Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-07-09
Our Old Desk

WE SEE that there has been a fire at
second hand furniture warehouse on
Arch street. We think we can offer an ex-
planation for the blaze. Our old desk was
there
That desk was always hoodoo Last au-
tumn, when we gave up committing and moved
into town, we had to get rid of some OF our
goods in order to squeeze ourselves into an
apartment. The very first thing we parted
with was our old desk. We did not tell genial
Mr.. P. the dealer in second hand furniture,
that the piece was a Jonah, for we were
afraid it would knock fifty cents or so off
his offer, but now we feel rather shame-
faced for not having warned him.
We bought the desk before we were mar
ried, at a department store in New York.
1t was almost the last article that store, a
famous in its day, got paid for. soon
after selling it the house failed.
We moved the desk out to cottage in the
country We sat down in front of it. we
didn't know it then, but we are convinced
now there was some evil genius in 1t. 1t
must have been built of slippery elm, full or
knots, cut in the dark of the moon while a
brindle cat was mewing. The drawers stuck
once a week and had to be pared down with
a lack knife We sat at that desk night
after night with burning visions of literary
Immortality. We wrote poems that no one
would buy We wrote stories that gradually
became soiled and wrinkled around the folds
of the manuscript. We wrote pamphlets
eulogizng hotels and tried to palm them on
on the managers as advertising booklets. Inc
hotels accepted the booklets and went out of
business before paying for them. We com
| posed sparkling essays for newspaper IN
| Toledo sitting at that desk, and after the
| paper had printed a bunch of them we wrote
| to the editor and asked him how about a
| check. He replied that he did not under,
stand we were writing that stuff for actual
money. He was quite grieved to have mis-
| understood us so. He thought we were
| merely writing them for the pleasure or up
| lifting the hearts of Toledo.
| There was another odd thing about that
desk There was some drowsy sirup in its
| veins. Perhaps the wood hadn't been prop
erly seasoned Anyway, we couldn't keep
| awake while sitting at it. Night after night.
| assiduously while the jolly old Long Island
! mosquitoes hummed in through the open
| windows like Liberty motors, we would begin
| to scribe. After an hour or so we would
! always fall asleep over the tawny keys OF
| our ancient typewriter. 1t may be that the
trouble lay partly in the tipping bus, for we
| were so inexpert that we couldn't pound rap
| idly enough to keep ourself awake. We re-
member memorizng the letters on the first
| row of keys in a vain hope that it we could
say qwertyuiop off by heart it would help us
| to move along faster, but it did no good.
We started novel, but after six months of
wrestling we decided that as long as we
worked at that desk we would never get it
done. We tried writing on the kitchen table,
in front of the stove-it was winter by that
time-and we got the novel done in no time.
When we moved to Marathon, the van con
tanning that desk broke down near novelty
factory in Trenton. Probably that novelty
factory was its home and the old fiat top had
nostalgia In order to getSthe desk into the
Marathon house its top had to be unscrewed
and the screws were lost. After that, when
ever we were trying to write poem in the
small hours of the night, when we got aroused
in the heat of composition and shifted round
on our chair, the whole top of the desk would
slide off and the inkwell would cascade on tc
the floor.
There gas one drawer in that desk thai
we look back on with particular affection
We had been asked by a publisher in Chicago
to contribute the section on Etiquette for q
Household Encyclopedia that was to be is
sued. That was about 1914, If we remember
rightly. We knew nothing whatever about
Etiquette. The article was to deal with tn,
origin and history Of social usages, coming
down to the very latest thing In table man.