Literary Lapses Read online

  Produced by Gardner Buchanan

  LITERARY LAPSES

  By Stephen Leacock

  CONTENTS

  MY FINANCIAL CAREERLORD OXHEAD'S SECRETBOARDING-HOUSE GEOMETRYTHE AWFUL FATE OF MELPOMENUS JONESA CHRISTMAS LETTERHOW TO MAKE A MILLION DOLLARSHOW TO LIVE TO BE 200HOW TO AVOID GETTING MARRIEDHOW TO BE A DOCTORTHE NEW FOODA NEW PATHOLOGYTHE POET ANSWEREDTHE FORCE OF STATISTICSMEN WHO HAVE SHAVED MEGETTING THE THREAD OF ITTELLING HIS FAULTSWINTER PASTIMESNUMBER FIFTY-SIXARISTOCRATIC EDUCATIONTHE CONJURER'S REVENGEHINTS TO TRAVELLERSA MANUAL OF EDUCATIONHOODOO MCFIGGIN'S CHRISTMASTHE LIFE OF JOHN SMITHON COLLECTING THINGSSOCIETY CHIT-CHATINSURANCE UP TO DATEBORROWING A MATCHA LESSON IN FICTIONHELPING THE ARMENIANSA STUDY IN STILL LIFE: THE COUNTRY HOTELAN EXPERIMENT WITH POLICEMAN HOGANTHE PASSING OF THE POETSELF-MADE MENA MODEL DIALOGUEBACK TO THE BUSHREFLECTIONS ON RIDINGSALOONIOHALF-HOURS WITH THE POETS-- I. MR. WORDSWORTH AND THE LITTLE COTTAGE GIRL II. HOW TENNYSON KILLED THE MAY QUEEN III. OLD MR. LONGFELLOW ON BOARD THE "HESPERUS"A. B, AND C

  LITERARY LAPSES

  My Financial Career

  When I go into a bank I get rattled. The clerks rattle me;the wickets rattle me; the sight of the money rattles me;everything rattles me.

  The moment I cross the threshold of a bank and attempt totransact business there, I become an irresponsible idiot.

  I knew this beforehand, but my salary had been raised tofifty dollars a month and I felt that the bank was theonly place for it.

  So I shambled in and looked timidly round at the clerks.I had an idea that a person about to open an account mustneeds consult the manager.

  I went up to a wicket marked "Accountant." The accountantwas a tall, cool devil. The very sight of him rattled me.My voice was sepulchral.

  "Can I see the manager?" I said, and added solemnly,"alone." I don't know why I said "alone."

  "Certainly," said the accountant, and fetched him.

  The manager was a grave, calm man. I held my fifty-sixdollars clutched in a crumpled ball in my pocket.

  "Are you the manager?" I said. God knows I didn't doubt it.

  "Yes," he said.

  "Can I see you," I asked, "alone?" I didn't want to say"alone" again, but without it the thing seemed self-evident.

  The manager looked at me in some alarm. He felt that Ihad an awful secret to reveal.

  "Come in here," he said, and led the way to a privateroom. He turned the key in the lock.

  "We are safe from interruption here," he said; "sit down."

  We both sat down and looked at each other. I found novoice to speak.

  "You are one of Pinkerton's men, I presume," he said.

  He had gathered from my mysterious manner that I was adetective. I knew what he was thinking, and it made meworse.

  "No, not from Pinkerton's," I said, seeming to imply thatI came from a rival agency.

  "To tell the truth," I went on, as if I had been promptedto lie about it, "I am not a detective at all. I havecome to open an account. I intend to keep all my moneyin this bank."

  The manager looked relieved but still serious; he concludednow that I was a son of Baron Rothschild or a young Gould.

  "A large account, I suppose," he said.

  "Fairly large," I whispered. "I propose to depositfifty-six dollars now and fifty dollars a month regularly."

  The manager got up and opened the door. He called to theaccountant.

  "Mr. Montgomery," he said unkindly loud, "this gentlemanis opening an account, he will deposit fifty-six dollars.Good morning."

  I rose.

  A big iron door stood open at the side of the room.

  "Good morning," I said, and stepped into the safe.

  "Come out," said the manager coldly, and showed me theother way.

  I went up to the accountant's wicket and poked the ballof money at him with a quick convulsive movement as ifI were doing a conjuring trick.

  My face was ghastly pale.

  "Here," I said, "deposit it." The tone of the words seemedto mean, "Let us do this painful thing while the fit ison us."

  He took the money and gave it to another clerk.

  He made me write the sum on a slip and sign my name ina book. I no longer knew what I was doing. The bank swambefore my eyes.

  "Is it deposited?" I asked in a hollow, vibrating voice.

  "It is," said the accountant.

  "Then I want to draw a cheque."

  My idea was to draw out six dollars of it for presentuse. Someone gave me a chequebook through a wicket andsomeone else began telling me how to write it out. Thepeople in the bank had the impression that I was aninvalid millionaire. I wrote something on the cheque andthrust it in at the clerk. He looked at it.

  "What! are you drawing it all out again?" he asked insurprise. Then I realized that I had written fifty-sixinstead of six. I was too far gone to reason now. I hada feeling that it was impossible to explain the thing.All the clerks had stopped writing to look at me.

  Reckless with misery, I made a plunge.

  "Yes, the whole thing."

  "You withdraw your money from the bank?"

  "Every cent of it."

  "Are you not going to deposit any more?" said the clerk,astonished.

  "Never."

  An idiot hope struck me that they might think somethinghad insulted me while I was writing the cheque and thatI had changed my mind. I made a wretched attempt to looklike a man with a fearfully quick temper.

  The clerk prepared to pay the money.

  "How will you have it?" he said.

  "What?"

  "How will you have it?"

  "Oh"--I caught his meaning and answered without eventrying to think--"in fifties."

  He gave me a fifty-dollar bill.

  "And the six?" he asked dryly.

  "In sixes," I said.

  He gave it me and I rushed out.

  As the big door swung behind me I caught the echo of aroar of laughter that went up to the ceiling of the bank.Since then I bank no more. I keep my money in cash in mytrousers pocket and my savings in silver dollars in asock.

  Lord Oxhead's Secret

  A ROMANCE IN ONE CHAPTER

  It was finished. Ruin had come. Lord Oxhead sat gazingfixedly at the library fire. Without, the wind soughed(or sogged) around the turrets of Oxhead Towers, the seatof the Oxhead family. But the old earl heeded not thesogging of the wind around his seat. He was too absorbed.

  Before him lay a pile of blue papers with printed headings.From time to time he turned them over in his hands andreplaced them on the table with a groan. To the earl theymeant ruin--absolute, irretrievable ruin, and with itthe loss of his stately home that had been the pride ofthe Oxheads for generations. More than that--the worldwould now know the awful secret of his life.

  The earl bowed his head in the bitterness of his sorrow,for he came of a proud stock. About him hung the portraitsof his ancestors. Here on the right an Oxhead who hadbroken his lance at Crecy, or immediately before it.There McWhinnie Oxhead who had ridden madly from thestricken field of Flodden to bring to the affrightedburghers of Edinburgh all the tidings that he had beenable to gather in passing the battlefield. Next him hungthe dark half Spanish face of Sir Amyas Oxhead ofElizabethan days whose pinnace was the first to dash toPlymouth with the news that the English fleet, as nearlyas could be judged from a reasonable distance, seemedabout to grapple with the Spanish Armada. Below this,the two Cavalier brothers, Giles and Everard Oxhead, whohad sat in the oak with Charles II. Then to the rightagain the portrait of Sir Ponsonby Oxhead who had foughtwith Wellington in Spain, and been dismissed for it.

  Immediately before the earl as he sat was the familyescutcheon emblazoned above the mantelpiece. A childmight read the simplicity of its proud significance--anox rampant quartered in
a field of gules with a pikedexter and a dog intermittent in a plain parallelogramright centre, with the motto, "Hic, haec, hoc, hujus,hujus, hujus."

  * * * * *

  "Father!"--The girl's voice rang clear through the halflight of the wainscoted library. Gwendoline Oxhead hadthrown herself about the earl's neck. The girl was radiantwith happiness. Gwendoline was a beautiful girl ofthirty-three, typically English in the freshness of hergirlish innocence. She wore one of those charming walkingsuits of brown holland so fashionable among the aristocracyof England, while a rough leather belt encircled herwaist in a single sweep. She bore herself with that sweetsimplicity which was her greatest charm. She was probablymore simple than any girl of her age for miles around.Gwendoline was the pride of her father's heart, for hesaw reflected in her the qualities of his race.

  "Father," she said, a blush mantling her fair face, "Iam so happy, oh so happy; Edwin has asked me to be hiswife, and we have plighted our troth--at least if youconsent. For I will never marry without my father'swarrant," she added, raising her head proudly; "I am toomuch of an Oxhead for that."

  Then as she gazed into the old earl's stricken face, thegirl's mood changed at once. "Father," she cried, "father,are you ill? What is it? Shall I ring?" As she spokeGwendoline reached for the heavy bell-rope that hungbeside the wall, but the earl, fearful that her frenziedefforts might actually make it ring, checked her hand."I am, indeed, deeply troubled," said Lord Oxhead, "butof that anon. Tell me first what is this news you bring.I hope, Gwendoline, that your choice has been worthy ofan Oxhead, and that he to whom you have plighted yourtroth will be worthy to bear our motto with his own."And, raising his eyes to the escutcheon before him, theearl murmured half unconsciously, "Hic, haec, hoc, hujus,hujus, hujus," breathing perhaps a prayer as many of hisancestors had done before him that he might never forgetit.

  "Father," continued Gwendoline, half timidly, "Edwin isan American."

  "You surprise me indeed," answered Lord Oxhead; "andyet," he continued, turning to his daughter with thecourtly grace that marked the nobleman of the old school,"why should we not respect and admire the Americans?Surely there have been great names among them. Indeed,our ancestor Sir Amyas Oxhead was, I think, married toPocahontas--at least if not actually married"--the earlhesitated a moment.

  "At least they loved one another," said Gwendoline simply.

  "Precisely," said the earl, with relief, "they loved oneanother, yes, exactly." Then as if musing to himself,"Yes, there have been great Americans. Bolivar was anAmerican. The two Washingtons--George and Booker--areboth Americans. There have been others too, though forthe moment I do not recall their names. But tell me,Gwendoline, this Edwin of yours--where is his familyseat?"

  "It is at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, father."

  "Ah! say you so?" rejoined the earl, with rising interest."Oshkosh is, indeed, a grand old name. The Oshkosh area Russian family. An Ivan Oshkosh came to England withPeter the Great and married my ancestress. Their descendantin the second degree once removed, Mixtup Oshkosh, foughtat the burning of Moscow and later at the sack of Salamancaand the treaty of Adrianople. And Wisconsin too," theold nobleman went on, his features kindling with animation,for he had a passion for heraldry, genealogy, chronology,and commercial geography; "the Wisconsins, or better, Ithink, the Guisconsins, are of old blood. A Guisconsinfollowed Henry I to Jerusalem and rescued my ancestorHardup Oxhead from the Saracens. Another Guisconsin..."

  "Nay, father," said Gwendoline, gently interrupting,"Wisconsin is not Edwin's own name: that is, I believe,the name of his estate. My lover's name is Edwin Einstein."

  "Einstein," repeated the earl dubiously--"an Indian nameperhaps; yet the Indians are many of them of excellentfamily. An ancestor of mine..."

  "Father," said Gwendoline, again interrupting, "here isa portrait of Edwin. Judge for yourself if he be noble."With this she placed in her father's hand an Americantin-type, tinted in pink and brown. The picture representeda typical specimen of American manhood of that Anglo-Semitictype so often seen in persons of mixed English and Jewishextraction. The figure was well over five feet two inchesin height and broad in proportion. The graceful slopingshoulders harmonized with the slender and well-poisedwaist, and with a hand pliant and yet prehensile. Thepallor of the features was relieved by a drooping blackmoustache.

  Such was Edwin Einstein to whom Gwendoline's heart, ifnot her hand, was already affianced. Their love had beenso simple and yet so strange. It seemed to Gwendolinethat it was but a thing of yesterday, and yet in realitythey had met three weeks ago. Love had drawn themirresistibly together. To Edwin the fair English girlwith her old name and wide estates possessed a charm thathe scarcely dared confess to himself. He determined towoo her. To Gwendoline there was that in Edwin's bearing,the rich jewels that he wore, the vast fortune that rumourascribed to him, that appealed to something romantic andchivalrous in her nature. She loved to hear him speak ofstocks and bonds, corners and margins, and his father'scolossal business. It all seemed so noble and so farabove the sordid lives of the people about her. Edwin,too, loved to hear the girl talk of her father's estates,of the diamond-hilted sword that the saladin had given,or had lent, to her ancestor hundreds of years ago. Herdescription of her father, the old earl, touched somethingromantic in Edwin's generous heart. He was never tiredof asking how old he was, was he robust, did a shock, asudden shock, affect him much? and so on. Then had comethe evening that Gwendoline loved to live over and overagain in her mind when Edwin had asked her in hisstraightforward, manly way, whether--subject to certainwritten stipulations to be considered later--she wouldbe his wife: and she, putting her hand confidingly inhis hand, answered simply, that--subject to the consentof her father and pending always the necessary legalformalities and inquiries--she would.

  It had all seemed like a dream: and now Edwin Einsteinhad come in person to ask her hand from the earl, herfather. Indeed, he was at this moment in the outer halltesting the gold leaf in the picture-frames with hispen-knife while waiting for his affianced to break thefateful news to Lord Oxhead.

  Gwendoline summoned her courage for a great effort."Papa," she said, "there is one other thing that it isfair to tell you. Edwin's father is in business."

  The earl started from his seat in blank amazement. "Inbusiness!" he repeated, "the father of the suitor of thedaughter of an Oxhead in business! My daughter thestep-daughter of the grandfather of my grandson! Areyou mad, girl? It is too much, too much!"

  "But, father," pleaded the beautiful girl in anguish,"hear me. It is Edwin's father--Sarcophagus Einstein,senior--not Edwin himself. Edwin does nothing. He hasnever earned a penny. He is quite unable to supporthimself. You have only to see him to believe it. Indeed,dear father, he is just like us. He is here now, in thishouse, waiting to see you. If it were not for his greatwealth..."

  "Girl," said the earl sternly, "I care not for the man'sriches. How much has he?"

  "Fifteen million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,"answered Gwendoline. Lord Oxhead leaned his head againstthe mantelpiece. His mind was in a whirl. He was tryingto calculate the yearly interest on fifteen and a quartermillion dollars at four and a half per cent reduced topounds, shillings, and pence. It was bootless. His brain,trained by long years of high living and plain thinking,had become too subtle, too refined an instrument forarithmetic...

  * * * * *

  At this moment the door opened and Edwin Einstein stoodbefore the earl. Gwendoline never forgot what happened.Through her life the picture of it haunted her--her loverupright at the door, his fine frank gaze fixed inquiringlyon the diamond pin in her father's necktie, and he, herfather, raising from the mantelpiece a face of agonizedamazement.

  "You! You!" he gasped. For a moment he stood to his fullheight, swaying and groping in the air, then fell prostratehis full length upon the floor. The lovers rushed to hisaid. Edwin tore open his neckcloth and plucked aside hisdiamond pin to give him air. But it was too late. EarlOxhead had breathed his last. Life had fled. The ea
rlwas extinct. That is to say, he was dead.

  The reason of his death was never known. Had the sightof Edwin killed him? It might have. The old family doctor,hurriedly summoned, declared his utter ignorance. This,too, was likely. Edwin himself could explain nothing.But it was observed that after the earl's death and hismarriage with Gwendoline he was a changed man; he dressedbetter, talked much better English.

  The wedding itself was quiet, almost sad. At Gwendoline'srequest there was no wedding breakfast, no bridesmaids,and no reception, while Edwin, respecting his bride'sbereavement, insisted that there should be no best man,no flowers, no presents, and no honeymoon.

  Thus Lord Oxhead's secret died with him. It was probablytoo complicated to be interesting anyway.

  Boarding-House Geometry

  DEFINITIONS AND AXIOMS

  All boarding-houses are the same boarding-house.

  Boarders in the same boarding-house and on the same flatare equal to one another.

  A single room is that which has no parts and no magnitude.

  The landlady of a boarding-house is a parallelogram--thatis, an oblong angular figure, which cannot be described,but which is equal to anything.

  A wrangle is the disinclination of two boarders to eachother that meet together but are not in the same line.

  All the other rooms being taken, a single room is saidto be a double room.

  POSTULATES AND PROPOSITIONS

  A pie may be produced any number of times.

  The landlady can be reduced to her lowest terms by aseries of propositions.