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'Charge It': Keeping Up With Harry, a fiction by Irving Bacheller |
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Chapter 3. Which Is The Story Of The Pimpled Queen And The Black Spot |
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_ CHAPTER 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, with sundry accessories, emblazoned on her letter-heads and the doors of her limousine. Here was another case of charge it, but this time it was charged against her slender capital of good sense. Mrs. Delance was a stout lady of the Dreadnought type. Harry settled down in the home of his father and began to study the 'middle clahsses' with a drag and tandem and garments for every kind of leisure. The girls went to ride with him, and naturally began to smarten their dress and accents and to change their estimates. His 'aristocratic' friends and manners were much in their company and ever in their dreams. "Of course, all that began to react on the young men: if that was the kind of thing the girls liked, they must try to be in it. Slowly but surely a Pointview aristocracy began its line of cleavage and a process of integration. Crests appeared on the letter-heads and limousine doors of the newly rich. In a month or so people of brain and substance degenerated into a condition of hardened shameless idiocy. "Some of our best citizens went abroad, each to find his place among the descendants of William the Conqueror. Suddenly I discovered that the clerk in my office was ashamed to be seen on the street with a package in his hands. "Our young men began to long for wealth and leisure. They grew impatient 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 the fact with a small steam-yacht and a cruise. We were going as hard as ever to keep up, but on higher levels of aspiration. The girls were engaged in a strenuous contest for the prize of Harry's favor, with that handsome young divorcee well in the lead. "Roger and his party were about to return from their cruise, and Harry was 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 was young, attractive, and able. He had threatened every appendix in Pointview, and had a lot of inside information about our men and women--especially the latter. He looked weary. "'Yesterday was a little hard on me,' he said. 'It began at four in the morning with a confinement case and ended at one A.M. There were two operations at the hospital, a steady stream at the office, and a twenty-mile ride over the hills. Got back in the evening pretty well worn out. Tumbled into bed at two minutes of eleven, and was asleep before the clock struck. The 'phone-bell at my bedside awoke me. I let it go on for a minute. Hadn't energy enough to get up. It rang and rang. Out I tumbled. "'Hello!' I said. "'A voice answered. "I am Mrs. So-and-So's butler," it said. "She wishes 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 and got 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, got into the wagon, and hurried away in the darkness. After all, I thought, it is something to have one's skill so much in request by the rich and the powerful. It was a long ride with one horse-power, but we got there. "'Many windows of the great house were aglow. The first butler met me in the hall and took me to my lady's chamber--an immense room finished in the style of the First Empire. She was half reclining and playing solitaire as she smoked a cigarette on a divan that occupied a dais overhung with rare tapestries on a side of the room. The effect of the whole thing was queenly--a la Recamier. She greeted me wearily and without 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 on my right cheek, and I really cahn't go to the ball, you know, unless it 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 square of 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 her solitaire. "'I charged a hundred dollars, but nothing could pay me for the humiliation 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. One has to earn it twice. Worth a million, and hangs everybody up. Some have 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 that every 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, about fifteen hundred dollars.' 'My dear,' he would go on, 'it is ten thousand six hundred and forty-three dollars and twenty-four cents.' 'Oh, that's impossible,' she would answer. 'There's some mistake about it. I'll never O.K. such a bill. It's an outrage!' But the bill was always right. "'I didn't suppose you would know the lady--I haven't mentioned her name,' said the Doctor. "'I know her, but don't worry--I shall not betray your confidence. I knew her husband. It wore him out looking after the charge-it department. 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 she gets 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 one I knew of who had spent a hundred dollars for facial improvement. Harry, however, was about to spend a thousand dollars for the improvement of his conscience. It was one of the necessary expenses and it came about in this way: "The day of the ball had arrived. Harry came to see me about noon. He said that he had been busy all the morning with preparations for the ball, 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. Please wire one thousand dollars to Bridgeport, where I am hung up. If you do, I shall give you good collateral and eternal gratitude. If you don't, we shall have to miss the ball. Please remember that I am waiting at the other end of the wire like a hungry cat at a mouse-hole.' "Harry looked worried. The ball must come off, and, without Roger, it would be like Hamlet minus the melancholy Dane. It was a special compliment 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 keeping your pace. To tell the honest truth, you're responsible for it, and the public will charge it to your account. You must pay the bill or suffer 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, by and by, they're dumped at your door. They may be damaged by dirt and vermin, but you've got to take 'em. "'After all, Harry, why should a young man whose education has cost a hundred thousand dollars, if a cent, be giving up his life to folly? You're too smart to spend the most of your time looking beautiful--trying to excite the admiration of women and the envy of men. That might do in some of the old countries where the people are as dumb as cattle and are capable only of the emotion of awe and need professional gentlemen to excite it, and to feed upon their substance. Here the people have their moments of weakness, but mostly they are pretty level-headed. They judge men by what they do, not by what they look like. The professional gentleman is first an object 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 and want you to know that I am speaking kindly, but you ought to go to work.' "'Mr. Potter, he said, 'upon my word, sir, I'm going to work one of these days--at something--I don't know what.' "'The sooner the better,' I said. 'Work is the thing that makes men--nothing else. In Pointview everybody used to work. Now here are some facts for your genealogy that you haven't discovered. Your grandfather and grandmother raised a family of nine children and never had a servant--think of that. Your grandmother made clothes for the family and did all the work of the house. She was a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a spinner, a weaver, a knitter, a sewer, a cook, a washerwoman, a gentle and tender mother. Now we are beginning to rot with 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 at midnight, and added: "'Think of that! Think of the fathomless depths of vanity and selfishness that lie under that pimple. It's a monument more sublime than the Matterhorn. Think of the poor fellow that has to marry that human millstone, and be the clerk of her charge-it department.' "'I can think of no worse luck, really,' said he. 'I wonder who it is!' "'Doctors never give names,' I said. 'But you might look for the little 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 the square of black court-plaster; and that night Harry began a new stage in his career. "After all, Harry was no dunce, but he was not yet convinced." _ |
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