Clarence Day, Jr.

“ Poor Niblo calls anything erratic an inch from the rut. "It is no pleasure to me to take a child walking," I reminded him. "My only feeling is that Matthew needs the change from his home life. It's dull for him here. It depresses him. I do not wish my nephew to be as spiritless as a wet piece of toast." ”

“ Gary's eye twinkled incredulously.
"My dear sir," said the explorer, "this city's difficulty is lack of space. You have moved people out of separate houses and into apartments, but that is only reducing the size of your umbrella hats, and you still have the same kind of furniture and pictures and ornaments. Do you need more relief? Look about you. One solution lies no farther away than the piers on your water-front. See how men live aboard ship. A traveler will look at a space, six by ten, and say, 'What a large cabin!' On shore he would be discontented and call it a cramped little room. ”

“ I told Angelica. "It's no use my going in, my dear. Either there's no woman there or she's drowned already. You wait while I fetch a policeman." And I put my shoe on again.
Angelica couldn't seem to understand me: amazement, anger, and disgust passed speechlessly over her face, and then returned in a body, as it were, and fought for utterance. I resented it. I thought to myself that it was all very well for her to feel that way, but how would she have been feeling if she had been me? A woman's idea is that a man is "supposed" to behave in a certain manner, and therefore he should. ”

“ Why can't we go under the sea for anything we choose? There it lies. These explorers of yours who have found the poles have merely mapped out the earth. They appear to suppose that all the work is done. ”

“ I am convinced that when food is skilfully prepared for the table it need not disagree with one, no matter how rich (as they call it) that food may be. When it is clumsily prepared, of course it does. Take strawberry-shortcake, for example—a simple dish. If a man who eats three or four helpings of shortcake finds it going to his head, so to speak, just what is to blame? The man? No. The cake.
My wife doesn't see this.
"One thing that might restore your digestion, my dear," she presently observed, "is a little vacation. Why don't you go to the Adirondacks for a bit?" ”

“ He doesn't typify the Waam Islander point of view—and he isn't a mat—but he can easily be discovered by examining your huts and your conversation. No, I'm not talking of money, or power, or success: you may bow down to these,—but not blindly. You at least know what you're doing. The worship of a G'il is unconscious, and hence more insidious. Even when an explorer points it out, you won't see its importance. It will seem insignificant to you. And yet, while the Bashwa to whom you build temples is only occasionally deferred to, this G'il of yours sways you in all things. ”

“ They remind me of Talbot. She said she wished that I'd be the gladiator.
"That's a good idea," said White, waking up. "You're such a wizened old bean-pole, my dear Sims, that it hadn't occurred to me. But at least you've got height. Will you pose a bit? My man model's late."
That's White's idea of the proper way of asking a favor. I declined to oblige him, though even then I half wished to try it. The armor was splendid. Miss Yecker got me to put on the helmet and led me off to a mirror. A helmet does set off the face of a man more than a derby. It dignifies manhood. ”

“ My plumber and my tailor and that lad down at the bank—
Why shouldn't I be one myself, and make you walk the plank?
Yes, all you men shall walk the plank with bullets in your sides,
And all you girls shall cling to me and beg to be my brides. ”

“ As my nephew propelled attentively, music sounded from inside of it, a rudimentary type of music mixed with poundings and hoots, and the animals bobbed back and forth, brandishing their instruments. I began to feel pleased. It was a little barbaric perhaps, but just right for Matthew. "Wheel that around the park once a day," I advised him, "and you'll be a different boy altogether. There's a toy will bring some color into your life."
My nephew, who has a limited taste for color and none for adventure, was looking solemn. People were staring at the toy, boys and idlers were following us. ”

“ And I don't like the way they use every massacre as a scheme to get money out of me. Other peoples all over the world kill one another without coming to me about it, but the Armenians imagine they have a special claim on my pocket, and that whenever any one hits them I ought to mail them some biscuits and bandages."
You may not look at this like my father, yet is he wholly wrong? There is a saying in the East that it takes two Jews to get the best of a Syrian, and four Syrians to get the best of an Armenian; they are an acquisitive people. ”

“ There are whole realms, and right at our doorsteps—the floor of the sea.
"The sea is full of mountains to be climbed down, and forests to hunt in," he whispered. "There are monsters that roam in those depths, still unknown to man. Man has always been interested in new animals. ”

“ If there must be a test imposed on everyone who enters a library, make it a brain test that will keep out all readers who are weak in the head. No matter how good their legs are, if they haven't enough brains, keep 'em out. But, instead, we impose a leg test, every day of the year, on all comers, which lets in the brainless without any examination at all, and shuts out the most scholarly persons unless they have legs like an antelope's. ”

“ I had fixed my mind on a phonograph advertisement so successfully that I had quite forgotten the conductor's rude way of making change, when I remembered that my own phonograph would probably prove an annoyance, too. Sometimes it is simply impossible to find any object that is wholly free from annoyance, of one kind or another. I took Commodore Filber's letter out of my pocket and decided to think of that. ”

“ Well, we could house ten times as many persons if we built skyscrapers full of small state-rooms, but I fear our prospective tenants would find the notion rather outlandish!"
"Pough!" said the explorer. "All notions seem outlandish at first. You must have had experience enough of that in your own business. Years ago good New-Yorkers lived in long rows of 'brownstone-front' houses. Each row or block was like a loaf of bread, and each house was a slice. The apartment idea was really nothing more than turning the loaf up on end and living in horizontal slices instead of vertical ones. ”

“ Just then I spied a policeman on a bench ahead of me, with his grizzled old head hanging forward on his chest and his two hands folded peacefully over his stomach. "Officer!" I cried. "Hey, officer! There is a woman drowning in the reservoir!" ”

“ Miss Yecker prepared to tell the doorman all this through the window, by putting her hat on and a light-green three-quarter-length wrap. I couldn't show myself, naturally; but she granted that she could. She could fix up enough, she admitted, to look out of the window.
It might have worked perfectly, but the man who came out to the cab was a spying old snake who caught sight of me when he should have been listening to Miss Yecker, and went off looking over his shoulder with his face puckered up. She, too, was to blame for not fitting herself right in the window, so she would have filled it. ”

“ I perceived all too clearly he was talking about good old Kitteridge. Good old Kitteridge had come to get me, and the keeper had taken him to be the motorist I had gone off with in the park. I had forgotten the resemblance.
"One of our little make-believes," I grimaced to Hattie, and, lifting Matthew in my arms, I ran out in the hall. "Tell me that again," I whispered; "you say they fought?"
"The man with the red beard, he couldn't seem to speak," explained my nephew. Naturally Kitteridge couldn't speak: he stutters badly enough when he's perfectly calm. ”

“ I admit there is a dignity and beauty in a long flight of steps. Let them be used, then, around statues and monuments, where we don't have to mount them. But they become a highly unwelcome form of beauty when they add, each day, to the exertions of everyone, and shut out some of the public completely. ”

“ My wife is getting fat. "And was I wrong about knowing you were going to the club last night?" she queried, still smiling. "And about your eating a Welsh rabbit?"
There is nothing in this world so hopelessly provoking as a woman. If I did not have the patience of Job himself, I really believe sometimes I should go mad. "Whom have you been talking with?" I demanded, indignantly.
"Dr. Grillquist stopped at the door just now, dear, to ask how you were," she answered. "He says you think of taking a vacation."
"So I do," I assented. "I am going to the club inn in the Adirondacks." ”

“ Time waits for no man, time cures more than the doctor, time flies, time comforts grief. These are small instances, but their total effect is not small, for it is life itself that you sacrifice to this fetish. Your G'il actually wont let you take good full draughts of existence—he keeps you busy dividing it into months, days, and minutes. And it isn't because you lead crowded lives that you do it. It's because you're always thinking of time that you lead crowded lives. ”

“ That is one of the last things that any tribe on earth ever seeks. Human beings are not sensible, hard-headed creatures. Far from it. They are temperamental, sir. Any misbegotten notion can rule them. When the fashion here was to have a home perched on a tall flight of steps, they all wanted that kind. Lame or strong, old or young, the poor things climbed 'stoops' daily for years. When largeness is fashionable, they will sacrifice comfort to largeness. ”

“ But it would stir us if we were reminded that those who remained wanted help, not simply as wreckage, but as warriors, ready to keep right on fighting. And with the hope, too, of winning, and thus at last ending these massacres. The Armenians aren't a slumpy lot of invalids; with all their faults, they're brave men. ”

“ Greeley's cry was, 'Young man, go west!' Mine is, 'Young man, go under!' Our cowboys rode the range until the prairies and plains were fenced in; our fishboys will ride deep, new ranges, on tough broncho sharks; they will brand herds of wild fish and fight about them in strange, frontier posts. Those wide, fertile sea-lands lie waiting for adventurous youth, yet they stick around here tamely, these stay-at-homes, with their conventional minds. ”

“ On the breasts or the wrists of your women, and in every man's pocket you see a G'il amulet, a watch, to remind them constantly of time. What other god was ever so faithfully worshiped? In every hut in the land you will find his altar, and in your large huts you will find one in every principal room. No matter how free and unconventional their owners may be, no matter how those rooms may vary in their arrangement, richness, furnishings, there stands always in the most prominent place the thing railed a mantel; on it, ceremonially flanked by two candlesticks, or vases, sits G'il, the timepiece ”

“ She was dressed rather oddly—some clinging white stuff and a wreath. Hair down. No shoes. But in spite of her irregular appearance, I could see she was nice. She was also good-looking. I bowed pleasantly. I like being affable, when possible, to all sorts of people.
"My model, Miss Yecker," said White. "She's posing as a wood-nymph; here's the picture. A classical scene, as you see. She's pleading to this Roman gladiator she's met in the forest." ”

“ I speak of "luck"—that is the charitable view; it's these ignorant cooks. I waited for my rabbit with quite a black, dizzy feeling in my head.
Then Filber reappeared. He still seemed disconcerted by having been sat upon. His expression was quite peevish, I noticed. I began to dislike him. He had a dim, misty look, and I like hearty people. The waiter had tilted his chair up against the table, Broadway style, to show it was reserved. (We have the most ignorant waiters in the world at our club.) ”

“ THE explorer was sitting in the club window, as stiff as an old wooden image. I went over on impulse and joined the poor devil. He seemed to need human companionship. It's not good for any man to live too much off in the wilds. ”

“ You are not a policeman, remember; you're a common, ordinary citizen, like anybody else."
"I am not, then. I am no citizen at all, but a keeper, a regular keeper; it's a park official I am—"
"An official? You're a camel-nursemaid, man—you herd apes, valet parrots—" It was loutish of me to bandy epithets, but that is what I did.
"And what are you?" he retorted, pointing to the toy. "Ain't it you who are the zoo-man of us all with a menagerie like that?" ”

“ It is horribly cold in those depths, but what cares man for that? It is horribly hot in earth's tropics, but has that kept him out? If he stays where he belongs, and where he can live with most comfort, it bores him; but a place that's unfit for human habitation attracts him at once.
"The Roosevelts of the future won't go to Africa for their hunts—they'll dive overboard, and shoot old, astonished sea dragons with undersea guns. The Beebes will desert South America for some submarine jungle, to study its nut-bearing orchids, or to collect five-toed clams. ”

“ But he had spotted this tree as being one place where they came from, and he was just going to learn them to go biting policemen.
As I walked back to the house I reflected that every one has his troubles—troubles that other people couldn't imagine existed, and yet very real ones. It made me feel better about mine. And I thought how poor Hattie would have probably called this owl matter "queer," and how unjust it was of her or any one to use such a word just because a thing seemed a bit unusual or hard to understand.
When I reached home I found to my regret that my brother Talbot was present. ”

“ I want it for you, Niblo. You are my hero."
"I'll earn my own hero medals, thank you," said I. "Somebody else's certainly is no use to us. And I don't know what you mean by jealous, Angelica."
"I could keep it in my bureau drawer," she reflected.
The pawnbroker handed it over to her with a flourish. "Twenty dollars," he mumbled. He saw me glaring at him. "Twenty dollars," he continued, hurriedly, "is the price I'd ought to be getting for this beautiful object, but while business is dull this way, I could give it you for ten."
My fiancée was fingering the disk affectionately. ”

“ The visitor's name was Angelica. Where had I heard—oh, yes, Niblo and Hattie had been speaking of her only a few days before, and when Hattie had said, "Do you think she and Teapot would enjoy each other?" my brother had rejoined, "Indeed, she wouldn't." She had an exquisite voice. I peered around the corner—by George, a dazzler! I ducked back. "Oh, Hattie," she gasped, "I think I saw something moving over there on the rug."
Hattie got up, replying, "I certainly smell something, my dear, and I'm afraid it's a cigarette. Oh! Oh, my heavens! There's a man here! Who—why, it's you again, Teapot. ”

“ After I had fallen over that phonograph, I decided to put it away for good, and began looking for a box to put it in. It is not easy to find a box that will hold a phonograph; the only one I had that was big enough was full of old letters. It occurred to me that it was hardly worth while my keeping those letters; I was always meaning to look them over and think about other days and so forth, but perhaps it wouldn't be much fun, after all. Nothing is much fun when the cooking is bad. ”

“ A difference of thirty minutes in your dinner hour marks a difference in your social scale. 'There isn't time,' you sigh, submissively, when you give up something you'd like to do. Time is money, time presses, give me time, are some of your phrases. ”

“ The umbrella hats were the only kind suitable for use in the village. The tribe had once reduced the width of them, he added, from five feet to three. This he considered a triumph of human intelligence. But to give them up—no. People would not be comfortable or happy, or feel at ease, living without them. ”

“ That's what makes all men ridiculous, their complacency with their primitive ways. I tried to make those Bo-Bolo chiefs understand how small their crops really were, but they thought that I was talking foolishness when I explained what was possible. Yet with some of our old-fashioned hand plows, let alone the machine kind, they could all be rolling in corn in that estuary, instead of half starving."
"And you mean that we, on our part, could be rolling in flatfish?" I asked, looking twice as sardonic as he had. I do not like flatfish. ”

“ I kept explaining. "One doesn't buy hero medals, Angelica; one must deserve them."
"How soon could you deserve one for me, then, Niblo?" she asked; and finding that I did not go out at once and attend to it, she cried, and said that of course I would have done it for Hilda, and that she always knew I did not love her. I contended that I did. She cried still more. And in conversation with Hattie, a few days later, I learned that Angelica had been putting her any quantity of questions—such as why I never matched her (Angelica's) frocks with my neckties or handkerchiefs ”