The Idiot at Home

by John Kendrick Bangs

  XVI

  CONCLUSION

  MR. AND MRS. IDIOT REQUEST THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY AT DINNER ON THURSDAY EVENING, May 31, 1900 AT HALF-AFTER SEVEN O'CLOCK R.S.V.P. LAST CALL

  Handsomely engraved, a card bearing the above inscription was sent aboutthe middle of May to all the Idiot's old friends of Mrs.Smithers-Pedagog's select home for gentlemen, and it is needless to saythat they all accepted.

  "I wonder what the dickens he means by 'Last Call,'" said Mr. Brief tothe Genial Old Gentleman who occasionally imbibed. "Sounds like thewarning of the dining-car porter on a Pullman train."

  "I'm sure I can't imagine," said the other; "and what's more, I'mcontent to wait and find out. Of course you are going?"

  "I am, indeed," said Mr. Brief. "I'd travel farther than that for thepleasure of an hour with the dear old boy, and particularly now that hehas so good a cook. Dined there lately?"

  "Yes," said the Genial Old Gentleman.

  "Had any of those mulled sardines he gives you Sunday nights?"

  "More than was good for me. Ain't they fine?" said the Genial OldGentleman, smacking his lips ecstatically.

  "Immense!" said Mr. Brief. "A cook that can mull sardines like that isworth her weight in gold. Where do you suppose he got her?"

  "Why, he married her!" cried the Genial Old Gentleman, promptly. "Mrs.Idiot cooks those herself, on the chafing-dish. Didn't you know that?"

  "No," said Mr. Brief. "I happened in late Sunday night, and we had 'em.They were so awfully good I didn't do a thing but eat, and forgot toask who cooked 'em."

  "It's the way of the world," sighed the Genial Old Gentleman. "We oldbachelors have to get along on what comes to us, but the energetic chapwho goes out into the world and marries the right sort of a woman--Jove,what a lucky chap he is!"

  "There's some truth in that," agreed Mr. Brief; "but, on the whole, justthink what a terrible thing it would be to marry a bad cook, and to haveto eat everything she prepared with an outward show of delight just tokeep peace in the family."

  "That's your cautious lawyer's view of it," said the Genial OldGentleman.

  "Why the deuce don't you get married yourself, then," said Mr. Brief."If you feel that way--"

  "I don't want to," said the Genial Old Gentleman. "Fact is, Brief, oldman, all I should ever marry for would be the comfort of a home, and Ican always get that by going up to the Idiot's."

  The other invited guests were no less perplexed by the final words ofthe Idiot's invitation, and with the pleasure of accepting was mingledan agreeable curiosity to know what was meant by "Last Call." Theevening came, and all were present. It was a goodly company, and byspecial favor the children were allowed to sit up and partake; and, whatwas more, Mary, the housemaid of the old days, assisted in the servingof the dinner.

  "Seems like old times," said Mr. Whitechoker, beaming at Mrs. Pedagogand smiling pleasantly at Mary. "I shall almost expect our host to besarcastic."

  "Sarcasm, Mr. Whitechoker," said the Idiot, unfolding his napkin, "isall right in its place, but as I have grown older I haven't found thathaving given rein to it I was happier afterwards. Sometimes, no doubt,Mrs. Pedagog has thought me rude--"

  "Never!" said the ancient landlady.

  "Well, there's something worse than having others think you rude," saidthe Idiot. "That's realizing yourself that you have been so, and I hopeMrs. Pedagog will accept here and now an apology--a blanketapology--which shall cover a multitude of past sins."

  "My dear Idiot," said Mrs. Pedagog, "do you know how I have alwaysthought of you?"

  "As a son," said Mr. Pedagog. "And I have felt towards you as a father."

  "I wonder you didn't give me a thrashing once in a while, then," saidthe Idiot.

  "We have often wished to," observed Mr. Pedagog.

  "John!" cried Mrs. Pedagog.

  "Well, _I_ have," said Mr. Pedagog. "Mrs. Pedagog has all the amiableweakness of a woman towards her naughty boy. Spank him next time, notthis."

  Everybody laughed, and the Idiot rose from his place and walked to Mrs.Pedagog's side and kissed her.

  "You're a nice old mommie," he said, "and the naughty boy loves you.He'll be hanged if he'll kiss his daddy, though!" he added, with aglance at Mr. Pedagog.

  "I will," said Mollie; and she did so.

  The old Schoolmaster returned the little girl's salute with emphasis.

  "Bless you, little one!" he said, huskily. "I love you even as I lovedyour papa."

  "I'm a-goin' to kiss everybody," said Tommy; and he started in with Maryand put his little scheme through to the bitter end. "What are we goingto have for dessert?" he added, complacently, as he resumed his seat.

  "Idiot," said Mr. Brief, when the third course had been served, "what doyou mean by 'Last Call?'"

  "We are going to give up housekeeping," said the Idiot.

  "No trouble, I hope," said Mr. Whitechoker.

  "Lots!" ejaculated the Idiot. "But not very troublesome troubles. Thefact is we intend to travel."

  "To travel, eh?" said the Genial Old Gentleman. "Where?"

  "Abroad," replied the Idiot. "We have never been abroad, you know. I'vebeen abroad, and Mrs. Idiot has been abroad, but _we_ have never beenabroad. We are going together this time, and we are going to take thechildren, and for a year we propose to see Europe under the mostfavorable conditions. I think that abroad will seem a little differentif we go together."

  "Undoubtedly," said Mr. Whitechoker. "But London is a cold, godlessplace."

  "It is if you go alone," said the Idiot.

  "And Paris is vile," suggested Mr. Brief.

  "To the man who has only himself to think of," said the Idiot.

  "And Italy is dirty," said the Bibliomaniac.

  "There's water in Venice," observed the Idiot. "Not very clean water, tobe sure, but wet enough to wash the edges of the sidewalks."

  "And travel is uncomfortable," observed the Poet.

  "Admitted," said the Idiot. "Travel is about the hardest work and theworst-paid work I know of, but we cannot help ourselves. Now that we arerich we must accept the penalties imposed by modern society upon thewealthy. You never knew a rich man to lead a comfortable life, did you,Mr. Pedagog?"

  "There are few of them who seem to know how," admitted the Schoolmaster."But--you do."

  "No doubt," said the Idiot. "But you see I do not wish to beostentatiously different from my kind, so having made a fortune I amgoing to live as people of fortune do and be as uncomfortable as I knowhow."

  "I don't understand about this fortune," said Mr. Brief. "Have you runup against a rich uncle somewhere, or is this sudden wealth the resultof your inventions, concerning which we have heard so much lately?"

  "Neither," replied the Idiot. "The fact is, I made an investment someyears ago in a certain stock, for which I paid twenty-three. I sold itthree weeks ago for one hundred and sixty-three, clearing one hundredand forty dollars each on a thousand shares."

  The Poet gasped.

  "One hundred and forty thousand dollars profit!" cried Mr. Whitechoker.

  "Yes," said the Idiot, calmly, "that's about the size of it. Terrible,isn't it? Here I was a happy man; content to stay at home and toil eighthours a day for a small stipend; living in tolerable comfort, andnothing to worry over. All of a sudden this thing happens, and like allother men of wealth I must become a wanderer. I shudder to think of whatmight have happened if I'd made a million; I shouldn't have had a homeat all then."

  The guests looked at their host with amazement. To most of them he hadreached the supreme moment of his idiocy.

  "Ahem!" said the Poet. "I fail to see why."

  "Look at the ways of the millionaire and you'll see," observed theIdiot, suavely. "Given his million he gives up his house and buildshimself a small, first-class hotel in some big city, which for thegreater part of the year is occupied by servants. He next erects acountry palace at Lenox or at Newport. This he calls a cottage, thoughit usually looks more like a public library or a
hospital or aclub-house. Then he builds himself a camp, with stained-glass windows,in the Adirondacks, and has to float a small railroad in order to gethimself and his wife's trunks into camp. Shortly after these follows abungalow modelled after a French chateau, somewhere in the South, andthen a yacht warranted to cross the ocean in ten days, and to producesea-sickness twelve hours sooner than the regular ocean-steamer, becomesone of the necessities of life. Result, he never lives anywhere. Tooccupy all his residences, camps, and bungalows he has to keep eternallyon the move, and when he thinks he needs a trip to Europe he has hisyacht got ready and sends it over, going himself on a fast steamer. Hemeets his yacht at Southampton, and orders the captain to proceeddirectly to some Mediterranean port, going himself, meanwhile, toLondon. After a month of London he goes to Paris, and thence to theMediterranean port, where, after steaming aboard of the yacht for threeor four days, he sends the boat back to New York and returns himself bythe regular liner. Oh, it's a terrible thing to be a millionaire andhave nowhere to lay one's head, with every poorer man envying you, manyhating you, and hands raised against you everywhere."

  There was a pause, and the assembled company properly expressed theirappreciation of the millionaire's hard lot by silence.

  "The scheme has its advantages," observed Mrs. Idiot.

  "Some," said the Idiot. "But think, my dear, of the town house withthirty-nine servants; the Newport house with thirty-four; the camp withsixty, including gamekeepers and guides; the bungalow with thirty more,and the yacht with a captain, a crew, stewards, stewardesses, and a cookyou can't get away from without jumping overboard. Just think how thatwould multiply your troubles. You would come to me from time to time andask me how I could expect you to discharge seven butlers and four cooksin one morning, and no doubt you'd request me sometimes to stop in atthe intelligence office on my way home and employ a dozen housemaids foryou."

  "But you would have a manager for all this," suggested Mrs. Pedagog.

  "That's the point," observed the Idiot. "We'd have to have a manager,and for my part I shouldn't relish being managed. What chance would Mrs.Idiot have against a manager ahead of an army of servants of suchmagnitude? We have more than we can keep in subjection as we stand now,with this one small house. If it wasn't for Mary, who keeps an eye onthings, I don't know what we should do."

  "Well, I am glad you're rich, pa," said Tommy; "you can increase myallowance."

  "And I can have a pony," lisped Mollie.

  "Alas! Poor children!" cried the Idiot. "That is the saddest part ofwealth. Instead of bringing the little ones up ourselves, to be whollyfashionable it will be necessary to sublet the contract to a committeeof tutors and governesses. The obligations of social life hereafter willrequire that we meet our children by appointment only, and that whenthey dine they shall eat in solitary grandeur until they become sopolished in manners that their parents may once more formally welcomethem at table. All the good old democratic ways of the domestic republicare now to be set aside. Tommy, instead of yelling for a buckwheat-cakeat the top of his lungs, upon our return will request a butler inchoicest French to hand him a _pate de foie gras_; and dear littleMollie will have to give up attracting the waitress' attention by shyingan olive-pit at her and imperiously summon her by means of an electricbuzzer set to buzzing with her toe."

  "Mercy! What a picture of woe!" cried Mr. Pedagog.

  "Not altogether true, is it?" suggested the Doctor.

  "Have you ever visited Newport?" asked the Idiot.

  "No," said the Doctor, "never."

  "Well, don't," said the Idiot, "unless you wish to look upon thatpicture--a picture of life whence childhood is abolished; where _blase_little swells take the place of lively small boys, and diminutive grandduchesses, clad in regal garb, have supplanted the little daughters whobring smiles and sunshine into the life of the common people. Ah, myfriends," the Idiot continued, with a shake of his head, "there are sadsights to be seen in this world, but I know of none sadder than thoserich little scions of the American aristocracy in whose veins the goodred blood of a not very remote ancestry has turned blue through too muchhigh living and too little real living."

  "I should think you'd take that hundred and forty thousand dollars andthrow it into the sea," said Mr. Brief.

  "That would be wicked waste," observed the Idiot. "I propose to use itto win back the good old home-life, and the best way to perpetuate thatis to leave it for a time and travel. When you have travelled and seenhow uncomfortable others are, and discovered how uncomfortable you arewhile travelling, nothing can exceed the bliss of getting back to thefirst simple principles of the real home."

  "As a sensible man, why don't you stay here, then?" queried the Poet.

  "Because," said the Idiot, "if I stayed here with that hundred and fortythousand dollars on my mind I should nurse it, and in a short while I'dbecome a millionaire, and such a misfortune as that I shall neverinvite. We shall go abroad and spend--"

  "Not all of it, I hope?" said Mr. Whitechoker.

  "No," replied the Idiot. "But enough of it to mitigate the horrors ofour condition while absent."

  And so it was that Castle Idiot was closed, and that for a time at least"The Idiot at Home" became a thing of the past. Wherever he and hissmall family may be, may I not bespeak for him the kindly, evenaffectionate, esteem of those who have followed him with me throughthese pages? He has his faults; they are many and manifest, for he hasnever shown the slightest disposition to conceal them, but, as Mrs.Pedagog remarked to me the other night, "He has a large heart, and it isin the right place. If he only wouldn't talk so much!"

  THE END

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