George S. Chappell

“ THE HUMAN BANK ACCOUNT And here is the last portrait in our gallery—the rich or MONEYED wife. We would like entirely to discontinue the manufacture of this model and substitute for it, on all future occasions, the old-fashioned, penniless, demure, rosy-cheeked, Oh Alfred, all-for-love, type of wife, but, alas, business is business, and rents, and club dues, and golf balls, and servants wages, are all going up, so why not recognize the fact that a rich wife is a good thing to begin on; something to hang on to until you get up a little free action in the direction of True Love? ”

“ The scene is the sub-polar apartment of the Kryptok hunter, hewn from the ageless ice.
Obviously a tender passage is in progress. The jaunty Swank, holding in his hand a bunch of lapland-larkspurs, which, it should be remarked, were completely out of season at the time, is not only saying it with flowers but with all the practised ardor of a grade A Romeo.
"You are the sweetest thing in the world," he whispers. "I have never met anyone like you in all my life."
The child hears and believes.
"You are so original!" she murmurs, bending her seal-like ear. ”

“ Ah, Sarah, my desert dish, canst thou forget that joyous pilgrimage neath the myriad eyes of night, throughout which I ever remained thy slave, reverent, respectful, devoted?
Be that as it may, we should have come up with Hammababa long ago but never so much as a palm frond had we seen. The devil of a camel is that once off the proper direction he keeps right on in the wrong one without the slightest deviation. Nothing like instinct ever troubles them. ”

“ In the beauty of nature about him it is evident that the great artist felt only the dominant feature of island life, the glorious, untrammeled womanhood of the South Seas. The wild abandon, the primitive gesture of modesty, the eyes of adoration—symbolically expressed as detached entities floating about the loved one—all are present in this remarkable picture. Thus expressed, too, we may find the ever-present ocean, the waving palms and, if we seek carefully, the Kawa herself, scudding before the trade wind. Truly may this be called, as the artist prefers, the Venus of Polynesia. ”

“ We can not read the stories of these brave men, from the most successful to the least, without wondering what it was which actually drew them into the regions of eternal ice and snow. We can but suspect some great, unrevealed truth, some untold secret lying back of the veil of fog, shrouded in the darkness of the long Arctic night.
May we not well ask, "Has the entire truth been told? has the last word been spoken which will forever answer the natural question, why go there?"
It has remained for Walter E. Traprock to answer that question in no uncertain terms. ”

“ The next morning I rose to face a titanic struggle between earth and sky. The desert was rising. After a three-mile advance I gave the order to heave-to. The camels were anchored fore-and-aft, to long tent-pegs. The sand became increasingly fluid. Low ripples running over its face rapidly rose to waves which dashed their stinging spray over us with the rasping hiss of a devil’s hot breath. In the lulls I could hear the wails of the doolahs and the bubbling roar of the camels.
Ab-Domen fought with the resource and bravery of a great commander. ”

“ In depicting fashionable society Miss Fish is perhaps at her best, for the reason that the spectacle which seems to interest her most is that pageant of “smart” types that race, as if by magic, to her drawing-board, from every haunt of social life—from opera boxes, ballrooms, race-meets, cabarets, smart supper parties, dinners of state, musicales, and the thousand and one happy backgrounds against which the contemporary beau monde is wont to pose and posture. ”

“ Plainly not of the same social class as the beautiful women whom Baahaabaa had selected for us, she yet possessed an eerie charm of her own which instantly stirred strange emotions in my breast. I heard Swank gasp and Whinney's face was white and drawn, his favorite expression when deeply moved. She stood close to her husband, half-twined about him with the grace and strength of an eva-eva vine while her kindling eyes burned questioningly, her lithe body tense and protective. "He is to be christened," said Baahaabaa, with a magnificent gesture toward William Henry Thomas. ”

“ The men, on their side, are equally free. The result is that a meeting with their wives is an event. Happiness, love and the elation of celebration are the harmonious notes of this beautiful domestic diapason.
Feast-days, banquets, picnics, swimming parties—the Filbertines adore salt water, which is not potable but thirst-producing—these are the occasions of a frank and joyous mingling of the sexes.
Before we left the clearing we were treated to a most graceful spectacle, a performance of the Ataboi, a dance descriptive of the growth and blossoming of the alova flower. ”

“ With the silence of a snake I edged slightly nearer the slain Bassikunu until our garments overlapped. It was the work of an hour which seemed like twelve for me to move his corpse out of his coarse garment and into the voluminous folds of my cloak. Moving a fraction of an inch at a time, the sweat of excitement pouring from my body, I burrowed and pushed and pulled and hauled until we had at last changed places, the humble camel-driver lying inside in my Moplah cloak while I sprawled beyond the tent wall in his blood stained and ignoble raiment. ”

“ We watched him in silence until I saw that he was going to miss the Pole entirely and if not stopped would soon be bound south again for an indefinite period. Tenderly Sausalito and I led him to the cairn while her rich voice murmured comfort in his ear. He was beside himself with emotion and hot tears kept welling from under his goggles.
"The touch of a woman's hand!" he sobbed, as he smoothed mine with his.
Frissell's arrival was characteristic. He made the last sixty yards between the Kawa and the Pole on a pogo stick—a new—in fact the only—record for an event of this kind. ”

“ Stretching forth a trembling hand, Triplett plucked the blossom from Kippy's hair!
You can only imagine the commotion which ensued when I tell you that, in the Filberts, for a man to pluck a flower from a woman's hair means only one thing. Poor Kippy was torn between love of me and what she thought was duty to my chief. I had a most difficult time explaining to her that Triplett meant absolutely nothing by his action, a statement which he corroborated by all sorts of absurd "I don't care," gestures—but he clung to the flower. ”

“ The afternoon, it appeared, was to be given over to a lion hunt in spite of the objections of Effendi-Bazam, the Karawan-bashi or leader of the Wimpole party which, by the way, was as ill-organized and amateur an outfit as I have ever seen. We were now not far from the southern edge of the Ahaggar Plateau which thrusts its spurs into the desert like the stony fingers of a giant hand clutching at the sands. The ravines between the fingers were an ideal lurking place for desert lions, mangy, ill-favored beasts but far more sporty than their South African brothers. ”

“ THE ENDLESS CHAIN Only the shortage of white paper prevented the artist from prolonging the above idea indefinitely. It is the motif for a frieze entitled “Matrimony”—rather a quaint little conception, isn’t it? If you are at all married—or even if you are only an innocent bystander—you will get the idea without a struggle. As soon as divorce mercifully looses one set of shackles, a change of partners is rapidly effected, new bonds are formed—and there they are, right back at the very beginning again. ”

“ A whole school of painters have attempted to reproduce the exotic color and charm of these entrancing isles. It remained for Herman Swank, by his now famous method of diagrammatic symbolism, to bring the truth fully home. This he accomplished by living, to the limit, the native life of the Filbertese. Clad only in the light lamitu, or afternoon wrap of the islands, it was the artist's custom to spend entire days inhaling the perfume of the fragment alova flower, a practice which undoubtedly accounts for the far-away, dreamy expression so evident in the photograph. ”

“ The first sun’s rays lighted the listless sails and gleaming hulls of the ships at anchor, battered tramps and giant liners from overseas, trim yachts, an occasional sombre battleship and thousands of sturdy fishing craft. Two vessels were my immediate object, the Wimpole’s Undine and my own Kawa. A long scrutiny from the rising ground back of the Port failed to disclose them. Parking our car we lost ourselves in the forest of masts along the harbor’s edge. It was impossible that Triplett had failed me but locating him was like finding one’s automobile after a foot-ball game. ”

“ HAIL, THE CONQUERING HERO! When first love takes the form of hero worship, there is practically nothing that can be done about it. The case illustrated below is almost at the last stage, as is shown by the patient’s complete loss of appetite. The object of her maiden dreams is her mother’s guest, a returned big-game hunter—one of those bronze-skinned, clean-limbed outdoor men. Really, these people with clean limbs and chiseled features ought not to be at large; they get a young girl’s innocent inhibitions and major complexes all tangled up. ”

“ To begin with I knew in my heart that the beginning of close clan relations with these magnificent Klinkas meant the end of the Traprock Expedition! That we should ever again return to civilization was absolutely unthinkable. Here, in this winter solitude, I saw the first glimmerings of the truth over which the scientific world has so long puzzled. Here was the answer to the old, old, question, "Why do explorers leave home?" Why have so many never returned? ”

“ A convulsive gurgling sob was followed by a low moan and I felt the impact of a body falling heavily on the sand near me.
Though I could see nothing I must confess that Azad’s voice was the most unpleasant I have ever heard. Far from being harsh and dominating it was low, cool, almost tired. It faded away at the end of sentences as if the possessor had withdrawn himself from human contact. I sensed the presence of one to whom human life, even his own—was nothing. If a snake had a voice I feel sure it would be the voice of Azad. ”

“ You Will Certainly Be Considered a Social Pariah if You Don’t Dance the Night Out In spite of sporadic outbursts of protest from non-dancing editors of hearth-side magazines, the dance craze is still going strong. In fact, it’s more violent than it ever was; it is no longer a mere craze—it has reached the point of frenzy. Any kind of dance goes (whether in Rome, Madrid, New York, Paris or London) from the intricacies of the Russian ballet on the stage of the opera, to the simple little fox trot in the privacy of your own home. ”

“ The hors d'oeuvre course of a Filbert Island banquet is one roar of laughter caused by the interior tickling of the agile food. This of course promotes good feeling and leads to many lasting friendships.
With one's meals thus always ready-to-serve, with no cook glowering at the clock, no cheese souffle ready to collapse, no dishes to wash or frying-pans to scour, life is one long gastronomic song.
In physical stature and beauty the Filbertines are far above the average. The men are six feet in height and upwards, and proportionately wide. ”

“ Born a not-too-simple son of New Bedford, Mass., Triplett has climbed the rope-ladder of success from cabin-boy to Captaincy, from poop-deck to mast-head. Gifted with uncanny nautical skill this Captain Courageous is equally at home on ice.
Seldom if ever has the camera been more successful in catching the very soul of the sitter, who in this case is standing. But whether assis or debout Ezra Triplett is always master of the situation. The animals in the background are not dogs but Amoks, those wild vulpines of the North which have been trained by hand to obey their master's voice. ”