Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels
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Stephen Leacock >> Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels
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At length she opened her eyes and sat up.
"I must have fainted," she said, with a little shiver. "I am cold. Oh,
if we could only have a fire."
"I will do my best to make one, Miss Croyden," I replied, speaking as
gymnastically as I could. "I will see what I can do with two dry
sticks."
"With dry sticks?" queried the girl. "Can you light a fire with that?
How wonderful you are!"
"I have often seen it done," I replied thoughtfully; "when I was hunting
the humpo, or humped buffalo, in the Himalayas, it was our usual
method."
"Have you really hunted the humpo?" she asked, her eyes large with
interest.
"I have indeed," I said, "but you must rest; later on I will tell you
about it."
"I wish you could tell me now," she said with a little moan.
Meantime I had managed to select from the driftwood on the beach two
sticks that seemed absolutely dry. Placing them carefully together, in
Indian fashion, I then struck a match and found no difficulty in setting
them on fire.
In a few moments the girl was warming herself beside a generous fire.
Together we breakfasted upon the beach beside the fire, discussing our
plans like comrades.
Our meal over, I rose.
"I will leave you here a little," I said, "while I explore."
With no great difficulty I made my way through the scrub and climbed the
eminence of tumbled rocks that shut in the view.
On my return Miss Croyden was still seated by the fire, her head in her
hands.
"Miss Croyden," I said, "we are on an island."
"Is it inhabited?" she asked.
"Once, perhaps, but not now. It is one of the many keys of the West
Indies. Here, in old buccaneering days, the pirates landed and careened
their ships."
"How did they do that?" she asked, fascinated.
"I am not sure," I answered. "I think with white-wash. At any rate, they
gave them a good careening. But since then these solitudes are only the
home of the sea-gull, the sea-mew, and the albatross."
The girl shuddered.
"How lonely!" she said.
"Lonely or not," I said with a laugh (luckily I can speak with a laugh
when I want to), "I must get to work."
I set myself to work to haul up and arrange our effects. With a few
stones I made a rude table and seats. I took care to laugh and sing as
much as possible while at my work. The close of the day found me still
busy with my labours.
"Miss Croyden," I said, "I must now arrange a place for you to sleep."
With the aid of four stakes driven deeply into the ground and with
blankets strung upon them, I managed to fashion a sort of rude tent,
roofless, but otherwise quite sheltered.
"Miss Croyden," I said when all was done, "go in there."
Then, with little straps which I had fastened to the blankets, I buckled
her in reverently.
"Good night, Miss Croyden," I said.
"But you," she exclaimed, "where will you sleep?"
"Oh, I?" I answered, speaking as exuberantly as I could, "I shall do
very well on the ground. But be sure to call me at the slightest sound."
Then I went out and lay down in a patch of cactus plants.
I need not dwell in detail upon the busy and arduous days that followed
our landing upon the island. I had much to do. Each morning I took our
latitude and longitude. By this I then set my watch, cooked porridge,
and picked flowers till Miss Croyden appeared.
With every day the girl came forth from her habitation as a new surprise
in her radiant beauty. One morning she had bound a cluster of wild
arbutus about her brow. Another day she had twisted a band of
convolvulus around her waist. On a third she had wound herself up in a
mat of bulrushes.
With her bare feet and wild bulrushes all around her, she looked as a
cave woman might have looked, her eyes radiant with the Caribbean dawn.
My whole frame thrilled at the sight of her. At times it was all I could
do not to tear the bulrushes off her and beat her with the heads of
them. But I schooled myself to restraint, and handed her a rock to sit
upon, and passed her her porridge on the end of a shovel with the calm
politeness of a friend.
Our breakfast over, my more serious labours of the day began. I busied
myself with hauling rocks or boulders along the sand to build us a house
against the rainy season. With some tackle from the raft I had made
myself a set of harness, by means of which I hitched myself to a
boulder. By getting Miss Croyden to beat me over the back with a stick,
I found that I made fair progress.
But even as I worked thus for our common comfort, my mind was fiercely
filled with the thought of Edith Croyden. I knew that if once the
barriers broke everything would be swept away. Heaven alone knows the
effort that it cost me. At times nothing but the sternest resolution
could hold my fierce impulses in check. Once I came upon the girl
writing in the sand with a stick. I looked to see what she had written.
I read my own name "Harold." With a wild cry I leapt into the sea and
dived to the bottom of it. When I came up I was calmer. Edith came
towards me; all dripping as I was, she placed her hands upon my
shoulders. "How grand you are!" she said. "I am," I answered; then I
added, "Miss Croyden, for Heaven's sake don't touch me on the ear. I
can't stand it." I turned from her and looked out over the sea.
Presently I heard something like a groan behind me. The girl had thrown
herself on the sand and was coiled up in a hoop. "Miss Croyden," I said,
"for God's sake don't coil up in a hoop."
I rushed to the beach and rubbed gravel on my face.
With such activities, alternated with wild bursts of restraint, our life
on the island passed as rapidly as in a dream. Had I not taken care to
notch the days upon a stick and then cover the stick with tar, I could
not have known the passage of the time. The wearing out of our clothing
had threatened a serious difficulty. But by good fortune I had seen a
large black and white goat wandering among the rocks and had chased it
to a standstill. From its skin, leaving the fur still on, Edith had
fashioned us clothes. Our boots we had replaced with alligator hide. I
had, by a lucky chance, found an alligator upon the beach, and attaching
a string to the fellow's neck I had led him to our camp. I had then
poisoned the fellow with tinned salmon and removed his hide.
Our costume was now brought into harmony with our surroundings. For
myself, garbed in goatskin with the hair outside, with alligator sandals
on my feet and with whiskers at least six inches long, I have no doubt
that I resembled the beau ideal of a cave man. With the open-air life a
new agility seemed to have come into my limbs. With a single leap in my
alligator sandals I was enabled to spring into a coco-nut tree.
As for Edith Croyden, I can only say that as she stood beside me on the
beach in her suit of black goatskin (she had chosen the black spots)
there were times when I felt like seizing her in the frenzy of my
passion and hurling her into the sea. Fur always acts on me just like
that.
It was at the opening of the fifth week of our life upon the island that
a new and more surprising turn was given to our adventure. It arose out
of a certain curiosity, harmless enough, on Edith Croyden's part. "Mr.
Borus," she said one morning, "I should like so much to see the rest of
our island. Can we?"
"Alas, Miss Croyden," I said, "I fear that there is but little to see.
Our island, so far as I can judge, is merely one of the uninhabited keys
of the West Indies. It is nothing but rock and sand and scrub. There is
no life upon it. I fear," I added, speaking as jauntily as I could,
"that unless we are taken off it we are destined to stay on it."
"Still I should like to see it," she persisted.
"Come on, then," I answered, "if you are good for a climb we can take a
look over the ridge of rocks where I went up on the first day."
We made our way across the sand of the beach, among the rocks and
through the close matted scrub, beyond which an eminence of rugged
boulders shut out the further view.
Making our way to the top of this we obtained a wide look over the sea.
The island stretched away to a considerable distance to the eastward,
widening as it went, the complete view of it being shut off by similar
and higher ridges of rock.
But it was the nearer view, the foreground, that at once arrested our
attention. Edith seized my arm. "Look, oh, look!" she said.
Down just below us on the right hand was a similar beach to the one
that we had left. A rude hut had been erected on it and various articles
lay strewn about.
Seated on a rock with their backs towards us were a man and a woman. The
man was dressed in goatskins, and his whiskers, so I inferred from what
I could see of them from the side, were at least as exuberant as mine.
The woman was in white fur with a fillet of seaweed round her head. They
were sitting close together as if in earnest colloquy.
"Cave people," whispered Edith, "aborigines of the island."
But I answered nothing. Something in the tall outline of the seated
woman held my eye. A cruel presentiment stabbed me to the heart.
In my agitation my foot overset a stone, which rolled noisily down the
rocks. The noise attracted the attention of the two seated below us.
They turned and looked searchingly towards the place where we were
concealed. Their faces were in plain sight. As I looked at that of the
woman I felt my heart cease beating and the colour leave my face.
I looked into Edith's face. It was as pale as mine.
"What does it mean?" she whispered.
"Miss Croyden," I answered, "Edith--it means this. I have never found
the courage to tell you. I am a married man. The woman seated there is
my wife. And I love you."
Edith put out her arms with a low cry and clasped me about the neck.
"Harold," she murmured, "my Harold."
"Have I done wrong?" I whispered.
"Only what I have done too," she answered. "I, too, am married, Harold,
and the man sitting there below, John Croyden, is my husband."
With a wild cry such as a cave man might have uttered, I had leapt to my
feet.
"Your husband!" I shouted. "Then, by the living God, he or I shall never
leave this place alive."
He saw me coming as I bounded down the rocks. In an instant he had
sprung to his feet. He gave no cry. He asked no question. He stood
erect as a cave man would, waiting for his enemy.
And there upon the sands beside the sea we fought, barehanded and
weaponless. We fought as cave men fight.
For a while we circled round one another, growling. We circled four
times, each watching for an opportunity. Then I picked up a great
handful of sand and threw it flap into his face. He grabbed a coco-nut
and hit me with it in the stomach. Then I seized a twisted strand of wet
seaweed and landed him with it behind the ear. For a moment he
staggered. Before he could recover I jumped forward, seized him by the
hair, slapped his face twice and then leaped behind a rock. Looking from
the side I could see that Croyden, though half dazed, was feeling round
for something to throw. To my horror I saw a great stone lying ready to
his hand. Beside me was nothing. I gave myself up for lost, when at that
very moment I heard Edith's voice behind me saying, "The shovel, quick,
the shovel!" The noble girl had rushed back to our encampment and had
fetched me the shovel. "Swat him with that," she cried. I seized the
shovel, and with the roar of a wounded bull--or as near as I could make
it--I rushed out from the rock, the shovel swung over my head.
But the fight was all out of Croyden.
"Don't strike," he said, "I'm all in. I couldn't stand a crack with that
kind of thing."
He sat down upon the sand, limp. Seen thus, he somehow seemed to be
quite a small man, not a cave man at all. His goatskin suit shrunk in on
him. I could hear his pants as he sat.
"I surrender," he said. "Take both the women. They are yours."
I stood over him leaning upon the shovel. The two women had closed in
near to us.
"I suppose you are _her_ husband, are you?" Croyden went on.
I nodded.
"I thought you were. Take her."
Meantime Clara had drawn nearer to me. She looked somehow very beautiful
with her golden hair in the sunlight, and the white furs draped about
her.
"Harold!" she exclaimed. "Harold, is it you? How strange and masterful
you look. I didn't know you were so strong."
I turned sternly towards her.
"When I was alone," I said, "on the Himalayas hunting the humpo or
humped buffalo----"
Clara clasped her hands, looking into my face.
"Yes," she said, "tell me about it."
Meantime I could see that Edith had gone over to John Croyden.
"John," she said, "you shouldn't sit on the wet sand like that. You will
get a chill. Let me help you to get up."
I looked at Clara and at Croyden.
"How has this happened?" I asked. "Tell me."
"We were on the same ship," Croyden said. "There came a great storm.
Even the Captain had never seen----"
"I know," I interrupted, "so had ours."
"The ship struck a rock, and blew out her four funnels----"
"Ours did too," I nodded.
"The bowsprit was broken, and the steward's pantry was carried away. The
Captain gave orders to leave the ship----"
"It is enough, Croyden," I said, "I see it all now. You were left behind
when the boats cleared, by what accident you don't know----"
"I don't," said Croyden.
"As best you could, you constructed a raft, and with such haste as you
might you placed on it such few things----"
"Exactly," he said, "a chronometer, a sextant----"
"I know," I continued, "two quadrants, a bucket of water, and a
lightning rod. I presume you picked up Clara floating in the sea."
"I did," Croyden said; "she was unconscious when I got her, but by
rubbing----"
"Croyden," I said, raising the shovel again, "cut that out."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"It's all right. But you needn't go on. I see all the rest of your
adventures plainly enough."
"Well, I'm done with it all anyway," said Croyden gloomily. "You can do
what you like. As for me, I've got a decent suit back there at our camp,
and I've got it dried and pressed and I'm going to put it on."
He rose wearily, Edith standing beside him.
"What's more, Borus," he said, "I'll tell you something. This island is
not uninhabited at all."
"Not uninhabited!" exclaimed Clara and Edith together. I saw each of
them give a rapid look at her goatskin suit.
"Nonsense, Croyden," I said, "this island is one of the West Indian
keys. On such a key as this the pirates used to land. Here they careened
their ships----"
"Did what to them?" asked Croyden.
"Careened them all over from one end to the other," I said. "Here they
got water and buried treasure; but beyond that the island was, and
remained, only the home of the wild gull and the sea-mews----"
"All right," said Croyden, "only it doesn't happen to be that kind of
key. It's a West Indian island all right, but there's a summer hotel on
the other end of it not two miles away."
"A summer hotel!" we exclaimed.
"Yes, a hotel. I suspected it all along. I picked up a tennis racket on
the beach the first day; and after that I walked over the ridge and
through the jungle and I could see the roof of the hotel. Only," he
added rather shamefacedly, "I didn't like to tell her."
"Oh, you coward!" cried Clara. "I could slap you."
"Don't you dare," said Edith. "I'm sure you knew it as well as he did.
And anyway, I was certain of it myself. I picked up a copy of last
week's paper in a lunch-basket on the beach, and hid it from Mr. Borus.
I didn't want to hurt his feelings."
At that moment Croyden pointed with a cry towards the sea.
"Look," he said, "for Heaven's sake, look!"
He turned.
Less than a quarter of a mile away we could see a large white motor
launch coming round the corner. The deck was gay with awnings and bright
dresses and parasols.
"Great Heavens!" said Croyden. "I know that launch. It's the
Appin-Joneses'."
"The Appin-Joneses'!" cried Clara. "Why, we know them too. Don't you
remember, Harold, the Sunday we spent with them on the Hudson?"
Instinctively we had all jumped for cover, behind the rocks.
"Whatever shall we do?" I exclaimed.
"We must get our things," said Edith Croyden. "Jack, if your suit is
ready run and get it and stop the launch. Mrs. Borus and Mr. Borus and I
can get our things straightened up while you keep them talking. My suit
is nearly ready anyway; I thought some one might come. Mr. Borus, would
you mind running and fetching me my things, they're all in a parcel
together? And perhaps if you have a looking-glass and some pins, Mrs.
Borus, I could come over and dress with you."
That same evening we found ourselves all comfortably gathered on the
piazza of the Hotel Christopher Columbus. Appin-Jones insisted on making
himself our host, and the story of our adventures was related again and
again to an admiring audience, with the accompaniment of cigars and iced
champagne. Only one detail was suppressed, by common instinct. Both
Clara and I felt that it would only raise needless comment to explain
that Mr. and Mrs. Croyden had occupied separate encampments.
Nor is it necessary to relate our safe and easy return to New York.
Both Clara and I found Mr. and Mrs. Croyden delightful travelling
companions, though perhaps we were not sorry when the moment came to say
good-bye.
"The word 'good-bye,'" I remarked to Clara, as we drove away, "is always
a painful one. Oddly enough when I was hunting the humpo, or humped
buffalo, of the Himalayas----"
"Do tell me about it, darling," whispered Clara, as she nestled beside
me in the cab.
VI
THE KIDNAPPED PLUMBER
A TALE OF THE NEW TIME
(_Being one chapter--and quite enough---from the Reminiscences of an
Operating Plumber_)
_VI.--The Kidnapped Plumber: A Tale of the New Time._
"Personally," said Thornton, speaking for the first time, "I never care
to take a case that involves cellar work."
We were sitting--a little group of us--round about the fire in a
comfortable corner of the Steam and Air Club. Our talk had turned, as
always happens with a group of professional men, into more or less
technical channels. I will not say that we were talking shop; the word
has an offensive sound and might be misunderstood. But we were talking
as only a group of practising plumbers--including some of the biggest
men in the profession--would talk. With the exception of Everett, who
had a national reputation as a Consulting Barber, and Thomas, who was a
vacuum cleaner expert, I think we all belonged to the same profession.
We had been holding a convention, and Fortescue, who had one of the
biggest furnace practices in the country, had read us a paper that
afternoon--a most revolutionary thing--on External Diagnosis of
Defective Feed Pipes, and naturally the thing had bred discussion.
Fortescue, who is one of the most brilliant men in the profession, had
stoutly maintained his thesis that the only method of diagnosis for
trouble in a furnace is to sit down in front of it and look at it for
three days; others held out for unscrewing it and carrying it home for
consideration; others of us, again, claimed that by tapping the affected
spot with a wrench the pipe might be fractured in such a way as to prove
that it was breakable. It was at this point that Thornton interrupted
with his remark about never being willing to accept a cellar case.
Naturally all the men turned to look at the speaker. Henry Thornton, at
the time of which I relate, was at the height of his reputation.
Beginning, quite literally, at the bottom of the ladder, he had in
twenty years of practice as an operating plumber raised himself to the
top of his profession. There was much in his appearance to suggest the
underlying reasons of his success. His face, as is usual with men of our
calling, had something of the dreamer in it, but the bold set of the jaw
indicated determination of an uncommon kind. Three times President of
the Plumbers' Association, Henry Thornton had enjoyed the highest
honours of his chosen profession. His book on _Nut Coal_ was recognized
as the last word on the subject, and had been crowned by the French
Academy of Nuts.
I suppose that one of the principal reasons for his success was his
singular coolness and resource. I have seen Thornton enter a kitchen,
with that quiet reassuring step of his, and lay out his instruments on
the table, while a kitchen tap with a broken washer was sprizzling
within a few feet of him, as calmly and as quietly as if he were in his
lecture-room of the Plumbers' College.
"You never go into a cellar?" asked Fortescue. "But hang it, man, I
don't see how one can avoid it!"
"Well, I do avoid it," answered Thornton, "at least as far as I possibly
can. I send down my solderist, of course, but personally, unless it is
absolutely necessary, I never go down."
"That's all very well, my dear fellow," Fortescue cut in, "but you know
as well as I do that you get case after case where the cellar diagnosis
is simply vital. I had a case last week, a most interesting thing--" he
turned to the group of us as he spoke--"a double lesion of a gas-pipe
under a cement floor--half a dozen of my colleagues had been absolutely
baffled. They had made an entirely false diagnosis, operated on the
dining-room floor, which they removed and carried home, and when I was
called in they had just obtained permission from the Stone Mason's
Protective Association to knock down one side of the house."
"Excuse me interrupting just a minute," interjected a member of the
group who hailed from a distant city, "have you much trouble about
that? I mean about knocking the sides out of houses?"
"No trouble now," said Fortescue. "We did have. But the public is
getting educated up to it. Our law now allows us to knock the side out
of a house when we feel that we would really like to see what is in it.
We are not allowed, of course, to build it up again."
"No, of course not," said the other speaker. "But I suppose you can
throw the bricks out on the lawn."
"Yes," said Fortescue, "and sit on them to eat lunch. We had a big fight
in the legislature over that, but we got it through."
"Thank you, but I feel I am interrupting."
"Well, I was only saying that, as soon as I had made up my mind that the
trouble was in the cellar, the whole case was simple. I took my
colleagues down at once, and we sat on the floor of the cellar and held
a consultation till the overpowering smell of gas convinced me that
there was nothing for it but an operation on the floor. The whole thing
was most successful. I was very glad, as it happened that the
proprietor of the house was a very decent fellow, employed, I think, as
a manager of a bank, or something of the sort. He was most grateful. It
was he who gave me the engraved monkey wrench that some of you were
admiring before dinner. After we had finished the whole operation--I
forgot to say that we had thrown the coal out on the lawn to avoid any
complication--he quite broke down. He offered us to take his whole house
and keep it."
"You don't do that, do you?" asked the outsider.
"Oh no, never," said Fortescue. "We've made a very strict professional
rule against it. We found that some of the younger men were apt to take
a house when they were given it, and we had to frown down on it. But,
gentlemen, I feel that when Mr. Thornton says that he never goes down
into a cellar there must be a story behind it. I think we should invite
him to relate it to us."
A murmur of assent greeted the speaker's suggestion. For myself I was
particularly pleased, inasmuch as I have long felt that Thornton as a
_raconteur_ was almost as interesting as in the role of an operating
plumber. I have often told him that, if he had not happened to meet
success in his chosen profession, he could have earned a living as a day
writer: a suggestion which he has always taken in good part and without
offence.
Those of my readers who have looked through the little volume of
Reminiscences which I have put together, will recall the narrative of
_The Missing Nut_ and the little tale entitled _The Blue Blow Torch_ as
instances in point.
"Not much of a story, perhaps," said Thornton, "but such as it is you
are welcome to it. So, if you will just fill up your glasses with
raspberry vinegar, you may have the tale for what it is worth."
We gladly complied with the suggestion and Thornton continued:
"It happened a good many years ago at a time when I was only a young
fellow fresh from college, very proud of my Plumb. B., and inclined to
think that I knew it all. I had done a little monograph on _Choked Feed
in the Blow Torch_, which had attracted attention, and I suppose that
altogether I was about as conceited a young puppy as one would find in
the profession. I should mention that at this time I was not married,
but had set up a modest apartment of my own with a consulting-room and a
single manservant. Naturally I could not afford the services of a
solderist or a gassist and did everything for myself, though Simmons, my
man, could at a pinch be utilized to tear down plaster and break
furniture."
Thornton paused to take a sip of raspberry vinegar and went on:
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