 A List to Starboard by F. Hopkinson Smith. A List to Starboard by F. Hopkinson Smith, Part I. A short, square chunk of a man walked into a shipping office on the east side, and inquired for the manager of the line. He had kindly blue eyes, a stub nose, and a mouth that shut too like a rat trap, and stayed shut. Under his chin hung a pair of half-moon whiskers which framed his weather-beaten face, as a spiked collar frames the dogs. You don't want to send this vessel to sea again, blurted out the chunk. She ought to go to the dry dock. Her boats haven't had a brushful of paint for a year. Her boilers are caked clear to her top flues, and her pumps won't take care of her bilge water. Chatter something else and lay her up. The manager turned in his revolving chair and faced him. He was the opposite of the captain in weight, length, and thickness. A slim, well-groomed, puffy-cheeked man of sixty, with a pair of uncertain, badly-aimed eyes, and a voice like the purr of a cat. Oh, my dear captain! You surely don't mean what you say. She is perfectly seaworthy and sound. Just look at her inspection. And he passed him the certificate. No, I don't want to see it. I know him by heart. It's a lie, ever it says. Give an inspector twenty dollars, and he's stone-blind. The manager laughed softly. He had handled too many rebellious captains in his time. They all had a protest of some kind. It was either the crew, or the grub, or the coal, or the way she was stowed. Then he added softly, more as a joke than anything. Not afraid, are you, captain? A crack started from the left-hand corner of the captain's mouth, crossed a fissure in his face, stopped within half an inch of his stub nose, and died out in a smile of derision. What I'm afraid of is neither here nor there. There's cattle aboard. That is, there will be by tomorrow night. And there's a lot of passengers booked, some of them women and children. It isn't honest to ship them, and you know it. As to her boilers, send for the chief engineer. He'll tell you. You call it taking risks. I call it murder. And so I understand you refuse to obey the orders of the board? And yet she's got to sail on the sixteenth if she sinks outside. When I refuse to obey the orders of the board, I'll tell the board, not you. And what I do tell them, I'll tell them something else. And that is, that this chartering of worn-out tramps, painting them up and putting them into the line, has got to stop, or they'll be trouble. But this will be her last trip, captain. Then we'll overhaul her. I've heard that lie for a year. She'll run as long as they can insure her and her cargo. As for the women and children, I suppose they don't count. And he turned on his heel and left the office. On the way out he met the chief engineer. Do the best you can, Mike, he said. Orders are we sail on the sixteenth. On the fourth day out this conversation took place in the smoking room between a group of passengers. Regular tub, this ship, growled the man who knew it all to the bum-actor. Screw out of the water every south she makes. Lot of dirty sailors skating over the decks instead of keeping below where they belong. Chief engineer loafing in the captain's room every chance he gets. There he goes now. And it's a second time since breakfast. And the captain is no better. And just look at the accommodations. Three stewards and a woman. What's that to look after thirty-five passengers? Half the time I have to wait an hour to get something to eat, such as it is. And my bunk wasn't made up yesterday until plum night. That bunch in the steerage must be having a hard time. We get all we pay for. This saved the travelling man. She ain't rigged for cabin passengers and the captain don't want them. Didn't want to take me, except our folks had a lot of stuff aboard. Had enough passengers, he said. Well, he took the widow and her two kids, continued the man who knew it all, and they were the last to get aboard. Half the time he's playing nurse instead of looking after his ship, had him all on the bridge yesterday. He had to take him, protested the travelling man. She was put under his charge by his owners, so one of the stewards told me. Oh! Had too, did he? Yes, I've been there before. No use talking. This line's got to be investigated, and I'm going to do the investigation as soon as I get ashore, and don't you forget it. What's your opinion? The bum actor made no reply. He had been cold and hungry too many days and nights to find fault with anything. But for the generosity of a few friends he would still be tramping the streets, sleeping where he could. Three meals a day, four if he wanted them, and a bed in a room all to himself instead of being one in a row of ten, was heaven to him. What the captain, or the engineer, or the crew, or anybody else did was of no moment so he got back alive. As to the widow's children, he had tried to pick up an acquaintance with them himself, especially the boy, but she had taken them away when she saw how shabby were his clothes. The Texas cattle agent now spoke up. He was a tall, raw-boned man with a red chin whisker and red weather-scorched face, whose clothing looked as if it had been pulled out of shape in the effort to accommodate itself to the spread of his shoulders and round of his thighs. His trousers were tucked in his boots, the straps hanging loose. He generally sat by himself in one corner of the cramped smoking-room, and seldom took part in the conversation. The bum-actor and he had exchanged confidences the night before, and the Texan therefore felt justified in answering in his friend's stead. "'Yaw, way off, friend!' he said to the man who knew it all. "'There ain't nothing the matter with the line, nor the ship, nor the captain. This is my sixth trip aboard of her, and I know. They had a strike among the stevedores the day we sailed, and then too we've got a scrub lot of stokers below, and the captain's got to handle them just so. That kind gets ugly when anything happens. I had sixty head of cattle aboard here on my last trip over, and some of them got loose in a storm and there was hell to pay with a crew till things got straightened out. I ain't much on shooting irons, but they come in handy that time. I helped and I know. Got a couple in my cabin now. Didn't tell me nothing about the captain. He's all there when he's wanted, and it don't take him more than a minute either to get busy.' The door of the smoking-room opened and the object of his eulogy strolled in. He was evidently just off the bridge for the thrash of the spray still glistened on his oil-skins and on his gray half-moon whiskers. That his word was law, a board ship, and that he enforced it in the fewest words possible, was evident in every line of his face and every tone of his voice. If he deserved an overhauling it certainly would not come from any one on board, least of all from Carhartt, the man who knew it all. Loosening the thong that bound his salwester to his chin, he slapped it twice across the chair-back, the water flying in every direction, and then faced the room. Mr. Bonner! Yes, sir! answered the big-shouldered Texan, rising to his feet. I'd like to see you for a minute. And without another word the two men left the room and made their way in silence down the wet deck to where the chief engineer stood. Mike, this is Mr. Bonner. You remember him, don't you? You can rely on his carrying out any orders you give him. If you need another man, let him pick him out. And he continued on to his cabin. Once there the captain closed the door behind him, shutting out the pound and swash of the sea, took from a rack over his bunk a roll of charts, spread one on a table, and with his head in his hands studied it carefully. The door opened and the chief engineer again stood beside him. The captain raised his head. Will Bonner serve? he asked. Yes, glad to, and he thinks he's got another man. He's what he calls out his way, a tender foot, he says. But he's game and can be depended on. Have you made up your mind where she'll cross? And he bent over the chart. The captain picked up a pair of compasses, balanced them for a moment in his fingers, and with the precision of a seamstress threading a needle, dropped the points astride a wavy line known as the steamer-track. The engineer nodded. That will give us about twenty-two hours leeway, he said gravely, if we make twelve knots. Yes, if you make twelve knots, can you do it? I can't say. Depends on that gang of shovelers and the way they behave. They're a tough lot, jailbirds and tramps, most of them. If they get ugly, there ain't but one thing left, that I suppose you won't object to. The captain paused for a moment in deep thought, glanced at the pin-prick in the chart, and said with a certain forceful meaning in his voice, No! Not if there's no other way! The chief engineer waited, as if for further reply, replaced his cap, and stepped out into the wind. He had got what he came for, and he had got it straight. With the closing of the door, the captain rolled up the chart, laded in its place among the others, readjusted the thong of his sour-wester, stopped for a moment before a photograph of his wife and child, looked at it long and earnestly, and then mounted the stairs to the bridge. With the exception that the line of his mouth had straightened and the knots in his eyebrows tightened, he was, despite the smoking room critics, the same bluff-determined sea-dog who had defied the manager the week before. Part II When Bonner, half an hour later, returned to the smoking room, he too had caught the splash of the sea, the spray drenching the rail, the bum-actor crossed over and took the seat beside him. The Texan was the only passenger who had spoken to him since he came aboard, and he had already begun to feel lonely. This time he started the conversation by brushing the salt spray from the agent's coat. Got wet, didn't ya? Too bad! Wait till I wipe it off. And he dragged a weak old handkerchief from his pocket. Then seeing that the Texan took no notice of the attention, he added, What did the captain want? Texan did not reply. He was evidently absorbed in something outside his immediate surroundings, for he continued to sit with bent back, his elbows on his knees, his eyes on the floor. Again the question was repeated. What did the captain want? Nothing, the matter is there. Fear had always been his master, fear of poverty, mostly, and it was poverty in the worst form to others if he failed to get home. This thought had haunted him night and day. Yes and no, don't worry, it'll all come out right. You seem nervous. I am, I've been through a lot and have almost reached the end of my rope. Have you got a wife at home? The Texan shook his head. Well, if you'd had, you'd understand better than I can tell ya. I have, and a three-year-old boy, besides. I'd never have left them if I'd known. I came over under contract for a six-months engagement and we were stranded in Pittsburgh and had hard work getting back to New York. Some of them are there yet. All I want now is to get home. Nothing else will save them. Here's a letter from her I don't mind showing you. You can see for yourself what I'm up against. The boy never was strong. The big Texan read it through carefully, handed it back without a comment or word of sympathy, and then with a glance around him as if in fear of being overheard asked, Can you keep your nerve in a mix-up? Do you mean a fight? queried the actor. Maybe. I don't like fights. Never did. Anything that would imperil his safe return was to be avoided. Ah, neither. But sometimes you got to. Are you handy with a gun? Why? Nothing I'm only asking. Carhart, the man who knew it all, here lounged over from his seat by the table and dropped into a chair beside them, cutting short his reply. The Texan gave a significant look at the actor, enforcing his silence, and then buried his face in a newspaper a month old. Carhart spread his legs, tilted his head back on the chair, slanted his stiff-brim hat till it made a thatch for his nose, and began one of his customary growls. To the room, to the drenched portholes, to the brim of his hat, as a half-asleep dog sometimes does when things have gone wrong with him, or he dreams they have. This ship reminds me of another old tramp, the Persia, he drawled. Same scrub crew and same cut of a captain. Hadn't been for two of the passengers and me, we'd never got anywhere. Had a fire in the lower hold and a lot of turpentine, and when they put that out, we found her cargo had shifted, and she was down by the head about six feet. Then the crew made a rush for the boats and left us with only four leaky ones to go a thousand miles. They'd taken them all, hadn't been for me and another fellow who stood over them with a gun. The bum-actor raised his eyes. What happened then? he asked in a nervous voice. Oh, we pitched in and righted things, got into port at last. But the captain was no good. He'd left with the crew if we'd let him. Is the shifting of a cargo a serious matter? continued the actor. This is my second crossing and I'm not much up on such things. Depends on the weather, interpolated a passenger. And on how she stowed, continued Carhart. I've been mistrusted in this ship a plum on her keel. You can tell that from the way she falls off after each wave strikes her. I have been out on deck looking things over, and she seems to me to be down by the stern more than she ought. Maybe she'll be lighter when more coal gets out of her, suggested another passenger. Yes, but she's listed some to starboard. I watched her a while this morning. She ain't loaded right, or she's wrote it wrong a purpose. That occurs sometimes with a gang of striking stevedores. The noon whistle blew and the talk ended with a setting of everybody's watch, except the bum actors, whose timepiece decorated a shop window in the bowery. That night one of those uncomfortable rumors started doubtless by Carhart's talk, shivered through the ship, its vibrations even reaching the widow lying awake in her cabin. This said that some hundreds of barrels of turpentine had broken loose and were smashing everything below. If any one of them rolled into the furnaces, an explosion would follow which would send them all to eternity. That this absurdity was immediately denied by the purser, who asserted with some vehemence that there was not a gallon of turpentine aboard, did not wholly allay the excitement, nor did it stifle the nervous anxiety which had now taken possession of the passengers. As the day wore on, several additional rumors joined those already extant. One was dropped in the ear of the Texan by the bum actor, as the two stood on the upper deck watching the sea, which was rapidly falling. I got so worried I thought I'd go down into the engine room myself, he whispered. I'm just back. Something's wrong down there, or I'm mistaken. I wish you'd go and find out. I knew that turpentine yarn was alive, but I wanted to be sure, so I thought I'd ask one of the stokers who had come up for a little air. He was about to answer me when the Chief Engineer came down from the bridge, where he had been talking to the Captain, and ordered the man below before he had time to fill his lungs. I waited a little while, hoping he or some of the crew would come up again, and then I went down the ladder myself. When I got to the first landing, I'd come bump up against the Chief Engineer. He was standing in the gangway fooling with the revolver he had in his hand, as if he'd been cleaning it. I'll have to ask you to get back where you came from, he said. This ain't no place for passengers. And up I came. What do you think it means? I'd get ugly too, if he kept me in that heat, and never let me get a whiff of air. I tell you, that's an awful place down there. Suppose you go and take a look. You're knowing the Captain might make some difference. Were any of the stokers around? No, none of them. I didn't see a soul but the Chief Engineer, and I didn't see him more than a minute. The big Texan moved closer to the rail, and again scrutinized the skyline. He kept us up all the morning, his eye searching the horizon as he moved from one side of the ship to the other. The inspection over he slipped his arm through the actors and started him down the deck toward the cattle-agents' captain. When the two emerged, the Texan's face still wore the look which had rested on it since the time the Captain had called him from the smoking-room. The actor's countenance, however, had undergone a change. All his nervous timidity was gone. His lips were tightly drawn, the line of the jaw more determined. He looked like a man who had heard some news which had first steadied, and then solidified him. These changes often overtake men of sensitive, highly strong natures. On the way back they encountered the Captain accompanied by the Chief Engineer. The two were heading for the saloon, the bugle having sounded for luncheon. As they passed by with their easy, swinging gate, the passengers watched them closely. If there was danger in the air these two officers of all men would know it. The Captain greeted the Texan with a significant look, waited until the actor had been presented, looked the Texan's friend over from head to foot, and then with a nod to several of the others, hauled it opposite a steamer chair in which sat the widow and her two children, one a baby and the other a boy of four, a plump, huggable little fellow, every inch of whose surface invited a caress. Please stay a minute, and let me talk to you, Captain. The widow pleaded, I've been so worried. None of these stories are true, are they? There can't be any danger or you would have told me, wouldn't you? The Captain laughed heartily, so heartily that even the Chief Engineer looked at him in astonishment. What stories do you hear, my dear lady? That the steamer isn't loaded properly? Again the Captain laughed, this time under the curls of the chubby boy whom he had caught in his arms and was kissing eagerly. Not loaded right! He puffed at last when he got his breath. Well, well, what a pity! That yarn, I guess, comes from some of the navigators in this smoking room. They generally run the ship. Here, you little rascal, turn out your toes and dance a jig for me. No, no, not that way. This way or out with them. Here, let me show you. One, two, off we go. Now the pigeon-wing and the double twist and the rat-tat-tat-rat-tat-tat. That's the way, my lad. He had the boy's hands now, the child shouting with laughter, the overjoyed mother clapping her hands as the big burly Captain with his face twice as red from the exercise, dance back and forth across the deck, the passengers forming a ring about them. There, sputtered the Captain, all out of breath from the exercise, as he dropped the child back into the widow's arms. Now all of you come down to luncheon. The weather is getting better every minute. The glass is rising and we are going to have a fine night. Carhartt had watched the whole performance with an ill-concealed sneer on his face, muttered to the man next to him. What did I tell you? He's a pretty kind of a Captain, ain't he? He's mashed on the widow just as I told you. Smoking-room yarn, is it? I bet I could pick out half a dozen men right in them chairs who could run the ship as well as he does. Maybe we'll have to take charge, after all. Don't you think so, Mr. Bonner? The Texan smiled grimly. I'll let you do the picking, Mr. Carhartt. And with his hand on the actor's arm the two went below. A counter-current now swept through the ship. If anything was really the matter the Captain would not be dancing jigs nor would he leave the bridge for his meals. This, like all other counter-currents, wave or otherwise, tossed up a bobble of dispute when the two clashed. There was no doubt about it. Carhartt had been talking through his hat, shooting off his mouth, the man was a gas-bag, etc., etc. One appeal for confirmation was made to the Texan and the actor, who now seemed inseparable, neither made reply. They evidently did not care to be mixed up in what Bonner characterized with a grim smile as, more hot air. All through the meal the Captain kept up his good-natured mood, chatting with the widow who sat on his right, the baby in her lap, making a pig of a lemon and some toothpicks for the boy, who had crawled up into his arms, exchanging nods and smiles down the length of the table with several new arrivals, or congratulating those nearest to him on their recovery after the storm, ending by carrying both boy and baby to the upper deck, so that he might not forget how to handle his own when he got back, he laughed in explanation. Part 3 Lunching over, the passengers, many of whom had been continuously in their berths, began to crowd the decks. These soon discovered that the ship was not on an even keel, a fact confirmed when attention was called to the slant of the steamer-chairs and the roll of an orange toward the scuppers. Explanation was offered by the Texan, who argued that the wind had hauled, and being then a beam had given her a list to starboard. This, while not wholly satisfactory to the more experienced, allayed the fears of the women, there were two or three on board beside the widow, who welcomed the respite from the wrench and stagger of the previous hours. Attention was now drawn by a nervous passenger to a gang of sailors under the first officer, who were at work overhauling the boats on the forward deck immediately under the eyes of the captain, who had returned to the bridge, as well as to an approaching wall of fog which, while he was speaking, had blanketed the ship, sending two of the boat gang on a run to the bow. The foghorn also blew continuously, almost without intermission. Now and then it too would give three short, sharp snorts, as if of warning. The passengers had now massed themselves in groups, some touch of sympathy or previous acquaintance or trait of courage but recently discovered, having drawn them together. Again the captain passed down the deck. This time he stopped to light a cigarette from a passenger's cigar, remarking as he did so that it was, as thick as pea soup on the bridge but he thought it would lighten before morning. Then halting beside the chair of an old lady who had but recently appeared on deck, he congratulated her on her recovery and kept on his way to the boats. The widow, however, was still anxious. What are they doing with the boats? She asked, her eyes following the captain's disappearing figure. Only overhauling them, madam, spoke up the Texan who had stationed himself near her chair. But isn't that unusual? She inquired in a tremulous voice. No, madam, just precaution, always a safe one in a fog. Collision comes so quick sometimes they don't have time even to clear the davits. But the sailors are carrying up boxes and kegs and putting them in the boats. What's that for? Broke in another passenger who had been leaning over the forward rail. Grubb and Walter, I guess, returned the Texan. It's a thousand miles to the nearest land and there ain't no bakery on the way that I know of. Can't be too careful where there's women and babies aboard, special little fellas like these. And he ran his hand through the boy's curls. The captain don't take no chances, that's what I like him for. Again the current of hope submerged the current of despair. The slant of the deck, however, increased, although the wind had gone down, so much so that the steamer-chairs had to be lashed to the iron handhold, skirting that wall of the upper cabins. So had the fog, which was now so dense that it hid completely the work of the boat-gang. With the passing of the afternoon and the approach of night, thus deepening the gloom, there was added another and a new anxiety to the drone of the fog-horn. This was a Costin's signal which flashed from the bridge, flooding the deck with light and penciling masts and rigging in lines of fire. These flashes kept up at intervals of five minutes, the colors changing from time to time. An indefinable fear now swept through the vessel. The doubters and scoffers from the smoking-room, who stood huddled together near the forward companion-way, talked in whispers. The slant of the deck they argued might be due to a shift of the cargo. A situation serious, but not dangerous. But why burn Costin's? The only men who seemed to be holding their own, and who were still calm and undisturbed, were the Texan and the actor. These, during the conference, had moved toward the flight of steps leading to the bridge, and had taken their positions near the bottom step, but within reach of the widow's chair. Once the actor loosened his coat and slipped in his hand, as if to be sure of something he did not want to lose. While this was going on, the captain left the bridge in charge of the Second Officer and descended to his cabin. Reaching over his bunk, he unhooked the picture of his wife and child, tore it from its frame, looked at it intently for a moment, and then with a sigh slid it in an inside pocket. This done, he stripped off his wet stormcoat, thrust his arms into a close-fitting reefing jacket, unhooked a holster from its place, dropped its contents into his outside pocket, and walked slowly down the flight of steps to where the Texan and the actor stood waiting. Then, facing the passengers, and in the same tone of voice with which he would have ordered a cup of coffee from a steward, he said, My friends, I find it necessary to abandon the ship. There is time enough and no necessity for crowding. The boats are provisioned for thirty days. The women and children will go first. This order will be literally carried out. Those who disobey it will have to be dealt with in another way. This, I hope, you will not make necessary. I will also tell you that I believe we are still within the steamer zone, although the fog and weather have prevented any observation. Do you stay here, madam? I'll come for you when I'm ready. And he laid his hand encouragingly on the widow's arm. With this he turned to the Texan and the actor. You understand both of you, do you not, Mr. Bonner? You and your friend will guard the aft companion way, and help the chief engineer take care of the stokers and the steerage. I and the first officer will fill the boats. The beginning of a panic is like the beginning of a fire, the first a curl of smoke leaking through a closed sash, then a rush of flame, and then a roar freighted with death. It's subduing as along similar lines, a sharp command clearing the way, concentrated effort, and courage. Here the curl of smoke was an agonized shriek from an elderly woman who fell fainting on the deck. The rush of flame was a wild surge of men hurling themselves toward the boats, and the roar which meant death was the frenzy throng of begrimed, half-naked stokers, and crazed emigrants who were wedged in a solid mass in the companion way leading to the upper deck. The subduing was the same. Back all of you, shouted the engineer, the first man who passes that door without my permission I'll kill. Five of you at a time, no crowding. Keep them in line, Mr. Bonner, you and your friend. The Texan and the bum actor were within three feet of him as he spoke. The Texan as cool as if he were keeping count of a drove of steers, except that he tallied with the barrel of a six-shooter instead of a notebook and pencil. The bum actor's face was deathly white, and his pistol hand trembled a little, but he did not flinch. He ranged the lucky ones in line farther along and kept them there. Anything to get home, he had told the Texan when he had slipped Bonner's other revolver an hour before into his pocket. On the saloon deck the flame of fear was still raging, although the sailors and the three stewards were so many moving automatons under the first officer's orders. The widow, with her baby held tight to her breast, had not moved from where the captain had placed her, nor had she uttered a moan. The crisis was too great for anything but implicit obedience. The captain had kept his word, and had told her when danger threatened. She must now wait for what God had in store for her. The boy stood by the first officer. He had clapped his hands and laughed when he saw the first boat swing clear of the davits. Carhartt was the color of ashes and could hardly articulate. He had edged up close to the gangway where the boats were to be filled. Twice he had tried to wedge himself between the first officer and the rail, and twice had been pushed back—the last time with a swing that landed him against a pile of steamer-chairs. All this time the fog-horn had kept up its monotonous din, the costumes flaring at intervals. The stoppage of either would only have added to the terror now partly allayed by the captain's encouraging talk, which was picked up and repeated all over the ship. The first boat was now ready for passengers. This way, madam, you first! the captain said to the widow, You must go along with the baby, at eye. He did not finish the sentence. Something had caught his ear. Something that made him lunge heavily toward the rail, his eyes searching the gloom, his hand cupped to his ear. Hold hard, men! he cried. Keep still, all of you! Out of the stillness of the night came the moan of a distant fog-horn. This was followed by a wild cheer from the men at the boat-davits. At the same instant a dim, far away light cut its way through the black void, burned for a moment, and disappeared like a dying star. Another cheer went up. This time the watch on the fore-top and the men astride the nose sent it whirling through the choke and damp with an added note of joy. The captain turned to the widow. That's her. That's the St. Louis. I had been hoping for her all day, and didn't give up until the fog shut in. And we can stay here. No, we haven't a moment to lose. Our fires are nearly out now. We've been in a sinking condition for forty-eight hours. We sprung a leak where we couldn't get at it, and our pumps are clogged. Stand aside, men. Already, madam. No, you can't manage them both. Give me the boy. I'll bring him in the last boat. And a story. That anybody's sponsors in baptism ever willfully assumed the responsibility of such a name, I may as well state that I have reason to infer that Melons was simply the nickname of a small boy I once knew. If he had any other, I never knew it. Various theories were often projected by me to account for this strange cognomen. His head, which was covered with a transparent down, like that which clothed very small chickens, plainly permitting the scalp to show through, to an imaginative mind might have suggested that succulent vegetable. That his parents, recognizing some political significance in the fruits of the season, might have given this name to an August child was an oriental explanation. That from his infancy he was fond of indulging in Melons, seemed on the whole the most likely, particularly as fancy was not bred in McGinnis's court. He dawned upon me as Melons. His proximity was indicated by shrill youthful voices as, ah, Melons, or playfully, hi, Melons, or authoritatively, you, Melons. McGinnis's court was a democratic expression of some obstinate and radical property holder. Occupying a limited space between two fashionable thoroughfares, it refused to conform to circumstances, but sturdily paraded its unkempt glories and frequently asserted itself in ungrammatical language. My window, a rear room on the ground floor, in this way derived blended light and shadow from the court. So low was the window sill that had I been the least disposed to subnombalism it would have broken out under such favorable auspices, and I should have haunted McGinnis's court. My speculations as to the origin of the court were not altogether gratuitous, for by means of this window I once saw the past as through a glass darkly. It was a Celtic shadow that early one morning obstructed my ancient lights. It seemed to belong to an individual with a pea coat, a stubby pipe, and bristling beard. He was gazing intently at the court, resting on a heavy cane somewhat in the way that heroes dramatically visit the scenes of their boyhood. As there was little of architectural beauty in the court, I came to the conclusion that it was McGinnis looking after his property. The fact that he carefully kicked a broken bottle out of the road somewhat strengthened me in the opinion, but he presently walked away and the court knew him no more. He probably collected his rents by proxy, if he collected them at all. Beyond melons of whom all this is purely introductory, there was little to interest the most sanguine and hopeful nature. In common with all such localities, a great deal of washing was done, in comparison with the visible resolves. There was always something whisking on the line, and always something whisking through the court that looked as if it ought to be there. A fish, geranium of all plants kept for the recreation of mankind, certainly the greatest illusion, straggled under the window. Through its dusty leaves I caught the first glance of melons. His age was about seven. He looked older from the venerable whiteness of his head, and it was impossible to conjecture his size, as he always wore clothes apparently belonging to some shapely youth of nineteen. A pair of pantaloons that, when sustained by a single suspender, completely equipped him, formed his everyday suit. How, with this lavish superfluity of clothing, he managed to perform the surprising gymnastic feats it has been my privilege to witness I have never been able to tell. His turning the crab and other minor dislocations were always attended with success. It was not an unusual sight at any hour of the day to find melons suspended on a line, or to see his venerable head appearing above the roofs of the outhouses. Melons knew the exact height of every fence in the vicinity, its facilities for scaling, and the possibility of seizure on the other side. His more peaceful and quieter amusements consisted in dragging a disused boiler by a large string with hideous outcries to imaginary fires. Melons was not gregarious in his habits. A few youth of his own age sometimes called upon him, but they eventually became abusive, and their visits were more strictly predatory incursions for old bottles and junk, which formed the staple of McGinnis's court. Overcome by loneliness one day, melons invagled a blind harper into the court. For two hours did that wretched man prosecute his unhallowed calling, un-recompensed, and going round and round the court apparently under the impression that it was some other place. While melons surveyed him from an adjoining fence with calm satisfaction, it was this absence of conscientious motives that brought melons into disrepute with his aristocratic neighbors. Orders were issued that no child of wealthy and pious parentage should play with him. This mandate, as a matter of course, invested melons with a fascinating interest to them. Admiring glances were cast at melons from nursery windows. Babyfingers beckoned to him. Invitations to tea on wood and pewter were list to him from aristocratic backyards. It was evident he was looked upon as a pure and noble being, untrammeled by the conventionalities of parentage and physically as well as mentally exalted above them. One afternoon an unusual commotion prevailed in the vicinity of McGinnis's court. Looking from my window, I saw melons perched on the roof of a stable, pulling a rope by which one Tommy, an infant scion of an adjacent and wealthy house was suspended in mid-air. In vain the female relatives of Tommy congregated in the backyard, expostulated with melons. In vain the unhappy father shook his fist at him. Secure in his position, melons redoubled his exertions and at last landed Tommy on the roof. Then it was that the humiliating fact was disclosed that Tommy had been acting in collusion with melons. He grinned delightedly back at his parents, as if by merit raised to that bad eminence. Long before the latter arrived that was to sucker him he became the sworn ally of melons, and I regret to say incited by the same audacious boy chafed his own flesh and blood below him. He was eventually taken though, of course, melons escaped, but Tommy was restricted to the window after that, and the companionship was limited to high melons, and you, Tommy, and melons to all practical purposes lost him forever. I looked afterward to see some signs of sorrow on melons' part, but in vain. He buried his grief if he had any, somewhere in his one voluminous garment. At about this time my opportunities of knowing melons became more extended. I was engaged in filling a void in literature of the Pacific Coast, as this void was a pretty large one, and as I was informed that the Pacific Coast languished under it, I set apart two hours each day to this work of filling in. It was necessary that I should adopt a methodical system, so I retired from the world and locked myself in my room at a certain hour each day after coming from my office. I then carefully drew out my portfolio and read what I had written the day before. This would suggest some alterations, and I would carefully rewrite it. During this operation I would turn to consult a book of reference, which invariably proved extremely interesting and attractive. It would generally suggest another and better method of filling in. Turning this method over reflectively in my mind, I would finally commence the new method which I eventually abandoned for the original plan. At this time I would become convinced that my exhausted faculties demanded a cigar. The operation of lighting a cigar usually suggested that a little quiet reflection and meditation would be of service to me, and I always allowed myself to be guided by prudential instincts. Eventually, seated by my window as before stated, Melons asserted himself, though our conversation rarely went further than, Hello, Mr. and Ah, Melons. A vagabond instinct we felt in common implied a communion deeper than words. In this spiritual commingling the time passed, often beguiled by gymnastics on the fence or line, always with an eye to my window. Until dinner was announced and I found a more practical void required my attention. An unlooked-for incident drew us in closer relation. A seafaring friend just from a tropical voyage had presented me with a bunch of bananas. They were not quite ripe, and I hung them before my window to mature in the son of McGinnis's court whose forcing qualities were remarkable. In the mysteriously mingled odors of ship and shore which they diffused throughout my room there was lingering reminiscence of low latitudes. But even that joy was fleeting and evanescent. They never reached maturity. Coming home one day as I turned the corner of that fashionable thoroughfare before alluded to, I met a small boy eating a banana. There was nothing remarkable in that, but as I neared McGinnis's court I presently met another small boy also eating a banana. A third small boy engaged in a like occupation obtruded a painful coincidence upon my mind. I leave the psychological reader to determine the exact co-relation between the circumstance and the sickening sense of loss that overcame me on witnessing it. I reached my room. The bananas were gone. There was but one that knew of their existence, but one who frequented my window, but one capable of gymnastic effort to procure them. And that was, I blushed to say it, melons. Melons, the depredator. Melons, despoiled by larger boys of his ill-gotten booty, or reckless and indiscreetly liberal. Melons, now a fugitive on some neighborhood house-top. I lit a cigar and drawing my chair to the window saw a surprise of sorrow in the contemplation of the fish geranium. In a few moments something white passed my window at about the level of the edge. There was no mistaking that hoary head which now represented to me only aged iniquity. It was melons, that venerable juvenile hypocrite. He affected not to observe me and would have withdrawn quietly, but that horrible fascination which causes the murderer to revisit the scene of his crime impelled him toward my window. I smoked calmly and gazed at him without speaking. He walked several times up and down the court with a half-rigid, half-belligerent expression of eye and shoulder intended to represent the carelessness of innocence. Once or twice he stopped, and putting his arms their whole length into his capacious trousers gazed with some interest at the additional width they thus acquired. Then he whistled. The singular conflicting conditions of John Brown's body and soul were at that time beginning to attract the attention of youth, and Melons' performance of that melody was always remarkable. But today he whistled falsely and shrilly between his teeth. At last he met my eye. He went slightly, but recovered himself, and going to the fence stood for a few moments on his hands with his bare feet quivering in the air. Then he turned toward me and threw out a conversational preliminary. There is a circus, said Melons gravely, hanging with his back to the fence and his arms twisted around the pallings. A circus over yonder, indicating the locality with his foot. With horses and horseback riders, there is a man what rides six horses to wants, six horses to wants, and nary a saddle. He paused in expectation. Even this equestrian novelty did not affect me. I still kept a fixed gaze on Melons' eye, and he began to tremble and visibly shrink in his capacious garment. Some other desperate means—conversation with Melons was always a desperate means—must be resorted to. He recommenced more artfully. Do you know Carrots? I had a faint remembrance of a boy of that euphonious name with scarlet hair who was a playmate and persecutor of Melons, but I said nothing. Carrots is a bad boy. Killed a policeman wants. Where's a dirt naff in his boots? Saw him today, looking in your windy. I felt that this must end here. I rose sternly and addressed Melons. Melons, this is all irrelevant and impertinent to the case. You took those bananas. Your proposition regarding Carrots, even if I were inclined to accept it as credible information, does not alter the material issue. You took those bananas. The offense under these statutes of California is a felony. How far Carrots may have been accessory to the fact either before or after is not my intention at present to discuss. The act is complete. Your present conduct shows the animo farande to have been equally clear. By the time I had finished this exhortium, Melons had disappeared, as I fully expected. He never reappeared. The remorse that I have experienced for the part I had taken in what I fear may have resulted in his utter and complete extermination. Alas, he may not know except through these pages, for I have never seen him since. Whether he ran away and went to sea to reappear at some future day as the most ancient of mariners, or whether he buried himself completely in his trousers I never shall know. I have read the papers anxiously for accounts of him. I have gone to the police office in the vain attempt of identifying him as a lost child, but I never saw him or heard of him since. Strange fears have sometimes crossed my mind that his venerable appearance may have been actually the result of senility, and that he may have been gathered peacefully to his fathers in a green old age. I have even had doubts of his existence, and have sometimes thought that he was providentially and mysteriously offered to fill the void I have before alluded to. In that hope I have written these pages. End of Melons by Brett Hart The Purple Pilious by H. G. Wells This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite The Purple Pilious by H. G. Wells Mr. Coombs was sick of life. He walked away from his unhappy home, and sick not only of his own existence, but of everybody else's turned-aside down gas-work lane to avoid the town. And crossing the wooden bridge that goes over the canal to Starlig's cottages was presently alone in the damp pine woods and out of sight and sound of human habitation. He would stand it no longer. He repeated aloud with blasphemies unusual to him that he would stand it no longer. He was a pale-faced little man, with dark eyes and a fine and very black moustache. He had a very stiff upright collar slightly frayed that gave him an illusory double chin, and his overcoat, albeit chubby, was trimmed with asterkin. His gloves were a bright brown, with black stripes over the knuckles and split at the finger ends. His appearance, his wife had said once in the dear, dead days beyond recall, before he married her, that is, was military. But now, she called him—it seems a dreadful thing to tell of—between husband and wife, but she called him a little grub. It wasn't the only thing that she had called him either. The row had arisen about that beastly Jenny again. Jenny was his wife's friend, and by no invitation of Mr. Coombs she came in every blessed Sunday to dinner, and made a shindy all the afternoon. She was a big, noisy girl with a taste for loud colors and a strident laugh, and this Sunday she had outdone all her previous intrusions by bringing in a fellow with her, a chap as showy as herself. And Mr. Coombs in a starchy clean collar and his Sunday frock coat had sat dumb and wrathful at his own table, while his wife and her guests talked foolishly and undesirably, and laughed aloud. Well, he stood that, and after dinner, which as usual was late, what must Miss Jenny do but go to the piano and play banjo tunes for all the world as if it were a weekday? Flesh and blood could not endure such goings on. They would hear next door. They would hear in the road. It was a public announcement of their disrepute. He had to speak. He had felt himself go pale, and a kind of rigor had affected his respiration as he delivered himself. He had been sitting on one of the chairs by the window. The new guest had taken possession of the armchair. He turned his head. Sunday! he said over the collar in the voice of one who warns. Sunday! what people call a nasty tone it was. Jenny had kept on playing, but his wife, who was looking through some music that was piled on top of the piano, had stared at him. What's wrong now? she said. Can't people enjoy themselves? I don't mind rational enjoyment at all, said little Coombs, but I ain't gonna have weekday tunes playing on a Sunday in this house. What's wrong with my playing now? said Jenny, stopping and twirling round on the music stool with a monstrous rustle of flounces. Coombs saw it was going to be a row and opened too vigorously, as is common with your timid, nervous men all the world over. Steady on what that music stool said he, it ain't made for heavyweights. Never you mind about weights, said Jenny incensed. What was you saying behind my back about my playing? Surely you don't hold with not having a bit of music on Sunday, Mr. Coombs, said the new guest, leaning back in the armchair, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke and smiling in a kind of pitying way. And simultaneously his wife said something to Jenny about, never mind him, you go on, Jenny. I do, said Mr. Coombs, addressing the new guest. May I ask why? said the new guest, evidently enjoying both his cigarette and the prospect of an argument. He was, by the by, a lank young man, very stylishly dressed in bright drab with a white cravat and a pearl and silver pin. It had been better taste to come in a black coat, Mr. Coombs thought. Because, began Mr. Coombs, it don't suit me, I'm a businessman, I have to study my connection, rational enjoyment. His connection, said Mrs. Coombs scornfully. That's what he's always a-saying, we got to do this and we got to do that. If you don't mean to study my connection, said Mr. Coombs, what did you marry me for? I wonder, said Jenny, and turned back to the piano. I never saw such a man as you, said Mrs. Coombs. You've altered all rounds since we were married. Before, then Jenny began at the turn, turn, turn again. Look here, said Mr. Coombs, driven at last to revolt, standing up and raising his voice. I tell you, I won't have that. The frock coat heaved with his indignation. No violence now, said the long young man in drab sitting up. Who the juicer you, said Mr. Coombs fiercely, whereupon they all began talking at once. The new guests said he was Jenny's intended and meant to protect her, and Mr. Coombs said he was welcome to do so anywhere but in his, Mr. Coombs' house. And Mrs. Coombs said he ought to be ashamed of insulting his guests. And, as I have already mentioned, that he was getting a regular little grub. And the end was that Mr. Coombs ordered his visitors out of the house. And they wouldn't go. And so he said he would go himself. With his face burning and tears of excitement in his eyes, he went into the passage. And as he struggled with his overcoat, his frock coat sleeves got consternated up his arm, and gave a brush at his silk hat, Jenny began again at the piano and strumming him insultingly out of the house. Turn, turn, turn. He slammed the shop door so that the house quivered. That, briefly, was the immediate making of his mood. You will perhaps begin to understand his disgust with existence. As he walked along the muddy path under the firs—it was late October—and the ditches and heaps of fir needles were gorgeous with clumps of fungi. He recapitulated the melancholy history of his marriage. It was brief and commonplace enough. He now perceived with sufficient clearness that his wife had married him out of a natural curiosity, and in order to escape from her worrying laborious and uncertain life in the workroom. And like the majority of her class, she was far too stupid to realize that it was her duty to cooperate with him and his business. She was greedy of enjoyment, loquacious and socially minded, and evidently disappointed to find the restraints of poverty still hanging about her. His worries exasperated her, and the slightest attempt to control her proceedings resulted in a charge of grumbling. Why couldn't he be nice as he used to be? And Coombs was such a harmless little man too, nourished mentally on self-help, and with a meager ambition of self-denial and competition that was to end in a sufficiency. Then Jenny came in as a female mephestopheles, a gabbling chronicle of fellers, and was always wanting his wife to go to theaters and all that. And in addition were aunts of his wife and cousins, male and female, to eat up capital, insult him personally, upset business arrangements, annoy good customers, and generally blight his life. It was not the first occasion by many that Mr. Coombs had fled his home in wrath and indignation, and something like fear, vowing furiously and even allowed that he wouldn't stand it, and so frothing away his energy along the line of least resistance. But never before had he been quite so sick of life as on this particular Sunday afternoon. The Sunday dinner may have had its share in his despair and the grayness of the sky. Perhaps, too, he was beginning to realize his unendurable frustration as a businessman as the consequence of his marriage. Presently bankruptcy, and, after that, perhaps she might have reason to repent when it was too late. And destiny, as I have already intimated, had planted the path through the wood with evil-smelling fungi thickly and variously planted it, not only on the right side, but on the left. A small shopman is in such a melancholy position if his wife turns out a disloyal partner. His capital is all tied up in his business, and to leave her means to join the unemployed in some strange part of the earth. The luxuries of divorce are beyond him altogether, so that the good old tradition of marriage, for better or worse, holds inexorably for him, and things work up to tragic culminations. Bricklayers kick their wives to death, and dukes betray theirs, but it is among the small clerks and shopkeepers nowadays that it comes most often to a cutting of throats. Under the circumstances it is not so very remarkable, and you must take it as charitably as you can, that the mind of Mr. Coombs ran for a while on some such glorious clothes to his disappointed hopes, and that he thought of razors and pistols and bread knives, and touching letters to the coroner, denouncing his enemies by name and praying piously for forgiveness. After a time his fierceness gave way to melancholia. He had been married in this very overcoat, in his first and only frockcoat that was buttoned up beneath it. He began to recall their courting along this very walk, his years of panorious savings to get capital, and the bright hopefulness of his marrying days. For it all to work out like this, was there no sympathetic ruler anywhere in the world? He reverted to death as a topic. He thought of the canal he had just crossed, and doubted whether he shouldn't stand with his head out, even in the middle, and it was while drowning was in his mind that the purple pilius caught his eye. He looked at it mechanically for a moment, and stopped, and stooped towards it to pick it up, under the impression that it was some such small leather object as a purse. Then he saw that it was the purple top of a fungus, a peculiarly poisonous-looking purple, slimy, shiny, and emitting a sour odor. He hesitated with his hand an inch or so from it, and the thought of poison crossed his mind. With that he picked the thing and stood up again with it in his hand. The odor was certainly strong, acrid, but by no means disgusting. He broke off a piece, and the fresh surface was a creamy white that changed like magic in the space of ten seconds to a yellowish-green color. It was even an inviting-looking change. He broke off two other pieces to see it repeated. They were wonderful things these fungi, thought Mr. Coombs, and all of them the deadliest poisons, as his father had often told him, deadly poisons. There is no time like the present for a rash resolve. Why not here and now, thought Mr. Coombs? He tasted a little piece, a very little piece, indeed, a mere crumb. It was so pungent that he almost spat it out again, then merely hot and full-flavored, a kind of German mustard with a touch of horseradish and, well, mushroom. He swallowed it in the excitement of the moment. Did he like it, or did he not? His mind was curiously careless. He would try another bit. It really wasn't bad. It was good. He forgot his troubles in the interest of the immediate moment, playing with death it was. He took another bite and then deliberately finished a mouthful. A curious, tingling sensation began in his fingertips and toes. His pulse began to move faster. The blood in his ears sounded like a mill race. Try a bit more, said Mr. Coombs. He turned and looked about him and found his feet unsteady. He saw and struggled towards a little patch of purple a dozen yards away. Jolly good stuff, said Mr. Coombs. He pitched forward and fell on his face, his hands outstretched towards the cluster of Pileae, but he did not eat any more of them. He forgot forthwith. He rolled over and sat up with a look of astonishment on his face. His carefully brushed silk hat had rolled away towards the ditch. He pressed his hand to his brow. Something had happened, but he could not rightly determine what it was. Anyhow, he was no longer dull. He felt bright, cheerful, and his throat was a fire. He laughed in the sudden gaity of his heart. Had he been dull, he did not know, but at any rate he would be dull no longer. He got up and stood unsteadily, regarding the universe with an agreeable smile. He began to remember. He could not remember very well because of a steam roundabout that was beginning in his head, and he knew he had been disagreeable at home just because they wanted to be happy. They were quite right. Life should be as gay as possible. He would go home and make it up and reassure them. And why not take some of this delightful toadstool with him for them to eat? A hatful no less. Some of those red ones with white spots as well, and a few yellow. He had been a dull dog and enemy to merriment. He would make up for it. It would be gay to turn his co-sleeves inside out and stick some yellow gorse in his waistcoat pockets, then home, singing, for a jolly evening. After the departure of Mr. Coombs, Jenny discontinued playing and turned round on the music stool again. What a fuss about nothing, said Jenny. You see, Mr. Clarence, what I've got to put up with, said Mrs. Coombs. He is a bit hasty, said Mr. Clarence, judicially. He ain't got the slightest sense of our position, said Mrs. Coombs. That's what I complain of. He cares for nothing but his old shop. And if I have a bit of company or buy anything to keep myself decent, or get any little thing I want out of the housekeeping money, there's disagreeables. Economy, he says. Struggle for life and all that. He lies awake of nights about it, worrying how he can screw me out of a shilling. He wanted us to eat dorset butter once. If once I was to give in to him, there. Of course, said Jenny. If a man values a woman, said Mr. Clarence, lounging back in the armchair, he must be prepared to make sacrifices for her. For my own part, said Mr. Clarence, with his eye on Jenny, I shouldn't think of marrying till I was in a position to do the thing in style. It's downright selfishness. A man ought to go through the rough and tumble by himself and not drag her. I don't agree altogether with that, said Jenny. I don't see why a man shouldn't have a woman's help, provided he doesn't treat her meanly, you know. It's meanness. You wouldn't believe, said Mrs. Coombs, but I was a fool to have him. I might have known. If it hadn't been for my father, he wouldn't have had not a carriage at our wedding. Lord, he didn't stick out at that, said Mr. Clarence, quite shocked. Said he wanted the money for his stock, or some such rubbish, why he wouldn't have a woman in to help me once a week if it wasn't for my standing out plucky, and the fusses he makes about money comes to me while pretty near crying with sheets of paper and figures. If only we can tide over this year, he says. The business is bound to go. If only we can tide over this year, I says, then it'll be if only we can tide over next year. I know you, I says, and you don't catch me screwing myself lean and ugly. Why didn't you marry a slavey, I says, if you wanted one, instead of a respectable girl, I says. So, Mrs. Coombs, but we will not follow this unedifying conversation further. Suffice it that Mr. Coombs was very satisfactorily disposed of, and they had a snug little time round the fire. Then Mrs. Coombs went to get the tea, and Jenny sat coquettishly on the arm of Mr. Clarence's chair until the tea things clattered outside. What was that I heard? asked Mrs. Coombs playfully as she entered, and there was a bad nudge about kissing. They were just sitting down to the little circular table when the first intimation of Mr. Coombs' return was heard. This was a fumbling at the latch of the front door. Here's my lord, said Mrs. Coombs, went out like a lion and comes back like a lamb all day. Something fell over in the shop, a chair it sounded like. Then there was a sound as of some complicated step exercise in the passage. Then the door opened and Coombs appeared. But it was Coombs' transfigured. The immaculate collar had been torn carelessly from his throat. His carefully brushed silk hat, half full of a crush of fungi, was under one arm. His coat was inside out, and his waistcoat adorned with bunches of yellow blossomed fursy. These little eccentricities of Sunday costume, however, were quite overshadowed by the change in his face. It was livid white. His eyes were unnaturally large and bright, and his pale blue lips were drawn back in a cheerless grin. Murray, he said. He had stopped dancing to open the door. Rational enjoyment dance? He made three fantastic steps into the room and stood bowing. Jim, shrieked Mrs. Coombs and Mr. Clarence sat petrified with a dropping lower jaw. T, said Mr. Coombs, jolly thing, T. Toastles, too, brochure. He's drunk, said Jenny, in a weak voice. Never before had she seen this intense pallor in a drunken man or such shining, dilated eyes. Mr. Coombs held out a handful of scarlet agaric to Mr. Clarence. Joe Stuff, said he. To some. At that moment he was genial. Then at the sight of their startled faces he changed with the swift transition of insanity into overbearing fury, and it seemed as if he had suddenly recalled the quarrel of his departure. In such a huge voice as Mrs. Coombs had never heard before he shouted, My house, I'm master here, eat what I give you. He bawled this as it seemed without an effort, without a violent gesture, standing there as motionless as one who whispers, holding out a handful of fungus. Clarence approved himself a-coward. He could not meet the mad fury in Coombs' eyes. He rose to his feet, pushing back his chair, and turned, stooping. At that Coombs rushed him. Jenny saw her opportunity, and with the ghost of a shriek made for the door. Mrs. Coombs followed her. Clarence tried to dodge. Overwent the tea-table with a smash as Coombs clutched him by the collar and tried to thrust the fungus into his mouth. Clarence was content to leave his collar behind him and shot out into the passage with red patches of fly agaric still adherent to his face. Shut him in! cried Mrs. Coombs, and would have closed the door, but her supports deserted her. Jenny saw the shop door open and vanished, thereby locking it behind her, while Clarence went on hastily into the kitchen. Mr. Coombs came heavily against the door, and Mrs. Coombs finding the key was inside, fled upstairs, and locked herself in the spare bedroom. So the new comfort to Joie de Viva emerged upon the passage, his decorations a little scattered, but that respectable hatful of fungi still under his arm. He hesitated at the three ways and decided on the kitchen, whereupon Clarence, who was fumbling with the key, gave up the attempt to imprison his host and fled into the scullery, only to be captured before he could open the door into the yard. Mr. Clarence is singularly reticent of the details of what occurred. It seems that Mr. Coombs' transitory irritation had vanished again, and he was once more a genial play-fellow. And as there were knives and meat-choppers about, Clarence very generously resolved to humor him, and so avoid anything tragic. It is beyond dispute that Mr. Coombs played with Mr. Clarence to his heart's content. They could not have been more playful and familiar if they had known each other for years. He insisted gaily on Clarence trying the fungi, and after a friendly tussle was smitten with remorse at the mess he was making of his guest's face. It also appears that Clarence was dragged under the sink and his face scrubbed with the blacking brush, he being still resolved to humor the lunatic at any cost. And that finally, in a somewhat dishevelled, jipped and discolored condition, he was assisted to his coat and shown out by the back door, the shopway being barred by Jenny. Mr. Coombs' wandering thoughts then turned to Jenny. Jenny had been unable to unfasten the shop door, but she shot the bolts against Mr. Coombs' latch-key and remained in possession of the shop for the rest of the evening. It would appear that Mr. Coombs then returned to the kitchen. Still, in pursuit of gaily, and albeit a strict good Templar, drank, or spilt down the front of his first and only frock-coat, no less than five bottles of the stout Mrs. Coombs insisted upon having for her health's sake. He made cheerful noises by breaking off the necks of the bottles with several of his wife's wedding present dinner plates, and during the earlier part of this great drunk he sang Divers' Merry Ballads. He cut his finger rather badly with one of the bottles, the only bloodshed in this story, and what with that, and the systematic convulsion of his inexperienced physiology by the licorice brand of Mrs. Coombs' stout, it may be the evil of the fungus poison was somehow elade. But we prefer to draw a veil over the concluding incidents of this Sunday afternoon. They ended in the coal cellar in a deep and healing sleep. And interval of five years elapsed. Again it was a Sunday afternoon in October, and again Mr. Coombs walked through the pine wood beyond the canal. He was still the same dark-eyed, black-moustached little man that he was at the outset of the story, but his double chin was now scarcely so illusory as it had been. His overcoat was new, with a velvet lapel and a stylish collar with turned-down corners free of any coarse starchiness had replaced the original all-around article. His hat was glossy, his gloves newish, though one finger had split and been carefully mended, and a casual observer would have noticed about him a certain rectitude of bearing, a certain erectness of head that marks the man who thinks well of himself. He was a master now, with three assistants. Beside him walked a larger sunburnt parody of himself, his brother Tom just back from Australia. They were recapitulating their early struggles and Mr. Coombs had just been making a financial statement. It's a very nice little business, Jim, said brother Tom. In these days of competition, you're jolly lucky to have worked it up so, and you're jolly lucky too to have a wife who's willing to help you like yours does. Between ourselves, said Mr. Coombs, it wasn't always so. It wasn't always like this. To begin with, the Mrs. was a bit giddy. Girls are funny creatures. Dear me. Yes, you'd hardly think it, but she was downright extravagant and always having slaps at me. I was a bit too easy and loving, and all that, and she thought the whole blessed show was run for her. Turned the house into a regular caravansary, always having her relations and girls from business end and their chaps. Comic songs a Sunday it was getting to, and driving trade away. And she was making eyes at the chaps too. I tell you, Tom, the place wasn't my own. Shouldn't have thought it. It was so. Well, I reasoned with her. I said, I ain't a duke to keep a wife like a pet animal. I married you for help and company, I said. You got to help and pull the business through. She wouldn't hear of it. Very well, I says. I'm a mild man till I'm roused, I says, and it's getting to that. But she wouldn't hear of no warnings. Well, it's the way with women. She didn't think I had it in me to be roused. The women of her sort, between ourselves, Tom, don't respect a man until they're a bit afraid of him. So I just broke out to show her. In comes a girl named Jenny that used to work with her and her chap. We'd had a bit of a row, and I came out here. It was just such another day as this, and I thought it all out. Then I went back and pitched into them. You did? I did. I was mad, I can tell you. I wasn't going to hit her if I could help it, so I went back and licked into this chap just to show her what I could do. He was a big chap, too. Well, I chucked him and smashed things about and gave her a scaring, and she ran up and locked herself into the spare room. Well, that's all. I says to her the next morning, now you know, I says, what I'm like when I'm roused, and I didn't have to say anything more. And you've been happy ever after, eh? So to speak, there's nothing like putting your foot down with them. If it hadn't been for that afternoon, I should have been tramping the roads now, and she'd have been grumbling at me, and all her family grumbling for bringing her to poverty. I know there are little ways. But we're all right now, and it's a very decent little business, as you say. They proceeded on their way meditatively. Women are funny creatures, said Brother Tom. They want a firm hand, said Coombs. What a lot of these funguses there are about here, remarked Brother Tom presently. I can't see what use they are in the world. Mr. Coombs looked. I'd say they're sent for some wise purpose, said Mr. Coombs. And that was as much thanks as the Purple Pilius ever got for maddening this absurd little man to the pitch of decisive action, and so altering the whole course of his life. End of The Purple Pilius by H. G. Wells A slander by Anton Chekhov This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Sergei Kapitonich Ahinehev The writing master was mirroring his daughter to the teacher of history and geography. The wedding festivities were going off most successfully. In the drawing room, there was singing, playing, and dancing. Waiters hired from the club were flitting distractedly about the room, dressed in black swallowtails and dirty white ties. There was a continual hubbub and din of conversation. Sitting side-by-side on the sofa, the teacher of mathematics, Tarantelov, the French teacher, Badecois, and the junior assessor of taxes, Mista, were talking hurriedly and interrupting one another, as they described to the guests cases of persons being buried alive and gave their opinions on spiritualism. None of them believed in spiritualism, but all admitted that there were many things in this world which would always be beyond the mind of man. In the next room, the literature master Dodonsky was explaining to the visitors the cases in which a sentry has the right to fire on passersby. The subjects, as you perceive, were alarming, but very agreeable. Persons whose social position precluded them from entering were looking in at the windows from the yard. Just at midnight, the master of the house went into the kitchen to see whether everything was ready for supper. The kitchen from floor to ceiling was filled with fumes composed of goose, duck, and many other odors. On two tables, the accessories, the drinks, and light refreshments, were set out in artistic disorder. The cook, Marfa, a red-faced woman whose figure was like a barrel with a belt around it, was bustling about the tables. Show me the sturgeon, Marfa! said Ahineev, rubbing his hands and licking his lips. What a perfume! I could eat up the whole kitchen. Come, show me the sturgeon! Marfa went up to one of the benches and cautiously lifted a piece of greasy newspaper. Under the paper, on an immense dish, there reposed a huge sturgeon, masked in jelly, and decorated with capers, olives, and carrots. Ahineev, glade gazed at the sturgeon and gasped. His face beamed. He turned his eyes up. He bent down, and with his lips emitted the sound of an ungreased wheel. After standing a moment, he snapped his fingers with delight, and once more smacked his lips. Aha! The sound of a passionate kiss! Who is it you're kissing out there, little Marfa? Came a voice from the next room, and in the doorway there appeared the cropped head of the assistant usher, Vankin. Who is it? Aha! Delighted to meet you, Sturge, Kapitonich, you're a fine grandfather, I must say. Tate-a-tate with the fair-sex tet! I'm not kissing, said Ahineev in confusion. Who told you so, you fool? I was only, I smacked my lips, in reference to, as an indication of, pleasure, at the sight of the fish. Tell that to the marines, the intrusive face vanished, wearing a broad grin. Ahineev flushed. Hang it, he thought. The beast will go now and talk scandal. He'll disgrace me to all the town, the brute. Ahineev went timidly into the drawing-room, and looked stealthily round for Vankin. Vankin was standing by the piano, and bending down with a jaunty air, was whispering something to the inspector's sister-in-law, who was laughing. Talking about me, thought Ahineev. About me! Blast him. And she believes it. Believes it! She laughs. Mercy on us. No, I can't let it pass. I can't. I must do something to prevent this being believed. I'll speak to them all, and he'll be shown up for a fool and a gossip. Ahineev scratched his head, and, still overcome with embarrassment, went up to Padeqois. I'd just been in the kitchen to see after the supper, he said to the Frenchman. I know you are found a fish, and I have a sturgeon, my dear fellow, beyond everything. A yard and a half long! Ha-ha-ha! And, by the way, I was just forgetting, in the kitchen just now, with that sturgeon, quite a little story. I went into the kitchen just now, and wanted to look at the supper dishes. I looked at the sturgeon, and I smacked my lips with relish, at the piquancy of it. And, at the very moment, that fool, Vangine, came in and said, Ha-ha-ha! So you're kissing here, kissing Marfa the cook. What a thing to imagine, silly fool. The woman is a perfect fright, like all the beasts put together, and he talks about kissing. Queer fish. Who's a queer fish? asked Tarantula of, coming up, why he over there, Vangine. I went into the kitchen, and he told the story of Vangine. He amused me, queer fish. I'd rather kiss a dog than Marfa, if you ask me, added Vahine. He looked around and saw behind him, Miesda. We were talking of Vangine, he said. Queer fish he is. He went into the kitchen, saw me beside Marfa, and began inventing all sorts of silly stories. Why are you kissing, he says? He must have had a drop too much. And I'd rather kiss a turkey cock than Marfa, I said. And I have a wife of my own, you fool, said I. He did amuse me. Who amused you, asked the priest who taught scripture at the school, going up to Ahineev. Vangine, I was standing in the kitchen, you know, looking at the sturgeon, and so on. Within half an hour or so, all the guests knew the incident of the sturgeon and Vangine. Let him tell away now, thought Ahineev rubbing his hands. Let him. He'll begin telling you his story, and they'll say to him at once, enough of your improbable nonsense, you fool, we know all about it. And Ahineev was so relieved that in his joy he drank four glasses too many. After escorting the young people to their room, he went to bed and slept like an innocent babe. And next day he thought no more of the incident with the sturgeon. But alas, man proposes, but God disposes. An evil tongue did its evil work, and Ahineev's strategy was of no avail. Just a week later, to be precise, on Wednesday after the third lesson, when Ahineev was standing in the middle of the teacher's room, holding forth on the vicious propensities of a boy called Vizekin, the headmaster, went up to him and drew him aside. Look here, Sergei Kapitonich, said the headmaster. You must excuse me. It's not my business, but all the time I must make you realize it's my duty. You see, there are rumors that you are romancing with that cook. It's nothing to do with me, but flirt with her. Kiss her, as you please. But don't let it be so public. Please, I entreat you. Don't forget that you're a schoolmaster. Ahineev turned cold and faint. He went home like a man stung by a whole swarm of bees, like a man scalded with boiling water. As he walked home, it seemed to him that the whole town was looking at him, as though he were smeared with pitch. At home, fresh trouble awaited him. Why aren't you gobbling up your food, as usual? His wife asked him at dinner. Why are you so pensive about it, brooding over your amours, pining for your marfa? I know all about it, Muhabedin. Kind friends have opened my eyes. Oh, you savage! She slapped him in the face. He got up from the table, not feeling the earth under his feet. And feeling, without his hat or coat, made his way to Vankin. He found him at home. You scoundrel, he addressed him. Why have you covered me with mud before all the town? Why did you set this slander going about me? What slander? What are you talking about? Who was it gossiped of my kissing marfa? Wasn't it you? Tell me that. Wasn't it you, you pregand? Vankin blinked and twitched in every fiber of his battered countness, raised his eyes to the icon and articulated. God bless me! Strike me blind and lay me out if I said a single word about you. May I be left without house and home. May I be stricken with worse than cholera. Vankin's sincerity did not admit up-doubt. It was evidently not he who was the author of the slander. But who, then, who, I didn't have wondered, going over all his acquaintances in his mind and beating himself on his breast? Who, then? Who, then? We, too, asked the reader. End of A Slander by Anton Chekhov. Red by Daryl Neely. This is a LibriWox recording. All LibriWox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriWox.org. Recording by Chassie. There is snow and yonder, cold gray sky of the morning. And through the partially frosted windowpains, I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm. A few feathery flakes are scattered wildly through the air and hover downward with uncertain flight. Now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere. These are not the big flakes, heavy with moisture, which melt as they touch the ground and are potentiaries of a soaking rain. It is to be, in good earnest, in good earnest, a wintry storm. The two or three people, visible on the sidewalks, have an aspect of endurance, a blue-nosed frosty fortitude which is evidently assumed in anticipation of a comfortless and blustering day. By nightfall, or at least before the sun, sheds another glimmering smile upon us, the street and our little garden will be heaped with mountain snowdrifts. The soil, already frozen for weeks past, is prepared to sustain whatever burden may be laid upon it. And, to a northern eye, the landscape will lose its melancholy bleakness and acquire a beauty of its own, when Mother Earth, like her children, shall have put on the fleecy garb of her winter's wear. The cloud spirits are slowly weaving her white mantle. As yet, indeed, there is barely a rhyme-like half-rost over the brown surface of the street. The withered green of the grass-plat is still discernible, and the slated roofs of the houses do but begin to look gray instead of black. All the snow that has yet fallen within the circumference of my view, word heaped up together, would hardly equal the hillock of a grave. Thus, gradually, by silent and stealthy influences, are great changes wrought. These little snow particles, which the storm-spirit flings by handfuls through the air, will bury the great Earth under their accumulated mass, nor permit her to behold her sister's sky again for dreary months. We, likewise, shall lose sight of our Mother's familiar visage, and must content ourselves with looking heavenward the orphan. Now, leaving a storm to do his appointed office, let us sit down, pen in hand, by our fireside. Gloomy as it may seem, there is an influence productive of cheerfulness and favorable to imaginative thought in the atmosphere of a snowy day. The native of a sudden climb may woo the muse beneath the heavy shade of summer foliage, reclining on banks of turf, while the sound of singing birds and wobbling rivulets chimes in with the music of his soul. In our brief summer, I do not think, but only exist in the wake enjoyment of a dream. My hour of inspiration, if that hour ever comes, is when the green log hisses upon the hearth, and a bright flame, brighter for the gloom of the chamber, rustles high up the chimney, and the colds drop tinkling down among the growing heaps of ashes. When the casement rattles in the gust, and the snowflakes or the sleety raindrops pelt hard against the windowpains, then I spread out my sheet of paper with the certainty that thoughts and fancies will gleam forth upon it, like stars at twilight or like violets in May, perhaps to fade as soon. However transitory their glow, they at least shine amid the dark some shadow which the clouds of the outward sky fling through the room. Blessed, therefore, and reverently welcomed by me, her true-born son, be New England's winter, which makes us, one and all, the nurslings of the storm, and sings a familiar lullaby, even in the wildest treak of the December blast. Now look we forth again, and see how much of his task the storm spirit has done. Slow and sure, he has the day, perchance the week before him, and may take his own time to accomplish nature's burial in snow. A smooth mantle is scarcely yet thrown over the winter grass-plat, and the dry stalks of annuals still thrust themselves through the white surface in all parts of the garden. The leafless rose bushes stand shivering in a shallow snowdrift, looking, poor things, as disconsolate as if they possessed a human consciousness of the dreary scene. This is a sad time for the shrubs that do not perish with the summer. They neither live nor die. What they retain of life seems but the chilling sense of death. Very sad are the flower shrubs in midwinter. The roofs of the houses are now all white, safe where the eddying wind has kept them bare at the bleak corners. To discern the real intensity of the storm, we must fix upon some distant object, as yonder spire, and observe how the riotous gust fights with the descending snow throughout the interweaning space. Sometimes the entire prospect is obscured. Then again, we have a distinct but transient glimpse of the tall steeple like a giant's ghost. And now the dense reefs sweep between, as if demons were flinging snowdrifts at each other in mid-air. Look next into the street, where we have seen an amusing parallel to the combat of those fancy demons in the upper regions. It is a snow battle of schoolboys. What a pretty satire and war and military glory might be written in the form of a child's story by describing the snowball fights of two rival schools. The alternates defeats and victories of each, and the final triumph of one party, or perhaps of neither. What pitched battles worthy to be chanted in Homeric strains. What storming of fortresses built all of massive snow blocks. What feeds of individual prowess and embodied onsets of martial enthusiasm. And when some well-contested and decisive victory had put a period to the war, both armies should unite to build a lofty monument of snow upon the battlefield and crown it with the victor's statue, ewn of the same frozen marble. In a few days or weeks thereafter, the passer-by would observe a shapeless mound upon the level common, and, unmindful of the famous victory, would ask, how came it there? Who reared it? And what means it? The shattered pedestal of many a battle monument has provoked these questions where none could answer. Turn we again to the fireside and sit musing there, landing our ears to the wind, till perhaps it shall seem like an articulate voice and dictate wild and airy matter for the pen. Would it might inspire me to sketch out the personification of a new England winter? And that idea, if I can't seize the snow-readed figures that flinch before my fancy, shall be the theme of the next page. How does winter herald his approach? By the shrieking blast of latter autumn, which is nature's cry of lamentation, as the destroyer rushes among the shivering groves where she has lingered, and scatters the seal-leaves upon the tempest. When that cry is heard, the people wrap themselves in cloaks and shake their heads disconsolently, saying, winter is at hand. Then the acts of the woodcutter echo sharp and diligently in the forest. Then the coy merchants rejoice, because each shriek of nature in her agony adds something to the price of coal per ton. Then the peach smoke spreads its aromatic fragrance through the atmosphere. A few days more, and at even tide, the children look out of the window and dimly perceive the flaunting of a snowy mantle in the air. It is stern winter's wester. They crowd around the hearth and cling to their mother's gown or press between their father's knees, affrighted by the hollow, roaring voice that bellows adorn the white flu of the chimney. It is the voice of winter, and when parents and children hear it, they shudder and exclaim, winter has come. Cold winter has begun its reign already. Now, throughout New England, each hearth becomes an altar, sending up the smoke of a continued sacrifice to the immeasurable deity who tyrannizes over forest, countryside, and town. Wrapped in his white mantle, his staff a huge icicle, his beard and hair a wind-tossed snowdrift, he travels over the land in the midst of the northern blast, and woe to the homeless wanderer whom he finds upon his path. There he lies, stark and stiff, a human shape of ice, on the spot where winter overtook him. On strides the tyrant over the rushing rivers and broad lakes, which turn to rock beneath his footsteps, his dreary empire is established. All around stretches the desolation of the pole. Yet, not ungrateful be his new England children, for winter is our sire, though a stern and rough one, not ungrateful even for the severities which have nourished our unyielding strength of character. And let us thank him, too, for the sleigh rides cheered by the music of merry bells, for the crackling and rustling hearth when a ruddy firelight gleams on hardy manhood and the blooming cheek of woman, for all the home enjoyments and the kindred virtues which flourish in a frozen soil. Not that we grieve when, after some seven months of storm and bitter frost, spring, in the guise of a flower-crowned virgin, is seen driving away the horrid desperate, pelting him with violets by the handful and stirring green grass on the path behind him. Often, ere he will give up his empire, old winter rushes fiercely back and hurls a snowdrift at the shrinking form of spring. Yet, step by step, he is compelled to retreat northward and spends the summer months within the arctic circle. Such fantasies, intermixed among graver toils of mind, have made the winter's day pass pleasantly. Meanwhile, the storm has raged without abatement and now, as the brief afternoon declines, is tossing dens of volumes to and fro about the atmosphere. On the windowsill, there is a layer of snow, reaching halfway up the lowest pane of glass. The garden is one unbroken bed. Along the street are two or three spots of uncovered earth, where the gust has whirled away the snow, heaping it elsewhere to the fanstops or piling huge banks against the doors of houses. A solitary passenger is seen, now striding mid-leg deep across the drift, now scutting over the bare ground, while his cloak is swollen with the wind. And now the chingling of bells, a sluggish sound, responsive to the horses' toilsome progress through the unbroken drifts, announces the passage of a sleigh, with a boy clinging behind and ducking his head to escape detection by the driver. Next comes a sledge, laden with wood for some unfrifty housekeeper, whom winter has surprised at a cold half. But what dismal echo pitch now struggles along the uneven street? A sable hearse, bestrune with snow, is burying a dead man through the storm to his frozen bed. Oh, how dreary is the burial in winter, when the bosom of Mother Earth has no warm for her poor child. Evening, the early eve of December, begins to spread its deepening wail over the comfortless scene. The firelight gradually brightens and throws my flickering shadow upon the walls and ceiling of the chamber. But still the storm rages and rattles against the windows. Alas, I shiver and think it time to be disconciled. But, taking a farewell glance at that nature in her shroud, I perceive a flock of snowbirds, skimming lightsomely through the tempest and flitting from drift to drift as sportively as swallows in the delightful prime of summer. When's come day? Where do they build their nests and seek their food? Why, having airy wings, do they not follow summer around the earth, instead of making themselves the playmates of the storm and fluttering on the dreary verge of the winter's eve? I know not when's they come, know why. Yet my spirit has been cheered by that one-ring flock of snowbirds. End of Snowflakes by Nathaniel Hawthorne.