Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

  CHAPTER XVI.

  _MR. FOGG AS A SPORTSMAN AND A SPOUSE_.

  Game was so plenty about our neighborhood last fall that Mr. Foggdetermined to become a sportsman. He bought a double-barrel gun, andafter trying it a few times by firing it at a mark, he loaded it andplaced it behind the hall door until he should want it. A few dayslater he made up his mind to go out and shoot a rabbit or two, so heshouldered his gun and strode off toward the open country. A mileor two from the town he saw a rabbit; and taking aim, he pulled thetrigger. The gun failed to go off. Then he pulled the other trigger,and again the cap snapped. Mr. Fogg used a strong expression ofdisgust, and then, taking a pin, he picked the nipples of the gun,primed them with a little powder and made a fresh start. Presentlyhe saw another rabbit. He took good aim, but both caps snapped. Therabbit did not see Mr. Fogg, so he put on more caps, and they snappedtoo.

  Then Mr. Fogg cleaned out the nipples again, primed them and leveledthe gun at a fence. The caps snapped again. Then Mr. Fogg becamefurious, and in his rage he expended forty-two caps trying to make thegun go off. When the forty-second cap missed also, Mr. Fogg thought,perhaps, there might be something the matter with the inside of thegun, and so he sounded the barrels with his ramrod. To his utterdismay, he discovered that both barrels were empty. Mrs. Fogg, who isnervous about firearms, had drawn the loads without telling Fogg. Thelanguage used by Mr. Fogg when he made this discovery was extremelydisgraceful, and he felt sorry for it a moment afterward. As he grewcooler he loaded both barrels and started afresh for the rabbits. Hesaw one in a few moments and was about to fire, when he noticed thatthere were no caps on the gun. He felt for one, and, to his dismay,found that he had snapped the last one off. Then he ground his teethand walked home. On his way he saw a greater number of rabbits than heever saw before or is likely to see again, and as he looked at themand thought of Mrs. Fogg he felt mad and murderous. He went gunningeight or ten times afterward that autumn, always with a full supply ofammunition, but he never once saw a rabbit or any other kind of gamewithin gun-shot.

  AN INDIGNANT GUNNER]

  But he forgave Mrs. Fogg, and for a while their domestic peace wasunruffled. One evening, however, while they were sitting together,they got to talking about their married life and their past troublesuntil both of them grew quite sympathetic. At last Mrs. Fogg suggestedthat it might help to kindle afresh the fire of love in their heartsif they would freely confess their faults to each other and promise toamend them. Mr. Fogg said it struck him as being a good idea. For hispart, he was willing to make a clean breast of it, but he suggestedthat perhaps his wife had better begin. She thought for a moment, andthis conversation ensued:

  "Well, then," said Mrs. Fogg, "I am willing to acknowledge that I amthe worst-tempered woman in the world."

  _Mr. Fogg_ (turning and looking at her). "Maria, that's about the onlytime you ever told the square-toed truth in your life."

  _Mrs. Fogg_ (indignantly). "Mr. Fogg, that's perfectly outrageous. Youought to be ashamed of yourself."

  _F_. "Well, you know it's so. You _have_ got the worst temper of anywoman I ever saw--the very worst; now haven't you?"

  CONFESSING THEIR FAULTS]

  _Mrs. F_. "No, I haven't, either. I'm just as good-tempered as youare."

  _F_. "That's not so. You're as cross as a bear If you were married toa graven image, you'd quarrel with it."

  _Mrs. F_. "That's an outrageous falsehood! There isn't any woman aboutthis neighborhood that puts up with as much as I do without gettingangry. You're a perfect brute."

  _F_. "It's you that is the brute."

  _Mrs. F_. "No, it isn't."

  _F_. "Yes, it is. You're as snappish as a mad dog. It's few men thatcould live with you."

  _Mrs. F_. "If you say that again, I'll scratch your eyes out."

  _F_. "I dare you to lay your hands on me, you vixen."

  _Mrs. F_. "You do, eh? Well, take that! and that" (cuffing him on thehead).

  _F_. "You let go of my hair, or I'll murder you."

  _Mrs. F_. "I will; and I'll leave this house this very night; I won'tlive any longer with such a monster."

  _F_. "Well, quit; get out. The sooner, the better. Good riddance tobad rubbish; and take your clothes with you."

  _Mrs. F_. "I'm sorry I ever married you. You ain't fit to be yokedwith any decent woman, you wretch you!"

  _F_. "Well, you ain't half as sorry as I am. Good-bye. Don't come backsoon."

  Then Mrs. Fogg put on her bonnet and went around to her mother's, butshe came back in the morning. Mr. Fogg hasn't yet confessed what hisprincipal failing is.

  * * * * *

  Mr. Fogg's life has been very troublous. He told me that he had a fitof sleeplessness one night lately, and after vainly trying to losehimself in slumber he happened to remember that he once read in analmanac that a man could put himself to sleep by imagining that hesaw a lot of sheep jumping over a fence, and by counting them as theyjumped. He determined to try the experiment; and closing his eyes, hefancied the sheep jumping and began to count. He had reached his onehundred and fortieth sheep, and was beginning to doze off, when Mrs.Fogg suddenly said,

  "Wilberforce!"

  "Oh, what?"

  "I believe that yellow hen of ours wants to set."

  "Oh, don't bother me with such nonsense as that now! Do keep quiet andgo to sleep."

  Then Mr. Fogg started his sheep again and commenced to count. He gotup to one hundred and twenty, and was feeling as if he would drop offat any moment, when, just as his one hundred and twenty-first sheepwas about to take that fence, the baby began to cry.

  "Hang that child!" he shouted at Mrs. Fogg. "Why don't you tend to itand put it to sleep? Hush, you little imp, or I'll spank you!"

  When Mrs. Fogg had quieted it, Mr. Fogg, although a little nervous andexcited, concluded to try it again. Turning on the imaginary mutton,he began. Only sixty-four sheep had slid over the fence, when Fogg'saunt knocked at the door and asked if he was awake. When she learnedthat he was, she said she believed he had forgotten to close the backshutters, and she thought she heard burglars in the yard.

  Then Mr. Fogg arose in wrath and went down to see about it. Heascertained that the shutters were closed, as usual, and as hereturned to bed he resolved that his aunt should leave the house forgood in the morning, or he would. However, he thought he might as wellgive the almanac-plan another trial; and setting the sheep in motion,he began to count. This time he reached two hundred and forty, andwould probably have got to sleep before the three hundredth sheepjumped, had not Mix's new dog, in the next yard, suddenly becomehome-sick and begun to express his feelings in a series of prolongedand exasperating howls.

  Mr. Fogg was indignant. Neglecting the sheep, he leaped from bed andbegan to bombard Mix's new dog with boots, soap-cups and every looseobject he could lay his hands on. He hit the animal at last with aplaster bust of Daniel Webster, and induced the dog to retreat to thestable and think about home in silence.

  It seemed almost ridiculous to resume those sheep again, but hedetermined to give the almanac-man one more chance, and soon as theybegan to jump the fence he began to count, and after seeing theeighty-second sheep safely over he was gliding gently in the land ofdreams, when Mrs. Fogg rolled out of bed and fell on the floor withsuch violence that she waked the baby and started it crying, while Mr.Fogg's aunt came down stairs four steps at a time to ask if they feltthat earthquake.

  The situation was too awful for words. Mr. Fogg regarded it for aminute with speechless indignation, and then, seizing a pillow, hewent over to the sofa in the back sitting-room and lay down.

  He fell asleep in ten minutes without the assistance of the almanac,but he dreamed all night that he was being butted around the equatorby a Cotswold ram, and he woke in the morning with a terrific headacheand a conviction that sheep are good enough for wool and chops, butnot worth anything as a narcotic.

  * * * * *

  Mr. Fogg has a
strong tendency to exaggeration in conversation, and hegave a striking illustration of this in a story that he related oneday when I called at his house. Fogg was telling me about an incidentthat occurred in a neighboring town a few days before, and this is theway he related it:

  "You see old Bradley over here is perfectly crazy on the subject ofgases and the atmosphere and such things--absolutely wild; and one dayhe was disputing with Green about how high up in the air life could besustained, and Bradley said an animal could live about forty millionmiles above the earth if--"

  "Not forty millions, my dear," interposed Mrs. Fogg; "only fortymiles, he said."

  "Forty, was it? Thank you. Well, sir, old Green, you know, said thatwas ridiculous; and he said he'd bet Bradley a couple of hundredthousand dollars that life couldn't be sustained half that way up, andso--"

  "Wilberforce, you are wrong; he only offered to bet fifty dollars,"said Mrs. Fogg.

  "Well, anyhow, Bradley took him up quicker'n a wink, and they agreedto send up a cat in a balloon to decide the bet. So what does Bradleydo but buy a balloon about twice as big as our barn and begin to--"

  "It was only about ten feet in diameter, Mr. Adeler; Wilberforceforgets."

  "--Begin to inflate her. When she was filled, it took eighty men tohold her; and--"

  "Eighty men, Mr. Fogg!" said Mrs. F. "Why, you know Mr. Bradley heldthe balloon himself."

  "He did, did he? Oh, very well; what's the odds? And when everythingwas ready, they brought out Bradley's tomcat and put it in the basketand tied it in, so it couldn't jump, you know. There were about onehundred thousand people looking on; and when they let go, you neverheard such--"

  "There was not one more than two hundred people there," said Mrs.Fogg; "I counted them myself."

  "Oh, don't bother me!--I say, you never heard such a yell as theballoon went scooting up into the sky, pretty near out of sight.Bradley said she went up about one thousand miles, and--now, don'tinterrupt me, Maria; I know what the man said--and that cat, mind you,howling like a hundred fog-horns, so's you could a heard her from hereto Peru. Well, sir, when she was up so's she looked as small as apin-head something or other burst. I dunno know how it was, but prettysoon down came that balloon, a-hurtling toward the earth at the rateof fifty miles a minute, and old--"

  "Mr. Fogg, you know that the balloon came down as gently as--"

  "Oh, do hush up! Women don't know anything about such things.--And oldBradley, he had a kind of registering thermometer fixed in the basketalong with that cat--some sort of a patent machine; cost thousands ofdollars--and he was expecting to examine it; and Green had an ideahe'd lift out a dead cat and take in the stakes. When all of a sudden,as she came pelting down, a tornado struck her--now, Maria, what inthe thunder are you staring at me in that way for? It was a tornado--aregular cyclone--and it struck her and jammed her against thelightning-rod on the Baptist church-steeple; and there shestuck--stuck on that spire about eight hundred feet up in the air, andlooked as if she had come there to stay."

  "You may get just as mad as you like," said Mrs. Fogg, "but I ampositively certain that steeple's not an inch over ninety-five feet."

  "Maria, I wish to _gracious_ you'd go up stairs and look after thechildren.--Well, about half a minute after she struck out stepped thattomcat onto the weathercock. It made Green sick. And just then thehurricane reached the weathercock, and it began to revolve six hundredor seven hundred times a minute, the cat howling until you couldn'thear yourself speak.--Now, Maria, you've had your put; you keepquiet.--That cat stayed on the weathercock about two months--"

  "Mr. Fogg, that's an awful story; it only happened last Tuesday."

  "Never mind her," said Mr. Fogg, confidentially.--And on Sunday theway that cat carried on and yowled, with its tail pointing due east,was so awful that they couldn't have church. And Sunday afternoon thepreacher told Bradley if he didn't get that cat down he'd sue him forone million dollars damages. So Bradley got a gun and shot at thecat fourteen hundred times.--Now you didn't count 'em, Maria, and Idid.--And he banged the top of the steeple all to splinters, and atlast fetched down the cat, shot to rags; and in her stomach he foundhis thermometer. She'd ate it on her way up, and it stood at elevenhundred degrees, so old--"

  "No thermometer ever stood at such a figure as that," exclaimed Mrs.Fogg.

  "Oh, well," shouted Mr. Fogg, indignantly, "if you think you can tellthe story better than I can, why don't you tell it? You're enough toworry the life out of a man."

  Then Fogg slammed the door and went out, and I left. I don't knowwhether Bradley got the stakes or not.