Miss Tooker's Wedding Gift

== MISS TOOKER'S WEDDING GIFT ==
=== By John Kendricks Bangs ===
From International Short Stories 1910
I
Van Buren tossed his gloves impatiently on the table, removed his overcoat, and sat down before the fire. He was apparently deeply concerned about something, for when Niki, his Japanese valet, entered the room and placed the whisky and soda on the little table at his side, Van Buren paid no more attention to him than he would to a vagrant sunmote that crossed his path. Long and steadily he gazed into the broad fireplace, watching the dancing flames at play, pausing only to light his pipe, upon which he pulled fiercely. Finally he spoke, leaning forward and to all intents and purposes addressing the andirons.
"Confound the money!" he said impatiently. "I wish to thunder the Governor had left it to some orphan asylum or to found a Chair in Choctaw at some New England university, instead of to me--then I might have made something of myself. Here am I twenty-seven years old and all the fame I ever got came from leading cotillions at Newport, and my sole contribution to the common weal has consisted of the fines I've paid into the public treasury for exceeding the speed limit. Life! I've seen a lot of it--haven't I, in this empty social shell I've been born into!"
He paused for a moment and poured a stiff four fingers of whisky into a glass at his side.
"Bah!" he shuddered as the odor of it greeted his nostrils. "You're a poor kind of fuel for such an engine as I might have been if I'd been started on the right track. By Jove! Ethel is right. What good am I? What have I ever done to make myself worth while or to show that I have any character in me that is a jot better than that of any of the rest of our poor stenciled, gold-plated society."
He looked at the glass and made a wry face.
"I'll cut you out anyhow," he said, pushing the liquor away from him. "That's something. Niki!" he called.
The inscrutable Niki obeyed the summons on the word.
"Take that stuff away and hereafter don't bring it unless I call for it," said Van Buren. "Any letters?"
"One," said Niki. "A messenger brought him at eight o'clock. I get it."
Niki went to the escritoire and picked up the little square of blue envelope lying thereon and handed it to Van Buren.
"Thank you, Niki. You may go now--I can get along without you until--well, say noon to-morrow. Good night."
"Good night," said Niki, and withdrew noiselessly.
"Humph!" ejaculated Van Buren. "Even he is worth more to the world than I am. He does something, even if it is only for me, which is more than I can do. I don't seem to be able to do anything even for myself."
With a sigh of discontent, Van Buren poked the fire for moment and then settled himself in the armchair, holding the letter before his eyes as he did so.
"From Ethel," he said. "Probably my death-warrant. Oh, well--why not? If she won't have me, she won't, that's all. Only one more drop of bitters in my cocktail. I may as well read it anyhow. It's like a cold plunge, and I hate to take it, but--here goes."
He tore open the envelope and, extracting the note, read it:
Dear Harry--I have been thinking things over since you left me this afternoon and I have changed my mind. [Van Buren's eyes lighted with hope.] I do care for you, but I can not see much happiness ahead for either of us unless one or the other of us changes radically. It may be my fault, but I can not forget that if I married a man I should want always to be proud of him, and ambitious for his success in the world. If I were not ambitious, I could be proud of you just as you are, for I know you for the fine fellow that you are. While you do none of the things that I should love to have my future husband do, you at least do none of those other things that men make a practise of, and that mean so much misery for their womenkind, whether they show it or not. But, dear Harry, why can you not make yourself more of a man than you are? Why be content with just the splendid foundation, and let it lie, gradually disintegrating because you have failed to rear upon it some kind of a superstructure that would be in keeping with what rests beneath? You can--I know you can--and that is why I have decided to withdraw what appeared to be my final answer of this afternoon, and, if you want it, to give you another chance.
"If I want it!" ejaculated Van Buren. "Lord knows how I want it!"
Come to me at the end of a year and show me the record of something accomplished, that lifts you out this awful social rut we have all managed to get into, and my "no" of this afternoon may be turned into a "yes," and the misery of my heart be turned to joy. Of course you will say that it is all very easy for me to write this, and to tell you to go out and do something, but that the hard thing would be to tell you what to go out and do--and you will be perfectly right. General advice is the easiest thing in the world, but the specific, constructive suggestion is very different. So I will give you the specific suggestion, and it is this: Why do you not write a novel? You used in your days at Harvard to write clever skits for the "Lampoon," and one or two of your little stories in the "Advocate" showed that you at least know how to put words and sentences together in a pleasing way, even if the themes of your stories were slight and the plots not very intricate. Do this, Harry. Surely with your experience in life you can think of something to write about. Apply yourself to this work during the coming year, and when your book is published and has proven a success, come to me again, and maybe I shall have some good news to tell you.
It may be, dear Harry, that you will not think it worth while. For myself, I hardly think the prize is worth the winning, but you seem to feel differently about that, if I may judge from what you said this afternoon, and you did seem to mean it all, every word of it, you poor boy.
We shall meet, of course, as frequently as ever, but until the year is up, and that a year of achievement, you must not speak of the matter again, and must regard me as I shall hope in any event always to remain,
Your devoted friend, ETHEL TOOKER.
Van Buren laughed nervously, as he finished the letter, and again lit his pipe, which had gone out while he read.
"Write a novel, eh?" he muttered with a grin. "A nice, easy task that. A hundred and fifty thousand words, all meaning something. Ah me! Why the dickens wasn't I born in an age when knighthood was in flower and my Lady Fayre set Sir Hubert some easy task like putting on a tin suit and going out on the highway and swatting another potted Sir Bedivere on the head with an antique ax? The Quest of the Golden Fleece was an easy stunt alongside of writing a novel these times, and I fear I'm more of a Jason than a Henry James!"
He turned to his desk, and the next five minutes were devoted to the writing of an acknowledgment of Miss Tooker's letter.
I thank you for your suggestion [he wrote], and I truly think it will bear thinking over. Any suggestion that makes for the realization of my fondest hopes will bear thinking over, and I am going to do what I can. I wish you had set me an easier task, however, like getting myself appointed Ambassador to England, or Excise Commissioner, for honestly I do not feel the call of the pen. Nevertheless, my dearest Ethel, just to prove to you how honestly devoted to you I am, I shall to-morrow lay in a stock of pads, a brand new pen, and a new Roosevelt Dictionary to guide me into the short cut to success via the Reformed Spelling Route. I have already got my leading characters--my heroine and my hero. She is the sweetest, fairest, dearest girl in the world, and is to be named Ethel. The hero is to be a miserable, down-and-out young cub of a millionaire who, having been brought up in a hot-house atmosphere, never had a chance when exposed to the chilling blasts of the world. She, of course, will redeem poor Harry--that is to be my hero's name--from the pitfalls of bridge, Newport, and the demon Rum. And, of course, she will marry him in the end.
Ever your devoted HARRY.
P. S. As expressive of my real feelings, my story will be written in blue ink.
II
Late one evening, six months later, Van Buren rose wearily from his desk, but with a light of triumph in his eye.
"There!" he said. "That is done. 'The City of Credit' is at last un fait accompli. One hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred and sixty-seven words, and all about Newport, with a bit of the life of its thriving suburbs, New York and Boston, thrown in to relieve the sordidness of it all."
He gazed affectionately at the pile of manuscript before him.
"It hasn't been half bad, after all," he said. "The first ten thousand words came like water from a fire hose, the second ten thousand were pure dentistry, tooth-pulling extraordinary, and the rest of it--well, it is queer how when you get interested in shoveling coal how easy it all seems. And now for the hardest end of the job. To find a publisher who is weak-minded enough to print it."
This indeed proved much the hardest part of Van Buren's work, for the reluctance of the large publishing houses of New York and Boston to place their imprint upon the title-page of "The City of Credit" became painfully evident to the youthful author. The manuscript came back to Van Buren with a frequency that was more than ominous.
"I think," he remarked ruefully to himself upon the occasion of its sixth rejection, "that I have discovered the principle of perpetual motion. If there were only enough publishers in the world to last through all eternity, I could keep this manuscript going forever."
Days passed and with no glimmer of hope, until one morning at a time when "The City of Credit" was about due for its thirteenth reappearance on his desk Van Buren found in its stead a letter from Hutchins & Waterbury, of Boston, apprising him of the fact that his novel had been read and was so well liked that "our Mr. Waterbury will be pleased to have Mr. Van Buren call to discuss a possible arrangement under which the firm would be willing to undertake its publication."
"Good Lord!" cried Van Buren as he read the letter over for the third time, even then barely crediting the possibilities of success that now loomed before him. "And Boston people, too! Will I call! Niki, pack my suit-case at once, and engage a seat for me on the Knickerbocker Limited."
The following morning an interview between "our Mr. Waterbury" and Van Buren took place in the firm's private office on Tremont Street, Boston. It appeared that while the readers of the firm of Hutchins & Waterbury had unanimously condemned the book, Mr. Waterbury, himself, having read it, rather thought it might have a living chance.
"Some portions of your narrative are brilliant, and some of them are otherwise, Mr. Van Buren," said Mr. Waterbury frankly. "But considering the authorship of the book and that it is a description of Newport life by one who is a part of its innermost circle, I am inclined to think it will prove interesting to the public. Your picture of the social wheels within wheels is so intimate, and I judge so accurate, that it would attract attention."
"I am glad you think so," said Van Buren, with a dry throat--the idea that his book might be published after all was really overpowering.
"On the other hand, the judgment of our readers is so unanimously adverse that Mr. Hutchins and I feel the need of proceeding cautiously. Now, what would you say to our publishing the book on--ah--on your account, as it were?"
"You want me to--" began Van Buren.
"To pay for the plates and advertising," said Mr. Waterbury. "We will stand for the paper and the binding, and will act as your agents in the distribution of the book, accounting to you for every copy printed and sold."
"Is--is that quite en regle?" asked Van Buren dubiously.
"It is quite customary," replied Mr. Waterbury. "In fact, ninety per cent of our business is conducted upon that basis."
"I see," said Van Buren.
"You hand us your check for twenty-five hundred dollars to cover the expenses I have specified," continued the astute publisher, "and we will publish your book, allowing you a royalty of fifty per cent on every copy sold."
"I suppose the first edition would be--" said Van Buren hesitatingly.
"Five hundred copies," said Waterbury. "The smaller your first edition, the sooner you are likely to go into a second, and, as you know, it is a great advantage for a book to go into a second edition quickly, if only for advertising purposes. Think it over, and let me know this afternoon if you can. I have to leave for Chicago to-night, and if we are to have 'The City of Credit' ready for the autumn trade, we should begin work on it right away."
"I understand," said Van Buren. "Well--I--I guess it's all right. It's only the principle of the thing--but if, as you say, it is quite customary--why, yes. I'll give you my check now. Do you want it certified?"
"That will not be at all necessary, Mr. Van Buren," said Waterbury magnanimously. "We are quite aware that your own signature to a check is a sufficient certification."
The afternoon train for Newport carried Van Buren back to the social capital with a contract in his pocket, signed by Messrs. Hutchins & Waterbury, assuring the early publication of "The City of Credit," but in view of certain of its financial stipulations, jubilant as he was over the success of his first real step toward fame, Van Buren did not show it to Miss Tooker, as he might have done had it contained no reference to a check on the Tenth National Bank of New York calling for the payment of two thousand five hundred dollars to the Boston firm of publishers.
III
In September "The City of Credit" was published, and widely advertised by Messrs. Hutchins & Waterbury, and Van Buren took particular pains to secure the first copy from the press and to send it by messenger with a suitable inscription and a note to Miss Tooker.
"I send you my book," he wrote, "not because I think it is worth reading, but for the double purpose of showing you that I have tried my best to fulfil your wishes, and to assure the work of at least the circulation of one copy. It has all of my heart in it."
For one reason or another, doubtless because there were quite five hundred other novels of a similar character put forth about the same time, by the end of October the world had not yet been consumed by any conflagration of Van Buren's lighting.
"The book hangs fire," said Mr. Waterbury when Van Buren called upon him at his Boston office to inquire how things were going. "We printed five hundred copies, and this morning's report shows two hundred and thirty still on hand. A hundred and sixty were sent for review."
"I wish they hadn't been," said Van Buren, with a rueful smile. "They have provided just one hundred and sixty separate pieces of fuel for the critics to roast me with. Have there been any favorable reviews of the book?"
"None that I have seen--but don't you worry about that," replied Mr. Waterbury comfortingly. "It's the counting-room, not the critics, that tell the story. Something may happen yet to pull us out."
"What, for instance?" asked Van Buren
"Oh, I don't know," said Waterbury. "You might do something sensational and get it in the papers. That would help. It's up to you, Mr. Van Buren."
"I guess I'm all in," said Van Buren to himself as he walked down Tremont Street. "Up to me to do something--by Jove!" he interrupted himself abruptly. He had suddenly espied a copy of "The City of Credit" in a shop window. "Up to me, is it? Well, I think I shall rise to the occasion and not by doing anything sensational either."
He entered the shop.
"I want six copies of 'The City of Credit,'" he said quietly to the salesman. "It's a first-class story. Much of a demand for it?"
"No," said the salesman. "We have only the window copy, and we've had that over a month. I can get them for you, however."
"All right," said Van Buren. "Just send them to Charles H. Harney, The Helicon Club, New York. I'll pay for them now."
Van Buren paid his bill, and, returning to the street, hailed a hansom.
"Take me to some good book-shop," he said to the cabby.
Instanter he was whirled around into Winter Street, where stands one of Boston's most famous literary distributing centers.
"Have you 'The City of Credit'?" he asked the salesman.
"I think we have a copy in stock," replied the latter. "If we haven't, we can get it for you."
"Do so, please," said Van Buren. "I want a dozen copies--send them by express to Charles H. Harney, The Helicon Club, New York. How much?"
"It's a dollar and a half book, I think," said the clerk. "The discount will make it $1.20--a dozen, did you say? Twenty-five cents expressage--that will make it $14.65."
Van Buren paid up without a whimper. Once in the hansom again, he called up through the little hole in the top.
"Isn't there any other book-shop in town where I can get what I want?" he demanded.
"There's a dozen of 'em," replied the cabby.
"Then go to them all," said Van Buren.
That night when Van Buren started for New York he had purchased a hundred and fifty copies of "The City of Credit," and had ordered them all to be addressed to the clerk at the Helicon Club, with whom, upon his arrival in town, he arranged for their immediate reshipment to the Harrison Safety Deposit Storage Company on Forty-second Street.
"I'm going to have my happiness, if I have to buy it," Van Buren muttered doggedly, as he crept into bed shortly after midnight. And then, tossing sleeplessly in his bed and at last rejoicing in the possession of his late father's millions to back him in his enterprise, he laid the foundations of a plan comparable only to that of the Wheat King who corners the market, or the man of Cotton who loads himself up with more bales of that useful commodity than all the fertile acres of the South could raise in seven seasons. Orders were dispatched by wire and by mail to all the booksellers in the land whose names and addresses Van Buren could get hold of. Department stores were put under contribution and their stock commandeered, and one of the biggest booms in the whole history of literature set in.
"The City of Credit" went into its second, fifth, twentieth, fiftieth large edition. Hutchins & Waterbury wrote Van Buren stating that a sudden turn in the market had made his book one of the six best sellers not only of this century but of all centuries. Their presses were seething to the point of white heat with the copies of "The City of Credit" needed to supply the demand; their binders were working day and night with a double force, and their shipping department was pretty nearly swamped with the strain put upon it. "Your royalty check on January 1st will be the fattest in the land," wrote Waterbury in a moment of enthusiasm. "We are thinking of sending our staff of readers to the lunatic asylum and getting an entirely new set. An order for four thousand has come in from Chicago this morning. St. Louis wants fifteen hundred, and pretty nearly every other able-bodied town in the country is asking for from one to one hundred and fifty." By Christmas time, if the publishers' announcements were to be believed, "The City of Credit" had attained to the enormous sale of three hundred and fifty thousand, and Van Buren was in receipt of a letter from a literary periodical asking for his photograph for publication in its February issue. This brought him a realization of the fact that he might now fairly claim to be considered a literary success. At any rate, he felt that he had now a right to approach Miss Tooker with a fair prospect of receiving from her a favorable answer to the question which she had a year before left an open one.
And events showed that his feeling was justified, for two days later he enjoyed the blissful sensation of finding himself the accepted lover of the woman he had tried so hard to please.
"Is it to be--yes?" he whispered, as they sat together in the conservatory of her father's city house.
"It has--always been--yes," she replied softly, and then what happened is not for your eyes or mine. Suffice it to say that Van Buren moved immediately from sordid old New York to become a dweller in the higher altitudes of Elysium.
Incidentally the boom in "The City of Credit" stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun. There was nobody apparently who felt called upon to throw in the necessary number of dollars to sustain an already over-stimulated market, which puzzled Messrs. Hutchins & Waterbury exceedingly. They had hoped to live for the balance of their days upon the profits of their World's Best Seller.
IV
As the spring approached and the day set for Miss Tooker's wedding to Van Buren came nearer, the latter found himself daily becoming more and more a prey to conscience. There was a decidedly large fly in the amber of his happiness, for as he viewed the part he had played in the forced success of "The City of Credit" he began to see it in its true light. The first of March brought him his royalty check from Hutchins & Waterbury, and it was, as had been predicted, gratifyingly large, and reduced materially what he had called his "campaign expenses." In the same mail, however, was a bill from the Storage Company, in one of whose spacious chambers there reposed more copies of his novel than he liked to think of--over 250,000--the actual sales had been 260,000 in spite of the published announcements of a higher figure. The firm had thirty or forty thousand on hand, printed in a moment of confident enthusiasm when the flurry was at its height. Both communications brought before Van Buren's mind's eye all too vividly the specter of his duplicity, and he was too much of a man of conscience to be able to put it lightly aside. He tried to console himself with the idea that all is fair in love and war, but he could not, and his remorse caused him many a sleepless night. Finally--it was on the eve of the posting of the wedding invitations--scruple overcame him, and he resolved that he could not honestly lead his bride to the altar with such a record of deceit upon his escutcheon, especially in view of the fact that it was through this deceit that his happiness had been won.
"It is better to lose her before the ceremony than after it," he told himself, and, bitter though the confidence might be, he made up his mind to tell Miss Tooker everything. "Only, I must break it gently," he observed.
With this difficult errand in mind, he called upon his fiancée, and, after the usual greeting, he started in on his confession. He had hardly begun it, however, when his courage failed him, and with the oozing of that his words failed him also. He did have the courage, however, to seek to reveal the exact situation in another way.
"Ethel dear," he said, awkwardly fumbling his gloves, "I want to show you something. I have a--a little surprise for you."
The girl eyed him narrowly.
"For me?" she said.
"Yes," he answered. "The fact is, it's--it's a sort of wedding present I have for you, and I think you ought to see it before--well, now. Will you go?"
Miss Tooker was interested at once, and, taking a hansom, they were driven to the Harrison Storage Warehouse on Forty-second Street Arrived there, Van Buren led her to the elevator and thence up to the small room in which lay the corroding and tell-tale packages--an enormous bulk--that were slowly but surely eating up his happiness.
"Why, Harry!" she cried as she gazed in bewilderment at the huge pile of unopened bundles. "Are these all for me?"
"Yes," gulped Van Buren, his face flaming.
"But--what do they contain?" she asked.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand copies of my--my book--'The City of Credit,'" said Van Buren, his eyes cast down.
"You mean that you--" she began.
"Yes, it's exactly that, Ethel. I--I bought 'em all to--well, to boom the sales and to--make a name for myself in the world," he said sheepishly, "or rather for you--but I suppose now that you know---"
"Then all this tremendous sale was arranged between you and your publishers to deceive me?" she asked.
"Not at all," protested the unhappy Van Buren. "On the contrary, I did it all myself. Hutchins & Waterbury don't know any more about it than you did an hour ago. No one knows--except you and I."
Van Buren paused.
"I could not let you marry me without knowing what I had done," he said. "It would not be fair to--to our future."
"Tell me all about it," she said quietly, and Van Buren made his confession complete. He told her of his interview with Waterbury--how the latter had told him his book had fallen flat; how it was "up to him" to do something; how a sight of a single copy of "The City of Credit" in the Tremont Street shop window had tempted him first into a retail fall which had grown ultimately into a wholesale "crime"--as he put it. He did not spare himself in the least degree, humiliating as the narration of his story was to him.
"I suppose it is all up with me now," he said ruefully, when he had finished.
"I don't know," said Ethel quietly. "I don't know, Harry. Perhaps. Take me home, please. I want to show you something."
The drive back to the Tooker mansion was taken in silence. Van Buren despised himself too strongly to be able to speak, and Miss Tooker had fallen into a deep reverie which the poor fellow at her side feared meant irrevocable ruin to his hopes.
"Come in," said Miss Tooker gravely, as the cab drew up at the house. "I want to take you up into our attic storeroom, and then ask you a plain question, Harry, and then I want you to answer that question simply and truthfully."
Marveling much, Van Buren permitted himself to be led to the topmost floor of Miss Tooker's house.
"Look in there," said she, opening the door of the storeroom. "Do you see those packages?"
"Yes," he said. "They look very much like mine, only they're fewer."
"Do you know what they contain?" she asked.
"Books?" queried Van Buren, entering the room and tapping one of the bundles.
"Yes--yours--your books--five thousand three hundred and ten copies of 'The City of Credit,' Harry," she said, with a rueful smile.
"You--" he ejaculated hoarsely.
"Yes, I bought them all. Some in Newport, some in New York, some at Lenox--oh, everywhere! Now, tell me this," she interrupted. "Do you suppose that I would condemn you for doing on a large scale what I have been doing on a smaller scale ever since last November?"
A ray of hope dawned in Van Buren's eyes.
"Ethel!" he cried, seising her by the hand. "You bought all those--for me?"
"I certainly did, Harry," she said quietly. "With my pin money, and my bridge money and all the other kinds of money that I could wheedle out of my dear old daddy. But answer me. Have I the right to sit in judgment on you--"
"Not by a long shot!" cried Van Buren. "It would be an act of the most consummate hypocrisy."
"That is the way I look at it, dear," she whispered, and then--well, all I have to say is that I don't believe anything like what happened at that precise moment ever happened in an attic storeroom before.
And the wedding invitations were mailed that very evening.
Category:International Short Stories
Category:Bangs