Seeing Things at Night

THE SICK MAN (feebly, but vehemently) – No, you don't. I won't stand for any male nurse. I want Miss Bluchblauer.

THE FAT MAN – I'm not a nurse, exactly.

THE SICK MAN – Who are you?

THE FAT MAN (cheerfully and in a matter of fact tone) – I'm Death.

THE SICK MAN (sinking back on the bed) – That rotten fever's up again. I'm seeing things.

THE FAT MAN (almost plaintively) – Don't you believe I'm Death? Honest, I am. I wouldn't fool you. (He fumbles in his pockets and produces in rapid succession a golf ball, a baseball pass, a G string, a large lump of gold, a receipted bill, two theater tickets and a white mass of sticky confection which looks as though it might be a combination of honey and something – milk, perhaps) – I've gone and left that card case again, but I'm Death, all right.

THE SICK MAN – What nonsense! If you really were I'd be frightened. I'd have cold shivers up and down my spine. My hair would stand on end like the fretful porcupine. I'm not afraid of you. Why, when Sadie Bluchblauer starts to argue about the war she scares me more than you do.

THE FAT MAN (very much relieved and visibly brighter) – That's fine. I'm glad you're not scared. Now we can sit down and talk things over like friends.

THE SICK MAN – I don't mind talking, but remember I know you're not Death. You're just some trick my hot head's playing on me. Don't get the idea you're putting anything over.

THE FAT MAN – But what makes you so sure I'm not Death?

THE SICK MAN – Go on! Where's your black cloak? Where's your sickle? Where's your skeleton? Why don't you rattle when you walk?

THE FAT MAN (horrified and distressed) – Why should I rattle? What do I want with a black overcoat or a skeleton? I'm not fooling you. I'm Death, all right.

THE SICK MAN – Don't tell me that. I've seen Death a thousand times in the war cartoons. And I've seen him on the stage – Maeterlinck, you know, with green lights and moaning, and that Russian fellow, Andreyeff, with no light at all, and hollering. And I've seen other plays with Death – lots of them. I'm one of the scene shifters with the Washington Square Players. This isn't regular, at all. There's more light in here right now than any day since I've been sick.

THE FAT MAN – I always come in the light. Be a good fellow and believe me. You'll see I'm right later on. I wouldn't fool anybody. It's mean.

THE SICK MAN (laughing out loud) – Mean! What's meaner than Death? You're not Death. You're as soft and smooth-talking as a press agent. Why, you could go on a picnic in that make-up.

THE FAT MAN (almost soberly) – I've been on picnics.

THE SICK MAN – You're open and above board. Death's a sneak. You've got a nice face. Yes; you've got a mighty nice face. You'd stop to help a bum in the street or a kid that was crying.

THE FAT MAN – I have stopped for beggars and children.

THE SICK MAN – There, you see; I told you. You're kind and considerate. Death's the cruellest thing in the world.

THE FAT MAN (very much agitated) – Oh, please don't say that! It isn't true. I'm kind; that's my business. When things get too rotten I'm the only one that can help. They've got to have me. You should hear them sometimes before I come. I'm the one that takes them off battlefields and out of slums and all terribly tired people. I whisper a joke in their ears, and we go away, laughing. We always go away laughing. Everybody sees my joke, it's so good.

THE SICK MAN – What's the joke?

THE FAT MAN – I'll tell it to you later.

Enter the Nurse. She almost runs into the Fat Man, but goes right past without paying any attention. It almost seems as if she cannot see him. She goes to the bedside of the patient.

THE NURSE – So, you're awake. You feel any more comfortable?

The Sick Man continues to stare at the Fat Man, but that worthy animated pantomime indicates that he shall say nothing of his being there. While this is on, the Nurse takes the patient's temperature. She looks at it, seems surprised, and then shakes the thermometer.

THE SICK MAN (eagerly) – I suppose my temperature's way up again, hey? I've been seeing things this afternoon and talking to myself.

THE NURSE – No; your temperature is almost normal.

THE SICK MAN (incredulously) – Almost normal?

THE NURSE – Yes; under a hundred.

She goes out quickly and quietly. The Sick Man turns to his fat friend.

THE SICK MAN – What do you make of that? Less than a hundred. That oughtn't to make me see things; do you think so?

THE FAT MAN – Well, I'd just as soon not be called a thing. Up there I'm called good old Death. Some of the fellows call me Bill. Maybe that's because I'm always due.

THE SICK MAN – Rats! Is that the joke you promised me?

THE FAT MAN (pained beyond measure) – Oh, that was just a little unofficial joke. The joke's not like that. I didn't make up the real one. It wasn't made up at all. It's been growing for years and years. A whole lot of people have had a hand in fixing it up – Aristophanes and Chaucer and Shakespeare, and Mark Twain and Rabelais —

THE SICK MAN – Did that fellow Rabelais get in – up there?

THE FAT MAN – Well, not exactly, but he lives in one of the most accessible parts of the suburb, and we have him up quite often. He's popular on account of his after-dinner stories. What I might call his physical humor is delightfully reminiscent and archaic.

THE SICK MAN – There won't be any bodies, then?

THE FAT MAN – Oh, yes, brand new ones. No tonsils or appendixes, of course. That is, not as a rule. We have to bring in a few tonsils every year to amuse our doctors.

THE SICK MAN – Any shows?

THE FAT MAN – I should say so. Lots of 'em, and all hits. In fact, we've never had a failure (provocatively). Now, what do you think is the best show you ever saw?

THE SICK MAN (reminiscently) – Well, just about the best show I ever saw was a piece called "Fair and Warmer," but, of course, you wouldn't have that.

THE FAT MAN – Of course, we have. The fellow before last wanted that.

THE SICK MAN (truculently) – I'll bet you haven't got the original company.

THE FAT MAN (apologetically) – No, but we expect to get most of them by and by. Nell Gwyn does pretty well in the lead just now.

THE SICK MAN (shocked) – Did she get in?

THE FAT MAN – No, but Rabelais sees her home after the show. We don't think so much of "Fair and Warmer." That might be a good show for New York, but it doesn't class with us. It isn't funny enough.

THE SICK MAN (with rising interest) – Do you mean to say you've got funnier shows than "Fair and Warmer"?

THE FAT MAN – We certainly have. Why, it can't begin to touch that thing of Shaw's called "Ah, There, Annie!"

THE SICK MAN – What Shaw's that?

THE FAT MAN – Regular Shaw.

THE SICK MAN – A lot of things must have been happening since I got sick. I hadn't heard he was dead. At that I always thought that vegetable truck was unhealthy.

THE FAT MAN – He isn't dead.

THE SICK MAN – Well, how about this "Ah, There, Annie!"? He never wrote that show down here.

THE FAT MAN – But he will.

THE SICK MAN (enormously impressed) – Do you get shows there before we have them in New York?

THE FAT MAN – I tell you we get them before they're written.

THE SICK MAN (indignantly) – How can you do that?

THE FAT MAN – I wish you wouldn't ask me. The answer's awfully complicated. You've got to know a lot of higher math. Wait and ask Euclid about it. We don't have any past and future, you know. None of that nuisance about keeping shall and will straight.

THE SICK MAN – Well, I must say that's quite a stunt. You get shows before they're written.

THE FAT MAN – More than that. We get some that never do get written. Take that one of Ibsen's now, "Merry Christmas" —

THE SICK MAN (fretfully) – Ibsen?

THE FAT MAN – Yes, it's a beautiful, sentimental little fairy story with a ghost for the hero. Ibsen just thought about it and never had the nerve to go through with it. He was scared people would kid him, but thinking things makes them so with us.

THE SICK MAN – Then I'd think a sixty-six round Van Cortlandt for myself.

THE FAT MAN – You could do that. But why Van Cortlandt? We've got much better greens on our course. It's a beauty. Seven thousand yards long and I've made it in fifty-four.

THE SICK MAN (suspiciously) – Did you hole out on every green or just estimate?

THE FAT MAN (stiffly) – The score is duly attested. I might add that it was possible because I drove more than four hundred yards on nine of the eighteen holes.

THE SICK MAN – More than four hundred yards? How did you do that?

THE FAT MAN – It must have been the climate, or (thoughtfully) it may be because I wanted so much to drive over four hundred yards on those holes.

THE SICK MAN (with just a shade of scorn) – So that's the trick. I guess nobody'd ever beat me on that course; I'd just want the ball in the hole in one every time.

THE FAT MAN (in gentle reproof) – No, you wouldn't. Where you and I are going pretty soon we're all true sportsmen and nobody there would take an unfair advantage of an opponent.

THE SICK MAN – Before I go I want to know something. There's a fellow in 125th Street's been awful decent to me. Is there any coming back to see people here? (A pause.)

THE FAT MAN – I can't explain to you yet, but it's difficult to arrange that. Still, I wouldn't say that there never were any slumming parties from beyond the grave.

THE SICK MAN (shivering) – The grave! I'd forgotten about that.

THE FAT MAN – Oh, you won't go there, and, what's more, you won't be at the funeral, either. I wish I could keep away from them. I hate funerals. They make me mad. You know, they say "Oh, Death, where is thy sting?" just as if they had a pretty good hunch I had one around me some place after all. And you know that other – "My friends, this is not a sad occasion," but they don't mean it. They keep it sad. They simply won't learn any better. I suppose they'd be a little surprised to know that you were sitting watching Radbourne pitch to Ed. Delehanty with the bases full and three balls and two strikes called. Two runs to win and one to tie.

THE SICK MAN – Will Radbourne pitch?

THE FAT MAN – Sure thing.

THE SICK MAN – And, say, will Delehanty bust that ball?

THE FAT MAN – Make it even money and bet me either way.

THE SICK MAN – I don't want to wait any longer. Tell me that joke of yours and let's go.

The light softens a little. The room is almost rose color now. It might be from the sunset. The Fat Man gently pushes the head of the Sick Man back on the pillow. Leaning over, he whispers in his ear briefly and the Sick Man roars with laughter. As his laughter slackens a little The Fat Man says, "I'll meet you in the press box," and then before you know it he's gone. The Sick Man is still laughing, but less loudly. People who did not know might think it was gasping. The Nurse opens the door and is frightened. She loudly calls "Doctor! Doctor!" and runs down the corridor. The Sick Man gives one more chuckle and is silent. The curtains at one of the windows sway slightly. Of course, it's the breeze.

(Curtain.)

The Library of a Lover

THE responsibilities of a book reviewer, always heavy, sometimes assume a gravity which makes it quite impossible for them to be borne on any single pair of shoulders. We have received a letter to-day upon which so much depends that we hesitate to answer without requesting advice from readers. It is from a young man in Pittsburgh who identifies himself merely by the initials X. Q., which we presume to be fictitious. He writes as follows:

"As a reader of the book columns of The Tribune I am humbly requesting your assistance in the matter of a little experiment that I desire to perform. I find myself highly enamored of a superlatively attractive young lady who has, however, one apparent drawback to me. That lies in the fact that she has never cultivated a taste for really worth while reading. Such reading to me is one of the greatest of life's pleasures. Now, my idea is this: that this reading taste may be developed by the reading of a number of the best books in various lines. I have decided upon an experiment wherein a list of fifty books shall be furnished by you and a serious attempt made by the young lady to read them. When she has completed this reading I shall ask her to make a thoroughly frank statement as to whether a reading habit has been cultivated which will enable her to enjoy good literature. I would appreciate very much your furnishing me a list of fifty of the very best books which you consider suitable for the experiment which I have in mind. The lady in question has read but little, but has completed the regulation high school course and in addition has taken two years at one of the recognized girls' schools of the country."

Obviously, the making of such a list involves a responsibility which we do not care to assume. We do not like to risk the possibility that our own particular literary prejudices might rear a barrier between two fond hearts. After all, as somebody has said, fond hearts are more than Conrads. However, we do venture the suggestion that if the young man's intentions are honorable, fifty books is far too great a number for the experiment which he has in mind. We have known many a young couple to begin life with no possession to their name but a common fondness for the poems of W. E. Henley. We have known others to marry on Kipling and repent on Shaw.

Of course, it would be a great deal easier for us to advise the young man if we knew just what sort of a wife he wanted. If she likes Dombey and Son and Little Dorrit it seems to us fair to assume that she will be able to do a little plain mending and some of the cooking. On the other hand, if her favorite author is May Sinclair, we rather think it would be well to be prepared to provide hired help from the beginning. Should she prefer Eleanor H. Porter, we think there would be no danger in telling the paperhangers to do the bedroom in pink. After all, if she is a thoroughgoing follower of Pollyanna and the glad game, you don't really need any wall paper at all. It would still be her duty to be glad about it.

But we are afraid that some of this is frivolous and beside the point, and we assume that the young man truly wants serious advice to help him in the solution of his problem. Since marriage is at best a gamble, we advise him earnestly not to compromise his ardor with any dreary round of fifty books. Let him chance all on a single volume. And what shall it be? Personally, we have always been strongly attracted by persons who liked Joan and Peter, but we know that there are excellent wives and mothers who find this particular novel of Wells's dreary stuff. There are certain dislikes which might well serve as green signals of caution. A young man, we think, should certainly go slow if she does not like An Inland Voyage, or Virginibus Puerisque, or The Ebb Tide or Sentimental Tommy. He should take thought and ask himself repeatedly, "Is this really love?" if she confesses a distaste for Tono Bungay, or Far from the Madding Crowd, or Cæsar and Cleopatra. And if she can find no interest in Conrad in Quest of His Youth, or Mary Olivier or Huckleberry Finn, let him by all means stipulate a long engagement. But if she dislikes Alice in Wonderland let the young man temporize no more. It is then his plain duty to tell her that he has made a mistake and that what he took for love was no more than the passing infatuation of physical passion.

A Bolt from the Blue

JOHN ROACH STRATON died and went to his appointed kingdom where he immediately sought an audience with the ruler of the realm.

"Let New York be destroyed," shouted Dr. Straton as he pushed his way into the inner room. The king was engaged at the moment in watching a sparrow fall to earth and motioned the visitor to compose himself in silence, but there was an urgency in the voice and manner of the man from earth which would not be denied. "Smite them hip and thigh," said Dr. Straton and the king looked down at him and asked, "Is the necessity immediate?"

"Delay not thy wrath," said Dr. Straton, "for to-day on thy Sabbath sixty thousand men, women, and children of New York have gathered together to watch a baseball game."

The ruler of the realm looked and saw that 11,967 persons were watching the Yankees and the White Sox at the Polo Grounds.

"A good husky tidal wave would confound them," urged Straton, but the king shook his head.

"Remember the judgment you heaped upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah," suggested Straton.

The ruler of the realm nodded without enthusiasm. "I remember," he said, "but as I recollect it didn't do much good."

Dr. Straton's bright hopefulness faded and the king hastened to reassure him. "We can think up something better than that," he said, and had the visitor been an observant man he might have noticed that the streets of the kingdom were paved with tact. "Now there was the Tower of Babel," said the ruler of the realm reflectively, "that was a creative idea. That was a doom which persisted because it had ingenuity as well as power. That's what we need now."

Suddenly there dawned in the face of the king an idea, and it seemed to Dr. Straton as if he were standing face to face with a sunrise. The doctor lowered his eyes and he saw that the men and the women Sabbath breakers of New York were all upon their feet and shouting, though to his newly immortal senses the din came feebly. "Now," he said, with an exultation which caused him to slip into his old pulpit manner, "let 'em have it."

But the king with keener vision than Dr. Straton, saw that it was the ninth inning, the score tied, runners on first and second, and Babe Ruth coming to bat. "The time has not come," said the king, and he pushed the doctor gently and made him give ground a little. And they waited until two strikes had been pitched and three balls. The next one would have cut the heart of the plate, but Babe Ruth swung and the ball rose straight in the air. Up and up it came until it disappeared from the view of all the players and spectators and even of the umpires. Soon a mighty wrangle began. Miller Huggins claimed a home run and Kid Gleason argued that the ball was foul. The umpires waited for an hour and then, as the ball had not yet come down, Dineen was forced to make a decision and shouted "Foul!" while the crowd booed. One of the pop bottles injured him rather badly and there was a riot for which it was necessary to call out the reserves. Everybody went home disgruntled and a month later the Lusk bill abolishing Sunday baseball was passed.

And all the time the ball continued to rise until suddenly the king, thrusting out his left hand, caught it neatly and slipped it into his pocket. It was not a conventional pocket, for there were planets in it and ever-lasting mercy and other things. For a long time Dr. Straton had been awed into silence by the mighty miracle, but now he spoke, reverently but firmly.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but you will observe that there is a sign in the baseball park which says 'All balls batted out of the diamond remain the property of the New York Baseball Club and should be thrown back!'"

The ruler of the realm smiled. "You forget," he answered, "that if I threw the ball back from this great height it might strike a man and kill him, it might crash through a huge office building, it might even destroy the Calvary Baptist Church."

Then for the first time a touch of sharpness came into the voice of Dr. Straton. "All that is immaterial," he said. "I think I know my theology well enough to understand that law is law and right is right, come what may."

"Oh, but it's not nearly as simple as all that," remonstrated the king. "There are right things which are so harsh and unpleasant that they become wrong; and wrong things which are, after all, so jolly that it's hard not to call them right. Why, sometimes I have to stop a fraction of a century myself to reach a decision. It's terribly complicated. The problem is infinite. No mere man, quick or dead, has any right to be dogmatic about it."

"Come, come," said Dr. Straton, and now there was nothing but anger in his voice, "I've heard all those devilish arguments before. When I came here I thought you were God and that this was Heaven. I know now that there's been a mistake. God is no mollycoddle."

He turned on his heel and started to walk away before he remembered that he was a Southern gentleman as well as a clergyman and bowed stiffly, once. Then he went to the edge of the kingdom and jumped. Where he landed it would be hard to say. Only a carefully trained theologian could tell.

Inasmuch

ONCE there lived near Bethlehem a man named Simon and his wife Deborah. And Deborah dreamed a curious dream, a dream so vivid that it might better be called a vision. It was not yet daybreak, but she roused her husband and told him that an angel had come to her in the vision and had said, as she remembered it, "To-morrow night in Bethlehem the King of the World will be born." The rest was not so vivid in Deborah's mind, but she told Simon that wise men and kings were already on their way to Bethlehem, bringing gifts for the wonder child.

"When he is born," she said, "the wise men and the kings who bring these gifts will see the stars dance in the heavens and hear the voices of angels. You and I must send presents, too, for this child will be the greatest man in all the world."

Simon objected that there was nothing of enough value in the house to take to such a child, but Deborah replied, "The King of the World will understand." Then, although it was not yet light, she got up and began to bake a cake, and Simon went beyond the town to the hills and got holly and made a wreath. Later in the day husband and wife looked over all their belongings, but the only suitable gift they could find was one old toy, a somewhat battered wooden duck that had belonged to their eldest son, who had grown up and married and gone away to live in Galilee. Simon painted the toy duck as well as he could, and Deborah told him to take it and the cake and the wreath of holly and go to Bethlehem. "It's not much," she said, "but the King will understand."

It was almost sunset when Simon started down the winding road that led to Bethlehem. Deborah watched him round the first turn and would have watched longer except that he was walking straight toward the sun and the light hurt her eyes. She went back into the house and an hour had hardly passed when she heard Simon whistling in the garden. He was walking very slowly. At the door he hesitated for almost a minute. She looked up when he came in. He was empty handed.

"You haven't been to Bethlehem," said Deborah.

"No," said Simon.

"Then, where is the cake, and the holly wreath, and the toy duck?"

"I'm sorry," said Simon, "I couldn't help it somehow. It just happened."

"What happened?" asked Deborah sharply.

"Well," said Simon, "just after I went around the first turn in the road I found a child sitting on that big white rock, crying. He was about two or three years old, and I stopped and asked him why he was crying. He didn't answer. Then I told him not to cry like that, and I patted his head, but that didn't do any good. I hung around, trying to think up something, and I decided to put the cake down and take him up in my arms for a minute. But the cake slipped out of my hands and hit the rock, and a piece of the icing chipped off. Well, I thought, that baby in Bethlehem won't miss a little piece of icing, and I gave it to the child and he stopped crying. But when he finished he began to cry again. I just sort of squeezed another little piece of icing off, and that was all right, for a little while; but then I had to give him another piece, and things went on that way, and all of a sudden I found that there wasn't any cake left. After that he looked as if he might cry again, and I didn't have any more cake and so I showed him the duck and he said 'Ta-ta.' I just meant to lend him the duck for a minute, but he wouldn't give it up. I coaxed him a good while, but he wouldn't let go. And then a woman came out of that little house and she began to scold him for staying out so late, and so I told her it was my fault and I gave her the holly wreath just so she wouldn't be mad at the child. And after that, you see, I didn't have anything to take to Bethlehem, and so I came back here."