Seeing Things at Night

Red Magic

Everybody said it was a great opportunity for Hans. The pay was small, to be sure, but the hours were short and the chance for advancement prodigious. Already the boy could take a pair of rabbits out of a high hat, or change a bunch of carrots into a bowl of goldfish. Unfortunately, the Dutchmen of Rothdam were vegetarians, and Hans was not yet learned enough in magic to turn goldfish back to carrots. Many times he had asked his master, Kahnale, for instruction in the big tricks. He longed to go in for advanced magic, such as typhoons, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. He even aspired to juggle planets and keep three stars in the air at once.

Kahnale only smiled and spoke of the importance of rudiments. He pointed out that as long as inexperience made mistakes possible it would be better to mar a carrot or two than the solar system.

Not all the boy's projects were vast. It seemed as if there was as much enthusiasm in his voice when he asked about love philters as when he spoke of earthquakes. His casual inquiry as to the formula for making a rival disappear into thin air betrayed an eagerness not present in his planetary researches.

But to every question Kahnale replied, "Wait." The magician intimated that a bachelor of black arts might play pranks with the winds, the mountains and the stars forbidden to a freshman. True love, he declared, would be the merest trifle for one who knew all the lore. Hans found surprisingly small comfort in these promises. He had seen the sixteen foot shelf of magic in the back room where the skeletons swung in white arcs through the violet haze. Millions of words stood between him and Gretchen, and she was already seventeen and he had turned twenty. It irked him that he should be forced to learn Arabic, Chaldean and a little Phœnician to win a Dutch girl. Sometimes he imagined she cared for him in spite of a seeming disdain and he hoped that he might win her without recourse to magic, but then she grew coy again. Anyway, Kahnale had told him that only post-graduate students should seek to read the heart of a woman.

And so Hans polished the high hats, fed the rabbits, read the prescribed pieces in Volume One and learned a little day by day. He yearned more. It seemed as if there must be a short cut to the knowledge which he wanted, and this belief was strengthened one day when he discovered a thin and ever so aged volume hidden behind the books of the sixteen foot shelf. Before he had a chance to open the little book Kahnale rushed into the room and cried out to him in a great and terrible voice to drop the volume. Carefully, the magician returned the book to its hiding place and he warned Hans never to touch it again upon the pain of the most extensive and prodigious penalties. He not only intimated that disobedience would be dangerous to Hans, but to his family, to the town of Rothdam, to Holland and to the world.

Six months passed and Hans had striven to remember so many things since the day of the warning that he had all but forgotten the words of Kahnale. Lying atop the dyke, Hans gave the magician never a thought. The boy drew pictures in the loose sand with the toe of his sabot and brushed them away one after the other. At last he completed a design which struck his fancy and he ceased work to admire it. He had drawn a large heart and exactly in the center he had written "Gretchen."

It may have been a charm or a coincidence, but he looked up from the sand design just in time to see her passing along the road which ran parallel to the dyke. He shouted after her, but it was a capricious day with Gretchen, and she went along about her business without once looking back, under the pretense that she had not heard the greeting.

Hans raged and made as if to demolish the heart, and Gretchen, and indeed the whole dyke, but then he thought of something better. He got up and entering the house of Kahnale, went into the back room without even stopping to rattle the skeletons. The room was empty and Hans rummaged behind the long row of magic books until he found the old volume which he felt sure would give him some of the needful secrets which had been withheld from him. Opening the book, he blew away a thick top soil of ancient dust and was chagrined to find that whatever knowledge lay before him was concealed in some language so ancient that he could not understand a single word.

"Perhaps," he thought to himself, "this is a charm I can set to ticking even if I can't understand it." Fearing that Kahnale might come upon him, he hid the book under his coat and carried it out to his retreat on top of the dyke. In a low voice he began to read the strange and fearsome sentences in the book. Although they meant nothing to him, they possessed a fine rolling cadence which captured his fancy, and more boldly and more loudly Hans went on with his reading.

While Hans meddled with the book of magic, Kahnale was in consultation with the Mayor of Rothdam, who sought some charm or potion which would insure him reëlection. He had been a thoroughly inefficient Mayor, but the magician dealt with clients as impartially as a lawyer or doctor, and he agreed to weave the necessary spells. He stipulated only that the Mayor should accompany him to the house on the dyke, where there was a more propitious atmosphere for black art than in the town hall. After some little fuss and fume about the price and the long walk and his dignity, the Mayor consented, and the two men descended the great stairway of the town hall. No sooner had they reached the street than Kahnale looked at the sky in amazement. The day had been the most stolid and fair of days when he entered the Mayor's office, but now the western sky was filled with tier upon tier of angry black clouds, and as he looked there was a fearsome flash of fire broad as a canal and a roll of thunder which shook the ground beneath their feet.

"Quick!" cried Kahnale, and seizing the Mayor by the arm he rushed him down the road which led to the sea. As they ran a rising wind with a salt tang smote their faces. The clouds were growing blacker and heavier. It almost seemed as if they might topple. There was another flash bright as the light which blinded Saul. The Mayor crossed himself and prayed. Kahnale cursed. They were within a hundred feet of the sea when a second flare of fire outlined a figure on the dyke. It swayed to and fro and moaned above the growing roar of the wind.

In a sudden hush between the gusts the figure turned and they could hear the voice distinctly enough, though it seemed to be the voice of some one a long way off. "Eb dewollah," said the voice, and Kahnale clapped his hands to his head in horror.

"It is the end," cried the wizard. "There is no hope. This is the final charm. The Lord's Prayer is last of all."

"I do not hear the Lord's Prayer. What is it?" pleaded the Mayor.

"You would not understand," explained Kahnale. "The prayer is said backward, as in all charms. He has reached 'Eb Dewollah,' and that is 'Hallowed Be!' The prayer is the last of the charm."

"Charm? What charm?" said the Mayor querulously, clinging dose to Kahnale.

"The master charm," said the magician. "This is the spell which when said aloud summons all the forces of the devil and brings the destruction of the world."

"The world!" interrupted the Mayor in amazement. "Then Rothdam will be destroyed," and he began to weep.

Kahnale paid no heed. "It can't be stopped," he muttered. "It must go on. He has the book and there is no power strong enough to stop the spell."

"If I only had my policemen and my priest," moaned the Mayor.

"Is that all?" said Kahnale. "I have enough magic for that."

The magician spoke three words and made two passes in the air before he turned and pointed to Rothdam. Instantly the bell in the town hall which called all villagers to the dyke tolled wildly. The wind was rising and shrilling louder and louder, and the sky was now of midnight blackness. The Mayor looked up in wretched terror at the figure on the dyke and started to rush at him as if to pitch him into the sea. Kahnale held him back. "Wait," he said. "If you touched the devil servant you would die."

Above the shriek of the wind rose the voice from the dyke. "Nevaeh ni," said the voice. "In heaven," muttered Kahnale. "It is almost done."

Down the road in the teeth of the gale came the villagers of Rothdam. In the van were the Mayor's police in red coats. They carried clubs and blunderbusses, and one, more hurriedly summoned than his companions, held a poker.

"There," cried the Mayor, "shoot that man on the dyke!" And with the first flash of light the foremost guard ran halfway up the steep embankment and leveled his blunderbuss. He fired. The roar of the gun was answered by a crash of thunder. A fang of fire darted from the center of the clouds and the guard rolled down the dyke and lay still at the bottom.

"Tra ohw," came the voice from the dyke. The priest, not daunted by the fate of the guard, hurried close to the side of the swaying figure and sprinkled him with holy water, but no sooner had the water left his hands than each drop changed to a tiny tongue of fire, leaping and dancing on the shoulder of the devil servant. The priest drew back in horror and the Mayor, with a cry of fear, threw himself at the foot of the dyke and buried his face in the long grasses. High above the booming of the gale and the crash of the waves against the barrier came the voice from the dyke, "Rehtaf."

"Father," said Kahnale, "I come, master devil!" he cried with one hand raised.

The sea which had almost reached the top of the dyke suddenly receded. Back and back it went and bared a deep and slimy floor. On that floor were many unswept things of horror. The earth trembled. The black clouds were banks of floating flame. The villagers turned to run from the dyke, for now the sea was returning. It rushed toward the dyke in a wave a hundred feet high.

Out of the crowd one ran forward and not back. It was a girl with flaxen hair and red ribbons. She ran straight to the figure on the dyke.

"It's Gretchen," she called. "Save me, Hans, save me." She threw her arms around the boy's neck and kissed him. The wall of water hung on the edge of the dyke like a violin string drawn tight. Then it surged forward and swallowed up both boy and girl.

Some folk in Rothdam say that Hans dropped the book of black magic and kissed Gretchen before the water swept over them, but the villagers are not sure about this trifle, since at that moment they were watching the rebirth of a lost world.

The wave of water a hundred feet high dwindled until it was no wave, but only a few tall grasses swaying gently in the dying land breeze. The clouds of fire faded to mist, pink tinted by the setting sun. Somewhere about were roses.

The villagers rushed to the top of the dyke. A policeman who had muddied his uniform as if by a fall rose to his feet and followed them, rubbing his head. Far below the dyke lay a calm sea. On the horizon were ships.

"Rothdam and its brave citizens are saved," said the Mayor. "To-night I will burn two hundred candles in honor of our patron saint, who has this day delivered us and enabled us to continue a happy existence under the best municipal government Rothdam has ever known." There were cheers.

That night Kahnale walked on the dyke alone. Everybody else was in the cathedral. That is, everybody but one policeman, who pleaded a severe headache. The magician listened to the bells of the cathedral and then he shook his head. "It was not the saint who saved us," he muttered. "There are no miracles. Somewhere there is a rational magical explanation for all this." But he had to shake his head again. "It is not in the books," he muttered.

Just then the moon came from behind a cloud and silvered some marks in the path of Kahnale. The magician stooped and looked. There on the top of the wave swept dyke, drawn in the loose sand, was a large heart, and in the center of it was written "Gretchen."

The Last Trump

"Ours is an easy-going and optimistic age," writes John Roach Straton in one of his "messages and wrath and judgment," which are combined in a volume called The Menace of Immorality. "We do not like to be disturbed with unpleasant thoughts," continues the genial doctor, "and yet, if we are wise men and women, we will give due consideration to these things, in the light of the tremendous times in which we live. There never has been such a day as this before in the world's history. This is a time already of judgment upon a wicked world. The whole world is now standing in the shadow of anarchy and starvation. Unless we repent and turn to God, we will have to pay the price of our folly and sins. And New York, let us understand, is no exception to these great truths of God. Though she exalt herself to the very heavens, she shall be laid low, unless she repents and turns from her wicked ways. We have become so vain to-day over scientific achievements and education and all that, that we have tended to condescend even to God. We tend to look down upon Him from our lordly human heights. But what folly it is! He who sitteth in the heavens shall laugh! May He not laugh at us! And let us well know that God's arm is not shortened and that He has the means, even of temporal judgment, in His almighty hands. Have you ever thought of what a good, husky tidal wave would do to 'Little Old New York,' as we call her? Have you ever imagined the Woolworth skyscraper butting headlong into the Equitable Building, through such an earthquake as that which laid San Francisco's proud beauty in the dust? Have you ever imagined the Metropolitan Tower crashing over on Madison Square Garden sometime, when there were tens of thousands of people in there at some worldly, godless celebration of the Lord's Day? Ah, yes, don't worry about God's not having the means for judgment, even in this world!"

As a matter of fact, that is a subject concerning which we never have worried. There isn't a doubt in our mind that the earthquake, or the tidal wave or any of the other dooms so gleefully mentioned by Dr. Straton are well within the power of the Creator. Yet it seems to us that it would hardly be to the Creator's credit if he should turn a tidal wave upon New York because Dr. Straton has revealed the fact, that in some dance halls in New York, young men and women dance cheek to cheek. It is, of course, a terrible thing that there are still restaurants in New York where one may procure Scotch highballs, but we do not think the condition justifies an earthquake. It may be, as Dr. Straton says, that God will do one of these things and then laugh at us, but if such is the case we must say that we will not have much respect for the cosmic sense of humor. We want a God who is a good deal more like God and somewhat less like Dr. John Roach Straton.

When a child grows cross and tired he will trample every card house you build for him and toss his toys about and knock over his blocks, but at such times H. 3rd has never seemed divine to us. We have rather laid such tantrums to the original Adam who is in us all. As a matter of fact, we don't believe that Dr. Straton himself would have as good a time at any of his predicted catastrophes as he imagines. To be sure, it is pleasant to imagine oneself sitting on top of a tidal wave and thumbing a nose at the struggling sinners who are being engulfed. But has Dr. Straton ever stopped to consider what a dreary and dull life he would lead if there were nothing for him to thunder against? He must know by now what a delightful inspiration there is in the daily shock. Though he may not believe it, he will do well to mark our words that he will miss the dancing and the immoral gowns and the furtive highballs when all these things are gone. He will find that there is a great deal more fun in preaching about hell than about heaven.

We are not even sure that, in a thoroughgoing civic catastrophe, Dr. Straton would escape. When Sodom and Gomorrah fell Lot was allowed to escape. And so it may be with Dr. Straton. That is not the danger. We have a very definite foreboding that when he is well out of the doomed city and the destruction has begun, Dr. Straton will not be able to resist the temptation to look back even though he turn to salt. If we understand the man, he will not be able to depart without ascertaining whether his name has been mentioned in the special five-star annihilation extras as having foretold the disaster.

Spanking Manners

We have received The Literary Digest Parents' League Series, in which the training of children is discussed in seven volumes by William Byron Forbush. Much of it seems sound and shrewd, but it also seeks, by implication at any rate to encourage parents to maintain with their children the old nonsense of parental infallibility. Thus, in one volume, which suggests the manner in which a father may impart certain information to his son, he is quoted as saying, "I tell you this, Frank, because I know all about it." And in another volume mothers are urged to hold before their children the ideals of the Light Brigade, "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die."

Now there is no denying that this is a comfortable doctrine for parents, if they can put it over, but they must make up their minds that sooner or later they will be found out.

Also, we are in entire disagreement with the author when he says that spankings should be administered in a cool and deliberate manner, that "punishment must partake of the nature of a ceremony." The only excuse for a parent who spanks his child is that he has lost his temper and his patience and his ability to think up any better remedy. If he is asked why he does it he would do well to explain all that very frankly to the child and to add that it is the rather harsh rule of the world that stronger people usually adopt force against weaker people to get what they want. The child may regard him as a bully, but he will not be in danger of being thought a hypocrite as well.

This system seems far preferable to the one suggested by the author in a quotation from Charles Werner: "My boy, listen: I love you and I do not like to hurt you. But every boy must be made to obey his father and mother, and this seems to be the only way to make you do it. So remember! Every time you disobey me you shall be punished. When I tell you to do a thing, you must do it instantly without a moment's delay. If you hesitate, if you wait to be told the second time, you will be punished. When I speak you must act. Just as sure as you are standing here before me this punishment will follow every time you do not do as you are told."

This would be, at least, a commendably frank statement of the tyranny under which most children are held if it were not for the unjustified intrusion of the love motive. This occurs, however, in a still more objectionable form in a reply to a mother, in which the author writes, "Should it ever be necessary to spank him I should not refuse to kiss him, even while you are doing so. He can learn that no punishment is inflicted in anger and that punishment does not turn aside your affection."

Such conduct is adding insult to indignity. It goes beyond the tyranny which few parents can resist in a state in which interests are necessarily so conflicting as one which is inhabited by growing persons and grown-ups. It is probably not to be expected, or even desirable, that parents should always allow the interests of the child to displace their own, but when they cannot resist the temptation to sweep over the borders of childhood with all their armed forces it is a little too much to ask that the conquered people should be not only docile but grateful. In other words, the father or mother who says as a prelude to punishment, "I am doing this for your own good," is a liar at least nine times out of ten. What he means is, "I am doing this for my own convenience," and he ought to be frank enough to say so.

The trouble is, as Mr. Floyd Dell has pointed out, that the parent wants complete submission and complete affection too. He can't have both without making a hypocrite of his child. It is perfectly healthy that the child should have fierce outbursts of resentment against his parents when they get in his way, and he should be allowed, and even encouraged, to express his protest. It is the most arrant nonsense to suppose that a relationship of continual love is a desirable thing to keep up. It is much too wearing.

The other day I tried to take a small fragment of newspaper out of H. 3rd's mouth, and he tried to swing his right to the jaw. I still have the reach, and I was able to protect myself by a frequent use of a lightning left jab. Finally I rescued the paper. It was only a small section of an editorial in an evening newspaper about the trial of the five Socialist Assemblymen. Probably I might just as well have permitted H. 3rd to swallow it. Without doubt, the paper would have taken it back the next day, anyway.

In speaking of his endeavor "to make the small duties of life pleasant to the child" one parent writes: "These items should never enter the arena of argument; they may, if taken up early, by a gentle, loving firmness, be treated always as though they were as certain as sunrise, for there is a curious conventionality, a liking for having things done in a dependable fashion, with little folks, and there is nothing to which human nature in young or old more cheerfully submits than the inevitable."

Yes, and there is a curious conventionality in the man who has been hopping about the office all day in obeying the orders of the junior partner or the city editor, which inspires him when he comes home to his children to pretend that he is Kaiser, Fate, or God Himself.

"No time of day is more heavenly in a home than the hour when little children, like white angels, go up the stairs to bed."

We wonder if our continued failure to get any such impression rests only on the fact that we have no stairs.

"One wise mother tells her children to divide all people into two classes – friends and strangers. Friends we love too well to gossip about; strangers we know too little.

"Another suggests to her children to meet a proposal toward gossip with the quiet remark, 'I like all my friends.' Nothing more can be said."

But it can; the child rebuked by the quiet remark has only to say, "Well, then, let's talk about Gaby Deslys or King Edward VII."

Park Row and Fleet Street

It is difficult for us to tell how accurately Philip Gibbs has pictured Fleet Street in his novel The Street of Adventure; for, externally at least, there is little resemblance to Park Row. We cite, for instance, a description of the city room of The Star as Francis Luttrell found it on his first day:

"It was a large room, with a number of desks divided by glass partitions and with a large table in the center. At the far end of the room was a fire burning brightly in the grate, and in front of it were two men and a girl, the men in swing chairs with their legs stretched out, the girl on the floor in the billows of a black silk skirt, arranging chestnuts on the first bar of the grate."

There isn't any grate in our city room and we have no roasting parties. There have been days in mid-July when it might have been possible to fry eggs on the skylight of our city room, but we don't remember that anybody ever tried it. Nor is our memory stirred to any local reminiscences by the description of The Star office just before press time, when "silence reigned in the room except for the scratching of pens." Probably there are not more than half a dozen pens in all Park Row and four of them are on The Evening Post.

We find the difference in spirit not so great. There is a great deal about the terrific strain of newspaper work and how a brutal city editor will drive a finely tempered reporter until he has had the best of his brains and then toss him aside like a withered violet.

"Fleet Street," says Gibbs, who tells the story partly in the first person, "would kill you in a year – it is very cruel, very callous to the sufferings of men's souls and bodies."

Again, the heroine, who is a press woman, complains: "We women wear out sooner. Five years in Fleet Street withers any girl. Then she gets crow's feet round her eyes and becomes snappy and fretful, or a fierce creature struggling in an unequal combat with men. I am just reaching that stage."