Monty

“ I couldn't help smiling.
"Yes," proceeded Doe, "Monty laughed too, and said: 'Don't get rattled. You're one of the best, and proving it every moment.' And that brings me to my other difficulty. Rupert, all my life I've done things for my own glory; and I did want to make this confession a perfect thing, free from wrong motives like that. But you've no idea how self-glorification has eaten into me. I find myself hoping Monty will say mine is the best life confession he has ever heard. Isn't it awful?" He sighed and murmured: "I wonder if I shall ever do an absolutely perfect thing." ”

“ Monty did not quite know what it sang to him, but it was something delicious and rather confusing. We are extraordinary creatures of general and mixed impressions. We group numberless separate individual causes into one harmonious composite effect. Thus Monty Crewe massed together the magical spring night outside, the faint echo from the streets, the distant sound of a girl singing in an open-air café chantant, and the sometimes plaintive, sometimes provocative voice of Mrs. Carpenter into one chord of pulse-stirring music. ”

“ Monty was to rebuild my faith in humanity and in God. Some where in that rosy year which was past lay the anchor that I had cast away. Monty was to find me drifting to the Dardanelles with no anchor aboard, and to give me one that would hold. Yes, I saw a ruling Hand. Radley had been the great influence of my schooldays; and, now that he was fast fading into the memories of a remote past, Monty, this lean and whimsical priest, had stepped in to fill the stage. The story of our spiritual development must ever be the story of other people's influence over us. ”

“ It was the old Monty of the Rangoon speaking.
"We'd thought about it," answered Doe, reddening.
"I so want," murmured Monty, "to be of use to all the fellows who are going over the top to-morrow. But they don't understand. They don't think of me as a priest with something to do for them that nobody else can do. They think I've done my job when I've had a hymn-singing service, and preached to them.... And all the time I want to absolve them. I want to send them into the fight—white." ”

“ I wish I’d been a man, Monty.”
“I don’t,” said he smiling.
“Don’t try to flirt with me,” she exclaimed, as he edged a little nearer.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“You don’t know how,” she said and smiled provokingly.
For a moment Monty forgot pearls and Customs and all unpleasant things.
“Teach me,” he entreated.
“It can’t be taught,” she said. “It’s got to be born in you.” She cast her eyes down and looked alluringly at him through curling lashes. There was the opportunity for Monty to see whether he had any skill at the ancient game, but a sudden numbing nervousness took hold of him. ”

“ I've seen so much evil since I've been in the army that my opinion of mankind has sunk to zero."
"So's mine," murmured Doe.
"And mine has gone up and up and up with all that I've seen in the army," said Monty, speaking with some solemnity. "I never knew till I joined the army that there were so many fine people in the world. I never knew there was so much kindliness and unselfishness in the world. I never knew men could suffer so cheerfully. I never knew humanity could reach such heights." ”

“ Why, Monty, darling, splendid Monty! Don't! Don't! You ought to be the gladdest boy who ever lived. See. Look at your grandmother. She isn't saying anything, and there is sorrow in her face, but there's wonderful pride in it, too. Why, think, boy, think! If for years and years you had thought somebody you loved was bad and then suddenly found they were good, after all, would you cry? No, indeed. Anyhow, I shouldn't. I should just hip-hip-hurrah! Three cheers for your father, that all can talk of and love now, and was, Uncle Moses says, one of the splendidest boys ever grew up in Marsden. ”

“ Nothing but comfort and respectability ever seemed able to make Fred gloomy. He discussed our present prospects with the air of an epicure ordering dinner. And Monty listened with his dark, delightful smile—the kindliest smile in all the world. I have seen unthoughtful men mistake it for a sign of weakness. ”

“ This knowledge of the 'finer instincts' comes naturally to you, Monty, because you were born in that atmosphere you speak of; I wasn't. Some men acquire them as a result of their own efforts, some devote their efforts to other things, as I have done. 'You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' Isn't that what you really mean to say, Monty?"
"You are too severe on yourself, Mr. Cosden," Edith said sympathetically, affected by the spectacle of this strong, self-sufficient man suffering under the lash without realizing in the least the power which wielded it. ”

“ Monty Bell has been dividing his week ends between the Ponsonby, Vanderveer, and Jenks-Smith households, yet he always is in the foreground when I have been to see Sylvia, even though I have tried to slip in between times in the morning.
I do not like this Monty Bell; he seems to be merely an eater of dinners and a cajoler of dames, such superficial chivalry of speech as he exhibits being only one of the many expedients that gain him the title of "socially indispensable" that the Whirlpoolers accord him. ”

“ And again Monty Rooke provided the occasion.
Monty, I ought to say, is one of these fellows who, whenever any odd job is to do, especially a domestic one, instinctively seems to take it upon himself. I dare say his living in rooms and studios hardly big enough to turn around in has made him methodical in his habits. It was Monty, for example, who had looked out the train in the Time Table; it was Monty who had picked up the jar of curaçao when Esdaile had let it fall to the floor ”

“ Alvin, it seemed, was capable of nursing a grouch for ever and ever, and Monty had the feeling that the tow-headed youth was watching and waiting for an opportunity to revenge himself for the loss of that forty cents worth of witch hazel. Sometimes Monty wished he had replaced the precious fluid as Alvin had demanded. At the time the latter’s peevishness had seemed too childish to merit serious attention, and Monty had refused recompense, not from stinginess, but, as he put it to himself, to teach Alvin the virtue of generosity. ”

“ And Monty's undismayed comment was characteristic of him. "I say, Rupert," he said, coolly assuming that I was his partner in the work, "We've only a few at present, our apostolic few. But don't you love these big, handsome boys, who will not come to church?"
One immortal Friday fully forty wandered in to Mass. Monty was radiant. Immediately after the service he said to me: "Come on deck, and have a game of quoits-tennis before breakfast. Mass first, then tennis—that's as it should be." We went on deck, and, having fixed the rope that acted as a net, played a hard game. ”

“ Doe and I have often looked back on our first glimpse of Padre Monty and wondered why nothing foreshadowed all that he was going to be to us. We had entered the Transport Office on one of the Devonport Quays, to report according to orders. Several other officers were before us, handing in their papers to a Staff Officer. The one in a chaplain's uniform, bearing on his back a weighty Tommy's pack, that made him look like a campaigner from France, was Padre Monty. We could only see his back, but it seemed the back of a young man, spare, lean, and vigorous. ”

“ Monty is my dog,” he explained. “Incidentally, Benny is my man. They’re both friends of mine—Monty and Ben. I back, uphold, defend—sometimes support—my friends!” There was a dry flavor of humor, like the intangible bouquet of old wines, in his last explanation that impelled me to stand up and ask him for the privilege of his company. I’m glad, now, that I did.
“Let us celebrate,” said I, “such a remarkable occurrence. It’s not every day that a man has the opportunity to defend a defenseless beast. ”

“ Presently Fred came over and joined us, dancing across the wide red floor with the skirts of his gown outspread like a ballet dancer's—ridiculous and perfectly aware of it.
"Monty, you're rich! We're all made men! We're all rich! Let's spend money! Let's send for catalogues and order things!"
Monty declined to take fire. It was I, latest to join the partnership and much the least affluent, who bit.
"If you love the Lord, explain!" said I.
"This old one-eyed lazaretto attendant is an ex-slave, ex-accomplice of
Tippoo Tib!" ”

“ Tell him they're British subjects, staunch to the backbone! Why, they can even sing the first verse of the National Anthem! You'll hear them at it to-night before they turn in. They always do. It's a sort of evening hymn to them. Oh, Monty, Monty, what cursed trick will our fellows think of next, I wonder? Are we men, or are we reptiles, we English? And we boast—we boast of our national honour!"
He broke off, breathing short and hard, as a man desperately near to collapse, and leaned his head on his arm against the rough wall as if in shame.
Herne glanced at him once or twice before replying. ”

“ We were picking our course between the ships, when Monty plucked my sleeve, and, pointing to a home-bound liner, murmured:
"Beauty, Rupert."
I looked, and saw what he meant. For in the big liner's bows two tiny English children clad in white, a little boy and girl, waved mechanically under the instructions of their sweet-faced English mother, who, though a young one, looked with a mother's eyes at our yellow rows of helmeted lads, and waved the more energetically (I doubt not) as she strove to keep back her tears. ”

“ Will was half on his feet to interfere, but Monty signed to him to keep cool; and it was Monty's aggravatingly well-modulated voice that laid the law down.
"Will you be good enough," he asked blandly, "to call off your men from meddling with our mounts?" He could not be properly said to drawl, because there was a positive subacid crispness in his voice that not even a Prussian or a Turk on a dark night could have over-looked. ”

“ Ostentatiously Monty turned his back and walked leisurely to a door.
“You are perfectly splendid,” Nora exclaimed with ecstasy in her voice. “I’d no idea you were so brave.”
“Oh, you can never tell,” Monty returned modestly.
Alice joined them in retreat. “Michael’s thirst is catching,” she asserted. “I’m for some champagne, children, are you?”
“Sure,” said Monty. “What’s a quart amongst three?”
Taylor watched them depart, sneeringly. He hated the idle rich with the intensity of a man who has longed to be of them and knows he cannot. The look he flung at Miss Cartwright was not pleasant. ”

“ For you, Monty, life is certainly not slow. You can dominate; you can make things go your way. Aren't they going your way now, Monty"—this more seriously—"What's wrong? Is the pace too fast?"
His mood increased upon him with her sympathy. "Oh, no," he said, "it isn't that. You are good—and I'm a selfish beast. Things are perverse and people are desperately obstinate sometimes. ”

“ When they were near one of those convenient seats which Paris provides for her street-living populace Monty suggested a minute’s rest.
With an elaborate gesture he took out the pouch and showed it to Denby.
“Did you ever see this before?” he demanded.
“I’ve got one just like it,” his friend returned without undue interest. “Useful things, aren’t they, and last so much longer than the rubber ones?”
“My pouch,” said Monty, beginning to enjoy his own joke, “looks better inside than outside. I keep in it tobacco I grow in my private orchid house. Look!” ”

“ No sooner had I learned who they were than I turned about and hurried back to Monty's dug-out. This life holds few pleasures so agreeable as that of conveying startling news.
"Who do you think's marching up the Gully?" I demanded.
"I don't know. Who?" asked Monty.
"The Munster Fusiliers!"
"What? The immortal 29th Division? From Suvla. The dickens! What does it mean?"
Before we could decide what it meant my batman came back from a visit to the French canteen at Seddel Bahr.
"They're landing hundreds of troops at V Beach, sir," said he. "The Worcesters are here, and the Warwicks." ”

“ After all, Monty's sister could not come; but Ted's sense of the fitness of things was satisfied by his having asked her, and, as Monty himself came and did not seem afraid of Katharine as all his other friends were, he felt that his tea-party was a success. The only thing that marred his enjoyment was the fact that Katharine, for some unaccountable caprice, refused to be intellectual in spite of the efforts of Monty, whose real name proved to be Montague, to draw her out. Monty was a young man with a gentlemanly view of life, tempered by a great desire to be thought advanced ”

“ Monty grumbled, “when we’re shot full of holes.”
“Don’t be afraid of getting shot at,” Denby said smiling. “You amateurs have no idea how few shots hit the mark even at short range. I’ve been shot at three times and I’ve not a scar to show.”
“Job must be your favorite author,” Monty commented sourly. “I hate the noise. I’m scared to death; I thought I wanted excitement, but life on a farm for me hereafter.”
“But, my dear boy,” Denby said more seriously, “you are not in this. They’re after me and this.” He held up the necklace. “You’re a spectator merely.” ”

“ A vague uneasiness seized Monty in spite of his efforts to throw it off. Gary should be somewhere in the cañon, since he would not leave it afoot, not while he had a horse doing nothing in the corral. Of course, if anything were wrong with Jazz——Monty turned and rode back to the corral, where he dismounted by the gate. He went in and walked up to Jazz, and examined him with the practiced palms of the expert horseman. He slapped Jazz on the rump and shooed him around the corral at a lope.
“There ain’t a thing in the world the matter with you,” he told the horse, after a watchful minute or two. ”