Edith and John Part 37

"I'll be sanctified to see it," said the ring-master.

Peter arose with kingly mien, shaking the rheumatism out of his joints and the gout out of his toes, and then swelling out his breast to a boa constrictor size after swallowing a goat, wheezing like a horse with the heaves. He led the way, with his robe dragging on the carpet, to circ.u.mnavigate the building, the ghost and the ring-master following, respectively, with the sanctimonious bearing of laymen following a high-priest.

"The kiddies are out this evening attending a party, and I have all this great house to myself--" waving his right hand around like a preacher of the Word. "We will go up the stairs first."

Up the stairs Peter went, the ghost next after him, looking ahead and considering fearfully what he would feel like should the king lose his balance, in mounting the steps, which he seemed likely to do constantly as he elevated himself lift after lift, so clumsily did Peter climb; and the circus-master took his time, a safe distance behind, with a sweet air of pa.s.sivity in his patience over Peter's laughable pomposity.

Peter led the way through brilliant halls and brilliant rooms, without a dark corner in any of them, nor even a blind closet in which to conceal the proverbial family ghost; which shadowy being, however, was not likely to seek a place of concealment in this home, since, as it happens, he had evaded all these pure pleasures of domesticity for so many years; so it would be an hazardous presumption to expect the stalker of family trouble to abide with him.

"Where're you going to keep the family ghost?" asked the real ghost.

"You old batch! Do you think I'd tolerate him round here?" said Peter, with connubial pride. "Cobb has a cinch on them all; eh, Cobb?" with a refreshened squint towards Cobb.

"Don't be so rude, Peter, as to bring me into your argumentations with Monroe here, whose own reputation needs a little stringing up,"

responded Cobb.

"Never mind your moralizing--show us your house," replied the ghost, without being the least irritated.

When they came to the bath room, they all stepped within; and the visitors were charmed. Peter took on a new halo of beamingness as he saw how delighted his patrons were over this dream of modern bathery, with its s.h.i.+ning fixtures and alabastine walls.

"Do you bathe, Peter?" asked the ghost.

"I guess, yes--every morning at eight," answered Peter, with a swell.

"Humph!" responded the ghost; "and you didn't catch cold the first time?" with no attempt to be facetious.

"Alcohol is a great preventative," answered Peter.

"Within, or without?" asked the ghost.

"Without; you mummy," retorted Peter.

"You surprise me, Peter," said Cobb, as he was testing one of the faucets; "the last time I saw you, you looked as if you hadn't touched water in years."

"Once a year then; once a day now; three hundred and sixty-five days in the year," said Peter, grinning.

"I always believed you had some redeeming qualities," said Cobb; "but how does it come you have clean water?" he asked, holding up a gla.s.sful between his eyes and the light.

"Private filter," answered the king.

"That's infernal water to turn into the public trough," remarked Cobb.

"I mean this, before it was filtered," pointing to the gla.s.sful still in his hand.

"It's all they deserve," said the king, snapping his eyes.

"When ought we to work them for a new system?" asked Cobb, emptying the gla.s.s. "Pretty decent water, this--when filtered," he observed, was.h.i.+ng his hands.

"We'll talk about water systems when we get back to business," answered the king.

"Do you wash your feet in water or alcohol?" asked the ghost.

"Don't get too fresh, Monroe, or I'll loosen up your face with some soap and water," with a hearty chuckle.

"Oh, sometimes I forget, Peter, seeing you heretofore as a bear," as a mollifier to his allusions.

"You're a corrugated donkey, Monroe," said the king, with a louder chuckle than before, rubbing his hands, this time with a towel between them.

"You're a convoluted mule," returned the ghost, tapping the enameled wall with his knuckle, as a clincher to his a.s.sertion.

"Here, here! You fellows are getting too personal," said Cobb, stepping forward, as if he expected trouble, so as to be ready as a queller of what he thought might lead to a melee.

"Hah, ha, ha!" roared Peter, strutting out like a gallinaceous c.o.c.k.

"Cobb, you must pay no attention to Monroe's foolishness," as he swept theatrically along the hallway to the stairs; but still presenting the incongruous habits of a waddling duck.

Monroe followed languidly, puckering his mouth into a low whistle, that might have meant more than the blowing out of good humor. With most men, whistling means the venting of a superfluity of joy; but with Monroe, it might have meant a cooling drop in his cup of anger. Cobb came lolling after them, in his usual undisturbed forbearance.

Debouching into the parlor, with the stellar lights trailing, the king touched a b.u.t.ton; presto! starlight, moonlight, sunlight, all together, in one grand aurora borealis, flashed mute darkness into palpitating day.

"This is my universe," cried the king, throwing up both hands, as if he were beginning the Sermon on the Mount.

"Grand!" whispered the ghost.

"Grand!" said the ring-master.

"Grand" cried back The Moses, The Napoleon, The Wellington, The Was.h.i.+ngton, The Roosevelt, The Pathfinder, The Man With the Hoe, The Babes in the Woods, The Doves, The Dieman, on the walls.

"Grand!" echoed Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Shakespeare, Milton, Poe, Irving, Longfellow, Emerson, standing about in corners and alcoves in their statuary dumbness.

"Grand!" pealed the Giant Grand resting on four legs, like an exhibition slab of mahogany, in a corner.

"Grand!" laughed the settees, the tete-a-tetes, the rockers, the cus.h.i.+ons, the chairs, as if they were ready to jump up and slap the visitors on the back and seat them down.

"Grand!" shouted the king. "Well, I should eat a bedbug, if you can surpa.s.s it in this old town for dazzle." And everything hung its head in mortification.

"Grand!" they all said, as the king entered the dining room, with its glitter and its glimmer and its splendor and its grandeur. "Here is where I eat," he remarked, after seeing his friends dumfounded and speechless.

Dumfounded? Why, of course!

Speechless? Why, to be sure!

Shucks! Who said the average man isn't a pompous idiot?

"To business, now, gentlemen; to business," said Peter, waving his hand toward his private den, where first he was greeted in his royal robes by the genteel ghost and the ring-master.

"Well?" said Peter, after seating himself in his chair of state, directing his question to Cobb.

"Let Monroe speak," said Cobb.