Coffee and Repartee Part 5

"Indeed!" returned the lady, sharply. "Very well. And I shall put in a counterclaim for the lunches you carry away from breakfast every morning in your pockets."

"In that event we'll call it off, madame," returned the Idiot, as with a courtly bow and a pleasant smile he left the room.

"Well, I call him 'off,'" was all the landlady could say, as the other guests took their departure.

And of course the School-master agreed with her.

VII

"Our streets appear to be as far from perfect as ever," said the Bibliomaniac with a sigh, as he looked out through the window at the great pools of water that gathered in the basins made by the sinking of the Belgian blocks. "We'd better go back to the cowpaths of our fathers."

"There is a great deal in what you say," observed the School-master.

"The cowpath has all the solidity of mother earth, and none of the distracting noises we get from the pavements that obtain to-day. It is porous and absorbs the moisture. The Belgian pavement is leaky, and lets it run into our cellars. We might do far worse than to go back--"

"Excuse me for having an opinion," said the Idiot, "but the man of enterprise can't afford to indulge in the luxury of the somnolent cowpath. It is too quiet. It conduces to sleep, which is a luxury business men cannot afford to indulge in too freely. Man must be up and doing. The prosperity of a great city is to my mind directly due to its noise and clatter, which effectually put a stop to napping, and keep men at all times wide awake."

"This is a Welsh-rabbit idea, I fancy," said the School-master, quietly.

He had overheard the Idiot's confidences, as revealed to the genial Imbiber, regarding the sources of some of his ideas.

"Not at all," returned the Idiot. "These ideas are beef--not Welsh-rabbit. They are the result of much thought. If you will put your mind on the subject, you will see for yourself that there is more in my theory than there is in yours. The prosperity of a locality is the greater as the noise in its vicinity increases. It is in the quiet neighborhood that man stagnates. Where do we find great business houses?

Where do we find great fortunes made? Where do we find the busy bees who make the honey that enables posterity to get into Society and do nothing? Do we pick up our millions on the cowpath? I guess not. Do we erect our most princely business houses along the roads laid out by our bovine sister? I think not. Does the man who goes from the towpath to the White House take the short cut? I fancy not. He goes over the block pavement. He seeks the home of the noisy, clattering street before he lands in the shoes of Was.h.i.+ngton. The man who sticks to the cowpath may be able to drink milk, but he never wears diamonds."

"All that you say is very true, but it is not based on any fundamental principle. It is so because it happens to be so," returned the School-master. "If it were man's habit to have the streets laid out on the old cowpath principle in his cities he would be quite as energetic, quite as prosperous, as he is now."

"No fundamental principle involved? There is the fundamental principle of all business success involved," said the Idiot, warming up to his subject. "What is the basic quality in the good business man? Alertness.

What is 'alertness?' Wide-awakeishness. In this town it is impossible for a man to sleep after a stated hour, and for no other reason than that the clatter of the pavements prevents him. As a promoter of alertness, where is your cowpath? The cowpaths of the Catskills, and we all know the mountains are riddled by 'em, didn't keep Rip Van Winkle awake, and I'll wager Mr. Whitechoker here a year's board that there isn't a man in his congregation who can sleep a half-hour--much less twenty years--with Broadway within hearing distance.

"I tell you, Mr. Pedagog," he continued, "it is the man from the cowpath who gets buncoed. It's the man from the cowpath who can't make a living even out of what he calls his 'New York Store.' It is the man from the cowpath who rejoices because he can sell ten dollars' worth of sheep's-wool for five dollars, and is happy when he goes to meeting dressed up in a four-dollar suit of clothes that has cost him twenty."

"Your theory, my young friend," observed the School-master, "is as fragile as this cup"--tapping his coffee-cup. "The countryman of whom you speak is up and doing long before you or I or your successful merchant, who has waxed great on noise as you put it, is awake. If the early bird catches the worm, what becomes of your theory?"

"The early bird does get the bait," replied the Idiot. "But he does not catch the fish, and I'll offer the board another wager that the Belgian block merchant is wider awake at 8 A.M., when he first opens his eyes, than his suburban brother who gets up at five is all day. It's the extent to which the eyes are opened that counts, and as for your statement that the fact that prosperity and noisy streets go hand in hand is true only because it happens to be so, that is an argument which may be applied to any truth in existence. I am because I happen to be, not because I am. You are what you are because you are, because if you were not, you would not be what you are."

"Your logic is delightful," said the School-master, scornfully.

"I strive to please," replied the Idiot. "But I do agree with the Bibliomaniac that our streets are far from perfection," he added. "In my opinion they should be laid in strata. On the ground-floor should be the sewers and telegraph pipes; above this should be the water-mains, then a layer for trucks, then a broad stratum for carriages, above which should be a promenade for pedestrians. The promenade for pedestrians should be divided into four sections--one for persons of leisure, one for those in a hurry, one for peddlers, and one for beggars."

"Highly original," said the Bibliomaniac.

"And so cheap," added the School-master.

"In no part of the world," said the Idiot, in response to the last comment, "do we get something for nothing. Of course this scheme would be costly, but it would increase prosperity--"

"Ha! ha!" laughed the School-master, satirically.

"Laugh away, but you cannot gainsay my point. Our prosperity would increase, for we should not be always excavating to get at our pipes; our surface cars with a clear track would gain for us rapid transit, our truck-drivers would not be subjected to the temptations of stopping by the way-side to overturn a coupe, or to run down a pedestrian; our fine equipages would in consequence need fewer repairs; and as for the pedestrians, the beggars, if relegated to themselves, would be forced out of business as would also the street-peddlers. The men in a hurry would not be delayed by loungers, beggars, and peddlers, and the loungers would derive inestimable benefit from the arrangement in the saving of wear and tear on their clothes and minds by contact with the busy world."

"It would be delightful," acceded the School-master, "particularly on Sundays, when they were all loungers."

"Yes," replied the Idiot. "It would be delightful then, especially in summer, when covered with an awning to s.h.i.+eld promenaders from the sun."

Mr. Pedagog sighed, and the Bibliomaniac, wearily declining a second cup of coffee, left the table with the Doctor, earnestly discussing with that worthy gentleman the causes of weakmindedness.

VIII

"There's a friend of mine up near Riverdale," said the Idiot, as he unfolded his napkin and let his bill flutter from it to the floor, "who's tried to make a name for himself in literature."

"What's his name?" asked the Bibliomaniac, interested at once.

"That's just the trouble. He hasn't made it yet," replied the Idiot. "He hasn't succeeded in his courts.h.i.+p of the Muse, and beyond himself and a few friends his name is utterly unknown."

"What work has he tried?" queried the School-master, pouring unadmonished two portions of skimmed milk over his oatmeal.

"A little of everything. First he wrote a novel. It had an immense circulation, and he only lost $300 on it. All of his friends took a copy--I've got one that he gave me--and I believe two hundred newspapers were fortunate enough to secure the book for review. His father bought two, and tried to obtain the balance of the edition, but didn't have enough money. That was gratifying, but gratification is more apt to deplete than to strengthen a bank account."

"I had not expected so extraordinarily wise an observation from one so unusually unwise," said the School-master, coldly.

"Thank you," returned the Idiot. "But I think your remark is rather contradictory. You would naturally expect wise observations from the unusually unwise; that is, if your teaching that the expression 'unusually unwise' is but another form of the expression 'usually wise'

is correct. But, as I was saying, when the genial instructor of youth interrupted me with his flattery," continued the Idiot, "gratification is gratifying but not filling, so my friend concluded that he had better give up novel-writing and try jokes. He kept at that a year, and managed to clear his postage-stamps. His jokes were good, but too cla.s.sic for the tastes of the editors. Editors are peculiar. They have no respect for age--particularly in the matter of jests. Some of my friend's jokes had seemed good enough for Plutarch to print when he had a publisher at his mercy, but they didn't seem to suit the high and mighty products of this age who sit in judgment on such things in the comic-paper offices. So he gave up jokes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOOING THE MUSE]

"Does he still know you?" asked the landlady.

"Yes, madame," observed the Idiot.

"Then he hasn't given up all jokes," she retorted, with fine scorn.

"Tee-he-hee!" laughed the School-master. "Pretty good, Mrs.

Smithers--pretty good."

"Yes," said the Idiot. "That is good, and, by Jove! it differs from your b.u.t.ter, Mrs. Smithers, because it's entirely fresh. It's good enough to print, and I don't think the b.u.t.ter is."

"What did your friend do next?" asked Mr. Whitechoker.

"He was employed by a funeral director in Philadelphia to write obituary verses for memorial cards."

"And was he successful?"

"For a time; but he lost his position because of an error made by a careless compositor in a marble-yard. He had written,