The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Knowledge house
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The weeks wore on. Bartney was up and around. Out in his yard he started a flower garden and became a floral enthusiast. Every day he planted, and the next day he would weed what he had planted. But it gave him something to do, for law was tiresome at times.
One bright summer’s day, he left his house and strolled toward the garden, where the day before he had planted in despair some “store-bought” pansies. He perceived to his surprise a long, thin, slippery-looking figure bending over, picking his new acquisitions. With quiet tread he approached, and, as the invader turned around, he said severely:
“What are you doing, sir?”
“I was plucking—er—a few posies—”
The long, thin, slippery-looking figure got no further. Though the face had been strange to Bartney, the voice, a thin, querulous falsetto, was one he would never forget. He advanced slowly, eyeing the owner of that voice, as the wolf eyes his prey.
“Well, Mr. Skiggs, how is it I find you on my property?”
Mr. Skiggs appeared unaccountably shy and looked the other way.
“I repeat,” said Bartney, “that I find you here on my property—and in my power.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Skiggs, squirming in alarm.
Bartney grabbed him by the collar, and shook him as a terrier does a rat.
“You conceited imp of Christian Science! You miserable hypocrite! What?” he demanded fiercely, as Skiggs emitted a cry of protest. “You yell. How dare you? Don’t you know there is no such thing as pain? Come on, now, give me some of that Christian Science. Say ‘mind is everything.’ Say it!”
Mr. Skiggs, in the midst of his jerky course, said quaveringly, “Mind is everyth-thing.”
“Pain is nothing,” urged his tormenter grimly.
“P-Pain is nothing,” repeated Mr. Skiggs feelingly.
The shaking continued.
“Remember, Skiggs, this is all for the good of the cause. I hope you’re taking it to heart. Remember, such is life, therefore life is such. Do you see?”
He left off shaking, and proceeded to entice Skiggs around by a grip on his collar, the scientist meanwhile kicking and struggling violently.
“Now,” said Bartney, “I want you to assure me that you feel no pain. Go on, do it!”
“I f-feel—ouch,” he exclaimed as he passed over a large stone in his course, “n-no pain.”
“Now,” said Bartney, “I want two dollars for the hour’s Christian Science treatment I have given you. Out with it.”
Skiggs hesitated, but the look of Bartney’s eyes and a tightening of Bartney’s grip convinced him, and he unwillingly tendered a bill. Bartney tore it to pieces and distributed the fragments to the wind.
“Now, you may go.”
Skiggs, when his collar was released, took to his heels, and his flying footsteps crossed the boundary line in less time than you would imagine.
“Good-bye, Mr. Skiggs,” called Bartney pleasantly. “Any other time you want a treatment come over. The price is always the same. I see you know one thing I didn’t have to teach you. There’s no such thing as pain, when somebody else is the goat.”
— ◆ —
The Trail of the Duke.
Newman News (June 1913)
It was a hot July night. Inside, through screen, window and door, fled the bugs and gathered around the lights like so many humans at a carnival, buzzing, thugging, whirring. From out the night into the houses came the sweltering late summer heat, overpowering and enervating, bursting against the walls and enveloping all mankind like a huge smothering blanket. In the drug stores, the clerks, tired and grumbling, handed out ice cream to hundreds of thirsty but misled civilians, while in the corners buzzed the electric fans in a whirring mockery of coolness. In the flats that line upper New York, pianos (sweating ebony perspiration) ground out ragtime tunes of last winter, and here and there a wan woman sang the air in a hot soprano. In the tenements, shirt-sleeves gleamed like beacon lights in steady rows along the streets in tiers of from four to eight according to the number of stories of the house. In a word, it was a typical, hot New York summer night.
In his house on upper Fifth Avenue, young Dodson Garland lay on a divan in the billiard room and consumed oceans of mint juleps, as he grumbled at the polo that had kept him in town, the cigarettes, the butler, and occasionally breaking the Second Commandment. The butler ran back and forth with large consignments of juleps and soda and finally, on one of his dramatic entrances, Garland turned toward him and for the first time that evening perceived that the butler was a human being, not a living bottle-tray.
“Hello, Allen,” he said, rather surprised that he had made such a discovery. “Are you hot?”
Allen made an expressive gesture with his handkerchief, tried to smile but only succeeded in a feeble, smothery grin.
“Allen,” said Garland struck by an inspiration, “what shall I do tonight?” Allen again essayed the grin but, failing once more, sank into a hot, undignified silence.
“Get out of here,” exclaimed Garland petulantly, “and bring me another julep and a plate of ice.”
“Now,” thought the young man, “what shall I do? I can go to the theatre and melt. I can go to a roof garden and be sung to by a would-be prima donna, or—or go calling.” “Go calling,” in Garland’s vocabulary meant but one thing: to see Mirabel. Mirabel Walmsley was his fiancee since some three months, and was in the city to receive some nobleman or other who was to visit her father. The lucky youth yawned, rolled over, yawned again and rose to a sitting position where he yawned a third time and then got to his feet.
“I’ll walk up and see Mirabel. I need a little exercise.” And with this final decision he went to his room where he dressed, sweated and dressed, for half an hour. At the end of that time, he emerged from his residence, immaculate, and strolled up Fifth Avenue to Broadway. The city was all outside. As he walked along the white way, he passed groups and groups clad in linen and lingerie, laughing, talking, smoking, smiling, all hot, all uncomfortable.
He reached Mirabel’s house and then suddenly stopped on the doorstep.
“Heavens,” he thought, “I forgot all about it. The Duke of Dunsinlane or Artrellane or some lane or other was to arrive today to see Mirabel’s papa. Isn’t that awful? And I haven’t seen Mirabel for three days.” He sighed, faltered, and finally walked up the steps and rang the bell. Hardly had he stepped inside the door, when the vision of his dreams came running into the hall in a state of great excitement and perturbation.
“Oh, Doddy!” she burst out, “I’m in an awful situation. The Duke went out of the house an hour ago. None of the maids saw him go. He just wandered out. You must find him. He’s probably lost—lost and nobody knows him.” Mirabel wrung her hands in entrancing despair. “Oh, I shall die if he’s lost—and it’s so hot. He’ll have a sunstroke surely or a—moonstroke. Go and find him. We’ve telephoned the police, but it won’t do any good. Hurry up! Do! Oh, Doddy, I’m so nervous.”
“Doddy” put his hands in his pockets, sighed, put his hat on his head and sighed again. Then he turned toward the door. Mirabel, her face anxious, followed him.
“Bring him right up here if you find him. Oh Doddy you’re a life-saver.” The life-saver sighed again and walked quickly through the portal. On the doorstep he paused.
“Well, of all outrageous things! To hunt for a French Duke in New York. This is outrageous. Where shall I go?