Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (451 page)

“An hour?” shouted Bartney fiercely. “You come down here and roll this stone off me, or I’ll skin you alive!”

“Even against your will,” went on Mr. Skiggs. “I feel called upon to treat you, for it is a duty to everyone to help the injured, or rather those who fancy themselves injured. Now, clear your mind of all sensation, and we will begin the treatment.”

“Come down here, you mean, low-browed fanatic!” yelled Bartney, forgetting his pain in a paroxysm of rage. “Come down here, and I’ll drive every bit of Christian Science out of your head.”

“To begin with,” began the shrill falsetto from the window, “there is no pain — absolutely none. Do you begin to have an inkling of that?”

“No,” shouted Bartney. “You, you — “ his voice was lost in a gurgle of impotent rage.

“Now, all is mind. Mind is everything. Matter is nothing — absolutely nothing. You are well. You fancy you are hurt, but you are not.”

“You lie,” shrieked Bartney.

Unheeding, Mr. Skiggs went on.

“Thus, if there is no pain, it can not act on your mind. A sensation is not physical. If you had no brain, there would be no pain, for what you call pain acts on the brain. You see?”

“Oh-h,” cried Bartney, “if you saw what a bottomless well of punishment you were digging for yourself, you’d cut out that monkey business.”

“Therefore, as so-called pain is a mental sensation, your ankle doesn’t hurt you. Your brain may imagine it does, but all sensation goes to the brain. You are very foolish when you complain of hurt — “

Bartney’s patience wore out. He drew in his breath, and let out a yell that echoed and re-echoed through the night air. He repeated it again and again, and at length he heard the sound of footsteps coming up the road.

“Hello!” came a voice.

Bartney breathed a prayer of thanksgiving.

“Come here! I’ve had an accident,” he called, and a minute later the night watchman’s brawny arms had rolled the stone off him, and he staggered to his feet.

“Good night,” called the Christian Scientist sweetly. “I hope I have made some impression on you.”

“You certainly have,” called back Bartney as he limped off, his hand on the watchman’s shoulder, “one I won’t forget.”

Two days later, as Bartney sat with his foot on a pillow he pulled an unfamiliar envelope out of his mail and opened it. It read:

WILLIAM BARTNEY.

To HEPEZIA SKIGGS, DR.

Treatment by Christian Science — $3.00. Payment by check or money order.

*****

The weeks wore on. Bartney was up and around. Out in his yard he started a flower garden and became a floral enthusiast. Every day he planted, and the next day he would weed what he had planted. But it gave him something to do, for law was tiresome at times.

One bright summer’s day, he left his house and strolled towards the garden, where the day before he had planted in despair some “store bought” pansies. He perceived to his surprise a long, thin, slippery-looking figure bending over, picking his new acquisitions. With quiet tread he approached, and, as the invader turned around, he said severely:

“What are you doing, sir?”

“I was plucking-er-a few posies — “

The long, thin, slippery looking figure got no further. Though the face had been strange to Bartney, the voice, a thin, querelous falsetto, was one he would never forget. He advanced slowly, eyeing the owner of that voice, as the wolf eyes his prey.

“Well, Mr. Skiggs, how is it I find you on my property?”

Mr. Skiggs appeared unaccountably shy and looked the other way.

“I repeat,” said Bartney, “that I find you here on my property — and in my power.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Skiggs, squirming in alarm.

Bartney grabbed him by the collar, and shook him as a terrier does a rat.

“You conceited imp of Christian Science! You miserable hypocrite! What?” he demanded fiercely, as Skiggs emitted a cry of protest. “You yell. How dare you? Don’t you know there is no such thing as pain? Come on, now, give me some of that Christian Science. Say ‘mind is everything’. Say it!”

Mr. Skiggs, in the midst of his jerky course, said quaveringly, “Mind is everyth-thing.”

“Pain is nothing,” urged his tormenter grimly.

“P-Pain is nothing,” repeated Mr. Skiggs feelingly.

The shaking continued.

“Remember, Skiggs, this is all for the good of the cause. I hope you’re taking it to heart. Remember, such is life, therefore life is such. Do you see?”

He left off shaking, and proceeded to entice Skiggs around by a grip on his collar, the scientist meanwhile kicking and struggling violently.

“Now,” said Bartney, “I want you to assure me that you feel no pain. Go on, do it!”

“I f-feel — ouch,” he exclaimed as he passed over a large stone is his course, “n-no pain.”

“Now,” said Bartney, “I want two dollars for the hours’ Christian Science treatment I have given you. Out with it.”

Skiggs hesitated, but the look of Bartney’s eyes and a tightening of Bartney’s grip convinced him, and he unwillingly tendered a bill. Bartney tore it to pieces and distributed the fragments to the wind.

“Now, you may go.”

Skiggs, when his collar was released, took to his heels, and his flying footsteps crossed the boundary line in less time than you would imagine.

“Good-bye, Mr. Skiggs,” called Bartney pleasantly. “Any other time you want a treatment come over. The price is always the same. I see you know one thing I didn’t have to teach you. There’s no such thing as pain, when somebody else is the goat.”

THE TRAIL OF THE DUKE

It was a hot July night. Inside, through screen, window and door fled the bugs and gathered around the lights like so many humans at a carnival, buzzing, thugging, whirring. From out the night into the houses came the sweltering late summer heat, over-powering and enervating, bursting against the walls and enveloping all mankind like a huge smothering blanket. In the drug stores, the clerks, tired and grumbling handed out ice cream to hundreds of thirsty but misled civilians, while in the corners buzzed the electric fans in a whirring mockery of coolness. In the flats that line upper New York, pianos (sweating ebony perspiration) ground out rag-time tunes of last winter and here and there a wan woman sang the air in a hot soprano. In the tenements, shirt-sleeves gleamed like beacon lights in steady rows along the streets in tiers of from four to eight according to the number of stories of the house. In a word, it was a typical, hot New York summer night.

In his house on upper Fifth Avenue, young Dodson Garland lay on a divan in the billiard room and consumed oceans of mint juleps, as he grumbled at the polo that had kept him in town, the cigarettes, the butler, and occasionally breaking the Second Commandment. The butler ran back and forth with large consignments of juleps and soda and finally, on one of his dramatic entrances, Garland turned towards him and for the first time that evening perceived that the butler was a human being, not a living bottle-tray.

“Hello, Allen,” he said, rather surprised that he had made such a discovery. “Are you hot?”

Allen made an expressive gesture with his handkerchief, tried to smile but only succeeded in a feeble, smothery grin.

“Allen,” said Garland struck by an inspiration, “what shall I do tonight?” Allen again essayed the grin but, failing once more, sank into a hot, undignified silence.

“Get out of here,” exclaimed Garland petulantly, “and bring me another julep and a plate of ice.”

“Now,” thought the young man, “What shall I do? I can go to the theatre and melt. I can go to a roof-garden and be sung to by a would-be prima donna, or — or go calling.” “Go calling,” in Garland’s vocabulary meant but one thing: to see Mirabel. Mirabel Walmsley was his fiancee since some three months, and was in the city to receive some nobleman or other who was to visit her father. The lucky youth yawned, rolled over, yawned again and rose to a sitting position where he yawned a third time and then got to his feet.

“I’ll walk up and see Mirabel. I need a little exercise.” And with this final decision he went to his room where he dressed, sweated and dressed, for half an hour. At the end of that time, he emerged from his residence, immaculate, and strolled up Fifth Avenue to Broadway. The city was all outside. As he walked along the white way, he passed groups and groups clad in linen and lingerie, laughing, talking, smoking, smiling, all hot, all uncomfortable.

He reached Mirabel’s house and then suddenly stopped on the door step.

“Heavens,” he thought, “I forgot all about it. The Duke of Dunsinlane or Artrellane or some lane or other was to arrive today to see Mirabel’s papa. Isn’t that awful? And I haven’t seen Mirabel for three days.” He sighed, faltered, and finally walked up the steps and rang the bell. Hardly had he stepped inside the door, when the vision of his dreams came running into the hall in a state of great excitement and perturbation.

“Oh, Doddy!” she burst out, “I’m in an awful situation. “The Duke went out of the house an hour ago. None of the maids saw him go. He just wandered out. You must find him. He’s probably lost — lost and nobody knows him.” Mirabel wrung her hands in entrancing despair. “Oh, I shall die if he’s lost — and it so hot. He’ll have a sunstroke surely or a — moonstroke. Go and find him. We’ve telephoned the police, but it won’t do any good. Hurry up! Do! oh, Doddy, I’m so nervous.”

“Doddy” put his hands in his pockets, sighed, put his hat on his head and sighed again. Then he turned towards the door. Mirabel, her face anxious, followed him.

“Bring him right up here if you find him. Oh Doddy you’re a life-saver.” The life-saver sighed again and walked quickly through the portal. On the door-step he paused.

“Well, of all outrageous things! To hunt for a French Duke in New York. This is outrageous. Where shall I go? What will I do.” He paused at the door-step and then, following the crowd, strode toward Broadway. “Now let me see. I must have a plan of action. I can’t go up and ask everybody I meet if he’s the Duke of — — — , well of, well — I can’t remember his name. I don’t know what he looks like. He probably can’t talk English. Oh, curses on the nobility.”

He strode aimlessly, hot and muddled. He wished he had asked Mirabel the Duke’s name and personal appearance, but it was now too late. He would not convict himself of such a blunder. Reaching Broadway he suddenly bethought himself of a plan of action.

“I’ll try the restaurants.” He started down towards Sherry’s and had gone but half a block when he had an inspiration. The Duke’s picture was in some evening paper, and his name, too.

He bought a paper and sought for the picture with no result. He tried again and again. On his seventh paper he found it: “The Duke of Matterlane Visits American Millionaire.”

The Duke, a man with side whiskers and eye-glasses stared menacingly at him from the paper. Garland heaved a sigh of relief, took a long look at the likeness and stuck the paper into his pocket.

“Now to business,” he muttered, wiping his drenched brow, “Duke or die.”

Five minutes later he entered Sherry’s, where he sat down and ordered ginger ale. There was the usual summer night crowd, listless, flushed, and sunburned. There was the usual champagne and ice that seemed hotter than the room; but there was no Duke. He sighed, rose, and visited Delmonico’s, Martin’s, at each place consuming a glass of ginger ale.

“I’ll have to cut out the drinking,” he thought, “or I’ll be inebriated by the time I find his royal nuisance.”

On his weary trail, he visited more restaurants and more hotels, ever searching; sometimes thinking he saw an oasis and finding it only a mirage. He had consumed so much ginger ale that he felt a swaying sea-sickness as he walked; yet he plodded on, hotter and hotter, uncomfortable, and, as Alice in Wonderland would have said, uncomfortabler. His mind was grimly and tenaciously set on the Duke’s face. As he walked along, from hotel to cafe, from cafe to restaurant, the Duke’s whiskers remained glued firmly to the insides of his brains. It was half past eight by the City Hall clock when he started on his quest. It was now quarter past ten, hotter, sultrier and stuffier than ever. He had visited every important place of refreshment. He tried the drug stores. He went to four theatres and had the Duke paged, at a large bribe. His money was getting low, his spirits were lower still; but his temperature soared majestically and triumphantly aloft.

Finally, passing through an alley which had been recommended to him as a short cut, he saw before him a man lighting a cigarette. By the flickering match he noticed the whiskers. He stopped dead in his tracks, afraid that it might not be the Duke. The man lit another cigarette. Sure enough, the sideburns, eyeglasses and the whole face proved the question without a doubt.

Garland walked towards the man. The man looked back at him and started to walk in the opposite direction. Garland started to run; the man looked over his shoulder and started to run also. Garland slowed down. The man slowed down. They emerged upon Broadway in the same relative position and the man started north. Forty feet behind, in stolid determination, walked Garland without his hat. He had left it in the alley.

For eight blocks they continued, the man behind being the pacemaker. Then the Duke spoke quietly to a policeman and when Garland, lost in an obsession of pursuit, was grabbed by the arm by a blue-coated Gorgas, he saw ahead of him the Duke start to run. In a frenzy he struck at the policeman and stunned him. He ran on and in three blocks he had made up what he had lost. For five more blocks the Duke continued, glancing now and then over his shoulder. On the sixth block he stopped. Garland approached him with steady step. He of the side whiskers was standing under a lamp post. Garland came up and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Your Grace.”

“What’s dat?” said the Duke, with an unmistakable east-side accent. Garland was staggered.

“I’ll grace you,” continued the side burns aggressively. “I saw you was a swell and I’d a dropped you bad only I’m just out of jail myself. Now listen here. I’ll give you two seconds to get scarce. Go on, beat it.”