There was no longer turf or gravel under his feet; there was something that rang flatly: tile, or flagstones. The little man began to walk more slowly and Tallman almost bumped into him. “Can’t we have a light?” said Tallman. “There you go!” shouted his guide. “Don’t get me screaming! What are you trying to do to me?” “I’m not trying to do anything to you,” said Tallman. “I’m trying to find out where we’re going.”
The other man had come to a stop and seemed to be groping around. “First it’s wrong uniforms,” he said, “then it’s red fire—red fire in Scotland, red fire three hundred years ago! I don’t know why I ain’t crazy!” Tallman could make out the other man dimly, a black, gesturing blob. “You’re doing all right,” said Tallman. Why did I ever leave the Brown Derby with this guy? he asked himself. Why did I ever let him bring me to his house—if he has a house? Who the hell does he think he is?
Tallman looked at his wristwatch; the dial glowed wanly in the immense darkness. He was a little drunk, but he could see that it was half past three in the morning. “Not trying to do anything to me, he says!” screamed the little man. “Wasn’t his fault! It’s never anybody’s fault! They give me ten thousand dollars’ worth of Sam Browne belts for Scotch Highlanders and it’s nobody’s fault!” Tallman was beginning to get his hangover headache. “I want a light!” he said. “I want a drink! I want to know where the hell I am!” “That’s it! Speak out!” said the other. “Say what you think! I like a man who knows where he is. We’ll get along.” “Contact!” said Tallman. “Camera! Lights! Get out that hundred-year-old brandy you were talking about.”
The response to this was a soft flood of rose-colored radiance; the little man had somehow found a light switch in the dark. God knows where, thought Tallman; probably on a tree. They were in a courtyard paved with enormous flagstones which fitted together with mosaic perfection. The light revealed the dark stones of a building which looked like the Place de la Concorde side of the Crillon. “Come on, you people!” said the little man. Tallman looked behind him, half expecting to see the shadowy forms of Scottish Highlanders, but there was nothing but the shadows of trees and of oddly shaped plants closing in on the courtyard. With a key as small as a dime, the little man opened a door that was fifteen feet high and made of wood six inches thick.
Marble stairs tumbled down like Niagara into a grand canyon of a living room. The steps of the two men sounded sharp and clear on the stairs, died in the soft depths of an immensity of carpet in the living room. The ceiling towered above them. There were highlights on dark wood medallions, on burnished shields, on silver curves and edges. On one wall a forty-foot tapestry hung from the ceiling to within a few feet of the floor. Tallman was looking at this when his companion grasped his arm. “The second rose!” he said. “The second rose from the right!” Tallman pulled away. “One of us has got to snap out of this, baby,” he said. “How about that brandy?” “Don’t interrupt me!” shouted his host. “That’s what Whozis whispers to What’s-His-Name—greatest love story in the world, if I do say so myself—king’s wife mixed up in it—knights riding around with spears—Whozis writes her a message made out of twigs bent together to make words: ‘I love you’—sends it floating down a stream past her window—they got her locked in—goddamnedest thing in the history of pictures. Where was I? Oh—‘Second rose from the right,’ she says. Why? Because she seen it twitch, she seen it move. What’s-His-Name is bending over her, kissing her maybe. He whirls around and shoots an arrow at the rose—second from the right, way up high there—down comes the whole tapestry, weighs eleven hundred pounds, and out rolls this spy, shot through the heart. What’s-His-Name sent him to watch the lovers.” The little man began to pace up and down the deep carpet. Tallman lighted a fresh cigarette from his glowing stub and sat down in an enormous chair. His host came to a stop in front of the chair and shook his finger at its occupant.
“Look,” said the little man. “I don’t know who you are and I’m telling you this. You could ruin me, but I got to tell you. I get Moonbaum here—I get Moonbaum himself here—you can ask Manny or Sol—I get the best arrow shot in the world here to fire that arrow for What’s-His-Name—”
“Tristram,” said Tallman. “Don’t prompt me!” bellowed the little man. “For Tristram. What happens? Do I know he’s got arrows you shoot bears with? Do I know he ain’t got caps on ’em? If I got to know that, why do I have Mitnik? Moonbaum is sitting right there—the tapestry comes down and out rolls this guy, shot through the heart—only the arrow is in his stomach. So what happens? So Moonbaum laughs! That makes Moonbaum laugh! The greatest love story in the history of pictures, and Moonbaum laughs!” The little man raced over to a large chest, opened it, took out a cigar, stuck it in his mouth, and resumed his pacing. “How do you like it?” he shouted. “I love it,” said Tallman. “I love every part of it. I always have.” The little man raised his hands above his head. “He loves it! He hears one—maybe two—scenes, and he loves every part of it! Even Moonbaum don’t know how it comes out, and you love every part of it!” The little man was standing before Tallman’s chair again, shaking his cigar at him. “The story got around,” said Tallman. “These things leak out. Maybe you talk when you’re drinking. What about that brandy?”
The little man walked over and took hold of a bell rope on the wall, next to the tapestry. “Moonbaum laughs like he’s dying,” he said. “Moonbaum laughs like he’s seen Chaplin.” He dropped the bell rope. “I hope you really got that hundred-year-old brandy,” said Tallman. “Don’t keep telling me what you hope!” howled the little man. “Keep listening to what I hope!” He pulled the bell rope savagely. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Tallman. For the first time the little man went to a chair and sat down; he chewed on his unlighted cigar. “Do you know what Moonbaum wants her called?” he demanded, lowering his heavy lids. “I can guess,” said Tallman. “Isolde.” “Birds of a feather!” shouted his host. “Horses of the same color! Isolde! Name of God, man, you can’t call a woman Isolde! What do I want her called?” “You have me there,” said Tallman. “I want her called Dawn,” said the little man, getting up out of his chair. “It’s short, ain’t it? It’s sweet, ain’t it? You can say it, can’t you?” “To get back to that brandy,” said Tallman, “who is supposed to answer that bell?” “Nobody is supposed to answer it,” said the little man. “That don’t ring, that’s a fake bell rope; it don’t ring anywhere. I got it to remind me of an idea Moonbaum ruined. Listen: Louisiana mansion—guy with seven daughters—old-Southern-colonel stuff—Lionel Barrymore could play it—we open on a room that looks like a million dollars—Barrymore crosses and pulls the bell rope. What happens?” “Nothing,” said Tallman. “You’re crazy!” bellowed the little man. “Part of the wall falls in! Out flies a crow—in walks a goat, maybe—the place has gone to seed, see? It’s just a hulk of its former self, it’s a shallows!” He turned and walked out of the room. It took him quite a while.
When he came back, he was carrying a bottle of brandy and two huge brandy glasses. He poured a great deal of brandy into each glass and handed one to Tallman. “You and Mitnik!” he said, scornfully. “Pulling walls out of Southern mansions. Crows you give me, goats you give me! What the hell kind of effect is that?” “I could have a bad idea,” said Tallman, raising his glass. “Here’s to Moonbaum. May he maul things over in his mind all night and never get any spontanuity into ’em.” “I drink nothing to Moonbaum,” said the little man. “I hate Moonbaum. You know where they catch that crook—that guy has a little finger off one hand and wears a glove to cover it up? What does Moonbaum want? Moonbaum wants the little finger to flap! What do I want? I want it stuffed. What do I want it stuffed with? Sand. Why?” “I know,” said Tallman. “So that when he closes his hand over the head of his cane, the little finger sticks out stiffly, giving him away.” The little man seemed to leap into the air; his brandy splashed out of his glass. “Suitcase!” he screamed. “Not cane! Suitcase! He grabs hold of a suitc
ase!” Tallman didn’t say anything; he closed his eyes and sipped his brandy; it was wonderful brandy. He looked up presently to find his host staring at him with a resigned expression in his eyes. “All right, then, suitcase,” the little man said. “Have it suitcase. We won’t fight about details. I’m trying to tell you my story. I don’t tell my stories to everybody.” “Richard Harding Davis stole that finger gag—used it in ‘Gallegher,’ ” said Tallman. “You could sue him.” The little man walked over to his chair and flopped into it. “He’s beneath me,” he said. “He’s beneath me like the dirt. I ignore him.”
Tallman finished his brandy slowly. His host’s chin sank upon his chest; his heavy eyelids began to close. Tallman waited several minutes and then tiptoed over to the marble stairs. He took off his shoes and walked up the stairs, carefully. He had the heavy door open when the little man shouted at him. “Birds of a feather, all of you!” he shouted. “You can tell Moonbaum I said so! Shooting guys out of tapestries!” “I’ll tell him,” said Tallman. “Good night. The brandy was wonderful.” The little man was not listening. He was pacing the floor again, gesturing with an empty brandy glass in one hand and the unlighted cigar in the other. Tallman stepped out into the cool air of the courtyard and put on one shoe and laced it. The heavy door swung shut behind him with a terrific crash. He picked up the other shoe and ran wildly toward the trees and the oddly shaped plants. It was daylight now. He could see where he was going.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
WE’RE going through!” The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. “We can’t make it, sir. It’s spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you, Lieutenant Berg,” said the Commander. “Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We’re going through!” The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” he shouted. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” repeated Lieutenant Berg. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” shouted the Commander. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. “The Old Man’ll get us through,” they said to one another. “The Old Man ain’t afraid of Hell!” . . .
“Not so fast! You’re driving too fast!” said Mrs. Mitty. “What are you driving so fast for?”
“Hmm?” said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. “You were up to fifty-five,” she said. “You know I don’t like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five.” Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind. “You’re tensed up again,” said Mrs. Mitty. “It’s one of your days. I wish you’d let Dr. Renshaw look you over.”
Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. “Remember to get those overshoes while I’m having my hair done,” she said. “I don’t need overshoes,” said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag. “We’ve been all through that,” she said, getting out of the car. “You’re not a young man any longer.” He raced the engine a little. “Why don’t you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?” Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. “Pick it up, brother!” snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot.
. . . “It’s the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan,” said the pretty nurse. “Yes?” said Walter Mitty, removing his gloves slowly. “Who has the case?” “Dr. Renshaw and Dr. Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr. Remington from New York and Mr. Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over.” A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. “Hello, Mitty,” he said. “We’re having the devil’s own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish you’d take a look at him.” “Glad to,” said Mitty.
In the operating room there were whispered introductions: “Dr. Remington, Dr. Mitty. Mr. Pritchard-Mitford, Dr. Mitty.” “I’ve read your book on streptothricosis,” said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking hands. “A brilliant performance, sir.” “Thank you,” said Walter Mitty. “Didn’t know you were in the States, Mitty,” grumbled Remington. “Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary.” “You are very kind,” said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. “The new anesthetizer is giving way!” shouted an interne. “There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!” “Quiet, man!” said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. “Give me a fountain pen!” he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. “That will hold for ten minutes,” he said. “Get on with the operation.” A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. “Coreopsis has set in,” said Renshaw nervously. “If you would take over, Mitty?” Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. “If you wish,” he said. They slipped a white gown on him; he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining . . .
“Back it up, Mac! Look out for that Buick!” Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. “Wrong lane, Mac,” said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. “Gee. Yeh,” muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked “Exit Only.” “Leave her sit there,” said the attendant. “I’ll put her away.” Mitty got out of the car. “Hey, better leave the key.” “Oh,” said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.
They’re so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street; they think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Milford, and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garageman. Since then Mrs. Mitty always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The next time, he thought, I’ll wear my right arm in a sling; they won’t grin at me then. I’ll have my right arm in a sling and they’ll see I couldn’t possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. “Overshoes,” he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.
When he came out into the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him, twice, before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town—he was always getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb’s, razor blades? No. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, carborundum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it. “Where’s the what’s-its-name?” she would ask. “Don’t tell me you forgot the what’s-its-name.” A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.
. . . “Perhaps this will refresh your memory.” The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. “Have you ever seen this before?” Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. “This is my W
ebley-Vickers 50.80,” he said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The Judge rapped for order. “You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?” said the District Attorney, insinuatingly. “Objection!” shouted Mitty’s attorney. “We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July.” Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. “With any known make of gun,” he said evenly, “I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.” Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman’s scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty’s arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. “You miserable cur!” . . .
“Puppy biscuit,” said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. “He said ‘Puppy biscuit,’ ” she said to her companion. “That man said ‘Puppy biscuit’ to himself.” Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A. & P., not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. “I want some biscuit for small, young dogs,” he said to the clerk. “Any special brand, sir?” The greatest pistol shot in the world thought a moment. “It says ‘Puppies Bark for It’ on the box,” said Walter Mitty.
His wife would be through at the hairdresser’s in fifteen minutes, Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn’t like to get to the hotel first; she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. “Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?” Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.