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Page 71
"You left your key," said--
(Here the manuscript ends.)
THE UNPROFITABLE SERVANT
[Left unfinished, and published as it here appears in
Everybody's Magazine, December, 1911.]
I am the richer by the acquaintance of four newspaper men. Singly, they
are my encyclopedias, friends, mentors, and sometimes bankers. But now
and then it happens that all of them will pitch upon the same
printworthy incident of the passing earthly panorama and will send in
reportorial constructions thereof to their respective journals. It is
then that, for me, it is to laugh. For it seems that to each of them,
trained and skilled as he may be, the same occurrence presents a
different facet of the cut diamond, life.
One will have it (let us say) that Mme. Andre Macarte's apartment was
looted by six burglars, who descended via the fire-escape and bore away
a ruby tiara valued at two thousand dollars and a five-hundred-dollar
prize Spitz dog, which (in violation of the expectoration ordinance) was
making free with the halls of the Wuttapesituckquesunoowetunquah
Apartments.
My second "chiel" will take notes to the effect that while a friendly
game of pinochle was in progress in the tenement rooms of Mrs. Andy
McCarty, a lady guest named Ruby O'Hara threw a burglar down six flights
of stairs, where he was pinioned and held by a two-thousand-dollar
English bulldog amid a crowd of five hundred excited spectators.
My third chronicler and friend will gather the news threads of the
happening in his own happy way; setting forth on the page for you to
read that the house of Antonio Macartini was blown up at 6 A. M., by the
Black Hand Society, on his refusing to leave two thousand dollars at a
certain street corner, killing a pet five-hundred-dollar Pomeranian
belonging to Alderman Rubitara's little daughter (see photo and diagram
opposite).
Number four of my history-makers will simply construe from the premises
the story that while an audience of two thousand enthusiasts was
listening to a Rubinstein concert on Sixth Street, a woman who said she
was Mrs. Andrew M. Carter threw a brick through a plate-glass window
valued at five hundred dollars. The Carter woman claimed that some one
in the building had stolen her dog.
Now, the discrepancies in these registrations of the day's doings need
do no one hurt. Surely, one newspaper is enough for any man to prop
against his morning water-bottle to fend off the smiling hatred of his
wife's glance. If he be foolish enough to read four he is no wiser than
a Higher Critic.
I remember (probably as well as you do) having read the parable of the
talents. A prominent citizen, about to journey into a far country, first
hands over to his servants his goods. To one he gives five talents; to
another two; to another one--to every man according to his several
ability, as the text has it. There are two versions of this parable, as
you well know. There may be more--I do not know.
When the p. c. returns he requires an accounting. Two servants have put
their talents out at usury and gained one hundred per cent. Good. The
unprofitable one simply digs up the talent deposited with him and hands
it out on demand. A pattern of behavior for trust companies and banks,
surely! In one version we read that he had wrapped it in a napkin and
laid it away. But the commentator informs us that the talent mentioned
was composed of 750 ounces of silver--about $900 worth. So the
chronicler who mentioned the napkin, had either to reduce the amount of
the deposit or do a lot of explaining about the size of the napery used
in those davs. Therefore in his version we note that he uses the word
"pound" instead of "talent."
A pound of silver may very well be laid away--and carried away--in a
napkin, as any hotel or restaurant man will tell you.
But let us get away from our mutton.
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