III
THE IDIOT’S VALENTINE
”WELL, old man,” said the Poet, as the Idiot entered the breakfast-room on the morning of Valentine’s day, “how did old St. Valentine treat you? Any results worth speaking of?”
“Oh, the usual lay-out,” returned the Idiot, languidly. “Nine hundred and forty-two passionate declarations of undying affection from unknown lady friends in all parts of the civilized world; one thousand three hundred and twenty-four highly colored but somewhat insulting intimations that I had better go ’way back and sit down from hitherto unsuspected gentlemen friends scattered from Maine to California; one small can of salt marked ‘St. Valentine to the Idiot,’ with sundry allusions to the proper medical treatment of the latter’s freshness, and a small box containing a rubber bottle-stopper labelled ‘Cork up and bust.’ I can’t complain.”
“Well, you did come in for your share of it, didn’t you?” said Mr. Brief.
“Yes,” said the Idiot, “I think I got all that was coming to me, and I wouldn’t have minded it if I hadn’t had to pay three dollars over-due postage on ’em. I don’t bother much if some anonymous chap off in the wilds of Kalikajoo takes the trouble to send me a funny picture of a monkey grinding a hand-organ with ‘the loving regards of your brother,’ or if somebody else who is afraid of becoming too fond of me sends me a horse-chestnut with a line to the effect that here is one I haven’t printed, I don’t feel like getting mad; but when I have to pay the postage on the plaguey things it strikes me it is rubbing it in a little too hard, and if I could find two or three of the senders I’d spend an hour or two of my time banging their heads together.”
“I got off pretty well,” said the Bibliomaniac. “I only got one valentine, and though it cast some doubt upon the quality of my love for books, I found it quite amusing. I’ll read it to you.”
Here the Bibliomaniac took a small paper from his pocket and read the following lines:
“THE HUNGRY BIBLIOMANIAC
“If only you would cut your books
As often as your butter,
When people ask you what’s inside
You wouldn’t sit and sputter.
The reading that hath made
you
full,
The reading that doth chain you,
Is not from books, or woman’s looks,
But fresh from off the menu.”
“What do you think of that?” asked the Bibliomaniac, with a chuckle, as he folded up his valentine and stowed it away in his pocket once more.
“I think I can spot the sender,” said the Idiot, fixing his eyes sternly upon the Poet. “It takes genius to get up a rhyme like ‘men’ and ‘chain you,’ and I know of only one man at this board or at any other who is equal to the task.”
“If you mean me,” retorted the Poet, flushing, “you are mightily mistaken. I wouldn’t waste a rhyme like that on a personal valentine when I could tack it on to the end of a sonnet and go out and sell it for two-fifty.”
“Then you didn’t do it, eh?” demanded the Idiot.
“No. Did you?” asked the Poet, with his eyes twinkling.
“Sir,” said the Idiot, “if I had done it, would I have had the unblushing effrontery to say, as I just now did say, that its author was a genius?”
“Well, we’re square, anyhow,” said the Poet. “You cast me under suspicion, to begin with, and it was only fair that I should whack back. I got a valentine myself, and I suspect it was from the same hand. It runs like this:
“TO THE MINOR POET
“You do not pluck the fairy flowers
That bloom on high Parnassus,
Nor do you gather thistles like
Some of those mystic asses
Who browse about old Helicon
In hope to fill their tummies;
Yours rather are those dandy-lines —
Gilt-topped chrysanthemummies —
Quite pleasant stuff
That ends in fluff —
Yet when they are beholden
Make all the world look golden.”
“Well,” ejaculated the Idiot, “I don’t see what there is in that to make you angry. Seems to me there’s some very nice compliments in that. For instance, your stuff when ’tis
‘beholden
Makes all the world look golden,’
according to your anonymous correspondent. If he’d been vicious he might have said something like this:
‘ – withal so supercilious
They make the whole earth bilious.’”
The Poet grinned. “I’m not complaining about it. It’s a mighty nice little verse, I think, and my only regret is that I do not know who the chap was who sent it. I’d like to thank him. I had an idea you might help me,” he said, with a searching glance.
“I will,” said the Idiot. “If the man who sent you that ever reveals his identity to me I will tell him you fell all over yourself with joy on receiving his tribute of admiration. How did you come out, Doctor?”
“Oh, he remembered me, all right,” said the Doctor. “Quite in the same vein, too, only he’s not so complimentary. He calls me ‘The Humane Surgeon,’ and runs into rhyme after this fashion:
“O, Doctor Blank’s a surgeon bold,
A surgeon most humane, sir;
And what he does is e’er devoid
Of ordinary pain, sir.
“If he were called to amputate
A leg hurt by a bullet,
He wouldn’t take a knife and cut —
But with his bill he’d pull it.”
“He must have had some experience with you, Doctor,” said the Idiot. “In fact, he knows you so well that I am inclined to think that the writer of that valentine lives in this house, and it is just possible that the culprit is seated at this table at this moment.”
“I think it very likely,” said the Doctor, dryly. “He’s a fresh young man, five feet ten inches in height – ”
“Pooh – pooh!” said the Idiot. “That’s the worst description of Mr. Brief I ever heard. Mr. Brief, in the first place, is not a young man, and he isn’t fresh – ”
“I didn’t mean Mr. Brief,” said the Doctor, significantly.
“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself to intimate that Mr. Whitechoker, a clergyman, would stoop to the writing of such a rhyme as that,” cried the Idiot. “People nowadays seem to me to be utterly lacking in that respect for the cloth to which it is entitled. Mr. Brief, if you really wrote that thing you owe it to Mr. Whitechoker to own up and thus relieve him of the suspicion the Doctor has so unblushingly cast upon him.”
“I can prove an alibi,” said the Lawyer. “I could no more turn a rhyme than I could play ‘Parsifal’ on a piano with one finger, and I wouldn’t if I could. I judge, from what I know of the market value of poems these days, that that valentine of the Doctor’s is worth about two dollars. It would take me a century to write it, and inasmuch as my time is worth at least five dollars a year it stands to reason that I would not put in five hundred dollars’ worth of effort on a two-dollar job. So that lets me out. By-the-way, I got one of these trifles myself. Want to hear it?”
“I am just crazy to hear it,” said the Idiot. “If any man has reduced you to poetry, Mr. Brief, he’s a great man. With all your many virtues, you seem to me to fit into a poetical theme about as snugly as an automobile with full power on in a china-shop. By all means let us have it.”
“This modern St. Valentine of ours has reduced the profession to verse with a nicety that elicits my most profound admiration,” said Mr. Brief. “Just listen to this:
“The Lawyer is no wooer, yet
To sue us is his whim.
The Lawyer is no tailor, but
We get our suits from him.
The longest things in all the world —
They are the Lawyer’s briefs,
And all the joys he gets in life
Are other people’s griefs.
Yet spite of all the Lawyer’s faults
He’s one point rather nice:
He’ll not remain lest you retain
And
never gives
advice.”
“The author of these valentines,” said the Doctor, “is to be spotted, the way I diagnose the case, by his desire that professional people should be constantly giving away their services. He objects to the Doctor’s bill and he slaps sarcastically at the Lawyer because he doesn’t
give
advice. That’s why I suspect the Idiot. He’s a professional Idiot, and yet he gives his idiocy away.”
“When did I ever give myself away?” demanded the Idiot. “You are talking wildly, Doctor. The idea of your trying to drag me into this thing is preposterous. Suppose you show down your valentine and see if it is in my handwriting.”
“Mine is typewritten,” said the Doctor.
“So is mine,” said the Bibliomaniac.
“Mine, too,” said the Poet.
“Same here,” said Mr. Brief.
“Well, then,” said the Idiot, “I’m willing to write a page in my own hand without any attempt to disguise it, and let any handwriting expert decide as to whether there is the slightest resemblance between my chirography and these typewritten sheets you hold in your hand.”
“That’s fair enough,” said Mr. Whitechoker.
“Besides,” persisted the Idiot, “I’ve received one of the things myself, and it’ll make your hair curl, if you’ve got any. Typewritten like the rest of ’em. Shall I read it?”
By common consent the Idiot read the following:
“Idiot, zany, brain of hare,
Dolt and noodle past compare,
Buncombe, bosh, and verbal slosh,
Mind of nothing, full of josh,
Madman, donkey, dizzard-pate,
U. S. Zero Syndicate,
Dull, depressing, lack of wit,
Incarnation of the nit.
Minus, numskull, drivelling baby,
Greenhorn, dunce, and dotard Gaby;
All the queer and loony chorus
Found in old Roget’s
Thesaurus
,
Flat and crazy through and through,
That, O Idiot – that is you.
Let me tell you, sir, in fine,
I
won’t be your Valentine.
“What do you think of that?” asked the Idiot, when he had finished. “Wouldn’t that jar you?”
“I think it’s perfectly horrid,” said Mrs. Pedagog. “Mary, pass the pancakes to the Idiot. Mr. Idiot, let me hand you a full cup of coffee. John, hand the Idiot the syrup. Why, how a thing like that should be allowed to go through the mails passes me!”
And the others all agreed that the landlady’s indignation was justified, because they were fond of the Idiot in spite of his faults. They would not see him abused, at any rate.
“Say, old man,” said the Poet, later, “I really thought you sent those other valentines until you read yours.”
“I thought you would,” said the Idiot. “That’s the reason why I worked up that awful one on myself. That relieves me of all suspicion.”
IV
HE DISCUSSES FINANCE
A MESSENGER had just brought a “collect” telegram for the Doctor, and that gentleman, after going through all his pockets, and finding nothing but a bunch of keys and a prescription-pad, made the natural inquiry:
“Anybody got a quarter?”
“I have,” said the Idiot. “One of the rare mintage of 1903, circulated for a short time only and warranted good as new.”
“I didn’t know the 1903 quarter was rare,” said the Bibliomaniac, who prided himself on being a numismatist of rare ability. “Who told you the 1903 quarter was rare?”
“My old friend, Experience,” said the Idiot.
“What’s rare about it?” demanded the Bibliomaniac.
“Why – it’s what they call ready money, spot cash, the real thing with the water squeezed out, selling at par on sight,” explained the Idiot. “Millions of people never saw one, and under modern conditions it is very difficult to amass them in any considerable quantity. What is worse, even if you happen to get one of them it is next to impossible to hang on to it without unusual effort. If you have a 1903 quarter in your pocket, somehow or other the idea that it is in your possession seems to communicate itself to others, and every effort is made to lure it away from you on some pretext or other.”
“Excuse me for interrupting this lecture of yours, Mr. Idiot,” said the Doctor, amiably, “but would you mind lending me that quarter to pay this messenger? I’ve left my change in my other clothes.”
“What did I tell you?” cried the Idiot, triumphantly. “The words are no sooner out of my mouth than they are verified. Hardly a minute elapses from the time Doctor Capsule learns that I have that quarter before he puts in an application for it.”
“Well, I renew the application in spite of its rarity,” laughed the Doctor. “It’s even rarer with me than it is with you. Shell out – there’s a good chap.”
“I will if you’ll put up a dollar for security,” said the Idiot, extracting the coin from his pocket, “and give me a demand note at thirty days for the quarter.”
“I haven’t got a dollar,” said the Doctor.
“Well, what other collateral have you to offer?” asked the Idiot. “I won’t take buckwheat-cakes, or muffins, or your share of the sausages, mind you. They come under the head of wild-cat securities – here to-day and gone to-morrow.”
“My, but you’re a Shylock!” ejaculated Mr. Brief.
“Not a bit of it,” retorted the Idiot. “If I were Shylock I’d be willing to take a steak for security, but there’s none of the pound of flesh business about me. I simply proceed cautiously, like any modern financial institution that intends to stay in the ring more than two weeks. I’m not one of your fortnightly trust companies with an oak table, an unpaid bill for office rent, and a patent reversible disappearing president for its assets. I do business on the national-bank principle: millions for the rich, but not one cent for the man that needs the money.”
“I tell you what I’ll do,” said the Doctor. “If you’ll lend me that quarter, I won’t charge you a cent for my professional services next time you need them.”
“That’s a large offer, but I’m afraid of it,” replied the Idiot. “It partakes of the nature of a speculation. It’s dealing in futures, which is not a safe thing for a financial institution to do, I don’t care how solid it is. You don’t catch the Chemistry National Bank lending money to anybody on mere prospects, and, what is more, in my case, I’d have to get sick to win out. No, Doctor, that proposition does not appeal to me.”
“Looks hopeless, doesn’t it,” said the Doctor. “Mary, tell the boy to wait while I run up-stairs – ”
“I wouldn’t do that,” said the Idiot, interrupting. “The matter can be arranged in another way. I honestly don’t like to lend money, believing with Polonius that it’s a bad thing to do. As the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina, who owed him a hundred dollars, ‘It’s a long time between payments on account,’ and that sort of thing breaks up families, not to mention friendships. But I will match you for it.”
“How can I match when I haven’t anything to match with?” said the Doctor, growing a trifle irritable.
“You can match your credit against my quarter,” said the Idiot. “We can make it a mental match – a sort of Christian Science gamble. What am I thinking of, heads or tails?”
“Heads,” said the Doctor.
“By Jove, that’s hard luck!” ejaculated the Idiot. “You lose. I was thinking of tails.”
“Oh, thunder!” cried the Doctor, impatiently.
“Try it again, double or quits. What am I thinking of?” said the Idiot.
“Heads,” repeated the Doctor.
“Somebody must have told you. Heads it is. You win. We are quits, Doctor,” said the Idiot.
“But I am still without the quarter,” the physician observed.
“Yep,” said the Idiot. “But there’s one more way out of it. I’ll buy the telegram from you – C.O.D.”
“Done,” said the Doctor, holding out the message. “Here’s your goods.”
“And there’s your money,” said the Idiot, tossing the quarter across the table. “If you want to buy this message back at any time within the next sixty days, Doctor, I’ll give you the refusal of it without extra charge.”
And he folded the paper up and put it away in his pocketbook.
“Do the banks really ask for so much security when they make a loan?” asked the Poet.
“Hear him, will you!” cried the Idiot. “There’s your lucky man. He’s never had to face a bank president in order to avoid the cold glances of the grocer. No cashier ever asked him how many times he had been sentenced to states-prison before he’d discount his note. Do they ask security? Security isn’t the name for it. They demand a blockade, establish a quarantine. They require the would-be debtor to build up a wall as high as Chimborazo and as invulnerable as Gibraltar between them and the loss before they will part with a dime. Why, they wouldn’t discount a note to his own order for Andrew Carnegie for seventeen cents without his indorsement. Do they ask security!”
“Well, I didn’t know,” said the Poet. “I never had anything to do with banks except as a small depositor in the savings-bank.”
“Fortunate man,” said the Idiot. “I wish I could say as much. I borrowed five hundred dollars once from a bank, and what the deuce do you suppose they did?”
“I don’t know,” said the Poet. “What?”
“They made me pay it back,” said the Idiot, mournfully, “although I needed it just as much when it was due as when I borrowed it. The cashier was a friend of mine, too. But I got even with ’em. I refused to borrow another cent from their darned old institution. They lost my custom then and there. If it hadn’t been for that inconsiderate act I should probably have gone on borrowing from them for years, and instead of owing them nothing to-day, as I do, I should have been their debtor to the tune of two or three thousand dollars.”
“Don’t you take any stock in what the Idiot tells you in that matter, Mr. Poet,” said Mr. Brief. “The national banks are perfectly justified in protecting themselves as they do. If they didn’t demand collateral security they’d be put out of business in fifteen minutes by people like the Idiot, who consider it a hardship to have to pay up.”
“As the lady said when she was asked the name of her favorite author, ‘Pshaw!’” retorted the Idiot. “Likewise fudge – a whole panful of fudges! I don’t object to paying my debts; fact is, I know of no greater pleasure. What I do object to is the kind of collateral the banks demand. They always want something a man hasn’t got and, in most cases, hasn’t any chance of getting. If I had a thousand-dollar bond I wouldn’t need to borrow five hundred dollars, yet when I go to the bank and ask for the five hundred the thousand-dollar bond is what they ask for.”
“Not always,” said Mr. Brief. “If you can get your note indorsed you can get the money.”
“That’s true enough, but fellows like myself can’t always find a captain of industry who is willing to take a long-shot to do the indorsing,” said the Idiot. “Besides, under the indorsement plan you merely ask another man to be responsible for your debt, and that isn’t fair. The whole system is wrong. Every man to his own collateral, I say. Give me the bank that will lend money to the chap that needs it on the security of his own product. Mr. Whitechoker, say, is short on cash and long on sermons. My style of bank would take one barrel of his sermons and salt ’em down in the safe-deposit company as security for the money he needs. The Poet here, finding the summer approaching and not a cent in hand to replenish his wardrobe, should be able to secure an advance of two or three hundred dollars on his sonnets, rondeaux, and lyrics – one dollar for each two-and-a-half-dollar sonnet, and so on. The grocer should be able to borrow money on his dried apples, his vinegar pickles, his canned asparagus, and other non-perishable assets, such as dog-biscuit, Roquefort cheese, and California raisins. The tailor seeking an accommodation of five hundred dollars should not be asked how many times he has been sentenced to jail for arson, and required to pay in ten thousand shares of Steel common, in order to get his grip on the currency, but should be approached appropriately and asked how many pairs of trousers he is willing to pledge as security for the loan.”
“I don’t know where I would come in on that proposition,” said the Doctor. “There are times when we physicians need money, too.”
“Pooh!” said the Idiot. “You are not a non-producer. It doesn’t take a very smart doctor these days to produce patients, does it? You could assign your cases to the bank. One little case of hypochondria alone ought to be a sufficient guarantee of a steady income for years, properly managed. If you haven’t learned how to keep your patients in such shape that they have to send for you two or three times a week, you’d better go back to the medical school and fit yourself for your real work in life. You never knew a plumber to be so careless of his interests as to clean up a job all at once, and what the plumber is to the household, the physician should be to the individual. Same way with Mr. Brief. With the machinery of the law in its present shape there is absolutely no excuse for a lawyer who settles any case inside of fifteen years, by which time it is reasonable to suppose his client will get into some new trouble that will keep him going as a paying concern for fifteen more. There isn’t a field of human endeavor in which a man applies himself industriously that does not produce something that should be a negotiable security.”
“How about burglars?” queried the Bibliomaniac.
“I stand corrected,” said the Idiot. “The burglar is an exception, but then he is an exception also at the banks. The expert burglar very seldom leaves any security for what he gets at the banks, and so he isn’t affected by the situation one way or the other.”
“Oh, well,” said Mr. Brief, rising, “it’s only a pipe-dream all the way through. They might start in on such a proposition, but it would never last. When you went in to borrow fifteen dollars, putting up your idiocy as collateral, the emptiness of the whole scheme would reveal itself.”
“You never can tell,” observed the Idiot. “Even under their present system the banks have done worse than that.”
“Never!” cried the Lawyer.
“Yes, sir,” replied the Idiot. “Only the other day I saw in the papers that a bank out in Oklahoma had loaned a man ten thousand dollars on sixty thousand shares of Hot Air preferred.”
“And is that worse than Idiocy?” demanded Mr. Brief.
“Infinitely,” said the Idiot. “If a bank lost fifteen dollars on my idiocy it would be out ninety-nine hundred and eighty-five dollars less than that Oklahoma institution is on its hot-air loan.”
“Bosh! What’s Hot Air worth on the Exchange to-day?”
“