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Page 83
"Coketown!" droned the porter, making his way through the slowing car.
Pescud gathered his hat and baggage with the leisurely promptness of
an old traveller.
"I married her a year ago," said John. "I told you I built a house in
the East End. The belted--I mean the colonel--is there, too. I find
him waiting at the gate whenever I get back from a trip to hear any
new story I might have picked up on the road."
I glanced out of the window. Coketown was nothing more than a ragged
hillside dotted with a score of black dismal huts propped up against
dreary mounds of slag and clinkers. It rained in slanting torrents,
too, and the rills foamed and splashed down through the black mud to
the railroad-tracks.
"You won't sell much plate-glass here, John," said I. "Why do you get
off at this end-o'-the-world?"
"Why," said Pescud, "the other day I took Jessie for a little trip to
Philadelphia, and coming back she thought she saw some petunias in a
pot in one of those windows over there just like some she used to
raise down in the old Virginia home. So I thought I'd drop off here
for the night, and see if I could dig up some of the cuttings or
blossoms for her. Here we are. Good-night, old man. I gave you the
address. Come out and see us when you have time."
The train moved forward. One of the dotted brown ladies insisted on
having windows raised, now that the rain beat against them. The
porter came along with his mysterious wand and began to light the car.
I glanced downward and saw the best-seller. I picked it up and set it
carefully farther along on the floor of the car, where the rain-drops
would not fall upon it. And then, suddenly, I smiled, and seemed to
see that life has no geographical metes and bounds.
"Good-luck to you, Trevelyan," I said. "And may you get the petunias
for your princess!"
RUS IN URBE
Considering men in relation to money, there are three kinds whom I
dislike: men who have more money than they can spend; men who have
more money than they do spend; and men who spend more money than they
have. Of the three varieties, I believe I have the least liking for
the first. But, as a man, I liked Spencer Grenville North pretty
well, although he had something like two or ten or thirty millions--
I've forgotten exactly how many.
I did not leave town that summer. I usually went down to a village on
the south shore of Long Island. The place was surrounded by duck-
farms, and the ducks and dogs and whippoorwills and rusty windmills
made so much noise that I could sleep as peacefully as if I were in my
own flat six doors from the elevated railroad in New York. But that
summer I did not go. Remember that. One of my friends asked me why I
did not. I replied:
"Because, old man, New York is the finest summer resort in the world."
You have heard that phrase before. But that is what I told him.
I was press-agent that year for Binkly & Bing, the theatrical managers
and producers. Of course you know what a press-agent is. Well, he is
not. That is the secret of being one.
Binkly was touring France in his new C. & N. Williamson car, and
Bing had gone to Scotland to learn curling, which he seemed to
associate in his mind with hot tongs rather than with ice. Before
they left they gave me June and July, on salary, for my vacation,
which act was in accord with their large spirit of liberality. But I
remained in New York, which I had decided was the finest summer resort
in--
But I said that before.
On July the 10th, North came to town from his camp in the Adirondacks.
Try to imagine a camp with sixteen rooms, plumbing, eiderdown quilts,
a butler, a garage, solid silver plate, and a long-distance telephone.
Of course it was in the woods--if Mr. Pinchot wants to preserve the
forests let him give every citizen two or ten or thirty million
dollars, and the trees will all gather around the summer camps, as the
Birnam woods came to Dunsinane, and be preserved.
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