Philip Van Doren Stern (ed)

by Travelers In Time

  "Yes, Master Henry, I'm nearly done now, and time, too, for I don't know what they'll think about me in the servants' 'all. Well, this business of the scalding was some few years before Mr. Baxter was took, and he got about again, and went on just as he'd used. And one of the last jobs he done was finishing up them actual glasses what you took out last night. You see he'd made the body of them some long time, and got the pieces of glass for them, but there was some-think wanted to finish 'em, whatever it was, I don't know, but I picked up the frame one day, and I says: 'Mr. Baxter, why don't you make a job of this?' And he says, 'Ah, when I've done that, you'll hear news, you will: there's going to be no such pair of glasses as mine when they're filled and sealed,' and there he stopped, and I says: 'Why, Mr. Baxter, you talk as if they was wine bottles: filled and sealed—why, where's the necessity for that?' 'Did I say filled and sealed?' he says. 'Oh, well, I was suiting my conversation to my company.' Well, then come round this time of year, and one fine evening, I was passing his shop on my way home, and he was standing on the step, very pleased with hisself, and he says: 'All right and tight now: my best bit of work's finished, and I'll be out with 'em to-morrow.' 'What, finished them glasses?' I says. 'Might I have a look at them?' 'No, no,' he says, 'I've put 'em to bed for to-night, and when I do show 'em you, you'll have to pay for peepin', so I tell you.' And that, gentlemen, were the last words I heard that man say.

  "That were the 17th of June, and just a week after, there was a funny thing happened, and it was doo to that as we brought in 'unsound mind' at the inquest, for barring that, no one as knew Baxter in business could anyways have laid that against him. But George Williams, as lived in the next house, and do now, he was woke up that same night with a stumbling and tumbling about in Mr. Baxter's premises, and he got out o' bed, and went to the front window on the street to see if there was any rough customers about. And it being a very light night, he could make sure as there was not. Then he stood and listened, and he hear Mr. Baxter coming down his front stair one step after another very slow, and he got the idear as it was like someone bein' pushed or pulled down and holdin' on to everythin' he could. Next thing he hear the street door come open, and out come Mr. Baxter into the street in his day-clothes, 'at and all, with his arms straight down by his sides, and talking to hisself, and shakin' his head from one side to the other, and walking in that peculiar way that he appeared to be going as it were against his own will. George Williams put up the window, and hear him say: 'O mercy, gentlemen!' and then he shut up sudden as if, he said, someone clapped his hand over his mouth, and Mr. Baxter threw his head back, and his hat fell off. And Williams see his face looking something pitiful, so as he couldn't keep from calling out to him: 'Why, Mr. Baxter, ain't you well?' and he was goin' to offer to fetch Dr. Lawrence to him, only he heard the answer: ' 'Tis best you mind your own business. Put in your head.' But whether it were Mr. Baxter said it so hoarse-like and faint, he never could be sure. Still there weren't no one but him in the street, and yet Williams was that upset by the way he spoke that he shrank back from the window and went and sat on the bed. And he heard Mr. Baxter's step go on and up the road, and after a minute or more he couldn't help but look out once more and he see him going along the same curious way as before. And one thing he recollected was that Mr. Baxter never stopped to pick up his 'at when it fell off, and yet there it was on his head. Well, Master Henry, that was the last anybody see of Mr. Baxter, leastways for a week or more. There was a lot of people said he was called off on business, or made off because he'd got into some scrape, but he was well known for miles round, and none of the railway-people nor the public-house people hadn't seen him; and then ponds was looked into and nothink found; and at last one evening Fakes the keeper come down from over the hill to the village, and he says he seen the Gallows Hill planting black with birds, and that were a funny tiling, because he never see no sign of a creature there in his time. So they looked at each other a bit, and first one says: 'I'm game to go up,' and another says: 'So am I, if you are,' and half a dozen of 'em set out in the evening time, and took Dr. Lawrence with them, and you know, Master Henry, there he was between them three stones with his neck broke."

  Useless to imagine the talk which this story set going. It is not remembered. But before Patten left them, he said to Fanshawe: "Excuse me, sir, but did I understand as you took out them glasses with you to-day? I thought you did; and might I ask, did you make use of them at all?"

  "Yes. Only to look at something in a church."

  "Oh, indeed, you took 'em into the church, did you, sir?"

  "Yes, I did; it was Lambsfield church. By the way, I left them strapped on to my bicycle, I'm afraid, in the stable-yard."

  "No matter for that, sir. I can bring them in the first thing tomorrow, and perhaps you'll be so good as to look at 'em then."

  Accordingly, before breakfast, after a tranquil and well-earned sleep, Fanshawe took the glasses into the garden and directed them to a distant hill. He lowered them instantly, and looked at top and bottom, worked the screws, tried them again and yet again, shrugged his shoulders and replaced them on the hall-table.

  "Patten," he said, "they're absolutely useless. I can't see a thing: it's as if someone had stuck a black wafer over the lens."

  "Spoilt my glasses, have you?" said the Squire. "Thank you: the only ones I've got."

  "You try them yourself," said Fanshaw. "I've done nothing to them."

  So after breakfast the Squire took them out to the terrace and stood on the steps. After a few ineffectual attemps, "Lord, how heavy they are!" he said impatiently, and in the same instant dropped them on to the stones, and the lens splintered and the barrel cracked: a little pool of liquid formed on the stone slab. It was inky black, and the odour that rose from it is not to be described.

  "Filled and sealed, eh?" said the Squire. "If I could bring myself to touch it, I dare say we should find the seal. So that's what came of his boiling and distilling, is it? Old Ghoul!"

  "What in the world do you mean?"

  "Don't you see, my good man? Remember what he said to the doctor about looking through dead men's eyes? Well, this was another way of it. But they didn't like having their bones boiled, I take it, and the end of it was they carried him off whither he would not. Well, I'll get a spade, and we'll bury this thing decently."

  As they smoothed the turf over it, the Squire, handing the spade to Patten, who had been a reverential spectator, remarked to Fanshawe: "It's almost a pity you took that thing into the church: you might have seen more than you did. Baxter had them for a week, I make out, but I don't see that he did much in the time."

  "I'm not sure," said Fanshawe, "there is that picture of Fulnaker Priory Church."

  From My World and Welcome to It, by James Thurber, with permission from the author.

  A Friend to Al

  exan

  der

  By JAMES THURBER

  "I HAVE TAKEN TO DREAMING ABOUT AARON BURR EVERY NIGHT," AN-

  drews said.

  "What for?" said Mrs. Andrews.

  "How do I know what for?" Andrews snarled. "What for, the woman says."

  Mrs. Andrews did not flare up; she simply looked at her husband as he lay on the chaise longue in her bedroom in his heavy blue dressing gown, smoking a cigarette. Although he had just got out of bed, he looked haggard and tired. He kept biting his lower lip between puffs.

  "Aaron Burr is a funny person to be dreaming about nowadays—I mean with all the countries in the world at war with each other. I wish you would go and see Dr. Fox," said Mrs. Andrews, taking her thumb from between the pages of her mystery novel and tossing the book toward the foot of her bed. She sat up straighter against her pillow. "Maybe haliver oil or Bx is what you need," she said. "B1 does wonders for people. I don't see why you see him in your dreams. Where do you see him?"

  "Oh, places; in Washington Square or Bowling Green or on Broadway. I'll be talking to a woman in a victoria, a woman holding a white lace parasol, and s
uddenly there will be Burr, bowing and smiling and smelling like a carnation, telling his stories about France and getting •off his insults."

  Mrs. Andrews lighted a cigarette, although she rarely smoked until after lunch. "Who is the woman in the victoria?" she asked.

  "What? How do I know? You know about people in dreams, don't you? They are nobody at all, or everybody."

  "You see Aaron Burr plainly enough, though. I mean he isn't nobody or everybody."

  "All right, all right," said Andrews. "You have me there. But I don't know who the woman is, and I don't care. Maybe it's Madame Jumel or Mittens Willett or a girl I knew in high school. That's not important."

  "Who is Mittens Willett?" asked Mrs. Andrews. "She was a famous New York actress in her day, fifty years ago or so. She's buried in an old cemetery on Second Avenue." "That's very sad," said Mrs. Andrews.

  "Why is it?" demanded Andrews, who was now pacing up and down the deep-red carpet.

  "I mean she probably died young," said Mrs. Andrews. "Almost all women did in those days."

  Andrews ignored her and walked over to a window and looked out at a neat, bleak street in the Fifties. "He's a vile, cynical cad," said Andrews, suddenly turning away from the window. "I was standing talking to Alexander Hamilton when Burr stepped up and slapped him in the face. When I looked at Hamilton, who do you suppose he was?"

  "I don't know," said Mrs. Andrews. "Who was he?"

  "He was my brother, the one I've told you about, the one who was killed by that drunkard in the cemetery."

  Mrs. Andrews had never got that story straight and she didn't want to go into it again now; the facts in the tragic case and her way of getting them mixed up always drove Andrews into a white-faced fury. "I don't think we ought to dwell on your nightmare," said Mrs. Andrews. "I think we ought to get out more. We could go to the country for weekends."

  Andrews wasn't listening; he was back at the window, staring out into the street again.

  "I wish he'd go back to France and stay there," Andrews snapped out suddenly the next morning at breakfast.

  "Who, dear?" said his wife. "Oh, you mean Aaron Burr. Did you dream about him again? I don't see why you dream about him all the time. Don't you think you ought to take some Luminal?"

  "No," said Andrews. "I don't know. Last night he kept shoving Alexander around."

  "Alexander?"

  "Hamilton. God knows I'm familiar enough with him to call him by his first name. He hides behind my coattails every night, or tries to."

  "I was thinking we might go to the Old Drovers' Inn this weekend," said Mrs. Andrews. "You like it there."

  "Hamilton has become not only my brother Walter but practically every other guy I have ever liked," said Andrews. "That's natural."

  "Of course it is," she said. They got up from the table. "I do wish you'd go to Dr. Fox."

  "I'm going to the Zoo," he said, "and feed popcorn to the rhinoceros. That makes things seem right, for a little while anyway."

  It was two nights later at five o'clock in the morning that Andrews bumbled into his wife's bedroom in pajamas and bare feet, his hair in his eyes, his eyes wild. "He got him!" he croaked. "He got him! The bastard got him. Alexander fired into the air, he fired in the air and smiled at him, just like Walter, and that fiend from hell took deliberate aim—I saw him—I saw him take deliberate aim—he killed him in cold blood, the foul scum!"

  Mrs. Andrews, not quite awake, was fumbling in the box containing the Nembutal while her husband ranted on. She made him take two of the little capsules, between his sobs.

  Andrews didn't want to go to sec Dr. Fox but he went to humor his wife. Dr. Fox leaned back in his swivel chair behind his desk and looked at Andrews. "Now, just what seems to be the trouble?" he asked.

  "Nothing seems to be the trouble," said Andrews. The doctor looked at Mrs. Andrews. ''He has nightmares," she said.

  "You look a little underweight, perhaps," said the doctor. "Are you eating well, getting enough exercise?"

  "I'm not underweight," said Andrews. "I eat the way I always have and get the same exercise."

  At this, Mrs. Andrews sat straighter in her chair and began to talk, while her husband lighted a cigarette. "You see, I think he's worried about something," she said, "because he always has this same dream. It's about his brother Walter, who was killed in a cemetery by a drunken man, only it isn't really about him."

  The doctor did the best he could with this information. He cleared his throat, tapped on the glass top of his desk with the fingers of his right hand, and said, "Very few people are actually killed in cemeteries." Andrews stared at the doctor coldly and said nothing. "I wonder if you would mind stepping into the next room," the doctor said to him.

  "Well, I hope you're satisfied," Andrews snapped at his wife as they left the doctor's office a half-hour later. "You heard what he said. There's nothing the matter with me at all."

  "I'm glad your heart is so fine," she told him. "He said it was fine, you know."

  "Sure," said Andrews. "It's fine. Everything's fine." They got into a cab and drove home in silence.

  "I was just thinking," said Mrs. Andrews, as the cab stopped in front of their apartment building, "I was just thinking that now that Alexander Hamilton is dead, you won't see anything more of Aaron Burr." The cab-driver, who was handing Andrews change for a dollar bill, dropped a quarter on the floor.

  Mrs. Andrews was wrong. Aaron Burr did not depart from her husband's dreams. Andrews said nothing about it for several mornings, but she could tell. He brooded over his breakfast, did not answer any of her questions, and jumped in his chair if she dropped a knife or spoon. "Are you still dreaming about that man?" she asked him finally.

  "I wish I hadn't told you about it," he said. "Forget it, will you?"

  "I can't forget it with you going on this way," she said. "I think you ought to see a psychiatrist. What does he do now?"

  "What does who do now?" Andrews asked.

  "Aaron Burr," she said. "I don't see why he keeps coming into your dreams now."

  Andrews finished his coffee and stood up. "He goes around bragging that he did it with his eyes closed," he snarled. "He says he didn't even look. He claims he can hit the ace of spades at thirty paces blindfolded. Furthermore, since you asked what he does, he jostles me at parties now."

  Mrs. Andrews stood up too and put her hand on her husband's shoulder. "I think you should stay out of this, Harry," she said. "It wasn't any business of yours, anyway, and it happened so long ago."

  "I'm not getting into anything," said Andrews, his voice rising to a shout. "It's getting into me. Can't you see that?"

  "I see that I've got to get you away from here," she said. "Maybe if you slept someplace else for a few nights, you wouldn't dream about him any more. Let's go to the country tomorrow. Let's go to the Lime Rock Lodge."

  Andrews stood for a long while without answering her. "Why can't we go and visit the Crowleys?" he said finally. "They live in the country. Bob has a pistol and we could do a little target-shooting."

  "What do you want to shoot a pistol for?" she asked quickly. "I should think you'd want to get away from that."

  "Yeh," he said, "sure," and there was a far-off look in his eyes. "Sure."

  When they drove into the driveway of the Crowleys' house, several miles north of New Milford, late the next afternoon, Andrews was whistling "Bye-Bye, Blackbird." Mrs. Andrews sighed contentedly and then, as her husband stopped the car, she began looking around wildly. "My bag!" she cried. "Did I forget to bring my bag?" He laughed his old, normal laugh for the first time in many days as he found the bag and handed it to her, and then, for the first time in many days, he leaned over and kissed her.

  The Crowleys came out of the house and engulfed their guests in questions and exclamations. "How you been?" said Bob Crowley to Andrews, heartily putting an arm around his shoulder.

  "Never better," said Andrews, "never better. Boy, is it good to be here!"

  They were swept
into the house to a shakerful of Bob Crowley's icy Martinis. Mrs. Andrews stole a happy glance over the edge of her glass at her husband's relaxed face.

  When Mrs. Andrews awoke the next morning, her husband lay rigidly on his back in the bed next to hers, staring at the ceiling. "Oh, God," said Mrs. Andrews.

  Andrews didn't move his head. "One Henry Andrews, an architect," he said suddenly in a mocking tone. "One Henry Andrews, an architect."

  "What's the matter, Harry?" she asked. "Why don't you go back to sleep? It's only eight o'clock."

  "That's what he calls me!" shouted Andrews. " 'One Henry Andrews, an architect,' he keeps saying in his nasty little sneering voice. 'One Henry Andrews, an architect.' "

  "Please don't yell!" said Mrs. Andrews. "You'll wake the whole house. It's early. People want to sleep."

  Andrews lowered his voice a little. "I'm beneath him," he snarled. "I'm just anybody. I'm a man in a gray suit. 'Be on your good behavior, my good man,' he says to me, 'or I shall have one of my lackeys give you a taste of the riding crop.'"

  Mrs. Andrews sat up in bed. "Why should he say that to you?" she asked. "He wasn't such a great man, was he? I mean, didn't he try to sell Louisiana to the French, or something, behind Washington's back?"

  "He was a scoundrel," said Andrews, "but a very brilliant mind."

  Mrs. Andrews lay down again. "I was in hopes you weren't going to