Short Fiction

“We’ve had enough of this nonsense! More than enough!”

“I think,” said Shelton, “that the use of the word ‘enough’ three times in one short speech is more than enough. It grates on me to hear or read a word reiterated like that. I suggest as synonyms ‘plenty,’ ‘a sufficiency,’ ‘an abundance,’ ‘a plethora.’ ”

“Shut your smart aleck mouth and get out!”

“Carl! Carl! Mustn’t lose temper!” said Mrs. Dittmar. “Lose temper and can’t digest food. Daddy mustn’t lose temper and be sick all nighty night.”

“Shelton just thinks he’s funny,” said Cameron.

“He’s drunk and he’ll leave my house at once!” said Dittmar.

“If that’s the way you feel about it,” said Shelton.

He stopped on the way out to bid Mrs. Dittmar’s brother good night.

“Good night, B’udder old boy,” he said. “I’m glad to have met you, but sorry to learn you’re deaf.”

“Deaf! What makes you think I’m deaf?”

“I understood your sister to say you played the piano by ear.”

Knowing his wife would have taken something to make her sleep, and therefore not afraid of disturbing her, Shelton went home, got out a bottle of Linden Scotch and put the finishing touches on his bender. In the morning Mrs. Shelton was a little better and came to the breakfast table where he was fighting an egg.

“Well, what kind of time did you have?”

“Glorious! Much more exciting than at the Frenches’. Mrs. Dittmar’s brother is a piano playing fool.”

“Oh, wasn’t there any bridge then?”

“No. Just music and banter.”

“Maybe the brother can’t play contract and I spoiled the party by not going.”

“Oh, no. You didn’t spoil the party!”

“And do we go to the Camerons’ next Wednesday?”

“I don’t believe so. Nothing was said.”

They did go next Wednesday night to the palatial home of E. M. Pardee, a friend of Gale Bartlett’s and one of the real aristocrats of Linden. After dinner, Mrs. Pardee asked the Sheltons whether they played contract, and they said they did. The Pardees, not wishing to impoverish the young immigrants, refused to play “families.” They insisted on cutting and Shelton cut Mrs. Pardee.

“Oh, Mr. Shevlin,” she said at the end of the first hand, “why didn’t you lead me a club? You must watch the discards!”

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Author’s Postscript: This story won’t get me anything but the money I am paid for it. Even if it be read by those with whom I usually play⁠—Mr. C., Mrs. W., Mr. T., Mrs. R. and the rest⁠—they will think I mean two other fellows and tear into me like wolves next time I bid a slam and make one odd.

Absentminded Beggar

This is about John Knowles. When his sister Charlotte was nine years old, she heard her mother tell Mrs. Prendergast that John, then aged twelve, was a wool-gatherer, just like his father before him. Mr. Knowles had died when Charlotte was too young to know or care what business he was in, but it kind of surprised her to learn that he had gathered wool for a living; she didn’t see how a man could make much money at that, yet her father had left his family fairly well off.

And it certainly puzzled her when her mother said John was in the same line, for John went to school every day, had a hard struggle keeping up and was obliged to study, with Mrs. Knowles’ help, evenings; or when Mrs. Knowles had company or went out to dinner, John sat in his room and wrote endless lines of poetry. Charlotte decided that Mrs. Prendergast was being kidded.

John’s teachers had nothing but words of praise for his efforts in English and English literature, and later for his English translations of Greek and Latin verse, but things like mathematics, history and physics interested him not at all and he was hardly ever able to answer a question in class. Sometimes he ignored the questions entirely, seeming not to have heard them. The women teachers were lenient with him because of his good looks and it was for this reason and the fact that he memorized whole pages of textbooks just before examination time that he was able to get by.

His absentmindedness seemed to grow worse and worse as the years passed and on his high-school commencement night he afforded his classmates much glee by appearing at the church in dinner shirt and trousers and a dark brown coat. A girl, Beth Beasley, who had loved him madly for four years, though he had never given her the slightest hope, grabbed him by the arm, led him away from the rest, explained the error in his costume and urged him to hurry home and get the right coat.

He went home and found Nora, the maid, who asked what on earth he was doing away from the church when it was just about time for the ceremonies to begin.

“There’s something the matter with my clothes,” he said.

“A hole in the trousers? I can patch it in a second.”

“No. It’s something about my coat. They told me it was the wrong color.”

“Of course!” exclaimed Nora. “You’ve got on brown when it ought to be black. Well, let’s hurry and find the black one. And you’ll have to run all the way back there.”

She found his black coat and left him in his room to make the change. He took off the brown coat, sat down on his bed a moment, mumbling what sounded like poetry; then rose and put the brown coat on again. Nora was not around to see him off.

He set out for the church once more, walking slowly. When he came to the little city park, he sat on one of the benches and mumbled more verse, much more verse. The ceremonies had been long under way and his mother and Charlotte, to say nothing of Beth Beasley, were panicky at his nonappearance among his classmates.

At length he got up and walked on. He came to a big arc-light and noted that he had not made