O Henry
Cabbages And Kings
XII
Shoes
Файл с книжной полки Несененко Алексея
John De Graffenreid Atwood ate of the lotus, root, stem, and flower.
The tropics gobbled him up. He plunged enthusiastically into his
work, which was to try to forget Rosine.
Now, they who dine on the lotus rarely consume it plain. There is
a sauce ~au diable~ that goes with it; and the distillers are the
chefs who prepare it. And on Johnny's menu card it read "brandy."
With a bottle between them, he and Billy Keogh would sit on the porch
of the little consulate at night and roar out great, indecorous songs,
until the natives, slipping hastily past, would shrug a shoulder and
mutter things to themselves about the "~Americanos diablos~."
One day Johnny's ~mozo~ brought the mail and dumped it on the table.
Johnny leaned from his hammock, and fingered the four or five letters
dejectedly. Keogh was sitting on the edge of the table chopping
lazily with a paper knife at the legs of a centipede that was crawling
among the stationery. Johnny was in that phase of lotus-eating when
all the world tastes bitter in one's mouth.
"Same old thing!" he complained. "Fool people writing for information
about the country. They want to know all about raising fruit, and how
to make a fortune without work. Half of 'em don't even send stamps
for a reply. They think a consul hasn't anything to do but write
letters. Slit those envelopes for me, old man, and see what they
want. I'm feeling too rocky to move."
Keogh, acclimated beyond all possibility of ill-humor, drew his chair
to the table with smiling compliance on his rose-pink countenance,
and began to slit open the letters. Four of them were from citizens
in various parts of the United States who seemed to regard the consul
at Coralio as a cyclopedia of information. They asked long lists
of questions, numerically arranged, about the climate, products,
possibilities, laws, business chances, and statistics of the country
in which the consul had the honor of representing his own government.
"Write 'em, please, Billy," said that inert official, "just a line,
referring them to the latest consular report. Tell 'em the State
Department will be delighted to furnish the literary gems. Sign my
name. Don't let your pen scratch, Billy; it'll keep me awake."
"Don't snore," said Keogh, amiably, "and I'll do your work for you.
You need a corps of assistants, anyhow. Don't see how you ever get
out a report. Wake up a minute--here's one more letter--it's from
your own town, too--—Dalesburg."
"That so?" murmured Johnny showing a mild and obligatory interest.
"What's it about?"
"Postmaster writes," explained Keogh. "Says a citizen of the town
wants some facts and advice from you. Says the citizen has an idea
in his head of coming down where you are and opening a shoe store.
Wants to know if you think the business would pay. Says he's heard
of the boom along this coast, and wants to get in on the ground
floor."
In spite of the heat and his bad temper, Johnny's hammock swayed
with his laughter. Keogh laughed too; and the pet monkey on the top
shelf of the bookcase chattered in shrill sympathy with the ironical
reception of the letter from Dalesburg.
"Great bunions!" exclaimed the consul. "Shoe store! What'll they ask
about next, I wonder? Overcoat factory, I reckon. Say, Billy--of our
3,000 citizens, how many do you suppose ever had on a pair of shoes?"
Keogh reflected judicially.
"Let's see--there's you and me and--"
"Not me," said Johnny, promptly and incorrectly, holding up a foot
encased in a disreputable deerskin ~zapato~. "I haven't been a victim
to shoes in months."
"But you've got 'em, though," went on Keogh. "And there's Goodwin
and Blanchard and Geddie and old Lutz and Doc Gregg and that Italian
that's agent for the banana company, and there's old Delgado--no; he
wears sandals. And, oh, yes; there's Madama Ortiz, 'what kapes the
hotel'--she had on a pair of red kid slippers at the ~baile~ the other
night. And Miss Pasa, her daughter, that went to school in the States
--she brought back some civilized notions in the way of footgear. And
there's the ~comandante's~ sister that dresses up her feet on feast-
days--and Mrs. Geddie, who wears a two with a Castilian instep--and
that's about all the ladies. Let's see--don't some of the soldiers at
the ~cuartel~--no: that's so; they're allowed shoes only when on the
march. In barracks they turn their little toeses out to grass."
"'Bout right," agreed the consul. "Not over twenty out of the three
thousand ever felt leather on their walking arrangements. Oh, yes;
Coralio is just the town for an enterprising shoe store--that doesn't
want to part with its goods. Wonder if old Patterson is trying to
jolly me! He always was full of things he called jokes. Write him
a letter, Billy. I'll dictate it. We'll jolly him back a few."
Keogh dipped his pen, and wrote at Johnny's dictation. With many
pauses, filled in with smoke and sundry travellings of the bottle
and glasses, the following reply to the Dalesburg communication was
perpetrated:
MR. OBADIAH PATTERSON,
Dalesburg, Ala.
~Dear Sir~: in reply to your favor of July 2d. I have the honor
to inform you that, according to my opinion, there is no place on
the habitable globe that presents to the eye stronger evidence of
the need of a first-class shoe store than does the town of Coralio.
There are 3,000 inhabitants in the place, and not a single shoe
store! The situation speaks for itself. This coast is rapidly
becoming the goal of enterprising business men, but the shoe
business is one that has been sadly overlooked or neglected.
In fact, there are a considerable number of our citizens actually
without shoes at present.
Besides the want above mentioned, there is also a crying need
for a brewery, a college of higher mathematics, a coal yard, and a
clean and intellectual Punch and Judy show. I have the honor to be,
Your Obt. Servant,
~John De Graffenreid Atwood~,
U.S. CONSUL AT CORALIO.
P.S.--Hello! Uncle Obadiah. How's the old burg racking along?
What would the government do without you and me? Look out for
a green-headed parrot and a bunch of bananas soon, from your old
friend
~Johnny~,
"I throw in that postscript," explained the consul, "so Uncle Obadiah
won't take offense at the official tone of the letter! Now, Billy,
you get that correspondence fixed up, and send Pancho to the post-
office with it. The ~Ariadne~ takes the mail out tomorrow if they
make up that load of fruit today."
The night programme in Coralio never varied. The recreations of
the people were soporific and flat. They wandered about, barefoot
and aimless, speaking lowly and smoking cigar or cigarette. Looking
down on the dimly lighted ways one seemed to see a threading maze
of brunette ghosts tangled with a procession of insane fireflies.
In some houses the thrumming of lugubrious guitars added to
the depression of the ~triste~ night. Giant tree-frogs rattled in
the foliage as loudly as the end man's "bones" in a minstrel troupe.
By nine o'clock the streets were almost deserted.
Not at the consulate was there often a change of bill. Keogh would
come there nightly, for Coralio's one cool place was the little porch
of that official residence. The brandy would be kept moving; and
before midnight sentiment would begin to stir in the heart of the
self-exiled consul. Then he would relate to Keogh the story of his
ended romance. Each night Keogh would listen patiently to the tale,
and be ready with untiring sympathy.
"But don't you think for a minute"--thus Johnny would always conclude
his woeful narrative--"that I'm grieving about that girl, Billy. I've
forgotten her. She never enters my mind. If she were to enter that
door right now, my pulse wouldn't gain a beat. That's all over long
ago."
"Don't I know it?" Keogh would answer. "Of course you've forgotten
her. Proper thing to do. Wasn't quite 0. K. of her to listen to the
knocks that--er--Dink Pawson kept giving you."
"Pink Dawson!"--a word of contempt would be in Johnny's tones--"Poor
white trash! That's what he was. Had five hundred acres of farming
land, though; and that counted. Maybe I'll have a chance to get back
at him some day. The Dawsons weren't anybody. Everybody in Alabama
knows the Atwoods. Say, Billy--did you know my mother was a
De Graffenreid?"
"Why, no," Keogh would say; "is that so?" He had heard it some three
hundred times.
"Fact. The De Graffenreids of Hancock County. But I never think
of that girl any more, do I, Billy?"
"Not for a minute, my boy," would be the last sounds heard by
the conqueror of Cupid.
At this point Johnny would fall into a gentle slumber, and Keogh would
saunter out to his own shack under the calabash tree at the edge of
the plaza.
In a day or two the letter from the Dalesburg postmaster and its
answer had been forgotten by the Coralio exiles. But on the 26th day
of July the fruit of the reply appeared upon the tree of events.
The ~Andador~, a fruit steamer that visited Coralio regularly, drew
into the offing and anchored. The beach was lined with spectators
while the quarantine doctor and the custom-house crew rowed out to
attend to their duties.
An hour later Billy Keogh lounged into the consulate, clean and cool
in his linen clothes, and grinning like a pleased shark. "Guess
what?" he said to Johnny, lounging in his hammock.
"Too hot to guess," said Johnny, lazily.
"Your shoe-store man's come," said Keogh, rolling the sweet morsel on
his tongue, "with a stock of goods big enough to supply the continent
as far down as Tierra del Fuego. They're carting his cases over to
the custom-house now. Six barges full they brought ashore and have
paddled back for the rest. Oh, ye saints in glory! won't there be
regalements in the air when he gets onto the joke and has an interview
with Mr. Consul? It'll be worth nine years in the tropics just to
witness that one joyful moment."
Keogh loved to take his mirth easily. He selected a clean place
on the matting and lay upon the floor. The walls shook with his
enjoyment. Johnny turned half over and blinked.
"Didn't tell me," he said, "that anybody was fool enough to take
that letter seriously."
"Four-thousand-dollar stock of goods!" gasped Keogh, in ecstasy.
"Talk about coals to Newcastle! Why didn't he take a ship-load of
palm-leaf fans to Spitzenbergen while he was about it? Saw the old
codger on the beach. You ought to have been there when he put on
his specs and squinted at the five hundred or so barefooted citizens
standing around."
"Are you telling the truth, Billy?" asked the consul, weakly.
"Am I? You ought to see the buncoed gentleman's daughter he brought
along. Looks! She makes the brick-dust senoritas here look like
tar-babies."
"Go on," said Johnny, "if you can stop that asinine giggling. I hate
to see a grown man make a laughing hyena of himself."
"Name is Hemstetter," went on Keogh. "He's a--Hello! what's the matter
now?"
Johnny's moccasined feet struck the floor with a thud as he wriggled
out of his hammock.
"Get up, you idiot," he said, sternly, "or I'll brain you with this
inkstand. That's Rosine and her father. Gad! what a drivelling idiot
old Patterson is! Get up, here, Billy Keogh, and help me. What the
devil are we going to do? Has all the world gone crazy?"
Keogh rose and dusted himself. He managed to regain a decorous
demeanor.
"Situation has got to be met, Johnny," he said, with some success
at seriousness. "I didn't think about its being your girl until you
spoke. First thing to do is to get them comfortable quarters. You
go down and face the music, and I'll trot out to Goodwin's and see
if Mrs. Goodwin won't take them in. They've got the decentest house
in town."
"Bless you, Billy!" said the consul. "I knew you wouldn't desert me.
The world's bound to come to an end, but maybe we can stave it off for
a day or two."
Keogh hoisted his umbrella and set out for Goodwin's house. Johnny
put on his coat and hat. He picked up the brandy bottle, but set it
down again without drinking, and marched bravely down to the beach.
In the shade of the custom-house walls he found Mr. Hemstetter
and Rosine surrounded by a mass of gaping citizens. The customs
officers were ducking and scraping, while the captain of the Andador
interpreted the business of the new arrivals. Rosine looked healthy
and very much alive. She was gazing at the strange scenes around her
with amused interest. There was a faint blush upon her round cheek
as she greeted her old admirer. Mr. Hemstetter shook hands with
Johnny in a very friendly way. He was an oldish, impractical man
--one of that numerous class of erratic business men who are forever
dissatisfied, and seeking a change.
"I am very glad to see you, John--may I call you John?" he said.
"Let me thank you for your prompt answer to our postmaster's letter
of inquiry. He volunteered to write to you on my behalf. I was
looking about for something different in the way of a business
in which the profits would be greater. I had noticed in the papers
that this coast was receiving much attention from investors. I am
extremely grateful for your advice to come. I sold out everything
that I possess, and invested the proceeds in as fine a stock of shoes
as could be bought in the North. You have a picturesque town here,
John. I hope business will be as good as your letter justifies me
in expecting."
Johnny's agony was abbreviated by the arrival of Keogh, who hurried up
with the news that Mrs. Goodwin would be much pleased to place rooms
at the disposal of Mr. Hemstetter and his daughter. So there Mr.
Hemstetter and Rosine were at once conducted and left to recuperate
from the fatigue of the voyage, while Johnny went down to see that
the cases of shoes were safely stored in the customs warehouse pending
their examination by the officials. Keogh, grinning like a shark,
skirmished about to find Goodwin, to instruct him not to expose to
Mr. Hemstetter the true state of Coralio as a shoe market until Johnny
had been given a chance to redeem the situation, if such a thing were
possible.
That night the consul and Keogh held a desperate consultation on
the breezy porch of the consulate.
Send em back home," began Keogh, reading Johnny's thoughts.
"I would," said Johnny, after a little silence; "but I've been lying
to you, Billy."
"All right about that," said Keogh, affably.
"I've told you hundreds of times," said Johnny, slowly, "that I had
forgotten that girl, haven't I?"
"About three hundred and seventy-five," admitted the monument
of patience.
"I lied," repeated the consul, "every time. I never forgot her for
one moment. I was an obstinate ass for running away just because she
said 'No' once. And I was too proud a fool to go back. I talked with
Rosine a few minutes this evening up at Goodwin's. I found out one
thing. You remember that farmer fellow who was always after her?"
"Dink Pawson?" asked Keogh.
"Pink Dawson. Well, he wasn't a hill of beans to her. She says she
didn't believe a word of the things be told her about me. But I'm
sewed up now, Billy. That tomfool letter we sent ruined whatever
chance I had left. She'll despise me when she finds out that her
old father has been made the victim of a joke that a decent schoolboy
wouldn't have been guilty of. Shoes! Why he couldn't sell twenty
pairs of shoes in Coralio if he kept store here for twenty years. You
put a pair of shoes on one of these Caribs or Spanish brown boys and
what'd he do? Stand on his head and squeal until he'd kicked 'em off.
None of 'em ever wore shoes and they never will. If I send 'em back
home I'll have to tell the whole story, and what'll she think of me?
I want that girl worse than ever, Billy, and now when she's in reach
I've lost her forever because I tried to be funny when the thermometer
was at 102."
"Keep cheerful," said the optimistic Keogh. "And let 'em open
the store. I've been busy myself this afternoon. We can stir up a
temporary boom in foot-gear anyhow. I'll buy six pairs when the doors
open. I've been around and seen all the fellows and explained the
catastrophe. They'll all buy shoes like they was centipedes. Frank
Goodwin will take cases of 'em. The Geddies want about eleven pairs
between 'em. Clancy is going to invest the savings of weeks, and even
old Doc Gregg wants three pairs of alligator-hide slippers if they've
got any tens. Blanchard got a look at Miss Hemstetter; and as he's
a Frenchman, no less than a dozen pairs will do for him."
"A dozen customers," said Johnny, "for a $4,000 stock of shoes!
It won't work. There's a big problem here to figure out. You go
home, Billy, and leave me alone. I've got to work at it all by
myself. Take that bottle of Three-star along with you--no, sir;
not another ounce of booze for the United States consul. I'll sit
here tonight and pull out the think stop. If there's a soft place
on this proposition anywhere I'll land on it. If there isn't
there'll be another wreck to the credit of the gorgeous tropics."
Keogh left, feeling that he could be of no use. Johnny laid a handful
of cigars on a table and stretched himself in a steamer chair. When
the sudden daylight broke, silvering the harbor ripples, he was still
sitting there. Then he got up, whistling a little tune, and took his
bath.
At nine o'clock he walked down to the dingy little cable office and
hung for half an hour over a blank. The result of his application was
the following message, which he signed and had transmitted at a cost
of $33:
TO PINKNEY DAWSON,
Dalesburg, Ala.
Draft for $100 comes to you next mail. Ship me immediately 500
pounds stiff, dry cockleburrs. New use here in arts. Market price
twenty cents pound. Further orders likely. Rush.