Pluck and Luck

  * * *

  PLUCK AND LUCK

  * * *

  BY

  Robert Benchley

  * * *

  About this Ebook

  Pluck and Luck

  by Robert Benchley

  (1889-1945)

  * * *

  Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist, actor, and drama critic. His main persona, that of a slightly confused, ineffectual, socially awkward bumbler, served in his essays and short films to gain him the sobriquet “the humorist’s humorist.” The character allowed him to comment brilliantly on the world’s absurdities. (—Encyclopedia Britannica)

  Benchley's humor influenced and inspired many humorists and filmmakers, among them E. B. White, James Thurber, S. J. Perelman, Horace Digby, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, and Dave Barry.

  Benchley is best remembered for his contributions to periodicals such as Life, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Collections of these essays and articles stand today as tribute to his brilliance.

  * * *

  First published 1925.

  This ebook was created by E.C.M. for MobileRead.com, January 2016.

  This ebook may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes.

  The text of this book is in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less.

  * * *

  Compiled from the following sources, using Notepad++ and Sigil:

  Text was obtained from the Internet Archive (scan of a 1947 reprint from publisher Blue Ribbon Books). Punctuation, italics, and diacritics have been formatted. Chapter-end links provide access to table of contents and title index. Cover by E.C.M.

  Due to copyright restrictions, illustrations by Gluyas Williams (1888–1982) have been omitted.

  Embedded fonts:

  (all licensed for re-distribution)

  “Special Elite” by Brian Bonlislawsky,

  “Monospace” by George Williams.

  Validation by Pagina Epub Checker.

  * * *

  

  * * *

  Contents

  * * *

  OF ALL THINGS Titlepage

  About This Ebook

  And Now the Fun Begins: Goethe’s Love Life

  Kiddie-Kar Travel

  The Story of a Lady

  On the Floor of the Reebis Gulf

  The Musical Clubs’ Concert

  Whoa!

  A Mid-Winter Sport Carnival

  A Christmas Pantomime

  The Church Supper

  Horse-Sense Editorial

  Chemists’ Sporting Extra!

  French for Americans

  Early View of Broadway at Astor Place, New York City

  The Last Day

  John Dwanley: A Life

  Is This the Missing Link?

  Checking Up on the Prophets

  How It Can Be Done

  “Bicycling,” the New Craze

  The Blue Sleeve Garter

  Teaching the Old Idea to Skate

  Looking Shakespeare Over

  The Romance of Digestion

  How to Watch Football

  Prize Breeding

  For Release Monday

  Visitors’ Day at the Joke Farm

  “Advice to Investors”

  “Ask that Man”

  Cell-Formations and Their Work

  “The King of Razbo-Jazbo”

  Biography by Inches

  Editha’s Christmas Burglar

  The Lost Language

  Museum Feet

  Traveling in Peace

  The Big Bridegroom Revolt

  How One Woman Kept the Budget from the Door

  Gay Life Back-Stage

  The Young Folks’ Day

  Article on Fishing

  How Much Does the Sun Jump?

  The Future of the Class of 1926— North Central Grammar School

  In the Beginning

  Justice for Mussels!

  Drama Cleansing and Pressing

  Evolution Sidelights

  Here Come the Children

  “Howdy, Neighbor!”

  Holiday! Holiday!

  Index of Titles

  * * *

  * * *

  PLUCK AND LUCK

  * * *

  Goethe’s Love Life

  * * *

  Lovers of Goethe will rejoice in the recently discovered series of letters which have been added to the world’s collection of Goethiana by Dr. Heimsatz Au of Leipzig.

  Dr. Au had spent fifteen years searching through bureau-drawers and things for these missing links in the chain of the poet’s love-life, and was at last rewarded by finding them in the pocket of an old raincoat belonging to Hugo Kranz. Goethe had evidently given them to Kranz to mail, and the lovable old fellow had completely forgotten them. So the letters were never received by the people to whom they were addressed, which accounts for several queer things that happened subsequently, among them the sudden birth of a daughter in the family of Walter Tierney.

  We must remember that at the time these letters were written, Goethe was in delicate health and had seriously contemplated suicide. At least, that was what he said. More likely he was just fooling, as there is no record that he ever succeeded. At any rate, not the Goethe of whom we are speaking. There was a George Goethe who committed suicide in Paris in 1886, but it is doubtful if he was the poet. The first of the Au collection of letters was written on August 11, 1760, four days after Goethe had returned from his operation. It was addressed to Leopold Katz, his old room-mate in the Kindergarten. “. . . I have never been so sore at anyone in my life,” writes Goethe, “as I was at Martha last Friday.”

  In closing Goethe promised to send Katz the flowered slippers he had promised him and bade him be “a good boy (ein gutes Kind).”

  On November 26 he wrote to the Gebriider Feigenspan, Importers of Fine Mechanical Toys, 1364 Ludwigstrasse, Miinchen:

  “Gentlemen. . . . On September 12, I sent you a letter, together with fifteen cents in stamps, requesting that you send me for inspection one of your wheeled ducks as per your advertisement. Our Herr Rothapfel informs me that the shipment has never reached us. It is not the money that I object to, as fifteen cents in stamps is only fifteen cents in stamps, no matter how you should look at it, but it strikes me as very funny that a firm of your standing should be so sloppy in its business transactions. Please oblige.”

  That is all. Not a word of his heart-aches. Not a word of his emotional crises. Not a word of Elsa von Bahnhoff. In fact, not a word about anything but the wheeled duck. No wonder that, in January, we find him writing piteously to Lena Lewis, his teacher:

  “. . . Well, Lena, this is a fine sort of a day I must say. Rain, rain, rain, is about all it seems to know how to do in this dump. And the food. Say! The worst you ever see (sehen).”

  Thus we are able to piece together those years of Goethe’s life when he was in a formative frame of mind and facing his first big problems. In the light of these letters several of the passages in “Dichtung und Wahrheit” which have hitherto been clouded in mystery may now be read with a clearer understanding. We cannot thank Dr. Au too much – if at all.

  * * *

  ....... TOC INDEX NEXT

  Kiddie-Kar Travel

  * * *

  In America there are two classes of travel – first class, and with children. Traveling with children corresponds roughly to traveling third-class in Bulgaria. They tell me there is nothing lower in the world than third-class Bulgarian travel.

  The actual physical discomfort of traveling with the Kiddies is not so great, although you do emerge from it looking as if you had just moved the piano upstairs single-handed. It is the mental wear-and-tear that tells and for a sensitive man
there is only one thing worse, and that is a church wedding in which he is playing the leading comedy role.

  There are several branches of the ordeal of Going on Choo-Choo, and it is difficult to tell which is the roughest. Those who have taken a very small baby on a train maintain that this ranks as pleasure along with having a nerve killed. On the other hand, those whose wee companions are in the romping stage, simply laugh at the claims of the first group. Sometimes you will find a man who has both an infant and a romper with him. Such a citizen should receive a salute of twenty-one guns every time he enters the city and should be allowed to wear the insignia of the Pater Dolorosa, giving him the right to solicit alms on the cathedral steps.

  There is much to be said for those who maintain that rather should the race be allowed to die out than that babies should be taken from place to place along our national arteries of traffic. On the other hand, there are moments when babies are asleep. (Oh, yes, there are. There must be.) But it is practically a straight run of ten or a dozen hours for your child of four. You may have a little trouble in getting the infant to doze off, especially as the train newsboy waits crouching in the vestibule until he sees signs of slumber on the child’s face and then rushes in to yell, “Copy of Life, out today!” right by its pink, shell-like ear. But after it is asleep, your troubles are over except for wondering how you can shift your ossifying arm to a new position without disturbing its precious burden.

  If the child is of an age which denies the existence of sleep, however, preferring to run up and down the aisle of the car rather than sit in its chair (at least a baby can’t get out of its chair unless it falls out and even then it can’t go far), then every minute of the trip is full of fun. On the whole, having traveled with children of all the popular ages, would be inclined to award the Hair-Shirt to the man who successfully completes the ride with a boy of, let us say, three.

  In the first place, you start with the pronounced ill-will of two-thirds of the rest of the occupants of the car. You see them as they come in, before the train starts, glancing at you and yours with little or no attempt to conceal the fact that they wish they had waited for the four o’clock. Across from you is perhaps a large man who, in his home town, has a reputation for eating little children. He wears a heavy gold watch chain and wants to read through a lot of reports on the trip. He is just about as glad to be opposite a small boy as he would be if it were a hurdy-gurdy.

  In back of you is a lady in a black silk dress who doesn’t like the porter. Ladies in black silk dresses always seem to board the train with an aversion to the porter. The fact that the porter has to be in the same car with her makes her fussy to start with, and when she discovers that in front of her is a child of three who is already eating (you simply have to give him a lemon-drop to keep him quiet at least until the train starts) she decides that the best thing to do is simply to ignore him and not give him the slightest encouragement to become friendly. The child therefore picks her out immediately to be his buddy.

  For a time after things get to going all you have to do is answer questions about the scenery. This is only what you must expect when you have children, and it happens no matter where you are. You can always say that you don’t know who lives in that house or what that cow is doing. Sometimes you don’t even have to look up when you say that you don’t know. This part is comparatively easy.

  It is when the migratory fit comes on that you will be put to the test. Suddenly you look and find the boy staggering down the aisle, peering into the faces of people as he passes them. “Here! Come back here, Roger!” you cry, lurching after him and landing across the knees of the young lady two seats down. Roger takes this as a signal for a game and starts to run, screaming with laughter. After four steps he falls and starts to cry.

  On being carried kicking back to his seat, he is told that he mustn’t run down the aisle again. This strikes even Roger as funny, because it is such a flat thing to say. Of course he is going to run down the aisle again and he knows it as well as you do. In the meantime, however, he is perfectly willing to spend a little time with the lady in the black silk dress.

  “Here, Roger,” you say, “don’t bother the lady.”

  “Hello, little boy,” the lady says, nervously, and tries to go back to her book. The interview is over as far as she is concerned. Roger, however, thinks that it would be just dandy to get up in her lap. This has to be stopped, and Roger has to be whispered to.

  He then announces that it is about time that he went to the wash-room. You march down the car, steering him by the shoulders and both lurching together as the train takes the curves and attracting wide attention to your very obvious excursion. Several kindly people smile knowingly at you as you pass and try to pat the boy on the head, but their advances are repelled, it being a rule of all children to look with disfavor on any attentions from strangers. The only people they want to play with are those who hate children.

  On reaching the wash-room you discover that the porter has just locked it and taken the key with him, simply to be nasty. This raises quite a problem. You explain the situation as well as possible, which turns out to be not well enough. There is every indication of loud crying and perhaps worse. You call attention to the Burrows Rustless Screen sign which you are just passing and stand in the passage-way by the drinking-cups, feverishly trying to find things in the landscape as it whirls by which will serve to take the mind off the tragedy of the moment. You become so engrossed in this important task that it is some time before you discover that you are completely blocking the passage-way and the progress of some fifteen people who want to get off at Utica. There is nothing for you to do but head the procession and get off first.

  Once out in the open, the pride and prop of your old age decides that the thing to do is pay the engineer a visit, and starts off up the platform at a terrific rate. This amuses the onlookers and gives you a little exercise after being cramped up in that old car all the morning. The imminent danger of the train’s starting without you only adds to the fun. At that, there might be worse things than being left in Utica. One of them is getting back on the train again to face the old gentleman with the large watch chain.

  The final phase of the ordeal, however, is still in store for you when you make your way (and Roger’s way) into the diner. Here the plunging march down the aisle of the car is multiplied by six (the diner is never any nearer than six cars and usually is part of another train). On the way, Roger sees a box of animal crackers belonging to a little girl and commandeers it. The little girl, putting up a fight, is promptly pushed over, starting what promises to be a free-for-all fight between the two families. Lurching along after the apologies have been made, it is just a series of unwarranted attacks by Roger on sleeping travelers and equally unwarranted evasions by Roger of the kindly advances of very nice people who love children.

  In the diner, it turns out that the nearest thing they have suited to Roger’s customary diet is veal cutlets, and you hardly think that his mother would approve of those. Everything else has peppers or sardines in it. A curry of lamb across the way strikes the boy’s fancy and he demands some of that. On being told that he has not the slightest chance in the world of getting it but how would he like a little crackers-and-milk, he becomes quite upset and threatens to throw a fork at the Episcopal clergyman sitting opposite. Pieces of toast are waved alluringly in front of him and he is asked to consider the advantages of preserved figs and cream, but it is curry of lamb or he gets off the train. He doesn’t act like this at home. In fact, he is noted for his tractability. There seems to be something about the train that brings out all the worst that is in him, all the hidden traits that he has inherited from his mother’s side of the family. There is nothing else to do but say firmly: “Very well, then, Roger. We’ll go back without any nice dinner,” and carry him protesting from the diner, apologizing to the head steward for the scene and considering dropping him overboard as you pass through each vestibule.

  In fact, I had a c
ousin once who had to take three of his little ones on an all-day trip from Philadelphia to Boston. It was the hottest day of the year and my cousin had on a woolen suit. By the time he reached Hartford, people in the car noticed that he had only two children with him. At Worcester he had only one. No one knew what had become of the others and no one asked. It seemed better not to ask. He reached Boston alone and never explained what had become of the tiny tots. Anyone who has ever traveled with tiny tots of his own, however, can guess.

  * * *

  PREV TOC INDEX NEXT

  The Story of a Lady Who Interested Only Herself and of a Gentleman Who Didn’t Do Even That

  (After reading as much as possible

  of Michael Arlen)

  * * *

  There is a tale which is told in London about a young man (I had almost said “a young woman” but that would have been neither fair nor correct) who felt so strongly that all women were unfit for marriage that he married three of them at once. This, however, leaves something to be desired as an introduction to my little tale, as my little tale has nothing at all to do with young men in general or this young man in particular. It might have had, except for the fact that the young man was my mother. Which complicates everything. Or almost everything.

  Eunice Lovejoy was so beautiful that it is related that it once pleased the King of Spain to kill himself for her. This may or may not be true, according to your feeling about the King of Spain. I have no feeling at all about the King of Spain, except that I do wish that he wouldn’t wear fedora hats.