III
HE GOES CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
"Mercy, Mr. Idiot," cried Mrs. Pedagog, as the Idiot entered thebreakfast room in a very much disheveled condition, "what on earth hashappened to you? Your sleeve is almost entirely torn from your coat, andyou really look as if you had been dropped out of an aeroplane."
"Yes, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot, wearily, "I feel that way. Istarted in to do my Christmas Shopping early yesterday, and what you nowbehold is the dreadful result. I went into Jimson and Slithers'Department Store to clean up my Christmas list, and, seeing a ratherattractive bargain table off at one end of the middle aisle, in theinnocence of my young heart, I tried to get to it. It contained a lot ofmighty nice, useful presents that one could give to his friends andrelatives and at the same time look his creditors in the face--prettylittle cakes of pink soap made of rose leaves for five cents for three;lacquered boxes of hairpins at seven cents apiece; silver-handledtoothpicks at two for five; French-gilt hatpins, with plate-glassamethysts and real glue emeralds set in their heads for ten cents apair, and so on. Seen from the floor above, from which I looked downupon that busy hive, that bargain table was quite the most attractivething you ever saw. It fairly glittered with temptation, and I went toit; or at least I tried to go to it. I had been so attracted by thegiddy lure of the objects upon that table that I failed to notice themaelstrom of humanity that was whirling about it--or perhaps I wouldbetter say the fe-maelstrom of humanity that was eddying about itsboundaries, for it was made up wholly of women, as I discovered to mysorrow a moment later when, caught in the swirl, I was tossed to andfro, whirled, pirouetted, revolved, twisted, turned, and generallywhizzed about, like a cork on the surface of the Niagara whirlpool. Whatwith the women trying to get to the table, and the women trying to getaway from the table, and the women trying to get around the table, Ihaven't seen anything to beat it since the day I started to take astroll one afternoon out in Kansas, and was picked up by a cyclone andlanded down by the Alamo in San Antonio ten minutes later."
"You ought to have known better than to try to get through such a crowdas that these days," said the Doctor. "How are your ribs--"
"Know better?" retorted the Idiot. "How was I to know any better? Therethe thing was ready to do business, and nothing but a lot oftired-looking women about it. It looked easy enough, but after I hadmanaged to get in as far as the second layer from the outside Idiscovered that it wasn't; and then I struggled to get out, but youmight as well struggle to get away from the tentacles of an octopus asto try to get out of a place like that without knowing how. I was caughtjust as surely as a fox with his foot in a trap, and the harder Istruggled to get out the nearer I was carried in toward the tableitself. It required all my strategy to navigate my face away from themultitude of hatpins that surged about me on all sides. Twice I thoughtmy nose was going to be served _en brochette_. Thrice did thepenetrating points of those deadly pins pierce my coat and puncture theface of my watch. Three cigars I carried in my vest pocket were shreddedinto food for moths, and I give you my word that to keep from beingsmothered to death by ostrich feathers I bit off the tops of at leastfifteen hats that were from time to time thrust in my face by thatwrithing mass of feminine loveliness. How many aigrettes I inhaled, andthe number of artificial roses I swallowed, in my efforts to breathe andbite my way to freedom I shall never know, but I can tell you right now,I never want to eat another aigrette so long as I shall live, and Iwouldn't swallow one more canvas-backed tea rose if I were starving. Atone time I counted eight ladies standing on my feet instead of on theirown; and while I lost all eight buttons off my vest, and six fromvarious parts of my coat, when I got home last night I found enoughgilt buttons, crocheted buttons, bone buttons, filagree buttons, andother assorted feminine buttons, inside my pockets to fill an innovationtrunk. And talk about massages! I was rubbed this way, and scourged thatway, and jack-planed the other way, until I began to fear I was about tobe erased altogether. The back breadth of my overcoat was worncompletely through, and the tails of my cutaway thereupon coming to thesurface were transformed into a flowing fringe that made me look likethe walking advertisement of a tassel factory. My watch chain caughtupon the belt buckle of an amazon in front of me, and the last I saw ofit was trailing along behind her over on the other side of that whirlingmass far beyond my reach. My strength was oozing, and my breath wascoming in pants short enough to be worn by a bow-legged four-year-oldpickaninny, when, making a last final herculean effort to get myself outof that surging eruption, I was suddenly ejected from it, like Jonahfrom the jaws of the whale, but alas, under the bargain table itself,instead of on the outside, toward which I had fondly hoped I wasmoving."
"Great Heavens!" said the Poet. "What an experience. And you had to gothrough it all over again to escape finally?"
"Not on your life," said the Idiot. "I'd had enough. I just folded myshredded overcoat up into a pillow, and lay down and went to sleep thereuntil the time came to close the shop for the night, when I sneaked out,filled my pockets full of soap, clothespins, and other knickknacks, andleft a dollar bill on the floor to pay for them. They didn't deserve thedollar, considering the damage I had sustained, but for the sake of mypoor but honest parents I felt that I ought to leave something in theway of ready money behind me to pay for the loot."
"It's a wonder you weren't arrested for shoplifting," said Mr. Brief.
"They couldn't have proved anything on me," said the Idiot, "even ifthey had thought of it. I had a perfectly good defense, anyhow."
"What was that?" asked the Lawyer.
"Temporary insanity," said the Idiot. "After my experience yesterdayafternoon I am convinced that no jury in the world would hold that a manwas in his right mind who, with no compelling reasons save generosity tostir him to do so, plunged into a maelstrom of that sort. It would be aclear case of either attempted suicide or mental aberration. Of course,if I had been dressed for it in a suit of armor, and had been armedwith a battle-axe, or a long, sharp-pointed spear, it might have lookedlike a case of highway robbery; but no male human being in his rightmind is going to subject himself to the hazards to life, limb, eye, ear,and happiness, that I risked when I entered that crowd for the solepurpose of getting away unobserved with a package of nickel-platedhairpins, worth four cents and selling at seven, and a couple ofhand-painted fly swatters worth ten cents a gross."
The Landlady laughed a long, loud, silvery laugh, with just a littletouch of derision in it.
"O you men, you men!" she ejaculated. "You call yourselves the strongersex, and plume yourselves on your superior physical endurance, and yetwhen it comes to a test, where are you?"
"Under the table, Madame, under the table," sighed the Idiot. "I for onefrankly admit the soft impeachment."
"Yes," said the Landlady, "but I'll warrant you never found a womanunder the table. We women, weak and defenseless though we be, go throughthat sort of thing day after day from youth to age, and we never eventhink of complaining, much less giving up the fight the way you did.Once a woman gets her eye on a bargain, my dear Mr. Idiot, and reallywants it, it would take a hundred and fifty maelstroms such as you havedescribed to keep her from getting it."
"I don't doubt it," said the Idiot, "but you see, my dear Mrs. Pedagog,"he added, "you women are brought up to that sort of thing. You aretrained from infancy to tackle just such problems, while we poor menhave no such advantages. The only practice in domestic rough-housingthat we men ever get in our youth is possibly a season on the footballteam, or in those pleasing little games of childhood likesnap-the-whip, and mumbledypeg where we have to dig pegs out of theground with our noses. Later in life, perhaps, there will come a war toteach us how to assault an entrenched enemy, and occasionally, perhapsaround election time, we may find ourselves mixed up in some kind of afree fight on the streets, but all of these things are as child's playcompared to an assault upon a bargain table by one who has neverpracticed the necessary maneuvers. To begin with we are absolutelyunarmed."
"Unarmed?" echoed the Landlady. "What would you carry, a Gatling gun?"
"Well, I never thought of that," said the Idiot, "but if I ever tacklethe proposition again, which, believe me, is very doubtful, I'll bearthe suggestion in mind. It sounds good. If I'd had a forty-twocentimeter machine-gun along with me yesterday afternoon I might havestood a better chance."
"O you know perfectly well what I mean," said Mrs. Pedagog. "You impliedthat women are armed when they go shopping, while men are not."
"Well, aren't they?" asked the Idiot. "Every blessed daughter of Eve inthat melee yesterday was armed, one might almost say, to the teeth.There wasn't one in the whole ninety-seven thousand of them that didn'thave at least two hatpins thrust through the middle of her head withtheir sharp-pointed ends sticking out an inch and a half beyond her dearlittle ears; and every time a head was turned in any direction blood wasshed automatically. All I had was the stiff rim of my derby hat, andeven that fell off inside of three minutes, and I haven't seen hide norhair of it since. Then what the hatpins failed to move out of their pathother pins variously and strategically placed would tackle; and as forauxiliary weapons, what with sharp-edged jet and metal buttons sproutingfrom one end of the feminine form to the other, up the front, down theback, across the shoulders, along the hips, executing flank movementsright and left, and diagonally athwart every available inch ofsuperficial area elsewhere, aided and abetted by silver and steel-beadedhandbags and featherweight umbrellas for purposes of assault, I tell youevery blessed damozel of the lot was a walking arsenal of destruction.All one of those women had to do was to whizz around three times like adervish, poke her head either to the right or to the left, and gainthree yards, while I might twist around like a pinwheel, or an electricfan, and get nothing for my pains save a skewered nose, or a poke in theback that suggested the presence of a member of the Black Hand Society.In addition to all this I fear I have sustained internal injuries ofserious import. My teeth are intact, save for two feathers that are sodeeply imbedded at the back of my wisdom teeth that I fear I shall haveto have them pulled, but every time I breathe one of my ribs behaves asif in some way it had got itself tangled up with my left shoulder blade.Why, the pressure upon me at one time was so great that I began to feellike a rosebud placed inside the family Bible by an old maid whose loverhas evaporated, to be pressed and preserved there until his return. Thislittle pancake that is about to fulfill its destiny as a messenger froma cold and heartless outside world to my inner man, is a rotund,bulgent, balloon-shaped bit of puffed-up convex protuberance compared tothe way I felt after that whirl of feminity had put me through theclothes-wringer. I was as flat as a joke of Caesar's after its fourthousandth semiannual appearance in London Punch, and in respect tothickness I was pressed so thin that you could have rolled me aroundyour umbrella, and still been able to get the cover on."
"You never were very deep, anyhow," suggested the Bibliomaniac.
"Whence the wonder of it grows," said the Idiot. "Normally I amfathomless compared to the thin, waferlike quality of my improfundity asI flickered to the floor after that dreadful pressure was removed."
"How about women getting crushed?" demanded the Landlady defiantly. "Ifa poor miserable little wisp of a woman can go through that sort ofthing, I don't see why a big, brawny man like you can't."
"Because, as I have already said," said the Idiot, "I wasn't dressed forit. My clothes aren't divided up into airtight compartments, renderingme practically unsinkable within, nor have I any steel-constructedgarments covering my manly form to resist the pressure."
"And have women?" asked Mrs. Pedagog.
The Idiot blushed.
"How should I know, my dear Mrs. Pedagog?" replied the Idiot. "I'm noauthority on the subtle mysteries of feminine raiment, but from what Isee in the shop windows, and in the advertising pages of the magazines,I should say that the modern woman could go through a courtship with agrizzly bear and come out absolutely undented. As I pass along thehighways these days, and glance into the shop windows, mine eyes areconstantly confronted by all sorts of feminine under-tackle, which inthe days of our grandmothers were regarded as strictly confidential. Isee steel-riveted contraptions, marked down from a dollar fifty-seven toninety-eight cents, which have all the lithe, lissom grace of a Helen ofTroy, the which I am led to infer the women of to-day purchase andinsert themselves into, gaining thereby not only a marvelous symmetry offigure hitherto unknown to them, but that same security against thebufferings of a rude outside world as well, which a gilt-edged bond mustfeel when it finds itself locked up behind the armor-plated walls of aSafe Deposit Company. Except that these armorial undergarments aredecorated with baby-blue ribbons, and sporadic, not to say spasmodic,doodads in filmy laces and chiffon, they differ in no respect from thosewonderful combinations of slats, chest-protectors, and liver pads whichour most accomplished football players wear at the emergent moments oftheir intellectual development at college. In point of fact, withoutreally knowing anything about it, I venture the assertion that the womanof to-day wearing this steel-lined chiffon figure, and armed withseventy or eighty different kinds of pins from plain hat to safety,which protrude from various unexpected parts of her anatomy at thepsychological moment, plus the devastating supply of buttons alwaysavailable for moments of aggressive action, is the most powerfully andefficiently developed engine of war the world has yet produced. She isnot only protected by her unyielding figure from the onslaughts of theenemy, but she fairly bristles as well with unsuspected weapons ofoffense against which anything short of a herd of elephants on stampedewould be powerless. Your modern Amazon is an absolutely irrefragable,irresistible creature, and it makes me shudder to think of what is goingto happen when this war of the sexes, now in its infancy, really getsgoing, and we defenseless men have nothing but a few regiments ofartillery, and a division or two of infantry and cavalry standingbetween us and an advancing column of super-insulated shoppers, usingtheir handbags as clubs, their hatpins glistening wickedly in themorning light, as they tango onward to the fray. When that day comes,frankly, I shall turn and run. I had my foretaste of that coming warfarein my pursuit of Christmas gifts yesterday afternoon, and my mottohenceforth and forever is Never Again!"
"Then I suppose we need none of us expect to be remembered by you thisChristmas," said the Doctor. "Alas, and alas! I shall miss the generousbounty which led you last year to present me with a cold waffle onChristmas morn."
"On the contrary, Doctor," said the Idiot. "Profiting from my experienceof yesterday I am going to start in on an entirely new system ofChristmas giving. No more boughten articles for me--my presents will befashioned by loving hands without thought of dross. You and all the restof my friends at this board are to be remembered as usual. For theBibliomaniac I have a little surprise in store in the shape of a copy ofthe _Congressional Record_ for December 7th which I picked up on astreet car last Friday morning. It is an absolutely first edition, inthe original wrappers, and will make a fine addition to his collectionof Americana. For Mr. Brief I have a copy of the New York Telephone Bookfor 1906, which he will find full of most excellent addresses. For mydear friend, the Poet, I have set aside a charming collection ofrejection slips from his friends the editors; and for you, Doctor, as anaffectionate memento of my regard, I have prepared a little mixture ofall the various medicines you have prescribed for me during the pastfive years, none of which I have ever taken, to the vast betterment ofmy health. These, consisting of squills, cod-liver oil, ipecac, quinine,iron tonic, soothing syrup, spirits of ammonia, horse liniment, himalayabitters, and calomel, I have mixed together in one glorious concoction,which I shall bottle with my own hands in an old carboy I found up inthe attic, on the side of which I have etched the words, When You DrinkIt Think of Me!"
"Thanks, awfully," said the Doctor. "I am sure a mixture of that sortcould remind me of no one else."
"And, finally, for our dear Landlady," said the Idiot, smilinggallantly on Mrs. Pedagog, "I have the greatest surprise of all."
/> "I'll bet you a dollar I know what it is," said the Doctor.
"I'll take you," said the Idiot.
"You're going to pay your bill!" roared the Doctor.
"There's your dollar," said the Idiot, tossing a silver cartwheel acrossthe table. "Better hand it right over to Mrs. Pedagog on account,yourself."