The Dreamers Part 3

'N' 'en it sorter pleased my whim To have him die and bury him.

It got printed, too, it did That small pome about the kid,

In a paper in the West; Put ten dollars in my vest.

Every pa an' ma about Cried like mighty--cried right out.

I jess took each grandma's heart, Lammed and bruised it, made it smart;

'N' everybody said o' me, "Finest pote we ever see,"

'Cept one beggar, he got mad.

Got worst lickin' ever had;

Got my head atween his fists, Called me "Prince o' anarchists."

Clipped me one behind my ear-- Laid me up for 'most a year.

"'Cause," he said, "my poetry 'D made his wife an' mother cry;

"'Twarn't no poet's bizness to Make the wimmin all boo-hoo."

'N' 'at is why to-day, by Jings!

I don't fool with hearts an' things.

I don't care how high the bids, I've stopped scribblin' 'bout dead kids;

'R if I haven't, kinder sorter Think 'at maybe p'r'aps I'd oughter.

The lines were received with hearty appreciation by all save Dobbs Ferry, who looked a trifle gloomy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT FILLED ME WITH DISMAY"]

"It is a strange thing," said the latter, "but that mince-pie affected me in precisely the same way, as you will see for yourselves when I read my contribution, which, holding ball number four as I do, I will proceed to give you."

Mr. Ferry then read the following poem, which certainly did seem to indicate that the man who prepared the fatal pie had certain literary ideas which he mixed in with other ingredients:

I bought a book of verse the other day, And when I read, it filled me with dismay.

I wanted it to take home to my wife, To bring a bit of joy into her life;

And I'd been told the author of those pomes Was called the laureate of simple homes.

But, Jove! I read, and found it full of rhyme That kept my eyes a-filling all the time.

One told about a pretty little miss Whose father had denied a simple kiss,

And as she left, unhappy, full of cares, She fell and broke her neck upon the stairs.

And then he wrote a lot of tearful lines Of children who had trouble with their spines;

And 'stead of joys, he penned so many woes I sought him out and gave him curvature 'f the nose;

And all the nation, witnessing his plight, Did crown me King, and cry, "It served him right."

"A remarkable coincidence," said Thomas Sn.o.bbe. "In fact, the coincidence is rather more remarkable than the poetry."

"It certainly is," said Billie Jones; "but what a wonderfully suggestive pie, considering that it was a mince!"

After which dictum the presiding officer called upon the holder of the fifth ball, who turned out to be none other than Bedford Parke, who blus.h.i.+ngly rose up and delivered himself of what he called "The Overcoat, a Magazine Farce."

IV

BEING THE CONTRIBUTION OF MR. BEDFORD PARKE

THE OVERCOAT

A FARCE. IN TWO SCENES

SCENE FIRST

_Time_: MORNING AT BOSTON

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "I think it will rain to-day, but there is no need to worry about that. Robert has his umbrella and his mackintosh, and I don't think he is idiotic enough to lend both of them. If he does, he'll get wet, that's all." Mrs. Edwards is speaking to herself in the sewing-room of the apartment occupied by herself and her husband in the Hotel Hammingbell at Boston. It is not a large room, but cosey. A frieze one foot deep runs about the ceiling, and there is a carpet on the floor. Three pins are seen scattered about the room, in one corner of which is a cane-bottomed chair holding across its back two black vests and a cutaway coat. Mrs. Edwards sits before a Wilc.o.x & Wilson sewing-machine sewing a b.u.t.ton on a light spring overcoat. The overcoat has one outside and three inside pockets, and is single-breasted. "It is curious," Mrs. Edwards continues, "what men will do with umbrellas and mackintoshes on a rainy day. They lend them here and there, and the worst part of it is they never remember where." A knock is heard at the door. "Who's there?"

_Voice_ (_without_). "Me."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'COME IN'"]

_Mrs. Robert Edwards_ (_with a nervous shudder_). "Come in." Enter Mary the house-maid. She is becomingly attired in blue alpaca, with green ribbons and puffed sleeves. She holds a feather duster in her right hand, and in her left is a jar of Royal Worcester. "Mary," Mrs. Edwards says, severely, "where are we at?"

_Mary_ (_meekly_). "Boston, ma'am."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "South Boston or Boston proper?"

_Mary._ "Boston proper, ma'am."

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Then when I say 'Who's there?' don't say 'Me.'

That manner of speaking may do at New York, Brooklyn, South Boston, or Congress, but at Boston proper it is extremely gauche. 'I' is the word."

_Mary._ "Yes, ma'am; but you know, ma'am, I don't pretend to be literary, ma'am, and so these little points baffles I very often." Mrs.

Edwards sighs, and, walking over to the window, looks out upon the trolley-cars for ten minutes; then, picking up one of the pins from the floor and putting it in a pink silk pin-cus.h.i.+on which stands next to an alarm-clock on the mantel-piece, a marble affair with plain caryatids and a bra.s.s fender around the hearth, she resumes her seat before the sewing-machine, and threads a needle. Then--

_Mrs. Robert Edwards._ "Well, Mary, what do you want?"