'Charge It': Keeping Up With Harry
Page 4
III
WHICH IS THE STORY OF THE PIMPLED QUEEN AND THE BLACK SPOT
"Well, on our return, Mrs. Delance had a helmet and a battle-ax, withsundry accessories, emblazoned on her letter-heads and the doors ofher limousine. Here was another case of charge it, but this time itwas charged against her slender capital of good sense. Mrs. Delancewas a stout lady of the Dreadnought type. Harry settled down in thehome of his father and began to study the 'middle clahsses' with adrag and tandem and garments for every kind of leisure. The girls wentto ride with him, and naturally began to smarten their dress andaccents and to change their estimates. His 'aristocratic' friends andmanners were much in their company and ever in their dreams.
"Of course, all that began to react on the young men: if that was thekind of thing the girls liked, they must try to be in it. Slowly butsurely a Pointview aristocracy began its line of cleavage and aprocess of integration. Crests appeared on the letter-heads andlimousine doors of the newly rich. In a month or so people of brainand substance degenerated into a condition of hardened shamelessidiocy.
"Some of our best citizens went abroad, each to find his place amongthe descendants of William the Conqueror. Suddenly I discovered thatthe clerk in my office was ashamed to be seen on the street with apackage in his hands.
"Our young men began to long for wealth and leisure. They grewimpatient of the old process of thrift and industry. It was too slow.Many of them opened accounts in Wall Street.
"Young Roger Daniels had some luck there and began to advertise thefact with a small steam-yacht and a cruise. We were going as hard asever to keep up, but on higher levels of aspiration. The girls wereengaged in a strenuous contest for the prize of Harry's favor, withthat handsome young _divorcee_ well in the lead.
"Roger and his party were about to return from their cruise, and Harrywas to give them a ball at the Yacht Club.
"The day before the ball our best known physician came to see Mrs.Potter, who was ill, and cheered us up with a story. The Doctor wasyoung, attractive, and able. He had threatened every appendix inPointview, and had a lot of inside information about our men andwomen--especially the latter. He looked weary.
"'Yesterday was a little hard on me,' he said. 'It began at four inthe morning with a confinement case and ended at one A.M. There weretwo operations at the hospital, a steady stream at the office, and atwenty-mile ride over the hills. Got back in the evening pretty wellworn out. Tumbled into bed at two minutes of eleven, and was asleepbefore the clock struck. The 'phone-bell at my bedside awoke me. I letit go on for a minute. Hadn't energy enough to get up. It rang andrang. Out I tumbled.
"'Hello!' I said.
"'A voice answered. "I am Mrs. So-and-So's butler," it said. "Shewishes to see you as soon as you can get here. It's very urgent."
"'"What's the matter?"
"'"Don't know, sir, but it is serious."
"'"All right," I said.
"'My chauffeur was off for the night, so I 'phoned to the stable andgot Patrick and told him to hitch up the black mare at once, dressed,and took everything that I was likely to need in an emergency, gotinto the wagon, and hurried away in the darkness. After all, Ithought, it is something to have one's skill so much in request by therich and the powerful. It was a long ride with one horse-power, but wegot there.
"'Many windows of the great house were aglow. The first butler met mein the hall and took me to my lady's chamber--an immense room finishedin the style of the First Empire. She was half reclining and playingsolitaire as she smoked a cigarette on a divan that occupied a daisoverhung with rare tapestries on a side of the room. The effect of thewhole thing was queenly--_a la_ Recamier. She greeted me wearily andwithout rising.
"'"Sit down," said she, and I did so.
"'She turned to a good-looking maid who timidly stood near the divan.
"'"My dear little woman, you weary me--please go," she said.
"'The maid went.
"'"Dawctah," the lady said to me, "I have a nahsty little pimple onmy right cheek, and I really cahn't go to the ball, you know, unlessit is cuahed. Won't you kindly--ah--see what can be done?"
"'"A pimple! God prosper it!" I said to myself. "Has the great M.D.become a P.D.--a mere doctor of pimples?"
"'I inspected the pimple--a very slight affair.
"'"Why, if I were you, I'd just cover the pimple with a little squareof court-plaster," I said. "It would become you."
"'"What a pretty idea! That's just what I will do," she exclaimed.
"'"Please charge it, Dawctah," she said, wearily, as she resumed hersolitaire.
"'I charged a hundred dollars, but nothing could pay me for thehumiliation I suffered. Going home, I pounded the mare shamefully.'
"'You charged a good price,' I said.
"'Yes; but it's like pulling teeth to get any money out of her. Onehas to earn it twice. Worth a million, and hangs everybody up. Somehave to sue.'
"'Does nothing to-day that can be done to-morrow,' I said.
"'True,' said he; 'she don't look after her business, and thinks thatevery one is trying to cheat her.'
"'Same old story,' was my remark. I was her husband's lawyer. 'Well,dear, how much do you suppose McCrory's bill is for the last month?'he would ask her. She would look thoughtful and say: 'Oh, aboutfifteen hundred dollars.' 'My dear,' he would go on, 'it is tenthousand six hundred and forty-three dollars and twenty-four cents.''Oh, that's impossible,' she would answer. 'There's some mistake aboutit. I'll never O.K. such a bill. It's an outrage!' But the bill wasalways right.
"'I didn't suppose you would know the lady--I haven't mentioned hername,' said the Doctor.
"'I know her, but don't worry--I shall not betray your confidence. Iknew her husband. It wore him out looking after the charge-itdepartment. Now she's trying to get Harry Delance for his job.'
"'She's badly in need of a clerk,' said the Doctor, 'and I hope shegets one. He could look after the pimples as well as I can.'
"Many were getting ready for the ball, but this lady was the only oneI knew of who had spent a hundred dollars for facial improvement.Harry, however, was about to spend a thousand dollars for theimprovement of his conscience. It was one of the necessary expensesand it came about in this way:
"The day of the ball had arrived. Harry came to see me about noon. Hesaid that he had been busy all the morning with preparations for theball, but--
"He showed me a telegram. It was from Roger Daniels, and it said:
"'The recent slump in the market has put me in hell's hole. Pleasewire one thousand dollars to Bridgeport, where I am hung up. If youdo, I shall give you good collateral and eternal gratitude. If youdon't, we shall have to miss the ball. Please remember that I amwaiting at the other end of the wire like a hungry cat at amouse-hole.'
"Harry looked worried. The ball must come off, and, without Roger, itwould be like Hamlet minus the melancholy Dane. It was a specialcompliment to Roger.
"'What do you advise me to do?' he asked.
"'Pay it.'
"'It will probably be a dead loss.'
"'Probably, but it's plainly up to you. He's got in trouble keepingyour pace. To tell the honest truth, you're responsible for it, andthe public will charge it to your account. You must pay the bill orsuffer moral bankruptcy.'
"Harry was taken by surprise.
"'But I can pay for _my_ folly,' he said.
"'Yes; but when it becomes another man's folly it's stolen property,and as much yours as ever. The goods have your mark on 'em, and, byand by, they're dumped at your door. They may be damaged by dirt andvermin, but you've got to take 'em.
"'After all, Harry, why should a young man whose education has costa hundred thousand dollars, if a cent, be giving up his life tofolly? You're too smart to spend the most of your time lookingbeautiful--trying to excite the admiration of women and the envyof men. That might do in some of the old countries where thepeople are as dumb as cattle and are capable only of the emotion ofawe and need professional gentlemen to exc
ite it, and to feed upontheir substance. Here the people have their moments of weakness, butmostly they are pretty level-headed. They judge men by what they do,not by what they look like. The professional gentleman is first anobject of curiosity and then an object of scorn. He's not for us.Young man, I knew your father and your grandfather. I like you andwant you to know that I am speaking kindly, but you ought to go towork.'
"'Mr. Potter, he said, 'upon my word, sir, I'm going to work one ofthese days--at something--I don't know what.'
"'The sooner the better,' I said. 'Work is the thing that makesmen--nothing else. In Pointview everybody used to work. Now here aresome facts for your genealogy that you haven't discovered. Yourgrandfather and grandmother raised a family of nine children and neverhad a servant--think of that. Your grandmother made clothes for thefamily and did all the work of the house. She was a doctor, a nurse, ateacher, a spinner, a weaver, a knitter, a sewer, a cook, awasherwoman, a gentle and tender mother. Now we are beginning to rotwith idleness.
"'Let me tell you a story of a modern lady of Pointview.'
"Then I told him of the Doctor's call on the pimpled queen atmidnight, and added:
"'Think of that! Think of the fathomless depths of vanity andselfishness that lie under that pimple. It's a monument more sublimethan the Matterhorn. Think of the poor fellow that has to marry thathuman millstone, and be the clerk of her charge-it department.'
"'I can think of no worse luck, really,' said he. 'I wonder who itis!'
"'Doctors never give names,' I said. 'But you might look for thelittle black square of court-plaster."
"'By Jove!' he exclaimed. 'I shall look with interest.'
"The ball came off, and Roger got there, and so did the lady and thesquare of black court-plaster; and that night Harry began a new stagein his career.
"After all, Harry was no dunce, but he was not yet convinced."