VI. THE BOSWELL TOURS: PERSONALLY CONDUCTED
It was and will no doubt be considered, even by those who are not toofriendly towards myself, a daring idea, and it was all my own. Onenight, several weeks after the interview with Boswell just narrated, theidea came to me simultaneously with the first tapping of the keys forthe evening upon the Enchanted Type-Writer. It was Boswell's touch thatsummoned me from my divan. My family were on the eve of departure fora month's rest from care and play in the mountains, and I waslooking forward to a period of very great loneliness. But as Boswellmaterialized and began his work upon the machine, the great idea flashedacross my mind, and I resolved to "play it" for all it was worth.
"Jim," said I, as I approached the vacant chair in which he sat--forby this time the great biographer and I had got upon terms offamiliarity--"Jim," said I, "I've got a very gloomy prospect ahead ofme."
"Well, why not?" he tapped off. "Where do you expect to have your gloomyprospects? They can't very well be behind you."
"Humph!" said I. "You are facetious this evening."
"Not at all," he replied. "I have been spending the day with my old-timeboss, Samuel Johnson, and I am so saturated with purism that I hardlyknow where I am. From the Johnsonian point of view you have expressedyourself ill--"
"Well, I am ill," I retorted. "I don't know how far you are acquaintedwith home life, but I do know that there is no greater homesickness inthe world than that of the man who is sick of home."
"I am not an imitator," said Boswell, "but I must imitate you to theextent of saying humph! I quote you, and, doing so, I honor you. Butreally, I never thought you could be sick of home, as you put it--youwho are so happy at home and who so wildly hate being away from home."
"I'm not surprised at that, my dear Boswell," said I. "But you are, ofcourse, familiar with the phrase 'Stone walls do not a prison make?'"
"I've heard it," said Boswell.
"Well, there's another equally valid phrase which I have not yet heardexpressed by another, and it is this: 'Stone walls do not a home make.'"
"It isn't very musical, is it?" said he.
"Not very," I answered, "but we don't all live magazine lives, do we? Wehave occasionally a sentiment, a feeling, out of which we do not try 'tomake copy.' It is undoubtedly a truth which I have not yet seen voicedby any modern poet of my acquaintance, not even by the dead-baby poets,that home is not always preferable to some other things. At any rate,it is my feeling, and is shortly to represent my condition. My home,you know. It has its walls and its pictures, and its thousand and onecomforts, and its associations, but when my wife and my children areaway, and the four walls do not re-echo the voices of the children, andmy library lacks the presence of madame, it ceases truly to be home, andif I've got to stay here during the month of August alone I must havediversion, else I shall find myself as badly off as the butterfly man,to whom a vaudeville exhibition is the greatest joy in life."
"I think you are queer," said Boswell.
"Well, I am not," said I. "However low we may set the standard of man,Mr. B."--and I called him Mr. B. instead of Jim, because I wished to besevere and yet retain the basis of familiarity--"however low we may setthe standard of man, I think man as a rule prefers his home to the mostseductive roof-garden life in existence."
"Wherefore?" said he, coldly.
"Wherefore my home about to become unattractive through the absence ofmy boys and their mother, I shall need some extraordinary diversion toaccomplish my happiness. Now if you can come here, why can't others?Suppose to-night you dash off on the machine a lot of invitations to thepleasantest people in Hades to come up here with you and have an eveningon earth, which isn't all bad."
"It's a scheme and a half," said Boswell, with more enthusiasm than Ihad expected. "I'll do it, only instead of trying to get these peopleto make a pilgrimage to your shrine, which I think they would decline todo--Shakespeare, for instance, wouldn't give a tuppence to inspectyour birthplace as you have inspected his--I'll institute a series of'Boswell's Personally Conducted Pleasure Parties,' and make you my agenthere. That, you see, will naturally make your home our headquarters, andI think the scheme would work a charm, because there are a great manywell-known Stygians who are curious to revisit the scenes oftheir earlier state, but who are timid about coming on their ownresponsibility."
"I see," said I. "Immortals are but mortal after all, with all thetimidity and weaknesses of mortality. But I agree to the proposition,and if you wish it I'll prepare to give them a rousing old time."
"And be sure to show them something characteristic," said Boswell.
"I will," I replied; "I may even get up a trolley-party for them."
"I don't know what a trolley-party is, but it sounds well," saidBoswell, "and I'll advertise the enterprise at once. 'Boswell'sPersonally Conducted Pleasure Parties. First Series, No. 1. TrolleyingThrough Hoboken. For the Round Trip, Four Dollars. Supper and AllExpenses Included. No Tips. Extra Lady's Ticket, One Dollar.'"
"Hold on!" I cried. "That can't be. These affairs will really have to bestag-parties--with my wife away, you know."
"Not if we secure a suitable chaperon," said Boswell.
"Anyhow!" said I, with great positiveness. "You don't suppose that inthe absence of my family I'm going to have my neighbors see me cavortingabout the country on a trolley-car full of queens and duchesses andother females of all ages? Not a bit of it, my dear James. I'm not astrictly conventional person, but there are some points between which Idraw lines. I've got to live on this earth for a little while yet, anduntil I leave it I must be guided more or less in what I do by what theworld approves or disapproves."
"Very well," Boswell answered. "I suppose you are right, but in theautumn, when your family has returned--"
"We can discuss the matter again," said I, resolved to put off thequestion for as long a time as I could, for I candidly confess that Ihad no wish to make myself responsible for the welfare of such Stygianladies as might avail themselves of the opportunity to go off on oneof Boswell's tours. "Show the value and beauties of your plan to theinfluential men of Hades first, my dear Boswell," I added, "and then ifthey choose they can come again and bring their wives with them on theirown responsibility."
"I fancy that is the best plan, but we ought to have some variety inthese tours," he replied. "A trolley-party, however successful, wouldnot make a great season for an entertainment bureau, would it?"
"No, indeed," said I. "You are perfectly right about that. What youwant is one function a week during the summer season. Open with thetrolley-party as No. 1 of your first series. Follow this with 'AnEvening of Vaudeville: The Grand Tour of the Roof Gardens.' After thathave a 'Sunday at the Sea-side--Surf Bathing, Summer Girls and Sand.'That would make a mighty attractive line for your advertisement."
"Magnificent. I don't see why you don't give up poetry and magazinework and get a position as poster-writer for a circus. You are only amediocre magazinist, but in the poster business you'd be a genius."
This was tapped off with such manifest sincerity that I could not takeoffence, so I thanked him and resumed.
"The grand finale of your first series might be 'A Tandem Scorch: ACentury Run on a Bicycle Built for Two Hundred!'"
"Magnificent!" cried Boswell, with such enthusiasm that I feared hewould smash the machine. "I'll devote a whole page of my Sunday issue tothe prospectus--but, to return to the woman question, we ought reallyto have something to announce for them. Hades hath no fury like a womanscorned, and I can't afford to scorn the sex. You needn't have anythingto do with them if you don't want to--only tell me something I canannounce, and I'll make Henry the Eighth solid again by putting thatbranch of the enterprise in his wives' hands. In that way I'll kill twobirds with one stone."
"That's all very well, Boswell, but I'm afraid I can't," said I. "It'shard enough to know how to please a mortal woman without attempting toget up a series of picnics for the rather miscellaneous assortment ofladies who form your social structure
below. All men are alike, andman's pleasures in all times have been generally the same, but everywoman is unique. I never knew two who were alike, and if it's all thesame to you I'd rather you left me out of your ladies' tours altogether.Of course I know that even the Queen of Sheba would enjoy a visit to aMonday sale at one of our big department stores, and I am quite as wellaware that nine out of ten women in Hades or out of it would enjoythe millinery exhibition at the opera matinee--and if these two ideasimpress you at all you are welcome to them--but beyond this I havenothing to suggest."
"Well, I'm sure those two ideas are worth a great deal," returnedBoswell, making a note of them; "I shall announce four trips to Mondaysales--"
"Call 'em 'To Bargaindale and Back: The Great Marked-down Tour,' and besure you add, 'For Able-bodied Women Only. No Tickets Issued Except onRecommendation of your Family Physician.' This is especially important,for next to a war or a football match there's nothing that I know ofthat is quite so dangerous to the participants as a bargain day."
"I'll bear what you say in mind," quoth Boswell, and he made a note ofmy injunction. "And immediately upon my return to Hades I will requestan audience with Henry's queens, and ask them to devise a number ofother tours likely to prove profitable and popular."
Shortly after my visitor departed and I retired. The next day my familydeserted me and went to the mountains, and all my fears as to theinordinate sense of loneliness which was to be my lot were realized.Even Boswell neglected me apparently for a week. I went to my deskdaily and returned at night hoping that my type-writer would bring forthsomething of an interesting nature, but naught other than disappointmentawaited me. For a whole blessed week I was thrown back upon the societyof my neighbors for diversion. The type-writer gave no sign of being.
Little did I guess that Boswell was busy working up my scheme in hisStygian home!
But it came to pass finally that I was roused up. Walking one morning tomy desk to find a bit of memoranda I needed, I discovered a type-writtenslip marked, "No time for small talk. Boswell's tours grand success.Trolley-party to-night. Ten cars wanted. Jim."
It was a large order for a town like mine, where forty thousand peoplehave to get along with five cars--two open ones for winter and twoclosed for summer, and one, which we have never seen, which is kept foruse in the repair-shop. I was in despair. Ten car-loads of immortalscoming to my house for a trolley-party under such conditions! It wasfrightful! I did the best I could, however.
I ordered one trolley-car to be ready at eight, and a large variety ofgood things edible and drinkable, the latter to be held subject to thedemand-notes of our guests.
As may be imagined, I did little real work that day, and when I returnedhome at night I was on tenter-hooks lest something should go wrong; butfortunately Boswell himself came early and relieved me of my worry--infact, he was at the machine when I entered the house.
"Well," he said, "have you the ten cars?"
"What do you take me for," said I, "a trolley-car trust? Of course Ihaven't. There are only five cars in town, one of which is kept in therepair-shop for effect. I've hired one."
"Humph!" he cried. "What will the kings do?"
"Kings!" I cried. "What kings?"
"I have nine kings and one car-load of common souls besides for thisaffair," he explained. "Each king wants a special car."
"Kings be jiggered!" said I. "A trolley-party, my much beloved James,is an essentially democratic institution, and private cars are not derigueur. If your kings choose to come, let 'em hang on by the straps."
"But I've charged 'em extra!" cried Boswell.
"That's all right," said I, "they receive extra. They have the rideplus the straps, with the privilege of standing out on the platformand ringing the gong if they want to. The great thing about thetrolley-party is that there's no private car business about it."
"Well, I don't know," Boswell murmured, reflectively. "If Charles theFirst and Louis Fourteenth don't kick about being crowded in with allthe rest, I can stand anything that Frederick the Great or Neromight say; but those two fellows are great sticklers for the royalprerogative."
"There isn't any such thing as royal prerogative on a trolley-car," Iretorted, "and if they don't like what they get they can sit down in thewaiting-room and wait until we get back."
But Boswell's fears were not realized. Charles and Louis were perfectlydelighted with the trolley-party, and long before we reached home theformer had rung up the fare-register to its full capacity, while thelatter, a half-a-dozen times, delightedly occupied himself in masteringthe intricacies of the overhead wire. The trolley-party was an undoubtedsuccess. The same remains to be said of the vaudeville expedition ofthe following week. The same guests and potentates attended this, tothe number of twenty, and the Boswell tours were accounted a greatenterprise, and bade fair to redeem the losses of the eminent journalistincurred during Xanthippe's administration of his affairs; but afterthe bicycle night I had to withdraw from the combination to save myreputation. The fact upon which I had not counted was that my neighborsbegan to think me insane. I had failed to remember that none of thesevisiting spirits was visible to us in this material world, and whilemy fellow-townsmen were disposed to lay up my hiring of a specialtrolley-car for my own private and particular use against theeccentricity of genius, they marvelled greatly that I should purchasetwenty of the best seats at a vaudeville show seemingly for my ownexclusive use. When, besides this, they saw me start off apparentlyalone on one tandem bicycle, followed by twenty-eight other emptywheels, which they could not know were manipulated by some of the mostfamous legs in the history of the world, from Noah's down to thoseof Henry Fielding the novelist, they began to regard me as somethinguncanny.
Nor can I blame them. It seems to me that if I saw one man scorchingalong a road alone on a tandem bicycle chatting to an empty front-seat,I should think him queer, but if following in his wake I perceivedtwenty-eight other wheels, scorching up hill and down dale without anyvisible motive power, I should regard him as one who was in league withthe devil himself.
Nevertheless, I judge from what Boswell has told me that I am regardedin Hades as a great benefactor of the people there, for havingestablished a series of excursions from that world into this, a servicewhich has done much to convince the Stygians that after all, if only bycontrast, the life below has its redeeming features.