Various

“ Collinson’s look was that of an employed man who only deepens his rut with his pacing of it.
An employed man he was, indeed; a lawyer without much hope of ever seeing his name on the door or on the letters of the firm that employed him, and his most important work was the collection of small debts. This one hundred dollar bill now in his pocket was such a collection, small to the firm and the client, though of a noble size to himself and the long-pursued debtor from whom he had just collected it. ”

“ It is——”
“Mademoiselle,” interrupted Ventrillon, “why speak of her? She exists only to be ignored by you.”
The Belletaille gave him her grateful full face. “I knew it the moment I saw you,” she declared. “You are a mystic, and I think mysticism is so fascinating. You have the eyes. I am a mystic myself. Everybody notices it. Sometimes I think we mystics alone know the true soul of things. What a truth that is, ‘She exists only to be ignored by me!’ You are a painter, aren’t you? It is these young ones, these young mystics, who do the great things. Why do you not paint my portrait?” ”

“ If the Belletaille becomes interested in you, she will soon introduce you to everybody of any importance. Think of the marvellous portraits you can paint, and the prices you can charge! Perhaps she may even allow you to paint her portrait! Who knows? Then you will be in a position to refuse kings and queens.”
Gabrielle Belletaille, the prima donna of the Opéra Comique, was, as everybody knew, the idol of tout Paris. There was nobody like her. Where she led, tout Paris followed. Where tout Paris leads, all the world follows. Ventrillon stood for a moment silent. ”

“ Alyse had heard the tale of her father’s miraculous re-union with Wally so many times that it meant nothing to her. It seemed that as boys they had lived within two doors of each other in a small New England town, and they had been inseparable. First thing in the morning and last thing at night they were whistling outside each other’s windows; they owned a dog in common; and when George had scarlet fever, Wally nearly died from anxiety. Then, at sixteen, life had borne them in different directions. Wally drifted finally to Alaska and George got a job in New York. ”

“ You may say that he is a thief. But I say, and true Frenchmen will say with me, that he is a patriot, messieurs the judges. He loves Napoleon. He loves him for what he did for France. He loves him because in Napoleon burned that spirit which has made France great. There was a time, messieurs the judges, when your fathers and mine dared share that love for a great leader. Need I remind you of the career of Napoleon? I know I need not. Need I tell you of his victories? I know I need not.”
Nevertheless, Advocate Dufayel did tell them of the career of Napoleon. ”

“ But instead he stood still, mockingly analysing that impulse. “In a story,” he said to himself, “there would be an adventure waiting in the next garden. But in real life, as I well know, there is only another garden, like this, with no one there. People do not moon about in gardens.”
But then he reflected, “I am mooning about in a garden.” Realizing that bankers do not do such things, it seemed to him that he was not a banker, but, as his friend had said, a phantom in a phantom world where impossible things come true. ”

“ Mather’s escape is not so much the ingenious end to a clever plot as it is the logical end of just such a situation in real life, provided the chief actor be American and not Russian. The fighter may escape, the weakling dies. If the ideal of a people be annihilation, death the easy surrender either to indifference or to a divine nostalgia, just so surely literature will reflect that ideal. ”

“ Slinging its contents of scarlet amaryllis about the floor, Ventrillon snatched the hat from the table, placed it accurately in the seat of his chair, and sat upon it.
“It is curious, old fellow,” he reflected aloud, without rising from the inchoate mass it had become—“it is curious how strange one always feels when one discovers that one has been human. But to-night you and I—you and I are going together to the Closerie des Lilas. May the francs in my pocket persuade our friends to be merciful!” ”

“ Why people will discuss such a creature I cannot understand. Such vulgarity! It makes me ill. And she will do anything for notoriety. I abhor notoriety myself. I loathe notoriety. And voice? It is like the screech of a rusty hinge. Really, Madame Sutrin, if we are to have nothing but Fanny Max——”
“I assure you, madame,” said the minister to Mme. Ribot, striving to keep his rage from his voice, “that I have not the honour of knowing Mademoiselle Max——”
“Oh,” she cried quickly, “never fear! Your wife will not hear it from me.”
“Ugh!” said the Belletaille to Ventrillon, “it continues! ”

“ Were you ever in love, Napoleon? No? Ah, what a pity! I know, for I, too, have had no luck in love. Ladies prefer the big, strong men, don’t they? Well, we must help these two young people, Napoleon. We must see that they have the joy we missed. So do not let them know you are watching them if they come here to-morrow night. I will pretend I do not see.”
Each night after the museum had closed, Papa Chibou gossiped with Napoleon about the progress of the love affair between the American girl with the bright dark eyes and the slender, erect young Frenchman. ”

“ At once a criticism and a half dozen stories rolled up in one parcel, “Home Brew” doubly succeeds and gives double measure. Grandmother’s selfishness, Father and Walter’s extraordinary friendship, Mother’s home-making gift, Aunt Jude’s quiet struggle—quiet as volcanic fires beneath the crust—Eddie’s love for the sea, and Mildred’s fluttering toward the flame: in all these lies potential drama. Three themes actually achieve the outline of drama and reach climax on the evening Alyse spends with her mother. ”

“ But Derrick kept putting off his return to the earth.
If a loving husband and father were turned loose in the finest jewellery store in the world and told to take his pick of the diamonds and rubies and pearls, as many as he could carry, he would not at once rush off to tell his loved ones of the astounding privilege that had been extended to him. ”

“ The Musée Pratoucy was going to have to close its doors.
“It is no use,” said Monsieur Pratoucy, when he dealt this blow to Papa Chibou. “I cannot go on. Already I owe much, and my creditors are clamouring. People will no longer pay a franc to see a few old dummies when they can see an army of red Indians, Arabs, brigands and dukes in the moving pictures. Monday the Musée Pratoucy closes its doors for ever.”
“But, Monsieur Pratoucy,” exclaimed Papa Chibou, aghast, “what about the people here? What will become of Marie Antoinette, and the martyrs, and Napoleon?” ”

“ You must be a very wicked old man to go about stealing dummies. What will be safe now? One may expect to find the Eiffel Tower missing any morning. Dummy stealing! What a career! We have had a man in here who stole a trolley car, and one who made off with the anchor of a steamship, and even one who pilfered a hippopotamus from a zoo, but never one who stole a dummy—and an old one-eared dummy, at that! It is an affair extraordinary!”
“And what did they do to the gentleman who stole the hippopotamus?” inquired Papa Chibou tremulously. ”

“ Alyse, blind to all these potentialities, becomes the target for Miss Mason’s arrow-thrusts which, in piercing her, pierce the average would-be writer. The dilettante sees neither the humour nor the tragedy of real life, whose repressions mean to her only absence of thought and emotion. No other country owns to so many thousands of those who, mistaking desire for ability, and possessing the minimum requirements of the fictionist, waste themselves in “trying to write.” ”

“ Papa Chibou, quaking, stood up. A hand like a hand of pink bananas was thrust down at him.
“Jerome Chibou,” said Chief Judge Bertouf, “I find you guilty. Your crime is patriotism in the first degree. I sentence you to freedom. Let me have the honour of shaking the hand of a true Frenchman.”
“And I,” said Judge Goblin, thrusting out a hand as dry as autumn leaves.
“And I also,” said Judge Perouse, reaching out a hairy hand.
“And, furthermore,” said Chief Judge Bertouf, “you shall continue to protect the Napoleon you saved. ”

“ But now, since they had danced for half an hour, fright had given place to this queer mixture of emotions; elation, dizzy wonder—she, Mildred Todd, dancing with a famous dancer, or at any rate a nearly famous dancer—hadn’t he had a dance practically alone, with the spotlight once directly on him?—and a curious undercurrent of vague unhappiness, as if already she had said good-bye to someone she had shrined and now had lost. ”

“ Regard me this hat! There is none other like it. Never has such a thing happened before, and never will it happen again. Here is the unique hat crushed by the umbrella of the great Belletaille, and merely to own it is to render yourself famous. Now attend to this extraordinary fact! I, Odillon Ventrillon, stand here upon this chair, willing to part with this treasure. ”

“ But in Selina Jo, the humble fighter whose perseverance and patience land her in the reformatory of her desire, it hints at resurrection out of dust. Stock of the past, impoverished, dry as Phœnix ashes, yet may renew itself, like the fabled bird, for another thousand years. Heritage of the South, the poor white has been loosely accepted as drift left by flood and ebb of a splendid civilization. Only in recent years have writers come out of the South who treat him in the individual manner he deserves. ”

“ What better, she asked herself, could any strong, healthy girl desire than a steady job dipping turpentine for which she was paid real money?
Occasional passersby, strangers to the vicinity, amazed at seeing a girl engaged in such unusual work, would pause to ask friendly questions. The first flush of pleasure that this gave Selina Jo was quickly erased by the bitter after-tang of reflection: these people were kind because they did not know she was a Hudsill. ”

“ Desecraters of Napoleon, stop! There still lives one Frenchman who loves the memories of his native land; there is still one patriot left. I, I, Jerome Chibou, will save Napoleon!’ And he did save him, messieurs the judges.”
Advocate Dufayel mopped his brow, and levelling an accusing finger at The Terrible Trio he said, “You may send Jerome Chibou to jail. But when you do, remember this: You are sending to jail the spirit of France. You may find Jerome Chibou guilty. But when you do, remember this: You are condemning a man for love of country, for love of France. ”

“ Collinson returned. “I was going to be more sensible about him, because you were going to be more sensible about him. Wasn’t that the agreement?”
She gave him a hard glance, tossed her head so that the curls of her bobbed hair fluttered prettily, and with satiric mimicry repeated his question. “‘Agreement’! Wasn’t that the agreement! Oh, my, but you do make me tired, talking about ‘agreements’! As if it was a crime my going to a vaudeville matinée with a man kind enough to notice that my husband never takes me anywhere!” ”

“ Judith Todd, when she had left the house and her mother behind her, became as usual a thing with wings on her feet.{175} She flew toward the Subway entrance, her dark eyes eager, her chin outthrust, her tall figure leaning forward as if the waiting to get there was intolerable. Sometimes she took a quick and happy look up at the sky, as a girl may who is hastening to meet a lover. ”

“ The Subway does something curious to faces. It seems to drain all life out of them; it strips from them their defensive masks and exposes the deep and expressive scars of existence. A secret{160} and hidden soul comes out in each Subway face. But Alyse averted her eyes.
“Dear me,” she sighed, “how dull they are! Isn’t there any beauty left in the world?”
Her father and his chum, Wally, were just ahead of her as she came up from the Subway depths. They were wending their way to their respective homes, having come up from downtown together, as was their invariable custom. ”

“ She threw open the door. A sleek young man dropped his hand from the arm of a girl who sprang forward with a cry of the frankest relief, “Aunt Jude! I want to go home with you.”
The socks and stockings were all darned and they lay neatly folded in a ring around the darning basket. The evening noises in the street outside were stilled, and the narrow house in the Harlem street was quietly breathing, waiting. Alyse yawned, looked at the clock and put on her sad-coloured hand-loomed hat. ”

“ The civilian onlookers, loitering about the camp, called the one in yellow uniform “l’Américain” and credited him with great deeds. “There’s a rough boy!” they would say. “There’s one who does tricks in the air!” For him Célestine felt a secret preference. The way he landed delighted her. As his plane, swirling down, touched the earth, he looked, in his leather helmet and armour, like some fabulous knight of the air; but even as his plane still rolled along the ground, he snatched off the leather helmet and became a red-headed boy. ”

“ The three judges looked at one another blankly; Papa Chibou regarded his lawyer with wide eyes; Georges Dufayel spoke on.
“These are times of turmoil and change in our country, messieurs the judges. Proud traditions which were once the birthright of every Frenchman have been allowed to decay. Enemies beset us within and without. Youth grows careless of that honour which is the soul of a nation. Youth forgets the priceless heritages of the ages, the great names that once brought glory to France in the past, when Frenchmen were Frenchmen. ”

“ He who now wore a hat of eight reflections with bravado could then wear it with authority. Ventrillon would be a personage of tout Paris. Cannot one well bear one’s hunger for that?
Enthroned in a tall-backed Spanish chair draped with cloth of gold, the Belletaille sat in emerald green and all her make-up. She insisted upon the make-up.
“Without it,” she said, “the portrait would not be decent. You might as well paint me in the nude.” ”