III
There was a conspiracy in hand to embarrass the Idiot. The School-master and the Bibliomaniac had combined forces to give him a taste of his own medicine. The time had not yet arrived which showed the Idiot at a disadvantage; and the two boarders, the one proud of his learning, and the other not wholly unconscious of a bookish life, were distinctly tired of the triumphant manner in which the Idiot always left the breakfast-table to their invariable discomfiture.
It was the School-master's suggestion to put their tormentor into the pit he had heretofore digged for them. The worthy instructor of youth had of late come to see that while he was still a prime favorite with his landlady, he had, nevertheless, suffered somewhat in her estimation because of the apparent ease with which the Idiot had got the better of him on all points. It was necessary, he thought, to rehabilitate himself, and a deep-laid plot, to which the Bibliomaniac readily lent ear, was the result of his reflections. They twain were to indulge in a discussion of the great story of Robert Elsmere, which both were confident the Idiot had not read, and concerning which they felt assured he could not have an intelligent opinion if he had read it.
So it happened upon this bright Sunday morning that as the boarders sat them down to partake of the usual "restful breakfast," as the Idiot termed it, the Bibliomaniac observed:
"I have just finished reading Robert Elsmere."
"Have you, indeed?" returned the School-master, with apparent interest. "I trust you profited by it?"
"On the contrary," observed the Bibliomaniac. "My views are much unsettled by it."
"I prefer the breast of the chicken, Mrs. Smithers," observed the Idiot, sending his plate back to the presiding genius of the table. "The neck of a chicken is graceful, but not too full of sustenance."
"He fights shy," whispered the Bibliomaniac, gleefully.
"Never mind," returned the School-master, confidently; "we'll land him yet." Then he added, aloud: "Unsettled by it? I fail to see how any man with beliefs that are at all the result of mature convictions can be unsettled by the story of Elsmere. For my part I believe, and I have always said—"
"I never could understand why the neck of a chicken should be allowed on a respectable table anyhow," continued the Idiot, ignoring the controversy in which his neighbors were engaged, "unless for the purpose of showing that the deceased fowl met with an accidental rather than a natural death."
"In what way does the neck demonstrate that point?" queried the Bibliomaniac, forgetting the conspiracy for a moment.
"By its twist or by its length, of course," returned the Idiot. "A chicken that dies a natural death does not have its neck wrung; nor when the head is removed by the use of a hatchet, is it likely that it will be cut off so close behind the ears that those who eat the chicken are confronted with four inches of neck."
"Very entertaining indeed," interposed the School-master; "but we are wandering from the point the Bibliomaniac and I were discussing. Is or is not the story of Robert Elsmere unsettling to one's beliefs? Perhaps you can help us to decide that question."
"Perhaps I can," returned the Idiot; "and perhaps not. It did not unsettle my beliefs."
"But don't you think," observed the Bibliomaniac, "that to certain minds the book is more or less unsettling?"
"To that I can confidently say no. The certain mind knows no uncertainty," replied the Idiot, calmly.
"Very pretty indeed," said the School-master, coldly. "But what was your opinion of Mrs. Ward's handling of the subject? Do you think she was sufficiently realistic? And if so, and Elsmere weakened under the stress of circumstances, do you think—or don't you think—the production of such a book harmful, because—being real—it must of necessity be unsettling to some minds?"
"I prefer not to express an opinion on that subject," returned the Idiot, "because I never read Robert Els—"
"Never read it?" ejaculated the School-master, a look of triumph in his eyes.
"Why, everybody has read Elsmere that pretends to have read anything," asserted the Bibliomaniac.
"Of course," put in the landlady, with a scornful laugh.
"Well, I didn't," said the Idiot, nonchalantly. "The same ground was gone over two years before in Burrows's great story, Is It, or Is It Not? and anybody who ever read Clink's books on the Non-Existent as Opposed to What Is, knows where Burrows got his points. Burrows's story was a perfect marvel. I don't know how many editions it went through in England, and when it was translated into French by Madame Tournay, it simply set the French wild."
"Great Scott!" whispered the Bibliomaniac, desperately, "I'm afraid we've been barking up the wrong tree."
"You've read Clink, I suppose?" asked the Idiot, turning to the School-master.
"Y—yes," returned the School-master, blushing deeply.
The Idiot looked surprised, and tried to conceal a smile by sipping his coffee from a spoon.
"And Burrows?"
"No," returned the School-master, humbly. "I never read Burrows."
"Well, you ought to. It's a great book, and it's the one Robert Elsmere is taken from—same ideas all through, I'm told—that's why I didn't read Elsmere. Waste of time, you know. But you noticed yourself, I suppose, that Clink's ground is the same as that covered in Elsmere?"
"No; I only dipped lightly into Clink," returned the School-master, with some embarrassment.
"But you couldn't help noticing a similarity of ideas?" insisted the Idiot, calmly.
The School-master looked beseechingly at the Bibliomaniac, who would have been glad to fly to his co-conspirator's assistance had he known how, but never having heard of Clink, or Burrows either, for that matter, he made up his mind that it was best for his reputation for him to stay out of the controversy.
"Very slight similarity, however," said the School-master, in despair.
"Where can I find Clink's books?" put in Mr. Whitechoker, very much interested.
The Idiot conveniently had his mouth full of chicken at the moment, and it was to the School-master who had also read him that they all—the landlady included—looked for an answer.
"Oh, I think," returned that worthy, hesitatingly—"I think you'll find Clink in any of the public libraries."
"What is his full name?" persisted Mr. Whitechoker, taking out a memorandum-book.
"Horace J. Clink," said the Idiot.
"Yes; that's it—Horace J. Clink," echoed the School-master. "Very virile writer and a clear thinker," he added, with some nervousness.
"What, if any, of his books would you specially recommend?" asked the Minister again.
The Idiot had by this time risen from the table, and was leaving the room with the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed.
The School-master's reply was not audible.
"I say," said the genial gentleman to the Idiot, as they passed out into the hall, "they didn't get much the best of you in that matter. But, tell me, who was Clink, anyhow?"
"Never heard of him before," returned the Idiot.
"And Burrows?"
"Same as Clink."
"Know anything about Elsmere?" chuckled the genial gentleman.
"Nothing—except that it and 'Pigs in Clover' came out at the same time, and I stuck to the Pigs."
And the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed was so pleased at the plight of the School-master and of the Bibliomaniac that he invited the Idiot up to his room, where the private stock was kept for just such occasions, and they put in a very pleasant morning together.
IV
The guests were assembled as usual. The oatmeal course had been eaten in silence. In the Idiot's eye there was a cold glitter of expectancy—a glitter that boded ill for the man who should challenge him to controversial combat—and there seemed also to be, judging from sundry winks passed over the table and kicks passed under it, an understanding to which he and the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed were parties.
As the School-master sampled his coffee the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed broke the silence.
"I missed you at the concert last night, Mr. Idiot," said he.
"Yes," said the Idiot, with a caressing movement of the hand over his upper lip; "I was very sorry, but I couldn't get around last night. I had an engagement with a number of friends at the athletic club. I meant to have dropped you a line in the afternoon telling you about it, but I forgot it until it was too late. Was the concert a success?"
"Very successful indeed. The best one, in fact, we have had this season, which makes me regret all the more deeply your absence," returned the genial gentleman, with a suggestion of a smile playing about his lips. "Indeed," he added, "it was the finest one I've ever seen."
"The finest one you've what?" queried the School-master, startled at the verb.
"The finest one I've ever seen," replied the genial gentleman. "There were only ten performers, and really, in all my experience as an attendant at concerts, I never saw such a magnificent rendering of Beethoven as we had last night. I wish you could have been there. It was a sight for the gods."
"I don't believe," said the Idiot, with a slight cough that may have been intended to conceal a laugh—and that may also have been the result of too many cigarettes—"I don't believe it could have been any more interesting than a game of pool I heard at the club."
"It appears to me," said the Bibliomaniac to the School-master, "that the popping sounds we heard late last night in the Idiot's room may have some connection with the present mode of speech these two gentlemen affect."
"Let's hear them out," returned the School-master, "and then we'll take them into camp, as the Idiot would say."
"I don't know about that," replied the genial gentleman. "I've seen a great many concerts, and I've heard a great many good games of pool, but the concert last night was simply a ravishing spectacle. We had a Cuban pianist there who played the orchestration of the first act of Parsifal with surprising agility. As far as I could see, he didn't miss a note, though it was a little annoying to observe how he used the pedals."
"Too forcibly, or how?" queried the Idiot.
"Not forcibly enough," returned the Imbiber. "He tried to work them both with one foot. It was the only thing to mar an otherwise marvellous performance. The idea of a man trying to display Wagner with two hands and one foot is irritating to a musician with a trained eye."
"I wish the Doctor would come down," said Mrs. Smithers, anxiously.
"Yes," put in the School-master; "there seems to be madness in our midst."
"Well, what can you expect of a Cuban, anyhow?" queried the Idiot. "The Cuban, like the Spaniard or the Italian or the African, hasn't the vigor which is necessary for the proper comprehension and rendering of Wagner's music. He is by nature slow and indolent. If it were easier for a Spaniard to hop than to walk, he'd hop, and rest his other leg. I've known Italians whose diet was entirely confined to liquids, because they were too tired to masticate solids. It is the ease with which it can be absorbed that makes macaroni the favorite dish of the Italians, and the fondness of all Latin races for wines is entirely due, I think, to the fact that wine can be swallowed without chewing. This indolence affects also their language. The Italian and the Spaniard speak the language that comes easy—that is soft and dreamy; while the Germans and Russians, stronger, more energetic, indulge in a speech that even to us, who are people of an average amount of energy, is sometimes appalling in the severity of the strain it puts upon the tongue. So, while I do not wonder that your Cuban pianist showed woful defects in his use of the pedals, I do wonder that, even with his surprising agility, he had sufficient energy to manipulate the keys to the satisfaction of so competent a witness as yourself."
"It was too bad; but we made up for it later," asserted the other. "There was a young girl there who gave us some of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words. Her expression was simply perfect. I wouldn't have missed it for all the world; and now that I think of it, in a few days I can let you see for yourself how splendid it was. We persuaded her to encore the songs in the dark, and we got a flash-light photograph of two of them."
"Oh! then it was not on the piano-forte she gave them?" said the Idiot.
"Oh no; all labial," returned the genial gentleman.
Here Mr. Whitechoker began to look concerned, and whispered something to the School-master, who replied that there were enough others present to cope with the two parties to the conversation in case of a violent outbreak.
"I'd be very glad to see the photographs," replied the Idiot. "Can't I secure copies of them for my collection? You know I have the complete rendering of 'Home, Sweet Home' in kodak views, as sung by Patti. They are simply wonderful, and they prove what has repeatedly been said by critics, that, in the matter of expression, the superior of Patti has never been seen."
"I'll try to get them for you, though I doubt it can be done. The artist is a very shy young girl, and does not care to have her efforts given too great a publicity until she is ready to go into music a little more deeply. She is going to read the 'Moonlight Sonata' to us at our next concert. You'd better come. I'm told her gestures bring out the composer's meaning in a manner never as yet equalled."
"I'll be there; thank you," returned the Idiot. "And the next time those fellows at the club are down for a pool tournament I want you to come up and hear them play. It was extraordinary last night to hear the balls dropping one by one—click, click, click—as regularly as a metronome, into the pockets. One of the finest shots, I am sorry to say, I missed."
"How did it happen?" asked the Bibliomaniac. "Weren't your ears long enough?"
"It was a kiss shot, and I couldn't hear it," returned the Idiot.
"I think you men are crazy," said the School-master, unable to contain himself any longer.
"So?" observed the Idiot, calmly. "And how do we show our insanity?"
"Seeing concerts and hearing games of pool."
"I take exception to your ruling," returned the Imbiber. "As my friend the Idiot has frequently remarked, you have the peculiarity of a great many men in your profession, who think because they never happened to see or do or hear things as other people do, they may not be seen, done, or heard at all. I saw the concert I attended last night. Our musical club has rooms next to a hospital, and we have to give silent concerts for fear of disturbing the patients; but we are all musicians of sufficient education to understand by a glance of the eye what you would fail to comprehend with fourteen ears and a microphone."
"Very well said," put in the Idiot, with a scornful glance at the School-master. "And I literally heard the pool tournament. I was dining in a room off the billiard-hall, and every shot that was made, with the exception of the one I spoke of, was distinctly audible. You gentlemen, who think you know it all, wouldn't be able to supply a bureau of information at the rate of five minutes a day for an hour on a holiday. Let's go up-stairs," he added, turning to the Imbiber, "where we may discuss our last night's entertainment apart from this atmosphere of rarefied learning. It makes me faint."
And the Imbiber, who was with difficulty keeping his lips in proper form, was glad enough to accept the invitation. "The corks popped to some purpose last night," he said, later on.
"Yes," said the Idiot; "for a conspiracy there's nothing so helpful as popping corks."