly. But what I was getting at, Claire, is this. I want to become better acquainted with the boy. He's old enough now, isn't he, to begin to, what is it they call it, take notice? Oh yes, I managed to answer without breaking down, if Tom would only change the subject. But how could I lead his mind to other things? Surely I couldn't tell him flatly that hereafter the baby must be a taboo topic between us, that there really was not any ratio that the law of psychic evolution through repeated reincarnations was making in our nursery a demonstration unprecedented in our knowledge of the race. All that I could do was to sit silent, pressing my cold hands together, and endeavor to prevent Tom from observing my increasing agitation. He sits up and takes notice, repeated Tom, as if proud of his old nurse's phrase. Well, it's about time that Horatio ceased to treat me with that antagonistic uproariousness that has characterized his demeanor hitherto in my presence. I have decided to cultivate his acquaintance, Claire, and I need your help. He's, he's very young, Tom, I remarked, catching at a straw as I sank. I actually believe that you're jealous of the boy, my dear, cried Tom, laughingly. Frankly, I'm greatly disappointed at your reception of my suggestion. You're so illogical, Claire. In one breath you charged me with lack of appreciation of the baby, and in the next you intimate that he's too young to endure my society. You place me in a very awkward position. I had honestly thought to please you, but I seemed to have made a mess of it. I was sorry for Tom and realized that the accusation he had made against me was just. For a moment the mad project flashed through my mind of telling him the whole truth, the weird, absurd, unprecedented fact that lay at the bottom of my apparent inconsistency. But the instant that the thought took shape in unspoken words, I rejected it as wildly impracticable. Furthermore, there had come to me under the matter of fact influences surrounding me, a possibility that appealed to me as found it on common sense. Was it not reasonable to suppose that I had been the victim before dinner of overwrought nerves, of hallucination that could be readily explained by purely scientific methods? I had gone to the nursery worn out by social exertions to which I had not been recently accustomed. Alone with the baby in the twilight, would it have been strange if I had fallen asleep for a moment and had dreamed that a child was talking to me? As I looked back upon the episode of this moment, it appeared to me more like the vagary of a transient dose than an actual occurrence. Even the dam that had seemed to issue from Horatio's tiny mouth as I had kissed his cheek might have been merely the tag end of an interrupted nightmare, the reflex action of my disordered nervous system. You haven't made a mess of it, Tom, I said presently, and you have pleased me. The baby's old enough to, to... To find my companionship bracing and enlightening, suggested Tom merrily. Yes, he's old enough for that. I answered lightly glad to feel the fog of my uncanny impressions disappearing before the sunlight of a rising conviction. With every minute that passed thus gaily in Tom's companionship, the certainty grew on me that in the nursery I had been the prey of nervous exhaustion, not the helpless protagonist of a starting psychic drama. I'll tell you what will do, Claire, remarked Tom toward the close of an evening that had grown constantly more enjoyable to me as time passed, for as I playfully misquoted to myself, Horatio was himself again. I'll tell you what will do. I'll come home to luncheon tomorrow and we'll have the baby down from the nursery. I suppose we're all out of high chairs, but you can telephone for one in the morning, my dear. But Tom, Horatio is, is only eight months old, I protested. He, he doesn't know how to act at the table. Well, I'll teach him then, cried Tom paternally. He needs a few lessons in manners, Claire. He has always treated me with the most astounding rudeness. It's really time for him to come under my influence, don't you think? Of course I may be wrong. I don't know much about these matters, but I can learn a thing or two by experimenting with Horatio. He doesn't like his, I began impossibly, and then laughed rather foolishly. The influence of my dream, it appeared, was still upon me. Doesn't like what, asked Tom, eyeing me searchingly, evidently surprised at my untimely hilarity. Game and salads and other luncheon things, I explained adroitly, suddenly glad that the evening was at an end and that I could soon quiet my throbbing nerves by sleep. We'll have some bread and milk for him, suggested Tom hospitably. Maybe he won't yell at me if we give him something to eat, something in his line, you know. Again I succumbed to temptation and laughed aloud. How little you know about babies, Tom. I remarked in my most superior way, but even as I spoke, the horrible suspicion crept over me again that I also might have much to learn about my own little boy. End of chapters one and two. Part three, chapters three and four of Perkins the Faker, A Travesty on Reincarnation by Edward S. Vanzile. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Clarissa's Troublesome Baby. Chapter three. My first and second. Sometimes a breath floats by me and odor from dreamland scent which makes the ghost seem nigh me of a something that came and went. James Russell Lowell. I lunched with Tom and Jack the next day. It was an appalling function, driving me to the very verge of hysteria and destroying forever my belief in my dream theory. My first husband sat in his new high chair pounding the table with a spoon as if calling the meeting to order while my second husband sat gazing at the baby with a fatuous smile on his handsome face that testified to his inability to rise to the situation. Behind the baby's chair stood his nurse, evidently prepared to defend her prerogatives as the protector of the child's health. Lurking in the background was the phlegmatic butler, no better pleased than the nurse at this experiment of Tom's. That's it. Go it Horatio. Cried Tom nervously. Hit the table again, my boy. That's what it's for. I thought that your idea, Tom, was to teach Horatio how to behave in public. I suggested playfully, still calm in the belief that I had been deceived in the nursery by a dream. But as you said, Claire, argued Tom, he's very young. It's really not bad for him, you know, for a baby to pound a table with a spoon. Is it nurse? I think not, sir, answered the nurse pushing the high chair back to its place. The baby had kicked it away from the table while Tom was speaking. Isn't he, isn't he rather, uh, nervous, my dear? Asked Tom, glancing at me with paternal solicitude. It's quite normal, this, uh, tendency to bang things and kick. Perhaps he's hungry, Tom, I suggested lightly. My spirits were rising. In the presence of the baby whose appearance and manner were those of a healthy child, something under a year in age, the absurdity of my recent insipid nightmare was so evident that I blushed at the recollection of my nonsensical panic. Reincarnation? Bah, what silly rubbish we do get from the Far East. Of course, he's hungry. Ascented Tom, glancing down at the bird the butler had put before him. With your permission, nurse, I'll give the youngster a square meal. How would a bit of the breast from this partridge do? It's very tender and digestible. How absurd, Tom! I cried. He'd choke. He's joking as it is, exclaimed Tom, half rising from his chair. Pat him on the back, nurse. He's all right, sir, said the nurse calmly as Horatio's cheeks lost their sudden flush and he opened his pretty little eyes again. You needn't worry, Mr. Mintern. He's in perfect health, sir. Aren't they queer? Exclaimed Tom, glancing at me, laughingly. Sir, cried the nurse in pained amazement. I meant baby's nurse, exclaimed Tom soothingly, motioning to the disaffected butler to refill his wine glass. But look here, Claire. You and I are eating and drinking heartily, but poor little Horatio is still the hungry victim of a dietary debate. What is he to have? Milk? The baby leaned forward in his chair, seized his empty silver bowl with a chubby hand and hurled it to the floor. Horatio! Tom's voice was stern as he scowled at the mischievous youngster. I could not refrain from laughing aloud. Is that bad form, Tom, for a little baby? I asked mischievously. No, answered Tom repentantly. I don't blame you at all, Horatio. You're prejudiced, my boy, against an empty bowl when you are both hungry and thirsty is not unnatural. Give him some bread and milk nurse or he'll overturn the table. What a wonderful study it is, Claire, to watch a baby develop. Do you know Horatio is actually able to grasp a soligism? Or a milk bowl, I added. Don't interrupt my scientific train of thought, protested Tom, gazing musingly at the child. I saw his mind at work just now. I'm hungry, thought Horatio. There's my silver bowl. The bowl is empty. There are bread and milk in the house. If I throw the empty bowl to the floor, my nurse will return it to me filled with food. So here goes. Q-E-D. Clever baby, isn't he? It was at that moment I met the baby's eyes and a sharp chill ran down my back and found its way to my fingertips. There was an expression in the child's troubled gaze so eloquent that its meaning flashed upon me at once. If the baby had cried aloud, what an amazing fool that man is, I could not have been more sure than I was of the thought that had passed through his infantile mind. What's the matter, Claire? I heard Tom asking me apprehensively. Do you feel faint? Not at all, I hastened to say, turning my eyes from my first to my second husband. The former was eating bread and milk, reluctantly it seemed to me, from a spoon manipulated by his nurse. That it was really Jack, who was sitting there in a high chair, doomed to swallow baby food while he craved partridge and burgundy was a conviction that had come to me for a fleeting moment to be followed by a return to conventional common sense and a renewed satisfaction in my environment. Tom sat opposite me, smiling contentedly, while between us at a side of the table, the baby, perfunctorily absorbed a simple but nutritious diet, deftly presented to his tiny mouth by his attentive nurse. It was a charming scene of domestic bliss at that moment and I realized clearly how much I had to lose by giving way even intermittently to the wretched hallucinations that my overwrought nerves begot. Just look at him, Claire, exclaimed Tom presently. I tell you it's an interesting study. It's elevating and enlightening, my dear. To an evolutionist, there's a world of meaning in that baby's enthusiasm for bread and milk. Here he sits at the table covered with gastronomic luxuries and actually rejoices in the simplest kind of food. You see, Claire, how well the difference between Horatio and myself in regard to diet illustrates Spencer's definition of evolution as a continuous change from indefinite incoherent homogeneity to definite coherent heterogeneity through successive differentiations and integrations. Great Scott Nurse, what's the matter with him? He's choking again. It's nothing, sir, remarked the nurse quietly as the baby recovered from a fit of coughing and resumed his meal. But if you'll pardon the remark, sir, I think that he's much better off in the nursery. It was not a tactful suggestion and I knew that Tom felt hurt, but he maintained his self-control and made no further comment, merely glancing at me with a smile in his eyes. I realized with a vague uneasiness that open and active hostilities between baby's nurse and Tom were among the possibilities of the near future and it was not a pleasing thought. What does he top off with? Asked Tom, presently grinning at Horatio, who had emptied his bowl and had stuck a fist into his roast-button mouth as if still hungry. Have you got a nice for him, James? The butler stood motionless, gazing fixedly at the nurse. What queer ideas you have, Tom, I cried to break the strain of an uncomfortable situation. A nice would give him an awful pain. Perhaps he'd like a Welsh rabbit, then, growled Tom crossly. The baby seized a spoon and wrapped gleefully on the table. Isn't he cunning? I cried delightedly. He's happy now, isn't he? I'm inclined to think, Tom, that he'd rather have a nap than a rabbit. Not on your life! Came a deep gruff voice from nowhere in particular. I looked at Tom in amazement, thinking that he had playfully disguised his tones and was poking fun at me and the baby. But Tom's expression of wonderment was as genuine as my own, while the nurse was gazing over her shoulder at the butler who was eyeing us all in a bewildered way. Tom glanced at the nurse. Leave the room, James, he said hotly. I'll see you later in the smoking room. Then to the nurse. Remove the baby, will you please? Thank you for letting us have him for an hour. As soon as we were alone in the dining room, Tom leaned toward me and said, shall I discharge James, my dear? He was most infernally impudent to put it mildly. But the frightful certainty had come to me that the butler was innocent of any wrongdoing. Absurd as the bald statement of fact seemed to be, my first husband was the guilty man and struggle as I might against the conviction, I knew it. Give him another chance, Tom. I managed to say my voice unsteady and my tongue parched. James was not quite himself, I imagine. I'm not well, Tom. Give me a swallow of cognac, will you please? Tom alarmed at my voice and face, hastily handed me a stimulant, and presently I felt my courage and my collar coming back to me. Chapter four, nursery confessions. The priceless sight springs to its curious organ and the ear learns strangely to detect the articulate air in its unseen divisions and the tongue gets its miraculous lesson with the rest. N. P. Willis. I longed yet dreaded to have an hour alone with the baby. I could no longer doubt that through some psychical mischance Jack's soul had found a lodgement in a family hospitable by habit and inclination, but not accustomed to disquieting intrusions. It was thus that I put the matter to myself as I sat alone in my boudoir after luncheon, having dismissed Marie my maid with a message to Horatio's nurse. And the conventional makeup of my thought revealed to me in a flash of insight the materialistic tendencies of my mental methods. Metempsychosis had never assumed my mind the dignity of even a philosophical working hypothesis. Much less had the idea ever come to me that reincarnation actually furnished a process through which the physical laws of evolution and the conservation of energy might find a psychical demonstration. My natural inclination to take the world as I found it and to leave the inner mysteries of life to profounder minds than mine had been intensified by my association with Tom, a disciple of Heckel, Buckner, and other extremists of the materialistic school. I had come to admire Tom's intellectuality and to find satisfaction in the fact that his fondness for scientific studies would strengthen him to resist the temptations that surrounded him to become a mere man of leisure and luxury. Possessed of great wealth and without a profession, it was fortunate for Tom that he had found in scientific research an outlet for his super-abundant energies. He had begun to make a reputation for himself as a clear-headed, well-balanced evolutionist, both conservative in method and progressive in spirit, and at our table could be found at times the leading scientific minds of New York. And now into our little stronghold of enlightened materialism had been dropped a miraculous mystery or a mysterious miracle that had overthrown all my preconceived ideas of the universe and opened before me a limitless field of groping conjecture. I realized with due gratitude to fate that if I had been born with an imaginative poetical temperament, my present predicament would have driven me insane at the outset. Fortunately for everybody concerned, I am a woman who rebounds quickly from the severest nervous shock, and I have taken a great deal of pride in retaining my mental poise in crises of my life that would have made hysteria excusable. Nevertheless, it was a severe test of my nervous strength to hold her ratio in my arms at four o'clock that afternoon and watch his nurse donning her coat and hat preparatory to a short ride with Marie. I had carefully planned this opportunity for an uninterrupted hour with the baby, but now that it lay just before me, I longed to run away from it. The nursery had become to me a temple of mysteries within which I felt chilled and ostricken, a victim of supernatural forces against which I was both rebellious and powerless. After the nurse had left the room, I seated myself in a rocking chair, cuddling her ratio in my arms and softly humming a lullaby, attempting to deceive myself by the thought that I really wished him to sleep for an hour. In my innermost consciousness lay the conviction that I had actually come to the nursery for a heart-to-heart talk with Jack. My deepest desire was to be quickly gratified. A gruff whisper came to me presently from his pretty lips. Stop that bye-bye baby, will you, Clarissa? He said petulantly. Haven't I had enough annoyance for one day? Hush, hush! I murmured, rocking frantically, in the effort to put the child to sleep despite my realization of the utter inconsistency of my action. Don't, don't! growled the baby. Do you want me to have mailed a mare, Clarissa? I can't be responsible for what may happen. Where did everybody get the notion that a baby must be shaken after taking? It's getting to be an unbearable nuisance, Clarissa. Is that better, Jack? I whispered, holding him upright on my knees and peering down into his disturbed face, puckered into a little knot as if he were about to cry aloud. Thank you, he muttered gratefully. Under the circumstances, my dear, perhaps it's well that I didn't get that Welsh rabbit. But frankly, I was bitterly disappointed at the moment. What can you expect, Jack? I asked argumentatively, again astonished at the matter-of-fact way in which I was handling this astounding crisis. You seem to have a man's appetite but only a baby's digestive apparatus. That's my punishment, Clarissa. He explained in awestruck tones. In the former cycle I ate too many rabbits. That was scored against me under the general head of gluttony and the subtitle Midnight Unnecessaries. I'm up against it, Clarissa. I wouldn't complain if it were merely a question of not getting what I want but it's getting what I don't want that jars me. You understand, of course, my dear, that generally speaking I refer to milk. Isn't there something in its place that you could persuade the nurse to give me? Don't babies get, er, malt-extract, for instance? I'll do what I can for you, Jack. I said suddenly struck by a brilliant idea. But I must make a condition and you must make me a promise. I'd promise you anything for a change of diet, muttered Jack, kicking vigorously with his tiny legs and waving his fat fists in the air. If you'll swear to me, Jack, never to speak aloud again unless you and I are alone together, I'll agree to make every effort in my power to add to your physical comforts. Comforts be blowed, exclaimed the baby crossly. What I want are a few luxuries. And furthermore, my dear, I'm getting very weary of that machine-made nurse. She's narrow, Clarissa. I don't wish to speak harshly about a woman whose heart seems to be in the right place but you must get rid of her if you care a continental rap about your little baby. You'll have to fill her place, Clarissa, with somebody more broad-minded and up-to-date. She bores me to death. You don't mean that you've been talking to her, Jack? I cried horrified. That's not necessary, growled the child. What, with her little baby go to CP and now her ratio, oh dear little pet Lambie, she freezes the words upon my tongue. Another thing, Clarissa, that you can't fully understand, I'm not permitted through psychological conditions that you cannot grasp to talk to anybody but you. It will relieve your mind to know that I'm as dumb as a, as a real baby when you're not within hearing. I'm so glad of that, Jack, I exclaimed impossibly. From things you've said before I had obtained a different impression. I was only trying to scare you, Clarissa, remarked Jack mischievously. But I've told you the truth at last. By the way, what a stupendous idiot Tom Minterd is. How in the world did you happen to marry him? Jack, I cried angrily. I am amazed at your lack of good taste. You are hardly in a position to do Tom justice. Unless you refrain from making such brutal remarks in the future, I shall leave you entirely to the care of the nurse. And be accused of neglecting your only child, suggested the baby slyly. I had not grasped the full scope of this clever remark before I was startled by a quick step in the hallway, the throwing open of the door and the sound of Tom's voice crying. Oh, here you are. I have found you at last, have I? What a pretty picture you make, Clar, there in the half-lights with the baby on your knees. How is the dear little chap? Poor fellow. He must have thought that his dismissal from the luncheon table was rather abrupt. What a nass he is, whispered Jack under his breath. Then he began to cry lustily, as had been his custom whenever Tom had deigned to enter the nursery. End of chapters three and four. Part three, chapters five and six of Perkins the Faker, a travesty on reincarnation by Edward S. Vanzile. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Clarissa's Troublesome Baby, chapter five. A spoiled child. Yes, it is my dire misfortune now to hang between two ties, to hold within my furried brow the earth's clay and the skies, Victor Hugo. Tom had come to the nursery in high spirits and with the best possible intention. Freed from the depressing presence of the nurse and butler, he had argued, I felt sure, that now was the time for a frolic with the baby that should put their relations upon a smoother footing. He had said to me more than once that little Horatio's apparent prejudice against him was due to the fact that hirelings were always coming between children and parents in these latter days. The baby's voice, however, was still for war. I did not dare to trot him upon my knees knowing his prejudice against the shaking, so I sat there gazing up at Tom's smiling face in perplexity and holding my first husband now howling lustily, firmly upright on my lap. Let me take him, my dear, suggested Tom with what struck me as rather artificial enthusiasm. I'll walk with him a while, it may quiet him. To my astonishment the baby stopped crying at once as Tom bent down and clasped him rather awkwardly in his arms. Hope began to dance merrily in my heart and I laughed aloud. It was a sight to bring smiles to the saddest face. Tom paced up and down the nursery sedately, furtively watching Jack as he nestled against his shoulder, making no sound and apparently contented for the moment with the situation. But a sudden fear fell upon me. The thought that this might be the calm before the storm flashed through my mind and the lightning of premonition was almost instantly followed by the thunder of fulfillment. What the dickens! cried Tom in anger and amazement. Jack, having deathly hurled Tom's eye glasses to the floor, had begun to pummel his nose with one hand while he pulled his hair with the other, making strange guttural sounds the while that were unlike anything that had ever issued from his baby throat before. Take him away, will you, Claire? Implored Tom wildly. He's the worst that ever happened. What's the matter with him? Perhaps he's sleepy, Tom, I suggested, uncertain whether I should laugh or weep as I removed the baby from my second husband's arms. What a bad little boy you have been, Horatio! I managed to say, chidingly, wondering if nature had not designed me for an actress. He ought to be spanked, growled Tom, bending to the floor to grope for his eye glasses in the twilight. Spanked, eh? Whispered the baby close to my ear. We'll see about that. I've got it in for him all right. Just wait. Hush, hush! I implored him, hurrying back to the rocking chair to get as far away from Tom as possible. What an infernal temper the boy has, remarked the latter standing erect again and replacing his eye glasses upon his nose. I'm afraid my visit to the nursery has not been a success, Claire, he added as he stopped to the doorway, evidently sorely hurt at heart. When we were alone together again, I planted the baby firmly on my knees and bent down till I could look straight into his tear-stained eyes. You are very unkind, Jack, I said to him earnestly. Have you ever paused to consider what you are here for? Of course, I'm a convert to the theory of reincarnation. You're sufficient proof of its truth. As I understand it, it is incumbent upon you to lead a better life this time than you led before. Frankly, Jack, you aren't beginning well. I realize that, Clarissa, said the baby repentantly. If I don't brace up, I'll make a terrible mess of it and my next birth will be sure to jar me. Maybe I'll be doomed to show up in Brooklyn or even Hoboken. If you care anything about my, uh, psychical future, my dear, you'll keep Tom Mintern away from me. He's so confoundedly patronizing. He's actually insufferable, my dear. Did you hear him quoting Herbert Spencer at the table, gazing at me all the while as if I were some kind of a germ that might develop in time? And the funny part of it is, Clarissa, that I am a sage and he's nothing but a misguided ignoramus. But Tom has the reputation of being quite learned, Jack, I protested. He's an active member of the Darwin Society and has just been elected to the Association for the Promulgation of the Doctrine of Evolution. And the dead, steered by the dumb, moved upward with the flood, quoted the baby somewhat irrelevantly, I thought. They are blind leaders of the blind, Clarissa. I could tell Tom in a minute more than he'll ever know if he always clings to the idea that the universe is a machine that was made by chance and is run by luck. But I shan't take the trouble to give him the tip. He'll know a thing or two someday. Meanwhile, my dear, you'd better keep him away from me. If worse comes to the worst, you might send me to some institution. I realize, bitterly enough, that I'll be an awful nuisance to you if you keep me here. I felt the tears coming into my eyes and impulsively I drew the baby closer to me. I was in the most deplorable predicament that my imagination could conceive, torn by conflicting emotions and horrified by the awful possibilities presented to me by the immediate future. If Tom, through Jack's hot temper, should discover the truth and be forced suddenly to abandon materialism by coming face to face with a convincing psychical demonstration, what would happen? I shuddered there in the gloaming as my mind dwelt reluctantly upon the unprecedented perils menacing my happiness. It was no comfort to my distraught soul to realize that, in all probability, no woman since the world began had been afflicted in just this way. Neither was there any relief in the conviction that I had been in no way to blame for this incongruous psychical visitation. No, I couldn't send you away, Jack, I said musingly. That is practically impossible. We'll have to make the best of it and our successful manipulation of the situation depends almost totally upon your self-control. You must adapt yourself to your environment, my boy, become a baby in fact as well as in theory. You'll be happier that way. Don't talk nonsense, Clarissa. Grumble Jack kicking viciously at his long clothes. I'm the victim of what might be called a temporary maladjustment of the machinery of psychical evolution. Ordinarily, a baby is not cognizant of a former existence. You advise me to forget the past and remember only that I am your cunning little eight months old Horatio. If I only could. It's the only thing that could give me permanent relief, my dear. But it's not possible. Here I am doomed to a kind of dual punishment ashamed of myself as Horatio and afraid of myself as Jack. And all because I clogged my psychical progress in my late life by a carnal craving for Welsh rabbits. It sounds absurd, doesn't it, when one puts it into words? But, my dear, the sublime and the ridiculous are as close together in one realm of existence as in another. Truth has many faces and there's always a grin on one of them. I think I hear your nurse coming back, Jack. I whispered, is there anything I can do for you? Yes, he answered excitedly, lowering his voice, however. Do you think, Clarissa, that you could secrete a flask of bottled cocktails in the room somewhere? I've learned a thing or two of late that might prove useful to me if I needed a stimulant and you were to find it. I can raise my body by my arms and hold up my whole wait for 10 minutes at a time. I've been experimenting at night when the nurse was asleep. Tom's an evolutionist. Ask him about it. He'll explain to you how it happens. He'll bring the cocktails, my dear. I hesitated bewildered by his request, daring neither to grant nor deny it. The nurse was halfway down the hall and nearing the door rapidly. Take your choice, Clarissa, whispered the baby coolly. Unless you promised me at once I shall tell the nurse who I am the moment she enters the room. My heart sprang chokingly into my throat and I whispered hoarsely. Very well, Jack. I'll do as you wish, but do be careful, won't you? Don't take more than a sip at a time, will you? Before the baby could reply the nurse had entered the room, smiling gaily. CHAPTER VI PROTOPLASM AND FROUGHTH We have forgot what we have been and what we are, we little know. Thomas W. Parsons. There was not the least doubt that our dinner in honor of the German biologist Plattner had been a tremendous success. Long before we had reached the game course I had got the gleam of triumph in Tom's eyes and across the long board my gaze had met his enjoyous congratulation. It was not merely personal glory that we had won by this well-conceived and smoothly executed social function. In a way we had vindicated our cast, had proved to a sensorious world that the inner circle of metropolitan society is not wholly frivolous, utterly indifferent to the achievements of genius and the marvelous feats of modern science. When Tom had first suggested to me the possibility of our entertaining Plattner whose efforts had won the enthusiasm of materialists in all parts of the world I had fought shy of the project. Tom's idea was to gather at our table the most noted scientist of the city with the German biologist as the magnet and to select our women from among the cleverest of our set once vulgarly known as the 400. Upon his first presentation of the scheme I had argued that it was impracticable that the scientists would find our women frivolous and that our women would be horribly bored by the sages. Even up to the moment of our entrance to the dining room I had been annoyed by the fear that my pessimistic attitude toward the function was to be vindicated that Tom's effort to make oil and water mix was doomed to failure. And the funniest thing about the whole affair is that we were saved from disaster and raised to glory through the quaint personality of the hair doctor, our guest of honor. A typical German savant in appearance with spectacles, beard and agitated hair he displayed from the outset a perfect self-control beneath which one quickly realized glowed the fires of a fine enthusiasm. Speaking French or English with a fluency that was enviable he aired his hobby in a genial entertaining way which saved him from being the bore that a man with a fixed idea is so apt to prove. Protoplasm may seem to be a most unpromising topic upon which to base the conversation at a fashionable dinner party but I found myself intensely interested before the oyster plates had been removed in the scientific discussion that the learned hair doctor had set in motion and Tom had deftly kept alive. I had been impressed years ago. Plattener had begun an answer to a polite question from Mrs. Ned Farrington who is a very tactful woman. I had been impressed by the similarity of protoplasm to a fine froth. Here the German scientist held an oyster poised on a fork and gazed at it musingly the while he continued in almost flawless English. The most available froth, soap lather, is made up of air bubbles and tangled in a soap solution. After years of experimenting my friends I succeeded in making an oil foam from soapy water and olive oil. Under the microscope my solution closely resembles protoplasm. Does it really? cried Mrs. Ned rapturously. Wonderful! commented Professor Shanks America's most noted zoologist. It's curious, remarked Eleanor Skarsdale rather cleverly, I thought, that from protoplasm to the highest civilization there should have been a struggle from soap to soap. The hair doctor glanced approvingly at the brightest debutante of the season. In those words young lady, he said with a flattering emphasis, you have summed up the whole history of physical evolution. But to continue, my drops of oil foam act as if they were alive, their movements bearing a most marvelous resemblance to the activities of Pelomaxa, a jelly-like marine creature protoplasmic in its simplicity. The hair doctor was again addressing his remarks to his oyster fork. Do I understand Dr. Platner, asked Tom from the foot of the table, that under the microscope, rosa pod protoplasm for example would resemble your oil foam? So closely, sir, answered Hair Platner instantly, that I have often deceived the most expert microscopist in Germany. Furthermore, Mr. Mintern, my artificial protoplasm, retains its activity for long periods of time. I made one drop, sir, that was alive, so to speak, for six days. And then it died, asked Mrs. Ned mournfully. To speak on scientifically, yes, answered the German carefully. Now, what are we together from all this, my friends? The butler had removed the oysters and the hair doctor was forced to glance at his audience. New reverence for soap and olive oil, suggested one of the younger scientists, a professor at a neighboring university. Platner eyed the speaker suspiciously and then said, that of course, sir, but much more than that, I have proved conclusively, my friends, that the primary movements of life are due to structure and that there is absolutely no necessity for believing in any peculiar vital essence or force. The living cell, I confidently assert, may be built up out of inert matter. The old fashioned idea of a vital spark being absolutely essential is as obsolete as the belief in special creation. Let me live a hundred years, my friends, and I'll make for you a Gerta or a Shakespeare out of soap, leather, and olive oil. Just imagine it, exclaimed Mrs. Farrington, gazing with exaggerated admiration at the German genius. It's really not so shocking to our pride of ancestry as it seems at first sight, Tom ventured to suggest. Our generation has become reconciled perforce to its humble origin. It is hard for us to realize how severely Darwinism shocked our fathers and mothers. As I understand you, Dr. Platner, broke in Mrs. Bob Vincent, turning the blaze of her great dark eyes full upon the German's face, your discovery is a triumph for the extreme materialists. It destroys absolutely all the bases upon which the belief in psychic forces rests. We are machines wound up to run for a while and then to stop forever. You have practically stated my creed, madam, answered the hair doctor gravely. Constant motion, constant change. These are the alpha and the omega of the universe. Why should we superimpose the concept of a psychical existence upon a structure that is already perfect? As I said, in other words, my friends, I could, if sufficient time were granted to me, rebuild the earth and its creatures in my laboratory. Provided that it was situated near a barbershop in a delicatessen store, whispered Dr. Hopkins who had been listening in silence on my left to our guest of honor. I was glad to hear this subdued note of protest from so eminent a source, but he shook his gray head as I glanced at him approvingly. Professor Hopkins, PhD, loves science, but hates controversy. Had he crossed swords at that moment with the German, he would have found, I imagine, that the sympathies of my guests were with the materialist. When a scientist frankly tells you that he can manufacture protoplasm and goes on to describe to you his method of procedure, it's well to pause before plunging into an argument with him. But I, who had good reason to know that Herr Plattner was ludicrously at fault in his conception of the universe, could not but regret that so brilliant a champion as Dr. Hopkins had not rushed to the defense of the truth. For a moment I was almost tempted to defy the rules of hospitality and voiced the new faith that had come to me in the existence of psychic mysteries. This inclination was intensified by Herr Plattner's answer to a question put to him by one of the men. It's all the various rubbish, I heard the Germans saying with great emphasis. All those oriental philosophies and religions are merely picturesque presuments of the truth that are clearly stated by modern materialism so called. What is nirvana but simple cessation of motion? Admitting reincarnation, for example, as a working hypothesis, it would mean simply the coming and going of atomic vibrations with successive losses of identity. They are dreamers, those orientals, seeing half truths clearly enough but never following them out to their logical conclusions. And yet the East is the mother of lather and olive oil, murmured Dr. Hopkins under his breath. At that instant my heart leaped into my throat and I sprang to my feet in a fright. With Horatio in her arms, his nurse had rushed frantically into the dining room, despite the interference of the butler and with blanched face and staring eyes was bearing down on me with the purpose evidently of thrusting the baby into my grasp. Take him, take him. She cried hysterically and before I could resist her insistence, Horatio was squirming in my bare arms. He's bewitched, continued his nurse frantically. He's been talking like a man, I'm through with him. He ain't a baby. You just wait a moment, Mrs. Mintern. He'll speak again in a moment. He's got a voice like a steam calliope and what he says, oh my. Take her away at once, Tom was crying to the butler. She has gone crazy. He went on rushing past our astounded guests to my assistance. Don't be frightened, my dear. I always thought that she was unbalanced and now I know it. Poor little Horatio. She looked scared to death. End of chapters five and six. Part three, chapters seven and eight of Perkins the Faker, a travesty on reincarnation by Edward S. Van Zyl. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Clarissa's troublesome baby. Chapter seven. A biologist and a baby. We know these things are so, we ask not why, but act and follow as the dream goes on. Lord Houghton. Isn't he a lovely baby? Don't send him away, Mrs. Mintern. Get his high chair for him, James. See him smile. I don't wonder at his relief. Just imagine being in the care of a crazy nurse. What wild eyes she had. You say she was always eccentric, Mr. Mintern. The baby's only eight months old. Really, Mrs. Mintern, he looks older. He has such pretty eyes and a look at the dimples in his little hands. Doesn't he ever cry? How good he is, dear little fellow. Horatio, what a fine dignified name. Horatio held a bridge, didn't he? Or was it a full house? What a question for a famous scientist to ask. The baby, erect and smiling in his high chair, had wonderfully enlivened our dinner party. Even Tom, startled as he had been by the advent of the distraught nurse, was now wholly at his ease and beamed genially from the foot of the table upon the youngster, who seemed to be delighted at the attention that he was receiving from beautiful women and famous men. As he sat there, merely waving a spoon in the air and growing lustily, I watched him with mingled pride and consternation. Although a most distressing episode had been brought to a picturesque conclusion, there seemed to me to be startling possibilities in the present situation. I did not like the flush on the baby's cheeks, the unnatural gleam in his laughing eyes. Impulsively I bent down and kissed him upon his pretty mouth. My worst fears were instantly realized and I felt my spinal marrow turn to ice. I had detected the odor of a cocktail upon Horatio's, or rather Jack's, breath. I am forced to acknowledge, madame. I heard Herr Plattner saying an answer to one of Mrs. Farrington's leading questions. I am forced to acknowledge that my theories destroy much of the poetry of life. It is a most prosaic attitude that I am forced to hold toward yonder most beautiful baby, for example. Romance would point to him as an immortal soul in embryo. Realism asserts that he is a machine, like the rest of us, with a longer lease of activity before him than you or I have, who have been ticking, so to speak, for several years. Be good, Horatio. I whispered, don't cry. You can have an ice pretty soon. The baby brought his spoon down upon the table with a thump and actually glared at the German professor while my guests laughed gaily at the child's precocious demonstration. Isn't he cunning? exclaimed Eleanor Skarsdale delightedly. He seems to have a prejudice against me, nicht wahr? Remarked the hair doctor laughing aloud. You aren't to blame for that, little boy, murmured Dr. Hopkins, so that I alone could hear him. He says that you are sprung from oil and leather and are rushing toward annihilation. Bah! yelled the baby. Bah, bah, bah! Bah, bah, bah, bah, black sheep have any wool. Quoted Professor Rogers, the noted comparative philologist who has identified the germ of epic poetry in the earliest known cradle songs. Isn't he fascinating? cried Eleanor Skarsdale, referring to the baby, not to the philologist. If you'll excuse me for a time, I said to my guests, seeing that Tom was growing weary of Horatio's prominence at the table, I'll take the baby to the nursery. You'll do it at your peril. I heard a deep voice grumble and Dr. Hopkins jumped nervously and glanced at me in amazement. Don't run off with him, Mrs. Mintern! cried Mrs. Farrington, and her protest was sustained by a chorus of don't and do let him stay. It may be only temporary. I heard Dr. Plattner saying, as he gazed at Professor Shanks who had asked him evidently a question about the baby's nurse. It's not an uncommon form of insanity and may be only temporary. I recall an instance of a very learned and perfectly harmless Professor, Brad Gottenham, who believed for years that his pet cat talked Sanskrit to him. There was at my own university a young man wholly sane apparently who made a record of conversations that he had held with the skeleton of a gorilla. Both of these men were eventually restored to mental health and have never had a return of their delusions. It is fortunate, however, that the poor woman whose insanity we have so recently witnessed exhibited hermania at this time. What might have happened otherwise to that charming little baby I shudder to think? Her ratio was bounding the table with a spoon as if applauding the hair doctor's remarks. Suddenly he dropped the spoon and made a grab for Dr. Hopkins wine glass. What vivacity he has, remarked Professor Shanks as if addressing a room full of students interested in a zoological specimen. He seems to know a rare vintage when he sees it, suggested Dr. Hopkins intending, of course, to compliment his hostess. I think, my dear, began Tom nervously. Don't go any further, Mr. Mintern, cried Eleanor Skarsdale playfully. The baby is so much more interesting than. Protoplasm, added Dr. Hopkins under his breath. Dr. Plattner was gazing at the baby searchingly. He had been impressed evidently by certain eccentricities in her ratios bearing. How old did you say the boy was, madame? I asked the Germans about presently. Eight months, I answered, a catch in my voice that I could not control. He's, uh, very intelligent for a child of that age, commented Plattner, laboring under the mistake that he was saying something complimentary. He has a most expressive face. As the baby was scowling savagely at the German at that moment and frantically shaking his little fist at him, there were both pith and point to the latter's remark. A rot, muttered Jack wickedly. I sprang to my feet and lifted him from his chair. He kit, protestingly for a moment, and gave vent to a yell that bore a witness to his possession of a marvelous pair of lungs. Be quiet her ratio, I whispered imploringly, hurrying toward the door without further apology to my guests. If you'll be silent now, I'll have a bottle of champagne brought to the nursery. At these words the baby nestled affectionately in my arms and I felt that the fight was won. Just as we reached the doorway, however, Jack clambered to my shoulder and waved his little fist defiantly at my guests. Damn that frowsy old German donkey! He muttered close to my ear. I'd give half a bottle of cocktails to prove to him what an amazing ignoramacy is. Just wait a minute, will you, Clarissa? I rushed out of the dining room without more ado. In another instant Jack would have said the word that trembled on his tiny mouth, the word that would have brought the whole temple of modern materialism toppling down upon hair Plattener's devoted head. Chapter eight. Hushabye, number one. Me thinks that Ian through my laughter oft trembles a strain of dread, a shivery ghost of laughter that is loath to rise from the dead. Yalmar Yort, Boisen. The nursery was in a condition of much disorder as I entered it with the baby's arms around my neck. Much to my surprise and delight, Jack had fallen asleep as we mounted the stairs. How to get him into his crib without rousing him was a problem that I longed to solve, although I had determined not to return to the dining room. I would send a maid presently to tell the butler to inform Tom that I could not leave the baby at this crisis. Surely our guests would consider a crazy nurse's sufficient excuse for the retirement of their hostess. But Jack opened his little eyes and crowed rather hilariously as I laid him on his pillows. Don't go, my dear Clarissa. He said his baby tones strangely out of harmony with his words. I have much to say to you at once. I owe you an explanation and apology. Sit down, won't you? Keep quiet, Jack, I whispered. I'll be back in a moment. After I had dispatched a servant to the dining room with my message to Tom and had assured myself that the baby's hysterical nurse had left the house, poor woman, I was sincerely sorry for her. I returned to the nursery and shut myself in with a feeling of great real leaf. So intense indeed was my nervous reaction after hours of varied emotions that I sank at once into a chair to check a sensation of dizziness that had come over me as I crossed the room. Isn't this cozy? Exclaimed the baby kneeling at the side of his crib and striving to touch me with his fat, uncertain little hands. I wanted to say to you, Clarissa, that I did not deliberately plan to frighten that tyrannical nurse of mine. To tell you the truth, my dear, I had taken just one swallow too much of those cocktails and was astonished to discover that while thus slightly elevated so to speak, I could communicate in the language of maturity with this comparative stranger. Naturally, it was a great shock to the nurse. As I remarked to you before, my dear, she's narrow. A more broad-minded woman would not have rushed before the public, making a kind of balum's ass of a helpless baby. But she's been discharged, of course. And she has gone away if that's what you mean. I answered, laughing rather hysterically. How do you account for your sudden locosity in her presence, Jack? That's a mystery, said the baby, screwing up his tiny mouth into a funny little knot. Spirits had something to do with it, I suppose. Spirits? I repeated nervously. Yes. Responded Jack, clapping his palms together with a ludicrously infantile gesture. You see, my dear, there were spirits in the cocktail. To tell you the truth, Clarissa, I'm a bit scared. I'm going to swear off. By the way, did you order that champagne? No, I answered curtly. Well, perhaps it's better on the whole that you didn't, sighed the baby, tumbling back on his pillows and waving his chubby legs in the air. I've about made up my mind, my dear, to lead a better life. It'll be easier for me to be good than it has been now that the nurse is gone. She was so narrow, Clarissa. It was always on my mind and it finally drove me to drink. I'll have to replace her at once, Jack, I remarked, drawing my chair closer to the crib. What, uh, that is, have you some idea as to just what kind of a nurse you'd like? The baby was on his knees again at the side of the crib, waving his expressive fists in the air. Understand me, Clarissa, he said sternly. I refuse to risk my life again by placing myself in the power of a high-reeling nurse. You can't expect people of that kind to be open to new ideas. To a man of my temperament, my dear, you must realize that repeated doses of baby talk are actually clawing. If you could engage some broad-minded elderly woman who had been deaf and dumb from birth, I might put up with her for a while. But, of course, it would be hard to find such a prize. You'll have to look after your little baby yourself, my dear, until I'm a few years older. It'll be hard for you, I realize that, Clarissa. But, frankly, is there any other alternative? If I'm to lead a better life, my dear, I must have some encouragement. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes, wearily. The burden that had been thrust upon me was growing greater than I could bear. We'll postpone this discussion until tomorrow, Jack, I said presently. I must think it all out carefully before I can come to a decision. Meanwhile, you'd better go to sleep. It's getting late, you know. You aren't going to leave me here alone, Clarissa, cried the baby nervously. You'd better not. There'll be trouble if you do. The fact was that I was in a quandary as to what was the proper thing to do under the circumstances. I had only just begun to realize how many problems had been solved by the presence of the nurse. At this time of night, it was impossible, of course, to get anybody to take her place. At such a crisis as this, the natural solution of the problem lay in my temporary occupancy of her position. But I shrank from the obligation that fate had so unkindly thrust upon me. Lifting the very willing baby from the crib, I carried him to a rocking chair, hoping that I might get him to sleep while I came thoughtfully to a determination regarding my course of action for the immediate future. Gently, murmured Jack, cuddling gratefully in my arms. A long, slow, dreamy kind of rocking is not so bad, Clarissa. It's the tempestuous jerky style that I object to. That confounded nurse had a secret sorrow. It used to bother her whenever she got me into this chair. She'd groan and weep and swing me up and down as if she were trying to pulverize her grief with me as the hammer. Then I'd begin to yell and she'd rock all the harder. You can't imagine, Clarissa, what your little her ratio has suffered of late. I laughed aloud nervously, knowing that my merriment had a cruel sound but unable to control it. Did you think that I was joking? Growled Jack, clutching at my chin angrily. Forgive me, Jack, I exclaimed repentantly. I know that you've had an awfully hard time, poor boy, and I promise you that I shall try my best to make life easier for you from now on. And now, Jack, do try to get to sleep. I'll see to it that you are perfectly comfortable tonight and tomorrow we'll talk about the future. Would you like to have me sing to you, Jack, as I rock you? The baby fairly shook with suppressed laughter at the suggestion. Doesn't it seem absurd, Clarissa? He gassed between chuckles. Just imagine what it really means. You're about to hum a hushabye baby to number one, while number two is downstairs talking scientific rubbish to a lot of old fogies. If you should ever write your memoirs, my dear. Hush, Jack, I cried petulantly, setting the chair in motion. I shall never write anything for publication. Nonsense, commented the baby drowsily. Everybody does. You'll be sure to try it on someday. What a story you could tell, couldn't you, my dear? You might call it with my permission. Clarissa's troublesome baby. End of chapters seven and eight.