A LONELY abode near the opening of a ravine, about four miles from Sipes’s hut, bore the scars of many winters. It was not over twelve feet square. It had two small windows, a narrow door and a “lean to” roof. On the door was the roughly carved inscription—“J. Ledyard Symington, Tuesdays and Thursdays.” Near this was nailed an old cigar box, with a slit in the cover. Lettered on the box was a request to “Please leave card.”
I often passed this mysterious dwelling without seeing any indications of life, but one chilly rainy day I saw smoke issuing from the bent piece of stove-pipe, protruding through the roof. The fact that it happened to be Thursday helped to overcome my reluctance to disturb the occupant.
A cordial and cheery call to “come in” was the response to my gentle knock.
I found a rather tall, pleasant faced, watery eyed old man, with a gray beard, aquiline nose,{180} and shaggy eyebrows, who rose from a box on which he had been sitting before a small table. There was an unmistakable air of noblesse oblige in his polite offer of another box. His clothes bespoke the “shabby genteel,” which was accentuated by a somewhat battered and much worn plug hat, that hung on a peg near the window back of the table.
I apologized for my intrusion, told him that I had had rather a long walk, and would be glad to rest awhile before his fire. He seemed interested in some sketches made during the morning, which he asked to see. His courtly air did not desert him when he confessed that he “hadn’t had a smoke for a week.” I handed him some tobacco. He fished a disreputable looking big black pipe out of some rubbish on a shelf, and was soon enveloped in the comforting fumes.
I was made to feel much at home, and his conversation soon lost its tinge of formality. He looked at me curiously and asked where I was from. When I told him, his eyes brightened, and he wanted to know what the principal society events had been during the winter. He said he{181} had only seen half a dozen papers in five or six months, and had lost all track of what had been going on.
Along one of the shelves at the end of the room were ranged several books on etiquette, and thirty or forty much worn novels, of the variety usually absorbed by very young ladies in hammocks, scattered around the shaded lawns of white flannel summer resorts, where the most intense intellectual occupations are tennis and dancing—books in which are recorded the “dashing devilish beauty of Cyril,” With his “corking and perfectly ripping” ideas, and the bewildering charms of willowy Geraldine, the violet eyed heiress, with the long lashes, her many stunning costumes and clinging gowns. Flashing glances, nonchalantly twirled canes, faintly perfumed stationery, and softly tearful moods adorn the pages.
The limousine of the “Soap King” goes whirling by, which is placed at the service of the duke, when he arrives, incognito, to annex, matrimonially, the anxious millions that await him. The story takes us up wondrously carved staircases, among many palms, and into marble halls, through{182} which faint voluptuous music flows. The walls are lined with long rows of priceless old masters. Modern society novelists have found and given to the world many more Rembrandts and Van Dykes than those two humble toilers at the lower end of the social scale could have painted in a geological era. The duke eventually fails to produce his coronet, and the true love match is off. Cupid disappears through a stained glass casement. Dare Devil Cyril rescues the lovely Geraldine from under a fallen horse, or a purple touring car, and bravely carries her to another; her warm breath touches his cheek, and the wedding chimes come just in time to enable the fair reader to dress for dinner.
Oh, noble Cyril, and bewitching Geraldine!—your names may change on different pages, but ever and anon you flit through the countless cylinders of unnumbered presses. Like the lilies of the field, you toil not, neither do you spin. The triumphs and the failures of a thinking, striving world are not for you; its problems and its tears are not within your charmed circle, but He who marks the sparrow’s fall, may gather even you,{183} with the rest of the created things, if there are other worlds to come.
Noticing my glance at the book-shelf, my host said, rather apologetically, “my library is not as large as I would like to have it. The fact is that I take a great deal of interest in social matters. I am unfortunately placed in a very peculiar and humiliating position. A great many years ago I fell heir to a large fortune, on the death of my uncle, and expected to devote my time entirely to society, and the pleasures of a gentleman of leisure. A lot of contesting relatives came on the scene, and for over twenty years the case has been in the courts. Several times I almost got cheated out of my inheritance, but it looks now as though I might get it.
“I keep in touch with everything that may be of use to me when I go into the world in the way that my uncle intended that I should. As social novelists generally reflect their own periods quite accurately, I feel that these books give me a very good idea of what is going on, and I get a great deal of pleasure out of them.
“I had a pretty good education, when I was{184} young, but I don’t care so much about that, as I do for the ability to do things in proper form when I get what is coming to me. This enforced residence in these miserable hills, is just to make certain people think that I am dead. I am going to be alive at just the right time, and when I show up there will be a lot of surprises.
“As a matter of fact my ancestry is very ancient. I looked it up in Burke’s Peerage when my uncle died, and found that I came from two of the very best families. On the other side I would be a baronet, but I don’t want to go over there until I get my money. When I walk into my estates, I will do so unknown. I will suddenly reveal myself, and there will be a scattering of a lot of upstarts and false nobility who have been enjoying what rightfully belongs to me.
“I don’t associate with these loafers that live around in these sand hills at all. They are low fellows, and I have no use for them. Every three months I go to a certain post-office, and get a money order for a certain amount, from a certain party who knows where I am, and is keeping track of things for me. It isn’t as big a money order as{185} I would like, but I assure you that these conditions are only temporary, and when the proper time comes, you will find me gone.”
I listened to the old man’s story, which occupied most of the afternoon, with some suspicion, but with much interest. Some mysterious tea and a couple of damp soda crackers were served at this impromptu reception. He expressed much pleasure that I had called, and said that he hoped I would come again.
The impressions of my visit were really very pleasant, until, a few days later, they came under the fire of the withering sarcasm and barbed satire of Sipes, who from his lonely eyrie four miles away, across a bend in the shore, could observe the home of J. Ledyard Symington through his little spy-glass.
“That fe............