Delphi Complete Works of O. Henry

by O. Henry

  Our cue was there for us. Bud had made a good guess. You couldn’t lose Jacks. He chimed in next.

  “Sure thing, Miss Ileen,” he said; “the good-lookers don’t always win out. Now, you ain’t bad looking, of course — but that’s nix-cum-rous. I knew a girl once in Dubuque with a face like a cocoanut, who could skin the cat twice on a horizontal bar without changing hands. Now, a girl might have the California peach crop mashed to a marmalade and not be able to do that. I’ve seen — er — worse lookers than you, Miss Ileen; but what I like about you is the business way you’ve got of doing things. Cool and wise — that’s the winning way for a girl. Mr. Hinkle told me the other day you’d never taken in a lead silver dollar or a plugged one since you’ve been on the job. Now, that’s the stuff for a girl — that’s what catches me.”

  Jacks got his smile, too.

  “Thank you, Mr. Jacks,” said Ileen. “If you only knew how I appreciate any one’s being candid and not a flatterer! I get so tired of people telling me I’m pretty. I think it is the loveliest thing to have friends who tell you the truth.”

  Then I thought I saw an expectant look on Ileen’s face as she glanced toward me. I had a wild, sudden impulse to dare fate, and tell her of all the beautiful handiwork of the Great Artificer she was the most exquisite — that she was a flawless pearl gleaming pure and serene in a setting of black mud and emerald prairies — that she was — a — a corker; and as for mine, I cared not if she were as cruel as a serpent’s tooth to her fond parents, or if she couldn’t tell a plugged dollar from a bridle buckle, if I might sing, chant, praise, glorify, and worship her peerless and wonderful beauty.

  But I refrained. I feared the fate of a flatterer. I had witnessed her delight at the crafty and discreet words of Bud and Jacks. No! Miss Hinkle was not one to be beguiled by the plated-silver tongue of a flatterer. So I joined the ranks of the candid and honest. At once I became mendacious and didactic.

  “In all ages, Miss Hinkle,” said I, “in spite of the poetry and romance of each, intellect in woman has been admired more than beauty. Even in Cleopatra, herself, men found more charm in her queenly mind than in her looks.”

  “Well, I should think so!” said Ileen. “I’ve seen pictures of her that weren’t so much. She had an awfully long nose.”

  “If I may say so,” I went on, “you remind me of Cleopatra, Miss Ileen.”

  “Why, my nose isn’t so long!” said she, opening her eyes wide and touching that comely feature with a dimpled forefinger.

  “Why — er — I mean,” said I— “I mean as to mental endowments.”

  “Oh!” said she; and then I got my smile just as Bud and Jacks had got theirs.

  “Thank every one of you,” she said, very, very sweetly, “for being so frank and honest with me. That’s the way I want you to be always. Just tell me plainly and truthfully what you think, and we’ll all be the best friends in the world. And now, because you’ve been so good to me, and understand so well how I dislike people who do nothing but pay me exaggerated compliments, I’ll sing and play a little for you.”

  Of course, we expressed our thanks and joy; but we would have been better pleased if Ileen had remained in her low rocking-chair face to face with us and let us gaze upon her. For she was no Adelina Patti — not even on the farewellest of the diva’s farewell tours. She had a cooing little voice like that of a turtle-dove that could almost fill the parlor when the windows and doors were closed, and Betty was not rattling the lids of the stove in the kitchen. She had a gamut that I estimate at about eight inches on the piano; and her runs and trills sounded like the clothes bubbling in your grandmother’s iron wash-pot. Believe that she must have been beautiful when I tell you that it sounded like music to us.

  Ileen’s musical taste was catholic. She would sing through a pile of sheet music on the left-hand top of the piano, laying each slaughtered composition on the right-hand top. The next evening she would sing from right to left. Her favorites were Mendelssohn, and Moody and Sankey. By request she always wound up with “Sweet Violets” and “When the Leaves Begin to Turn.”

  When we left at ten o’clock the three of us would go down to Jacks’ little wooden station and sit on the platform, swinging our feet and trying to pump one another for clews as to which way Miss Ileen’s inclinations seemed to lean. That is the way of rivals — they do not avoid and glower at one another; they convene and converse and construe — striving by the art politic to estimate the strength of the enemy.

  One day there came a dark horse to Paloma, a young lawyer who at once flaunted his shingle and himself spectacularly upon the town. His name was C. Vincent Vesey. You could see at a glance that he was a recent graduate of a southwestern law school. His Prince Albert coat, light striped trousers, broad-brimmed soft black hat, and narrow white muslin bow tie proclaimed that more loudly than any diploma could. Vesey was a compound of Daniel Webster, Lord Chesterfield, Beau Brummell, and Little Jack Horner. His coming boomed Paloma. The next day after he arrived an addition to the town was surveyed and laid off in lots.

  Of course, Vesey, to further his professional fortunes, must mingle with the citizenry and outliers of Paloma. And, as well as with the soldier men, he was bound to seek popularity with the gay dogs of the place. So Jacks and Bud Cunningham and I came to be honored by his acquaintance.

  The doctrine of predestination would have been discredited had not Vesey seen Ileen Hinkle and become fourth in the tourney. Magnificently, he boarded at the yellow pine hotel instead of at the Parisian Restaurant; but he came to be a formidable visitor in the Hinkle parlor. His competition reduced Bud to an inspired increase of profanity, drove Jacks to an outburst of slang so weird that it sounded more horrible than the most trenchant of Bud’s imprecations, and made me dumb with gloom.

  For Vesey had the rhetoric. Words flowed from him like oil from a gusher. Hyperbole, compliment, praise, appreciation, honeyed gallantry, golden opinions, eulogy, and unveiled panegyric vied with one another for pre-eminence in his speech. We had small hopes that Ileen could resist his oratory and Prince Albert.

  But a day came that gave us courage.

  About dusk one evening I was sitting on the little gallery in front of the Hinkle parlor, waiting for Ileen to come, when I heard voices inside. She had come into the room with her father, and Old Man Hinkle began to talk to her. I had observed before that he was a shrewd man, and not unphilosophic.

  “Ily,” said he, “I notice there’s three or four young fellers that have been callin’ to see you regular for quite a while. Is there any one of ‘em you like better than another?”

  “Why, pa,” she answered, “I like all of ‘em very well. I think Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Jacks and Mr. Harris are very nice young men. They are so frank and honest in everything they say to me. I haven’t known Mr. Vesey very long, but I think he’s a very nice young man, he’s so frank and honest in everything he says to me.”

  “Now, that’s what I’m gittin’ at,” says old Hinkle. “You’ve always been sayin’ you like people what tell the truth and don’t go humbuggin’ you with compliments and bogus talk. Now, suppose you make a test of these fellers, and see which one of ‘em will talk the straightest to you.”

  “But how’ll I do it, pa?”

  “I’ll tell you how. You know you sing a little bit, Ily; you took music-lessons nearly two years in Logansport. It wasn’t long, but it was all we could afford then. And your teacher said you didn’t have any voice, and it was a waste of money to keep on. Now, suppose you ask the fellers what they think of your singin’, and see what each one of ‘em tells you. The man that’ll tell you the truth about it’ll have a mighty lot of nerve, and ‘ll do to tie to. What do you think of the plan?”

  “All right, pa,” said Ileen. “I think it’s a good idea. I’ll try it.”

  Ileen and Mr. Hinkle went out of the room through the inside doors. Unobserved, I hurried down to the station. Jacks was at his telegraph table waiting for eight o’clock to come. It
was Bud’s night in town, and when he rode in I repeated the conversation to them both. I was loyal to my rivals, as all true admirers of all Ileens should be.

  Simultaneously the three of us were smitten by an uplifting thought. Surely this test would eliminate Vesey from the contest. He, with his unctuous flattery, would be driven from the lists. Well we remembered Ileen’s love of frankness and honesty — how she treasured truth and candor above vain compliment and blandishment.

  Linking arms, we did a grotesque dance of joy up and down the platform, singing “Muldoon Was a Solid Man” at the top of our voices.

  That evening four of the willow rocking-chairs were filled besides the lucky one that sustained the trim figure of Miss Hinkle. Three of us awaited with suppressed excitement the application of the test. It was tried on Bud first.

  “Mr. Cunningham,” said Ileen, with her dazzling smile, after she had sung “When the Leaves Begin to Turn,” “what do you really think of my voice? Frankly and honestly, now, as you know I want you to always be toward me.”

  Bud squirmed in his chair at his chance to show the sincerity that he knew was required of him.

  “Tell you the truth, Miss Ileen,” he said, earnestly, “you ain’t got much more voice than a weasel — just a little squeak, you know. Of course, we all like to hear you sing, for it’s kind of sweet and soothin’ after all, and you look most as mighty well sittin’ on the piano-stool as you do faced around. But as for real singin’ — I reckon you couldn’t call it that.”

  I looked closely at Ileen to see if Bud had overdone his frankness, but her pleased smile and sweetly spoken thanks assured me that we were on the right track.

  “And what do you think, Mr. Jacks?” she asked next.

  “Take it from me,” said Jacks, “you ain’t in the prima donna class. I’ve heard ‘em warble in every city in the United States; and I tell you your vocal output don’t go. Otherwise, you’ve got the grand opera bunch sent to the soap factory — in looks, I mean; for the high screechers generally look like Mary Ann on her Thursday out. But nix for the gargle work. Your epiglottis ain’t a real side-stepper — its footwork ain’t good.”

  With a merry laugh at Jacks’ criticism, Ileen looked inquiringly at me.

  I admit that I faltered a little. Was there not such a thing as being too frank? Perhaps I even hedged a little in my verdict; but I stayed with the critics.

  “I am not skilled in scientific music, Miss Ileen,” I said, “but, frankly, I cannot praise very highly the singing-voice that Nature has given you. It has long been a favorite comparison that a great singer sings like a bird. Well, there are birds and birds. I would say that your voice reminds me of the thrush’s — throaty and not strong, nor of much compass or variety — but still — er — sweet — in — er — its — way, and — er— “

  “Thank you, Mr. Harris,” interrupted Miss Hinkle. “I knew I could depend upon your frankness and honesty.”

  And then C. Vincent Vesey drew back one sleeve from his snowy cuff, and the water came down at Lodore.

  My memory cannot do justice to his masterly tribute to that priceless, God-given treasure — Miss Hinkle’s voice. He raved over it in terms that, if they had been addressed to the morning stars when they sang together, would have made that stellar choir explode in a meteoric shower of flaming self-satisfaction.

  He marshalled on his white finger-tips the grand opera stars of all the continents, from Jenny Lind to Emma Abbott, only to depreciate their endowments. He spoke of larynxes, of chest notes, of phrasing, arpeggios, and other strange paraphernalia of the throaty art. He admitted, as though driven to a corner, that Jenny Lind had a note or two in the high register that Miss Hinkle had not yet acquired — but— “!!!” — that was a mere matter of practice and training.

  And, as a peroration, he predicted — solemnly predicted — a career in vocal art for the “coming star of the Southwest — and one of which grand old Texas may well be proud,” hitherto unsurpassed in the annals of musical history.

  When we left at ten, Ileen gave each of us her usual warm, cordial handshake, entrancing smile, and invitation to call again. I could not see that one was favored above or below another — but three of us knew — we knew.

  We knew that frankness and honesty had won, and that the rivals now numbered three instead of four.

  Down at the station Jacks brought out a pint bottle of the proper stuff, and we celebrated the downfall of a blatant interloper.

  Four days went by without anything happening worthy of recount.

  On the fifth, Jacks and I, entering the brush arbor for our supper, saw the Mexican youth, instead of a divinity in a spotless waist and a navy-blue skirt, taking in the dollars through the barbed-wire wicket.

  We rushed into the kitchen, meeting Pa Hinkle coming out with two cups of hot coffee in his hands.

  “Where’s Ileen?” we asked, in recitative.

  Pa Hinkle was a kindly man. “Well, gents,” said he, “it was a sudden notion she took; but I’ve got the money, and I let her have her way. She’s gone to a corn — a conservatory in Boston for four years for to have her voice cultivated. Now, excuse me to pass, gents, for this coffee’s hot, and my thumbs is tender.”

  That night there were four instead of three of us sitting on the station platform and swinging our feet. C. Vincent Vesey was one of us. We discussed things while dogs barked at the moon that rose, as big as a five-cent piece or a flour barrel, over the chaparral.

  And what we discussed was whether it is better to lie to a woman or to tell her the truth.

  And as all of us were young then, we did not come to a decision.

  STRICTLY BUSINESS

  Published the year O. Henry died in 1910, this collection offers 23 short stories.

  O. Henry, 1910

  CONTENTS

  STRICTLY BUSINESS

  THE GOLD THAT GLITTERED

  BABES IN THE JUNGLE

  THE DAY RESURGENT

  THE FIFTH WHEEL

  THE POET AND THE PEASANT

  THE ROBE OF PEACE

  THE GIRL AND THE GRAFT

  THE CALL OF THE TAME

  THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY

  THE THING’S THE PLAY

  A RAMBLE IN APHASIA

  A MUNICIPAL REPORT

  PSYCHE AND THE PSKYSCRAPER

  A BIRD OF BAGDAD

  COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON

  A NIGHT IN NEW ARABIA

  THE GIRL AND THE HABIT

  PROOF OF THE PUDDING

  PAST ONE AT ROONEY’S

  THE VENTURERS

  THE DUEL

  “WHAT YOU WANT”

  STRICTLY BUSINESS

  I suppose you know all about the stage and stage people. You’ve been touched with and by actors, and you read the newspaper criticisms and the jokes in the weeklies about the Rialto and the chorus girls and the long-haired tragedians. And I suppose that a condensed list of your ideas about the mysterious stageland would boil down to something like this:

  Leading ladies have five husbands, paste diamonds, and figures no better than your own (madam) if they weren’t padded. Chorus girls are inseparable from peroxide, Panhards and Pittsburg. All shows walk back to New York on tan oxford and railroad ties. Irreproachable actresses reserve the comic-landlady part for their mothers on Broadway and their step-aunts on the road. Kyrle Bellew’s real name is Boyle O’Kelley. The ravings of John McCullough in the phonograph were stolen from the first sale of the Ellen Terry memoirs. Joe Weber is funnier than E. H. Sothern; but Henry Miller is getting older than he was.

  All theatrical people on leaving the theatre at night drink champagne and eat lobsters until noon the next day. After all, the moving pictures have got the whole bunch pounded to a pulp.

  Now, few of us know the real life of the stage people. If we did, the profession might be more overcrowded than it is. We look askance at the players with an eye full of patronizing superiority — and we go home and practise all sorts of elocution and gestures in f
ront of our looking glasses.

  Latterly there has been much talk of the actor people in a new light. It seems to have been divulged that instead of being motoring bacchanalians and diamond-hungry loreleis they are businesslike folk, students and ascetics with childer and homes and libraries, owning real estate, and conducting their private affairs in as orderly and unsensational a manner as any of us good citizens who are bound to the chariot wheels of the gas, rent, coal, ice, and wardmen.

  Whether the old or the new report of the sock-and-buskiners be the true one is a surmise that has no place here. I offer you merely this little story of two strollers; and for proof of its truth I can show you only the dark patch above the cast-iron of the stage-entrance door of Keetor’s old vaudeville theatre made there by the petulant push of gloved hands too impatient to finger the clumsy thumb-latch — and where I last saw Cherry whisking through like a swallow into her nest, on time to the minute, as usual, to dress for her act.

  The vaudeville team of Hart & Cherry was an inspiration. Bob Hart had been roaming through the Eastern and Western circuits for four years with a mixed-up act comprising a monologue, three lightning changes with songs, a couple of imitations of celebrated imitators, and a buck-and-wing dance that had drawn a glance of approval from the bass-viol player in more than one house — than which no performer ever received more satisfactory evidence of good work.

  The greatest treat an actor can have is to witness the pitiful performance with which all other actors desecrate the stage. In order to give himself this pleasure he will often forsake the sunniest Broadway corner between Thirty-fourth and Forty-fourth to attend a matinée offering by his less gifted brothers. Once during the lifetime of a minstrel joke one comes to scoff and remains to go through with that most difficult exercise of Thespian muscles — the audible contact of the palm of one hand against the palm of the other.