Pluck and Luck Read online

1. Ascertain the value of the franc.

  2. Make the purchase of whatever it is you want.

  3. Ask “Combien?” (How much?)

  4. Say “Trop cher.” (What the hell!)

  5. Try to understand the answer.

  6. Pay the asking price and leave the shop swearing in English, American or other mother tongue.

  SIDE TRIPS FROM PARIS

  There are many fascinating trips which may be made by the American sojourning in Paris which will relieve him of the tedium of his stay.

  TRIP A.—Take the train at Paris for Havre and from there go by steamer to New York. The State of Maine Express leaves New York (Grand Central Station) at 7:30 P.M. and in the morning the traveler finds himself in Portland, Maine, from which many delightful excursions may be made up and down the rock-ribbed Atlantic coast.

  TRIP B. – Entrain at Paris for Cherbourg, where there are frequent sailings westward. By the payment of a slight pourboire the ship’s captain will put her in at the island of Nantucket, a quaint whaling center of olden times. Here you may roam among the moors and swim to your heart’s content, unconscious of the fact that you are within a six-day run of the great city of Paris.

  Ordinal Numbers and Their Pronunciation

  Numbers Pronounced

  1st. le premier leh premyai

  2nd. le second leh zeggong

  3rd. le troisieme leh trouazzeame

  4th. le quatrieme leh kattreame

  8th. le huitieme leh wheeteeame

  Oh, well, you won’t have occasion to use these much, anyway. Never mind them.

  Other Words You Will Have Little Use For

  Vernisser – to varnish, glaze.

  Nuque – nape (of the neck).

  Egriser – to grind diamonds.

  Dromer – to make one’s neck stiff from working at a sewing machine.

  Rossignol – nightingale, picklock.

  Ganache – lower jaw of a horse.

  Serin – canary bird.

  Pardon – I beg your pardon.

  * * *

  PREV TOC INDEX NEXT

  Early View of Broadway

  at Astor Place, New York City

  (Key to the print on opposite page) [a]

  * * *

  This print is extremely interesting, showing as it does the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway when Fifth Avenue was called Broadway and when Broadway was called Ann Street. On the site shown in this picture the present-day Aquarium now stands. This was torn down in 1848 to make way for the old Aquarium, and it was in this old Aquarium that Jenny Lind sang under water, the first time any singer of note had sung under water in this country.

  The building in the background is the old Heber and Jeaber Museum, the Mecca of that day for all the famous actor and writer folk. Here it was that Booth played “twenty-questions,” and here, also, stood the old Drovers and Farmers Bank, later to be known as the Singer Building, or, after the addition of several more stories, as the Woolworth Building.

  The stagecoach, which you will see about to run over Mr. and Mrs. Charles Delancey (Mrs. Delancey was later torn down to make room for the more modern horse-car line which connected the Battery with Bowling Green), ran between Fulton Street and what was then the Bronx. (The Bronx at that time was situated where Wall Street now stands, except that it had no cobblestones.)

  The fire which is seen destroying the old Irving Place Theatre in the background at the left was supposed to have been set by the British in 1812 and burned steadily until 1845, when it was put out by a popular subscription headed by Mayor Van Broughnt. It was during this Great Fire that Kosciuszko, the famous Polish patriot, visited America and met Jenny Lind, whom there is no record of his ever marrying.

  An interesting side-light on the social life and customs of the time is shown by the chase of the thief along what was then the middle of the street. This was during the period known as “Van Buren’s Administration,” when there was a veritable epidemic of pig-stealing along Broadway. The New York Evening Post, edited at the time by William Cullen Bryant when he was sober, said editorially: “This pig-stealing has got to stop,” and, as a matter of fact, the Sage of Vesey Street was right; it did stop, thanks to the bravery of the police, one of whom is seen in hot, or at any rate, warm pursuit of a ruffian in the above print. General U. S. Grant (then Admiral Grant) is seen in a silk hat, aiding in the chase. Admiral Grant was just a boy at the time in spite of his familiar beard.

  The elevated train in the background at the right was the first to run under its own conflagration from the third floor of the Delmonico Building to the Boston State House (extreme right). It was also the last, as shortly after this print was taken the whole train fell off the elevated structure and burned the entire downtown district.

  Mr. Astor later married and built what is now known as Houston Street.

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

  —E.C.M.

  * * *

  PREV TOC INDEX NEXT

  The Last Day

  * * *

  When, during the long winter evenings, you sit around the snap-shot album and recall the merry, merry times you had on your vacation, there is one day which your memory mercifully overlooks. It is the day you packed up and left the summer resort to go home.

  This Ultimate Day really begins the night before, when you sit up until one o’clock trying to get things into the trunks and bags. This is when you discover the well-known fact that summer air swells articles to twice or three times their original size; so that the sneakers which in June fitted in between the phonograph and the book (which you have never opened), in September are found to require a whole tray for themselves and even then one of them will probably have to be carried in the hand.

  Along about midnight, the discouraging process begins to get on your nerves and you snap at your wife and she snaps at you every time it is found that something won’t fit in the suitcase. As you have both gradually dispensed with the more attractive articles of clothing under stress of the heat and the excitement, these little word passages take on the sordid nature of a squabble in an East Side tenement, and all that is needed is for one of the children to wake up and start whimpering. This it does.

  It is finally decided that there is no sense in trying to finish the job that night. General nervousness, combined with a specific fear of oversleeping, results in a troubled tossing of perhaps three hours in bed, and ushers in the dawn of the last day on just about as irritable and bleary-eyed a little family as you will find outside an institution.

  The trouble starts right away with the process of getting dressed in traveling clothes which haven’t been worn since the trip up. Junior’s shoulders are still tender, and he decides that it will be impossible for him to wear his starched blouse. One of Philip’s good shoes, finding that there has been no call for it during the summer, has become hurt and has disappeared; so Philip has to wear a pair of Daddy’s old bathing shoes which had been thrown away. (After everything has been locked and taken out of the room, the good shoe is found in the closet and left for dead.)

  You, yourself, aren’t any too successful in reverting to city clothes. Several weeks of soft collars and rubber-soled shoes have softened you to a point where the old “Deroy-14½” feels like a napkin-ring around your neck, and your natty brogans are so heavy that you lose your balance and topple over forward if you step out suddenly. The whole effect of your civilian costume when surveyed in a mirror is that of a Maine guide all dressed up for an outing “up to Bangor.”

  Incidentally, it shapes up as one of the hottest days of the season – or any other season.

  “Oh, look how funny Daddy looks in his straw hat!”

  “I never realized before, Fred, how much too high the crown is for the length of your face. Are you sure it’s your hat?”

  “It’s my hat, all right,” is the proper reply, “but maybe the face belongs to somebody else.”

&nb
sp; This silences them for a while, but on and off during the day a lot of good-natured fun is had in calling the attention of outsiders to the spectacle presented by Daddy in his “store” clothes.

  Once everyone is dressed, there must be an excursion to take one last look at the ocean, or lake, or whatever particular prank of Nature it may have been which has served as an inducement to you to leave the city. This must be done before breakfast. So down to the beach you go, getting your shoes full of sand, and wait while Sister, in a sentimental attempt to feel the water for the last time, has tripped and fallen in, soaking herself to the garters. There being no dry clothes left out, she has to go in the kitchen and stand in front of the stove until at least one side of her is dry.

  Breakfast bears no resemblance to any other meal eaten in the place. There is a poorly-suppressed feeling that you must hurry, coupled with the stiff collar and tight clothes, which makes it practically impossible to get any food down past the upper chest.

  Then follows one of the worst features of the worst of all vacation days – the goodbyes. It isn’t that you hate to part company with these people. They too, as they stand there in their summer clothes, seem to have undergone some process whereby you see them as they really are and not as they seemed when you were all together up to your necks in water or worrying a tennis ball back and forth over a net. And you may be sure that you, in your town clothes, seem doubly unattractive to them.

  Here is Mrs. Tremble, who lives in Montclair, N. J., in the winter. That really is a terrible hat of hers, now that you get a good look at it. “Well, goodbye, Mrs. Tremble. Be sure to look us up if you ever get out our way. We are right in the telephone book, and we’ll have a regular get-together meeting. . . Goodbye, Marian. Think of us tonight in the hot city, and be sure to let us know when you are going through . . . Well, so long, Mr. Prothero; look out for those girls up at the post office. Don’t let any of them marry you . . . Well, we’re off, Mrs. Rostetter. Yes; we’re leaving today. On the 10:45. We have to be back for Junior’s school. It begins on the 11th. Goodbye!”

  It is then found that there is about an hour to wait before the machine comes to take you to the station; so all these goodbyes have been wasted and have to be gone through with again.

  In the meantime, Mother decides that she must run over to the Bide-a-Wee cottage and say goodbye to the Sisbys. The children feel that they are about due for another last look at the ocean. And Daddy remembers that he hasn’t been able to shut the big suitcase yet. So the family disperses in various directions and each unit gets lost. Mother, rushing out from the Sisbys’ in a panic thinking that she hears the automobile, is unable to find the others. Little Mildred, having taken it upon herself to look out for the other children while they are gazing on the ocean, has felt it incumbent on her to spank Philip for trying to build one last tunnel in the sand, resulting in a bitter physical encounter in which Philip easily batters his sister into a state of hysteria. Daddy, having wilted his collar and put his knee through his straw hat in an attempt to jam the suitcase together, finds that the thing can’t be done and takes out the box of sea-shells that Junior had planned to take home for his cabinet, and hides them under the bed.

  The suitcase at last having been squeezed shut and placed with the rest of the bags in the hall, the maid comes running up with five damp bathing suits which she has found hanging on the line and wants to know if they belong here. Daddy looks cautiously down the hall and whispers: “No!”

  At last the automobile arrives and stands honking by the roadside. “Come, Junior, quick, put your coat on! . . . Have you got the bag with the thermos? . . . Hurry, Philip! . . . Where’s Sister? . . . Come, Sister! . . . Well, it’s too late now. You’ll have to wait till we get on the train . . . Goodbye, Mrs. Tremble . . . Be sure to look us up . . . Goodbye, everybody! . . . Here, Junior! Put that down! You can’t take that with you. No, no! That belongs to that other little boy . . . Junior! . . . Goodbye, Marian! . . . Goodbye, Mrs. McNerdle! . . . Philip, say goodbye to Mrs. McNerdle, she’s been so good to you, don’t you remember? . . . Goodbye, Mrs. McNerdle, that’s right. . . . Goodbye!”

  And with that the automobile starts, the friends on the porch wave and call out indistinguishable pleasantries, Junior begins to cry, and it is found that Ed has no hat.

  The trip home in the heat and cinders is enlivened by longing reminiscences: “Well, it’s eleven o’clock. I suppose they’re all getting into their bathing suits now. How’d you like to jump into that old ocean right this minute, eh?” (As a matter of fact, the speaker has probably not been induced to go into “that old ocean” more than three times during the whole summer.)

  The fact that they reach home too late to get a regular dinner and have to go to bed hungry, and the more poignant impressions in the process of opening a house which has been closed all summer, have all been treated of before in an article called “The Entrance Into the Tomb.” And so we will leave our buoyant little family, their vacation ended, all ready to jump into the swing of their work, refreshed, invigorated, and clear-eyed.

  * * *

  PREV TOC INDEX NEXT

  John Dwanley: A Life

  (As May Sinclair has so often done it)

  * * *

  I.

  You were very cold and it seemed to be a big room full of windows in which you suddenly found yourself. Someone was spanking you. Hard. This was rather rough, seeing how short a time you had been in the room. Then you heard the doctor say: “It’s a boy!” And, sure enough, you were.

  II.

  You were lying in a crib with something in your mouth. It couldn’t have been your overshoe, because you had no overshoe. Something wet and soft, like rubber. By George, it was rubber! It was that thing on the end of the bottle which Nanna always left in your mouth when she went outside to speak to the postman. It had a lot of pretty good stuff in it which kept trickling out from the corners of your lips and down over your chin onto the front of your dress. Dress indeed! Here you were, a three weeks’ old boy, and they still had you in dresses! Rotten, you called it.

  Still, it was nice to be left alone in the big room. You could think. You could think about Things. The world, for instance. And life. Ah, there was something to think about till your head snapped. Life!

  What was behind it all? Heraclitus, you had been given to understand, claimed that everything W4S Fire, or, at any rate, in a state of flux like fire. Perhaps he was right.

  Still, how could you reconcile Heraclitus with Plato? If Plato’s idea was fundamentally sound, how could Everything, including Truth, be in a state of Fire-flux? There must be something stable, something with Reality.

  The problem worried you so that you rolled over on your face and cried. Nanna came running in and thought you needed changing. Why couldn’t she understand that it was Heraclitus that had thrown you into this state?

  Something flew in at the window. Something big and dark, with an ulster on. It was Papa.

  III

  A tremendous space of time elapses. Those wishing tea will find it for sale at the entrance hall.

  IV

  You were fifteen, and something was the matter with Papa. Something was always the matter with Papa. Mildred said that it was his kidneys, but Mildred was a girl. What did she know? And besides, Mildred wore brown stockings and black shoes.

  You liked Papa, in a quiet sort of way, but you were never quite sure who he was. Sometimes he was a tall man, with a big, black mustache. Other times he was short and fat, and smelled of spearmint. That was good, when Papa smelled of spearmint. It meant that there was going to be fish for dinner, and you loved fish.

  V

  Steemish was sitting on your chest and pounding your face in the mud. It was heavy mud, like the frosting on the cake that Nanna used to bring you when you had been naughty. Steemish was in your Latin class and thought that you were a rotter. Perhaps you were.

  “Sock him, Steemish!” Leftwich Major was say ing.

  “Bust him, S
teemish, old man,” Leftwich Minor cried.

  It seemed as if the whole world were on top of your chest. You didn’t like school anyway. To go away, to run wildly across the moors, to jump up and down in an open boat, to know and inquire into life, that was what you wanted. Anything to get Steemish off your chest.

  And then suddenly it was your nineteenth birthday.

  VI

  Mamma was sitting in the coal scuttle. Papa had put her there only five minutes before and had told her to be good. It was an old coal scuttle and was full of coal, so there wasn’t much room for Mamma.

  She said: “John, get me a book to read,” in a tone which indicated that she was getting restless. You hated it when Mamma got restless, because you were only twenty-seven and there wasn’t much that you could do to amuse her except draw pictures. You drew very well for twenty-seven, but not well enough for twenty-eight.

  “Look, Mamma,” you said. “Want to see me draw you and Papa wrestling?” “Give me a book to read,” Mamma repeated dully. “One with illustrations.” Then Mildred came in. She had been smoking and her fur coat was still cold from the fog. It gave off the cold, like a big dog, the big dog you used to own when you lived in Bayswater.

  Rena had lived in Bayswater.

  VII

  Upstairs a door opened and shut. Then it opened again. It was Rena coming in and going out. Rena was your wife. You had been married ten years. It didn’t seem more than a hundred.

  You couldn’t quite remember how you came to marry Rena. It was a dark afternoon and the fog had been very heavy. Perhaps that was it, the heavy fog. Of course, that was it. Funny that you never thought of that before. The heavy fog. And then Rena.

  There was something moving in the room. From where you lay in your crib you couldn’t quite make out what it was. The crib was the same one that you used to lie in when you were much younger than you were now. It had bars on it like the omac’s cage in the Zoological Gardens, and if you lay at just the right angle you could make believe that you were on the outside and that Rena was in a cage. Wouldn’t that be fine!