She’s very well,' said Mrs Tower with a certain dryness

'How has the marriage turned out?'

Mrs Tower paused a little and took a salted almond from the dish in front of her.

'It appears to be quite a success.'

'You were wrong, then?'

'I said it wouldn’t last and I still say it won’t last. It’s contrary to human nature.'

'Is she happy?'

'They’re both happy.'

'I suppose you don’t see very much of them.'

'At first I saw quite a lot of them. But now... ' Mrs Tower pursed her lips a little. 'Jane is becoming very grand.'

'What do you mean?' I laughed.

'I think I should tell you that she’s here tonight.'

'Here?'

I was startled. I looked round the table again. Our hostess was a delightful and an entertaining woman, but I could not imagine that she would be likely to invite to a dinner such as this the elderly and dowdy wife of an obscure architect. Mrs Tower saw my per­plexity and was shrewd enough to see what was in my mind. She smiled thinly.

'Look on the left of our host.'

I looked. Oddly enough the woman who sat there had by her fantastic appearance attracted my atten­tion the moment I was ushered into the crowded draw­ing room. I thought I noticed a gleam of recognition in her eye, but to the best of my belief I had never seen her before. She was not a young woman, for her hair was iron-grey; it was cut very short and clustered thickly round her well-shaped head in tight curls. She made no attempt at youth, for she was conspicuous in that gathering by using neither lipstick, rouge, nor powder. Her face, not a particularly handsome one, was red and weather-beaten; but because it owed nothing to artifice it had a naturalness that was very pleasing. It contrasted oddly with the whiteness of her shoulders. They were really magnificent. A woman of thirty might have been proud of them. But her dress was extraordi­nary. I had not seen often anything more audacious. It was cut very low, with short skirts, which were then the fashion, in black and yellow; it had almost the effect of fancy-dress and yet so became her that though on anyone else it would have been outrageous, on her it had the inevitable simplicity of nature. And to com­plete the impression of an eccentricity in which there was no pose and of an extravagance in which there was no ostentation she wore, attached by a broad black ribbon, a single eye-glass.

'You’re not going to tell me that is your sister-in-law,' I gasped.

'That is Jane Napier,' said Mrs Tower icily.

At that moment she was speaking. Her host was turned towards her with an anticipatory smile. A baldish white-haired man, with a sharp, intelligent face, who sat on her left, was leaning forward eagerly, and the couple who sat opposite, ceasing to talk with one another, listened intently. She said her say and they all, with a sudden movement, threw themselves back in their chairs and burst into vociferous laughter. From the other side of the table a man addressed Mrs Tower: I recognized a famous statesman.

'Your sister-in-law has made another joke, Mrs Tow­er,' he said.

Mrs Tower smiled.

'She’s priceless, isn’t she?'

'Let me have a long drink of champagne and then for heaven’s sake tell me all about it,' I said.

Well, this is how I gathered it had all happened. At the beginning of their honeymoon Gilbert took Jane to various dressmakers in Paris and he made no ob­jection to her choosing a number of "gowns" after her own heart; but he persuaded her to have a "frock" or two made according to his own design. It appeared that he had a knack for that kind of work. He engaged a smart French maid. Jane had never had such a thing before. She did her own mending and when she wanted "doing up" she was in the habit of ringing for the house­maid. The dresses Gilbert had devised were very differ­ent from anything she had worn before; but he had been careful not to go too far too quickly, and because it pleased him she persuaded herself, though not with­out misgivings, to wear them in preference to those she had chosen herself. Of course she could not wear them with the voluminous petticoats she had been in the habit of using, and these, though it cost her an anxious moment, she discarded.

'Now, if you please,' said Mrs Tower, with some­thing very like a sniff of disapproval, 'she wears nothing but thin silk tights. It’s a wonder to me she doesn’t catch her death of cold at her age.'

Gilbert and the French maid taught her how to wear her clothes, and unexpectedly enough, she was very quick at learning. The French maid was in raptures over Madame’s arms and shoulders. It was a scandal not to show anything so fine.

'Wait a little, Alphonsine,' said Gilbert. 'The next lot of clothes I design for Madame we’ll make the most of her.'

The spectacles of course were dreadful. No one could look really well in gold-rimmed spectacles. Gil­bert tried some with tortoise-shell rims. He shook his head.

'They’d look all right on a girl,' he said. 'You’re too old to wear spectacles, Jane.' Suddenly he had an in­spiration. 'By George, I’ve got it. You must wear an eye-glass.'

'Oh, Gilbert, I couldn’t.'

She looked at him, and his excitement, the ex­citement of the artist, made her smile. He was so sweet to her she wanted to do what she could to please him.

'I’ll try,' she said.

When they went to an optician and, suited with the right size, she placed an eye-glass jauntily in her eye Gilbert clapped his hands. There and then, before the astonished shopman, he kissed her on both cheeks.

'You look wonderful,' he cried.

So they went down to Italy and spent happy months studying Renaissance and Baroque architecture. Jane not only grew accustomed to her changed appearance but found she liked it. At first she was a little shy when she went into the dining-room of a hotel and people turned round to stare at her - no one had ever raised an eyelid to look at her before - but presently she found that the sensation was not disagreeable. La­dies came up to her and asked her where she got her dress.

'Do you like it?' she answered demurely. 'My hus­band designed it for me.'

'I should like to copy it if you don’t mind.'

Jane had certainly for many years lived a very quiet life, but she was by no means lacking in the normal instinctsof her sex. She had her answer ready.

'I’m so sorry, but my husband’s very particular and he won’t hear of anyone copying my frocks. He wants me to be unique.'

She had an idea that people would laugh when she said this, but they didn’t; they merely answered:

'Oh, of course I quite understand. You are unique.'

But she saw them making mental notes of what she wore, and for some reason this quite "put her about". For once in her life when she wasn’t wearing what everybody else did, she reflected, she didn’t see why everybody else should want to wear what she did.

'Gilbert,' said she, quite sharply for her, 'next time you’re designing dresses for me I wish you’d design things that people can't copy.'

'The only way to do that is to design things that only you can wear.'

'Can’t you do that?'

'Yes, if you’ll do somethingfor me.'

'What is it?'

'Cut off your hair.'

I think this was the first time that Jane jibbed. Her hair was long and thick, and as a girl she had been quite vain of it; to cut it off was a very drastic proceed­ing. This really was burning her boats behind her. In her case it was not the first step that cost so much, it was the last; but she took it ('I know Marion will think me a perfect fool, and I shall never be able to go Liverpool again,' she said), and when they passed through Paris on their way home Gilbert led her (she felt quite sick, her heart was beating so fast) to the best hairdresser in the world. She came out of his shop with a jaunty, saucy, impudent head of crisp grey curls. Pygmalion had finished his fantastic masterpiece: Ga­latea came to life.

'Yes,' I said, 'but that isn’t enough to explain why, Jane is here to-night amid this crowd of duchesses, cab­inet ministers and such like; nor why she is sitting on one side of her host with an admiral of the Fleet on the other.'

'Jane is a humorist,' said Mrs Tower. 'Didn’tyousee them all laughing at what she said?'

There was no doubt now of the bitterness in Mrs Tower’s heart.

'When Jane wrote and told me they were back from their honeymoon I thought I must ask them both to dinner. I didn’t much like the idea, but I felt it had to be done. I knew the party would be deadly and I wasn’t going to sacrifice any of the people who really mat­tered. On the other hand, I didn’t want Jane to think I hadn’t any nice friends. You know I never have more than eight, but on this occasion I thought it would make things go better if I had twelve. I’d been too busy to see Jane until the evening of the party. She kept us all waiting a little - that was Gilbert’s clever­ness - and at last she sailed in. You could have knocked me down with a feather. She made the rest of the women look dowdy and provincial. She made me feel like a painted old trollop.'

Mrs Tower drank a little champagne.

'I wish I could describe the frock to you. It would have been quite impossible on anyone else, on her it was perfect. And the eye-glass! I’d known her for thirty-five years and I’d never seen her without spectacles.'

'But you knew she had a good figure.'

'How should I? I’d never seen her except in the clothes you first saw her in. Did you think she had a good figure? She seemed not to be unconscious of the sensation she made but to take it as a matter of course. I thought of my dinner and I heaved a sigh of relief. Even if she was a little heavy in hand, with that appearance it didn’t so very much matter. She was sitting at the other end of the table and I heard a good deal of laughter; I was glad to think that the other people were playing up well; but after dinner I was a good deal taken aback when no less than three men came up to me and told me that my sister-in-law was priceless, and did I think she would allow them to call on her. I didn’t quite know whether I was standing on my head or my heels. Twenty-four hours later our hostess of to-night rang me up and said she had heard my sister-in-law was in London and she was priceless and would I ask her to luncheon to meet her? She has an infallible instinct, that woman: in a month everyone was talking about Jane. I am here to-night, not because I’ve known our hostess for twenty years and have asked her to dinner a hundred times, but because I’m Jane’s sister-in-law.'

Poor Mrs Tower. The position was galling, and though I could not help being amused, for the tables were turned on her with a vengeance, I felt that she

deserved my sympathy.

'People never can resist those who make them laugh,' I said, trying to console her.

'She never makes me laugh.'

Once more from the top of the table I heard a guffaw and guessed that Jane had said another amusing thing.

'Do you mean to say that you are the only person who doesn’t think her funny?' I asked, smiling.

'Had it struck you that she was a humorist?'

'I’m bound to say it hadn’t.'

'She says just the same things as she’s said for the last thirty-five years. I laugh when I see everyone else does because I don’t want to seem a perfect fool, but I am not amused.'

'Like Queen Victoria,' I said.

It was a foolish jest and Mrs Tower was quite right sharply to tell me so. I tried another tack.

'Is Gilbert here?' I asked, looking down the table.

'Gilbert was asked because she won’t go out with­out him, but to-night he’s at a dinner of the Archi­tects’ Institute or whatever it’s called.'

'I’m dying to renew my acquaintance with her.'

'Go and talk to her after dinner. She’ll ask you to her Tuesdays.'

'Her Tuesdays?'

'She’s at home every Tuesday evening. You’ll meet there everyone you ever heard of. They’re the best par­ties in London. She’s done in one year what I’ve failed to do in twenty.'

'But what you tell me is really miraculous. How has it been done?'

Mrs Tower shrugged her handsome but adipose shoulders.

'I shall be glad if you'll tell me,' she replied.

After dinner I tried to make my way to the sofa on which Jane was sitting, but I was intercepted and it was not till a little later that my hostess came up to me and said:

'I must introduce you to the star of my party. Do you know Jane Napier? She’s priceless. She’s much more amusing than your comedies.'

I was taken up to the sofa. The admiral who had been sitting beside her at dinner was with her still. He showed no sign of moving, and Jane, shaking hands with me, introduced me to him.

'Do you know Sir Reginald Frobisher?'

We began to chat. It was the same Jane as I had known before, perfectly simple, homely and unaffected, but her fantastic appearance certainly gave a peculiar savour to what she said. Suddenly I found myself shak­ing with laughter. She had made a remark, sensible and to the point, but not in the least witty, which her manner of saying and the bland look she gave me through her eye-glass made perfectly irresistible. I felt light-hearted and buoyant. When I left her she said to me:

'If you’ve got nothing better to do, come and see us on Tuesday evening. Gilbert will be so glad to see you.'

'When he’s been a month in London he’ll know that he can have nothing better to do,' said the admiral.

So, on Tuesday but rather late, I went to Jane’s. I confess I was a little surprised at the company. It was quite a remarkable collection of writers, painters and politicians, actors, great ladies and great beauties: Mrs Tower was right, it was a grand party; I had seen nothing like it in London since Stafford House was sold. No particular entertainment was provided. The refreshments were adequate without being luxurious. Jane in her quiet way seemed to be enjoying herself; I could not see that she took a great deal of trouble with her guests, but they seemed to like being there, and the gay, pleasant party did not break up till two in the morning. After that I saw much of her. I not only went often to her house, but seldom went out to luncheon or to dinner without meeting her. I am an amateur of humour and I sought to discover in what lay her peculiar gift. It was impossible to repeat anything she said, for the fun, like certain wines, would not travel. She had no gift for epigram. She never made a brilliant repartee. There was no malice in her re­marks nor sting in her rejoinders. There are those who think that impropriety, rather than brevity, is the soul of wit; but she never said a thing that could have brought a blush to a Victorian cheek. I think her humour was unconscious and I am sure it was unpremeditated. It flew like a butterfly from flower to flower, obedient only to its own caprice and pursuivant of neither method nor intention. It depended on the way she spoke and on the way she looked. Its subtlety gained by the flaunting and extravagant appearance that Gilbert had achieved for her; but her appearance was only an element in it. Now of course she was the fashion and people laughed if she but opened her mouth. They no longer wondered that Gilbert had mar­ried a wife so much older than himself. They saw that Jane was a woman with whom age did not count. They thought him a devilish lucky young fellow. The admiral quoted Shakespeare to me: 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.' Gilbert was delighted with her success. As I came to know him better I grew to like him. It was quite evident that he was neither a rascal nor a fortune-hunter. He wasnot only immensely proud of Jane, but genuinely de­voted to her. His kindness to her was touching. He was a very unselfish and sweet-tempered young man.

'Well, what do you think of Jane now?' he said to me once, with boyish triumph.

'I don’t know which of you is more wonderful,' I said. 'You or she.'

'Oh, I’m nothing.'

'Nonsense. You don’t think I’m such a fool as not to see that it’s you, and you only, who’ve made Jane what she is.'

'My only merit is that I saw what was there, when it wasn’t obvious to the naked eye,' he answered.

'I can understand your seeing that she had in her the possibility of that remarkable appearance, but how in the world have you made her into a humorist?'

'But I always thought the things she said a perfect scream. She was always a humorist.'

'You’re the only person who ever thought so.'

Mrs Tower, not without magnanimity, acknowledged that she had been mistaken in Gilbert. She grew quite attached to him. But notwithstanding appearances she never faltered in her opinion that the marriage could not last. I was obliged to laugh at her.

'Why, I've never seen such a devoted couple,' I said.

'Gilbertis twenty-seven now. It’s just the time for a pretty girl to come along. Did you notice the other evening at Jane’s that pretty little niece of Sir Regi­nald’s? I thought Jane was looking at them both with a good deal of attention, and I wondered to myself.'

'I don’t believe Jane fears the rivalry of anygirl under the sun.'

'Wait andsee,' said MrsTower.

'You gave it six months.'

'Well, now I give it three years."

When anyone is very positive in an opinion it is only human nature to wish him proved wrong. Mrs Tow­er was really too cocksure. But such a satisfaction was not mine, for the end that she had always and confidently predicted to the ill-assorted match did in point of fact come. Still, the fates seldom give us what we want in the way we want it, and though Mrs Tow­er could flatter herself that she had been right, I think after all she would sooner have been wrong. For things did not happen at all in the way she expected.

One day I received an urgent message from her and fortunately went to see her at once. When I was shown into the room Mrs Tower rose from her chair and came towards me with the stealthy swiftness of a leopard stalking his prey. I saw that she was excited.

'Jane and Gilbert have separated,' she said.

'Not really? Well, you were right after all.'

Mrs Tower looked at me with an expression I could not understand.

'Poor Jane,' I muttered.

'Poor Jane!' she repeated, but in tonesof such de­rision that I was dumbfounded.

She found some difficulty in telling me exactly what had occurred.

Gilbert had left her a moment before she leaped to the telephone to summon me. When he entered the room, pale and distraught, she saw at once that some­thing terrible had happened. She knew what he was going to say before he said it.

'Marion, Jane has left me.'

She gave him a little smile and took his hand.

'I knew you’d behave like a gentleman. It would have been dreadful for her for people to think that you had left her.'

'I’ve come to you because I know I could counton your sympathy.'

'Oh, I don’t blame you, Gilbert,' said Mrs Tower, very kindly. 'It was bound to happen.'

He sighed.

'I suppose so. I couldn’t hope to keep her always. She was too wonderful and I’m a perfectly common­place fellow.'

Mrs Tower patted his hand. He was really behav­ing beautifully.

'And what is going to happen now?'

'Well, she’s going to divorce me.'

'Jane always said she’d put no obstaclein your way if ever you wanted to marry a girl.'

'You don’t think it’s likely I should ever be willing to marry anyone else after being Jane’s husband,' he answered.

Mrs Tower was puzzled.

'Of course you mean that you've left Jane.'

'I? That’s the last thing I should ever do.'

'Then why is she divorcing you?'

'She’s going to marry Sir Reginald Frobisheras soon as the decree is made absolute.'

Mrs Tower positively screamed. Then she feltso faint that she had to get her smelling salts.

'After all you’ve done for her?'

'I’ve done nothing for her.'

'Do you mean to say you’re going to allow yourself to be made use of like that?'

'We arranged before we married that if either of us wanted his liberty the other should put no hindrance in the way.'

'But that was done on your account. Because you were twenty-seven years younger than she was.'

'Well, it’s come in very useful for her,' he answered bitterly.

Mrs Tower expostulated, argued, and reasoned; but Gilbert insisted that no rules applied to Jane, and he must do exactly what she wanted. He left Mrs Tower prostrate. It relieved her a good deal to give me a full account of this interview. It pleased her to see that I was as surprised as herself, and if I was not so in­dignant with Jane as she was she ascribed that to the criminal lack of morality incident to my sex. She was still in a state of extreme agitation when the door was opened and the butler showed in - Jane herself. She was dressed in black and white as no doubt befitted her slightly ambiguous position, but in a dress so original and fantastic, in a hat so striking, that I pos­itively gasped at the sight of her. But she was as ever bland and collected. She came forward to kiss Mrs Tower, but Mrs Tower withdrew herself with icy dignity.

'Gilbert has been here,' she said.

'Yes, I know,' smiled Jane. 'I told him to come and see you. I’m going to Paris tonight and I want you to be very kind to him while I am away. I’m afraid just at first he’ll be rather lonely and I shall feel more com­fortable if I can count on your keeping an eye on him.'

Mrs Tower clasped her hands.

'Gilbert has just told me something that I can hardly bring myself to believe. He tells me that you’re going to divorce him to marry Reginald Frobisher.'

'Don’t you remember, before I married Gilbert you advised me to marry a man of my own age. The admi­ral is fifty-three.'

'But, Jane, you owe everything to Gilbert,' said Mrs Tower indignantly. 'You wouldn’t exist without him. Without him to design your clothes, you’ll be nothing.'

'Oh, he’s promised to go on designing my clothes,' Jane answered blandly.

'No woman could want a better husband. He’s al­ways been kindness itself to you.'

'Oh, I know he’s been sweet.'

'How can you be so heartless?'

'But I was never in love with Gilbert,' said Jane. 'I always told him that. I’m beginning to feel the need of the companionship of a man of my own age. I think I’ve probably been married to Gilbert long enough. The young have no conversation.' She paused a little and gave us both a charming smile. 'Of course I shan't lose sight of Gilbert. I’ve arranged that with Reginald. The admiral has a niece that would just suit him. As soon as we’re married we’ll ask them to stay with us at Malta - you know that the admiral is to have the Med­iterranean Command - and I shouldn’t be at all sur­prised if they fell in love with one another.'

Mrs Tower gave a little sniff.

'And have you arranged with the admiral that if you want your liberty neither should put any hin­drance in the way of the other?'

'I suggested it,' Jane answered with composure. 'But the admiral says he knows a good thing when he sees it and he won't want to marry anyone else, and if anyone wants to marry me - he has eight twelve-inch guns on his flagship and he’ll discuss the matter at short range.' She gave us a look through her eye-glass which even the fear of Mrs Tower’s wrath could not prevent me from laughing at.'I think the admiral’s a very passionate man.'

Mrs Tower indeed gave me an angry frown.

'I never thought you funny, Jane,' she said, 'I never understood why people laughed at the things you said.'

'I never thought I was funny myself, Marion,' smiled Jane, showing her bright, regular teeth. 'I am glad to leave London before too many people come round to our opinion.'

'I wish you’d tell me the secret of your astonishing success,' I said.

She turned to me with that bland, homely look I knew so well.

'You know, when I married Gilbert and settled in London and people began to laugh at what I said no one was more surprised than I was. I’d said the same things for thirty years and no one ever saw anything to laugh at. I thought it must be my clothes or my bobbed hair or my eye-glass. Then I discovered it was because I spoke the truth. It was so unusual that people thought it humorous. One of these days some­one else will discover the secret, and when people habitually tell the truth of course there’ll be nothing funny in it.'

'And why am I the only person notto think it funny?' asked Mrs Tower.

Jane hesitated a little as though she were honestly searching for a satisfactory explanation.

'Perhaps you don’t know the truth when youseeit, Marion dear,' she answered in her mild good-na­tured way.

It certainly gave her the last word. I felt that Jane would always have the last word. She was priceless.

 

 

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY

by James Thurber

 

“We’re going through!” The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold grey eye. “We can’t make it, sir. It’s spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you, Lieutenant Berg,” said the Commander. “Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We’re going through!” The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” he shouted. “Switch on No. 8 aux­iliary!” repeated Lieutenant Berg. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” shouted the Commander, “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy Hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. “The Old Man’ll get us through, they said to one another. “The Old Man ain’t afraid of Hell!”...

“Not so fast! You’re driving too fast!”said Mrs Mit­ty. “What are you driving so fast for?”

“Hmm?” said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. “You were up to fifty-five,” she said. “You know I don’t like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five.” Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN₂₀₂ through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind. “You’re tensed up again,” said Mrs Mitty. “It’s oneofyour days. I wish you’d let Dr Renshaw look you over.”

Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. “Remember to get those overshoes while I’m having my hair done,” she said. “I don’t need overshoes,” said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag. “We’ve been through all that,” she said, getting out of the car. “You’re not a young man any longer.” He raced the engine a little. “Why don’t you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?” Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. “Pick it up, brother!” snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot.

...“It’s the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan,” said the pretty nurse. “Yes?” said Walter Mitty, remov­ing his gloves slowly. “Who has the case?” “Dr Renshaw and Dr Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr Remington from New York and Mr Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over.” A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. “Hello, Mitty,” he said. “We’re having the devil’s own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roose­velt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary.Wish you’d take a look at him.” “Glad to,” said Mitty.

In the operating room there were whispered intro­ductions: “Dr Remington, Mr Mitty. Mr Pritchard-Mitford, Dr Mitty.” “I’ve read your book on streptothricosis,” said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking hands. “A bril­liant performance, sir.” “Thank you,” said Walter Mitty. “Didn’t know you were in the States, Mitty,” grumbled Remington. “Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary.” “You are very kind,” said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. “The new anesthetizer is giving way!” shouted an intern. “There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!” “Quiet, man!” said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. “Give me a fountain pen!” he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. “That will hold for ten minutes,” he said. “Get on with the operation.” A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. “Coreopsis has set in,” said Renshaw nerv­ously. “If you would take over, Mitty?” Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great spe­cialists. “If you wish,” he said. They slipped a white gown on him; he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him a shining...

“Back it up, Mac! Look out for that Buick!” Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. “Wrong lane, Mac,” said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. “Gee, yeh,” muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked ‘Exit Only’. “Leave her sit there,” said the attendant. “I’ll put her away.” Mitty got out of the car. “Hey, better leave the key.” “Oh,” said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vault­ed into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.

They’re so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walk­ing along Main Street; they think they know every­thing. Once he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Milford1; and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garageman. Since then Mrs Mitty always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The next time, he thought, I’ll wear my right arm in a sling; they won’t grin at me then. I’ll have my right arm in a sling and they’ll see I couldn’t possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. “Overshoes,” he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.

When he came out into the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him, twice, before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town - he was always getting so­mething wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb’s, razor blades? No. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, carbo­rundum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it. “Where’s the what’s-its-name?” she would ask. “Don’t tell me you forgot the what’s-its-name?” A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury1 trial.

... “Perhaps this will refresh your memory.” The Dis­trict Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. “Have you ever seen this before?” Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. “This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80.” he said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the court­room. The Judge rapped for order. “You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?” said the District Attorney, insinuatingly. “Objection!” shouted Mitty’s attorney. “We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the four­teenth of July.” Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. “With any known make of gun,” he said evenly, “I could have killed Gre­gory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.” Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman’s scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty’s arms. The Dis­trict Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. “You miserable cur!”...

“Puppy biscuit,” said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. “He said ‘Puppy biscuit’,” she said to her companion. “That man said ‘Puppy bis­cuit’ to himself.” Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A. P1., not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. “I want some biscuit for small, young dogs,” he said to the clerk. “Any special brand, sir?” The greatest pistol shot in the world thought for a moment. “It says ‘Puppies Bark for it’ on the box,” said Walter Mitty.

His wife would be through at the hairdresser’s in fifteen minutes, Mitty saw in looking at his watch, un­less they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn’t like to get to the hotel first; she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. “Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?” Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.

... “The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, sir,” said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through tousled hair. “Get him to bed,” he said wearily. “With the others. I’ll fly alone.” “But you can’t, sir,” said the sergeant anxiously. “It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies2 are pounding hell out of the air. Von Richtman’s circus3 is between here and Saulier’. “Somebody’s got to get that ammunition dump,” said Mitty. “I’m going over. Spot of brandy?” He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rend­ing of wood and splinters flew through the room. “A bit of a near thing,” said Captain Mitty carelessly. “The box barrage is closing in,” said the sergeant. “We only live once, Sergeant,” said Mitty, with his faint fleeting smile. “Or do we?” He poured another brandy and tossed it off. “I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir,” said the sergeant. “Begging your pardon, sir.” Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. “It’s forty kilometers through hell, sir,” said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. “After all,” he said softly, “what isn’t?”

The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame­throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming ‘Auprès de Ma Blonde.’ He turned and waved to the sergeant. “Cheerio!” he said...

Something struck his shoulder. “I’ve been looking all over this hotel for you,” said Mrs Mitty. “Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?” “Things close in,” said Walter Mitty vaguely. “What?” Mrs Mitty said. “Did you get the what’s-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What’s in that box?” “Overshoes,” said Mitty. “Couldn’t you have put them on in the store?” “I was thinking,” said Walter Mitty. “Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?” She looked at him. “I’m going to take your temperature when I get home,” she said.

They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, “Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won’t be a minute.” She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It be­gan to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking... He put his shoulders back and his heels together. “To hell with the handkerchief,” said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, in­scrutable to the last.

 

THE HAPPY MAN

by William Somerset Maugham

 

It is a dangerous thing to order the lives of others and I have often wondered at the self-confidence of politicians, reformers and such like who are prepared to force upon their fellows measures that must alter their manners, habits and points of view. I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise an­other how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows oneself? Heaven knows, I know little enough of myself: I know nothing of others. We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbours. Each one of us is a prisoner in a solitary tower and he com­municates with the other prisoners, who form mankind by conventional signs that have not quite the same meaning for them as for himself. And life, unfortunate­ly, is something that you can lead but once; mistakes are often irreparable, and who am I that I should tell this one and that how he should lead it? Life is a diffi­cult business and I have found it hard enough to make my own a complete and rounded thing; I have not been tempted to teach my neighbour what he should do with his. But there are men who flounder at the journey’s start, the way before them is confused and hazardous and on occasion, however unwillingly, I have been forced to point the finger of fate. Sometimes men have said to me, what shall I do with my life? And I have seen myself for a moment wrapped in the dark cloak of Destiny.

Once I knew that I advertised well.

I was a young man and I lived in a modest apart­ment in London near Victoria Station. Late one after­noon, when I was beginning to think that I had worked enough for that day, I heard a ring at the bell. I opened the door to a total stranger. He asked me my name; I told him. He asked if he might come in.

‘Certainly.’

I led him into my sitting-room and begged to sit down. He seemed a trifle embarrassed. I offered him a cigarette and he had some difficulty in lighting it without letting go of his hat. When he had satisfactorily achieved this feat I asked him if I should not put it on a chair for him. He quickly did this and while doing it dropped his umbrella.

‘I hope you don’t mind my coming to see you like this,’ he said. ‘My name is Stephens and I am a doctor. You’re in the medical, I believe?’

‘Yes, but I don’t practise.’

‘No, I know. I’ve just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it.’

‘It’s not a very good book, I’m afraid.’

‘The fact remains that you know something about Spain and there’s no one else I know who does. And I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving me some information.’

‘I shall be very glad.’

He was silent for a moment. He reached out for his hat and holding it in one hand absent-mindedly stroked it with the other. I surmised that it gave him confi­dence.

‘I hope you won’t think it very odd for a perfect stranger to talk to you like this.’ He gave an apologetic laugh. ‘I’m not going to tell you the story of my life.’

When people say this to me I always know that it is precisely what they are going to do. I do not mind. In fact I rather like it.

‘I was brought up by two old aunts. I've never been anywhere. I’ve never done anything. I’ve been married for six years. I have no children. I’m medical officer at the Camberwell Infirmary. I can't stick it any more.’

There was something very striking in the short, sharp sentences he used. They had a forcible ring, I had not given him more than a cursory glance, but now I looked at him with curiosity. He was a little man, thickset and stout, of thirty perhaps, with a round red face from which shone small, dark and very bright eyes. His black hair was cropped close to a bullet-shaped head. He was dressed in a blue suit a good deal the worse for wear. It was baggy at the knees and the pockets bulged untidily.

‘You know what the duties are of a medical officer in an infirmary. One day is pretty much like another. And that's all I’ve got to look forward to for the rest of my life. Do you think it’s worth it?’

‘It’s a means of livelihood,’ I answered.

‘Yes, I know. The money’s pretty good.’

‘I don’t exactly know why you’ve come to me.’

‘Well, I wanted to know whether you thought there would be any chance for an English doctor in Spain?’

‘Why Spain?’

‘I don’t know, I just have a fancy for it.’

‘It’s not like Carmen*, you know,’ I smiled.

‘But there’s sunshine there, and there’s good wine, and there’s colour, and there’s air you can breathe. Let me say what I have to say straight out. I heard by accident that there was no English doctor in Seville. Do you think I could earn a living there? Is it madness to give up a good safe job for an uncertainty?’

‘What does your wife think about it?’

‘She’s willing.’

‘It’s a great risk.’.

‘I know. But if you say take it, I will: if you say stay where you are, I’ll stay.’

He was looking at me intently with those bright dark eyes of his and I knew that he meant what he said. I reflected for a moment.

‘Your whole future is concerned: you must decide for yourself. But this I can tell you: if you don’t want money but are content to earn just enough to keep body and soul together, then go. For you will lead a wonder­ful life.’

He left me, I thought about him for a day or two, and then forgot. The episode passed completely from my memory.

Many years later, fifteen at least, I happened to be in Seville and having some trifling indisposition asked the hotel porter whether there was an English doctor in the town. He said there was and gave me the address. I took a cab and as I drove up to the house a little fat man came out of it. He hesitated, when he caught sight of me.

‘Have you come to see me?’ he said. ‘I’m the English doctor.’

I explained my errand and he asked me to come in. He lived in an ordinary Spanish house, with a patio, and his consulting room, which led out of it, was littered with papers, books, medical appliances and lumber. The sight of it would have startled a squeamish pa­tient. We did our business and then I asked the doctor what his fee was. He shook his head and smiled.

‘There’s no fee.’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘Don’t you remember me? Why, I’m here because of something you said to me. You changed my whole life for me. I’m Stephens.’

I had not the least notion what he was talking about. He reminded me of our interview, he repeated to me what we had said, and gradually, out of the night, a dim recollection of the incident came back to me.

‘I was wondering if I’d ever see you again,’ he said, ‘I was wondering if ever I’d have a chance of thanking you for all you’ve done for me.’

‘It’s been a success then?’

I looked at him. He was very fat now and bald, but his eyes twinkled gaily and his fleshy, red face bore an expression of perfect good humour. The clothes he wore, terribly shabby they were, had been made obviously by a Spanish tailor and his hat was the wide-brimmed sombrero of the Spaniard. He looked to me as though he knew a good bottle of wine when he saw it. He had a dissipated, though entirely sympathetic, appearance. You might have hesitated to let him remove your ap­pendix, but you could not have imagined a more de­lightful creature to drink a glass of wine with.

‘Surely you were married?’ I said.

‘Yes. My wife didn’t like Spain, she went back to Camberwell, she was more at home there.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry for that.’

His black eyes flashed a bacchanalian smile. He really had somewhat the look of a young Silenus.

‘Life is full of compensations,’ he murmured.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when a Spanish woman, no longer in her first youth, but still boldly and voluptuously beautiful, appeared at the door. She spoke to him in Spanish, and I could not fail to perceive that she was the mistress of the house. As he stood at the door to let me out he said to me:

‘You told me when last I saw you that if I came here I should earn just enough money to keep body and soul together, but that I should lead a wonderful life. Well, I want to tell you that you were right. Poor I have been and poor I shall always be, but by heaven I’ve enjoyed myself. I wouldn’t exchange the life I’ve had with that of any king in the world.’

 

 

TREACLE TART

by Robert Graves

 

The news travelled from group to group along the platform of Victoria Station, impressing our parents and kid-sisters almost as much as ourselves. A lord was coming to our prep-school. A real lord. A new boy, only eight years old. Youngest son of the Duke of Downshire. A new boy, yet a lord. Lord Julius Blood­stock. Some name! Crikey!

Excitement strong enough to check the rebellious tears of home-lovers, and make our last good-byes all but casual. None of us having had any contact with the peerage, it was argued by some, as we settled in our reserved Pullman Carriage1, that by analogy with po­licemen there couldn’t be boy-lords. However, Mr Lees, the Latin Master (declined: Lees, Lees, Lem, Lei, Lei, Lee) confirmed the report. The lord was being driven to school that morning in the ducal Rolls-Royce. Cri­key, again! Criko, Crikere, Crikey, Crictum!

Should we be expected to call him 'your Grace', or 'Sire', or something? Would he keep a coronet in his tuck-box? Would the masters dare cane him if he broke school rules or didn’t know his prep?

Billington Secundus told us that his father (the famous Q. C.) had called Thos a 'tuft-hunting toadeater,' as meaning that he was awfully proud of knowing important people, such as bishops and Q.C.'s and lords. To this Mr Lees turned a deaf ear, though making ready to crack down on any further disrespect­ful remarks about the Rev Thomas Pearce our Head­master. None came. Most of us were scared stiff of Thos; besides, everyone but Billington Secundus consid­ered pride in knowing important people - an innocent enough emotion.

Presently Mr Lees folded his newspaper and said:

'Bloodstock, as you will learn to call him, is a perfectly normal little chap, though he happens to have been born into the purple - if anyone present catches the allusion. Accord him neither kisses nor cuffs (nec oscula, nec verbera, both neuter) and all will be well. By the way, this is to be his first experience of school life. The Duke has hitherto kept him at the Castle under private tutors.'

At the Castle, under private tutors! Crikey! Crikey, Crikius, Crikissme!

We arrived at the Cedars just in time for school dinner. Thos, rather self-consciously, led a small, pale, fair-haired boy into the dining-hall, and showed him his seat at the end of the table among the other nine new­comers. 'This is Lord Julius Bloodstock, boys,' he boomed. 'You will just call him Bloodstock. No titles or other honorifics here.'

'Then I prefer to be called Julius.' His first memorable words.

'We happen to use only surnames at Brown Friars’, chuckled Thos; then he said Grace.

None of Julius’s table-mates called him anything at all, to begin with, being either too miserable or too shy, even to say 'Pass the salt, please'. But after the soup and half-way through the shepherd’s pie (for once not made of leftovers) Billington Tertius, to win a bet, leant boldly across the table and asked: 'Lord, why didn’t you come by train, same as the rest of us?'

Julius did not answer at first, but when his neigh­bours nudged him, he said: 'The name is Julius, and my father was afraid of finding newspaper photogra­phers on the platform. They can be such a nuisance. Two of them were waiting for us at school gates, and my father sent the chauffeurto smash both their cam­eras.'

This information had hardly sunk in before the third course appeared: treacle tart. Today was Monday: onion soup, shepherd’s pie and carrots, treacle tart. Always had been. Even when Mr Lees-Lees-Lem had been a boy here and won top scholarship to Winches­ter. 'Treacle. From the Greek thriace, though the Greeks did not, of course...' With this, Mr Lees, who sat at the very end of the table, religiously eating treacle tart, looked up to see whether anyone were listening; and noticed that Julius had pushed away his plate, leaving the oblong of tough burned pastry un­touched.

'Eat it, boy!' said Mr Lees. 'Not allowed to leave anything here for Mr Good Manners. School rule.'

'I never eat treacle tart,' explained Julius with a little sigh.

'You are expected to address me as "sir",' said Mr Lees.

Julius seemed surprised. 'I thought we didn’t use titles here, or other honorifics,' he said, 'but only surnames?'

'Call me "sir",' insisted Mr Lees, not quite certain whether this was innocence or impertinence.

'Sir,' said Julius, shrugging faintly.

'Eat your tart,' snapped Mr Lees.

'But I never eat treacle tart - sir!'

'It’s my duty to see that you do so, every Monday.'

Julius smiled. 'What a queer duty!' he said incredu­lously. Titters, craning of necks. Then Thos called jovially down the table: 'Well, Lees, what’s the news from your end? Are the summer holidays reported to have been wearisomely long?'

'No, Headmaster. But I cannot persuade an imperti­nent boy to sample our traditional treacle tart.'

'Send him up here,' said Thos in his most porten­tous voice. 'Send him up here, plate and all! Oliver Twist asking for less, eh?'

When Thos recognised Julius, his face changed and he swallowed a couple of times, but having apparently lectured the staff on making not the least difference between duke’s son and shopkeeper's son, he had to put his foot down. 'My dear boy,' he said, 'let me see you eat that excellent piece of food without further demur; and no nonsense.'

'I never eat treacle tart, Headmaster.'

Thos started as though he had been struck in the face. He said slowly: 'You mean perhaps: "I have lost my appetite, sir." Very well, but your appetite will re­turn at supper time - and so will the treacle tart.'

The sycophantic laughter which greeted this prime Thossism surprised Julius but did not shake his poise. Walking to the buttery-table, he laid down the plate, turned on his heel, and walked back to his seat. Thos at once rose and said Grace1 in a challenging voice.

'Cocky ass, I’d like to punch his lordly head for him,' growled Billington Secundus later that afternoon.

'You’d have to punch mine first,' I said. 'He’s a... the thing we did in Gray’s Elegy - a village Hampden2. Standing up to Lees and Thos in mute inglorious protest against that foul treacle tart.'

'You’re a tuft-hunting toad-eater.'

'I may be. But I’d rather eat toads than Thos’s treacle tart.'

A bell rang for supper, or high tea. The rule was that tuck-box cakes were put under Matron’s charge and distributed among all fifty of us while they lasted. "Democracy" Thos called it. (I can’t think why); and the Matron, to cheer up the always dismal first evening had set the largest cake she could find on the table: Julius’s. Straight from the ducal kitchens, plastered with crystallised fruit, sugar icing and marzipan, stuffed with raisins, cherries and nuts.

'You will get your slice, my dear, when you have eaten your treacle tart,' Matron gently reminded Julius. 'Noblesse oblige.'

'I never eat treacle tart, Matron.'

It must have been hard for him to see his cake devoured by strangers before his eyes, but he made no protest; just sipped a little tea and went supperless to bed. In the dormitory he told a ghost story, which is still, I hear, current in the school after all these years: about a Mr Gracie (why "Gracie"?) who heard hollow groans in the night, rose to investigate and was grasped from behind by an invisible hand. He found that his braces had caught on the door knob, and, after other harrowing adventures, traced the groans to the bath­room, where Mrs Gracie... Lights out! Sleep. Bells for getting up; for prayers: for breakfast.

'I never eat treacle tart.' So Julius had no breakfast, but we pocketed slices of bread and potted meat (Tues­day) to slip him in the playground afterwards. The school porter intervened. His orders were to see that the young gentleman had no food given him.

Bell: Latin. Bell: Maths. Bell: long break. Bell: Scripture. Bell: wash hands for dinner.

'I never eat treacle tart,' said Julius, as a sort of response to Thos's Grace; and this time fainted.

Thos sent a long urgent telegram to the Duke, ex­plaining his predicament: school rule, discipline, couldn’t make exceptions, and so forth. The Duke wired back non-committally: 'Quite so. Stop. The lad never eats treacle tart. Stop. Regards. Downshire.'

Matron took Julius to the sickroom, where he was allowed milk and soup, but no solid food unless he chose to call for treacle tart. He remained firm and polite until the end, which came two days later, after a further exchangeof telegrams.

We were playing kick-about near the Master’s Wing, when the Rolls-Royce pulled up. Presently Julius, in overcoat and bowler hat, descended the front steps, followed by the school porter carrying his tuck-box, football boots and handbag. Billington Secundus, now converted to the popular view, led our three cheers, which Julius acknowledged with a gracious tilt of his bowler. The car purred off; and thereupon, in token of our admiration for Julius, we all swore to strike against treacle tart the very next Monday, and none of us ate a single morsel, even if we liked it, which some of us did. When it came to the point, of course, the boys sitting close to Thos took fright and ratted, one after the other. Even Billington Secundus and I, not being peers’ sons or even village Hampdens, regretfully con­formed.