Fibble, D.D.

Because of an agitation that I ascribe to the intense earnestness now dominating me I encountered some slight difficulty in framing the message in intelligible language and a legible chirography. I had torn up the first half-completed draft and was engaged on the opening paragraph of the second when the clamour of a fresh altercation fell on my ear, causing me to glance up from my task. The porter, it appeared, had laid hands on Zeno the Great's black box, possibly with a view to shifting it from where it lay on the floor directly in the doorway; whereupon its owner became seized with a veritable berserk rage. Uttering loud cries and denunciations he fell on the porter and wrested the box from his grasp; following which the porter fled into the street, being immediately lost from view in the distance.

Turning to me, Zeno the Great was in the midst of saying that, though bereft of his scrapbook of clippings and his set of photographs, he hoped to be eternally consigned to perdition – his meaning if not his exact phraseology – if anybody got away with the even more precious belongings yet remaining to him, when nearing sounds of hurrying feet and many shrill voices from without caused him to break off.

In apprehension, more or less successfully concealed from casual scrutiny, I rose to my feet. At the same instant the porter precipitately re-entered, closely followed by six gendarmes, eight foot soldiers, a personage in a high hat, whom I afterward ascertained to be the mayor, and a mixed assemblage of citizens of both sexes and all ages, amounting in the aggregate to a multitude of not inconsiderable proportions. Agitating his arms with inconceivable activity and crying out words of unknown purport at the top of his lungs, the porter pointed accusingly at Zeno, at the locked box, at me!

For the moment I was left unmolested. With loud and infuriated cries the gendarmes threw themselves on the black box. The foot soldiers hurled themselves on Zeno the Great, precipitating him to the floor, and quite covering him up beneath a quivering and straining mass of human forms. The mayor tripped over a stool and fell prone. The populace gave vent to shrill outcries. In short and in fine, I may affirm, without fear of successful contradiction, that chaos reigned supreme.

One felt that the time had come to assert one's sovereign position as an American citizen and, if need be, as a member of a family able to trace its genealogy in an unbroken line to the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at or near Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. I drew forth from my pocket the small translating manual, previously described as containing English and French sentences of similar purport arranged in parallel columns, and, holding it in one hand, I endeavoured to advance to the centre of the turmoil, with my free arm meantime uplifted in a gesture calling for silence and attention; but a variety of causes coincidentally transpired to impede seriously my efforts to be heard.

To begin with, the uproar was positively deafening in volume, and my voice is one which in moments of declamation is inclined to verge on the tenor. In addition to this, the complete freedom of my movements was considerably impaired by a burly whiskered creature, in a long blouse such as is worn in these parts by butchers and other tradespeople, who, coming on me from behind, fixed a firm grasp in the back of my garments at the same instant when one of his fellows possessed himself of my umbrella and my small portmanteau.

Finally, I could not locate in the book the exact phrases I meant to utter. Beneath my eyes, as the printed leaves fluttered back and forth, there flashed paragraphs dealing with food, with prices of various articles, with the state of the weather, with cab fares, with conjectures touching on the whereabouts of imaginary relatives, with questions and answers in regard to the arrival and departure of trains, but nothing at all concerning unfounded suspicions directed against private individuals; nothing at all concerning the inherent rights of strangers travelling abroad; nothing at all concerning the procedure presumed to obtain among civilised peoples as to the inviolate sacredness of one's personal property from sumptuary and violent search at the hands of unauthorised persons – in short, nothing at all that would have the slightest bearing on, or be of the slightest value in explaining, the present acute situation. Given a modicum of leisure for painstaking search among the pages and a lessening of tensity in the state of the popular excitement, I should undoubtedly have succeeded in finding that which I sought; but such was destined not to be.

Of a sudden a chorus of exultant shrieks, louder than any of the cries that until then had arisen, caused all and sundry to face a spot near the door. The gendarmes had forced open the black box so highly prized by Zeno the Great and now bared its contents to the common gaze.

Mister President, think of the result on the minds of the mob already inflamed by stories of spies and infernal devices. The box contained six cannon balls and a German captain's uniform!

Ah, sir, how many times since then, dreaming in my peaceful bed of the things that immediately ensued, have I wakened to find my extremities icy cold and my body bathed in an icy moisture! Yet, in my waking hours, whene'er I seek mentally to reconstruct those hideous scenes I marvel that I should preserve so confused, so inchoate a recollection of it all, though from the picture certain episodes stand out in all their original and terrifying vividness.

Again do I hear the maledictions of the frenzied populace; again do I behold their menacing faces, their threatening gestures. Again, with pitying and sympathetic eyes, do I see myself hurried through the streets, a breathless prisoner, hatless, coatless – for my coat came away in the hands of the whiskered wretch in the blouse – deprived through forcible confiscation of my translating manual, by means of which I might yet have made all clear to my accusers, and still wearing on my sorely trampled feet the parting gift of Great-Aunt Paulina. Again am I carried for arraignment before a mixed tribunal in a crowded room of some large building devoted in ordinary times, I presume, to civic purposes.

The trial scene – how clearly do I envisage that! Come with me, Your Excellency, and look on it: Zeno the Great is there, writhing impotently in the grasp of his captors and, at such intervals as his voice can be heard, hoarsely importuning me to make all clear. The gendarmes are there. The troopers are there in full panoply of lethal equipment and carnage-dealing implements of war. The mayor is there, as before, but has lost his high hat. Hundreds of the vociferating citizens are there. And finally I – Roscoe T. Fibble – am there also, still preserving, I may fondly trust, such dignity, such poise, such an air of conscious rectitude as is possible, considering gyves on one's wrists, no covering for one's head, and a pair of embroidered bedroom slippers on one's feet.

The porter, with circumstantial particularity, re-enacts his attempt to remove the damning black box and his encounter with my hapless companion. The mayor publicly embraces him. The chief of the gendarmes proves by actual demonstration that the German captain's uniform is a perfect fit for Zeno the Great. The mayor kisses him on both cheeks. The commanding officer of the military squad makes the discovery that the six cannon balls are but thin hollow metal shells containing cavities or recesses, into which presumably fulminating explosives might be introduced. The mayor kisses him on both cheeks and on the forehead.

It is one's own turn; at the prospect one involuntarily shudders! One's self is hedged about by impassioned inquisitionists. On every side one is confronted by waving beards, condemning eyes, denouncing faces, clenched hands and pointing fingers. From full twenty throats at once one is beset by shrill interrogations; but, owing to the universal rapidity of utterance and the shrillness of enunciation, one is quite unable, in the present state of one's mind, to distinguish a single intelligible syllable.

Lacking my translating manual to aid me in framing suitable responses, I had resort to an expedient which at the moment seemed little short of an inspiration, but which I have since ascertained to have been technically an error, inasmuch as thereby I was put in the attitude of pleading guilty to being a spy in the employ of the enemy, of being an accomplice of Zeno the Great in nefarious plots against the lives and property of the French people, and of having conspired with him to wreck all public and many private edifices in the town by means of deadly agencies.

The mistake I made, Mr. President, was this: To all questions of whatsoever nature, I answered by saying, "Oui, oui."

Almost instantaneously – so it seemed – I found myself transported to a place of durance vile, deep down in the intricate confines of the noisome cellars beneath the building where the inquisition had taken place. There in lonely solitude did I languish; and at intervals I heard through the thick walls, from the adjoining keep, the dismal, despairing accents of my ill-starred fellow countryman bewailingly uplifted. True, he had wilfully deceived me. Most certainly he told me those cannon balls were solid iron.

Yet this was neither the time nor the place for vain recriminations; for, indeed, all seemed lost. Doom impended – earthly destruction; mundane annihilation! One pictured a gallows tree; and, turning from that image, one pictured a firing squad at sunrise. I was only deterred from committing to writing my expiring message to Mr. Bryan and the world at large by two insurmountable considerations: One was that I had no writing materials of whatsoever nature, and the other was that my mental perturbation precluded all possibility of inducing a consecutive and lucid train of thought.

Constantly there recurred to me the words of a popular yet melancholy ballad I had once heard reproduced on a talking machine which dealt with the tragic and untimely fate of a noble youth who, through misapprehension and no discernible fault of his own, perished at the hands of a drum-head court-martial in time of hostilities, the refrain being: "The pardon came too late!"

Nevermore should I see my peaceful study at Fernbridge Seminary for Young Ladies, with its cozy armchair, its comforting stool, or rest, for the slippered feet, its neatly arranged tea table! Nevermore should I spend the tranquil evening hours with Wordsworth and with Tennyson! Nevermore should my eyes rest on my portfolio of pressed autumn leaves, my carefully preserved wild flowers, my complete collection of the flora of Western New Jersey!

In such despairing contemplations very many hours passed – or at least, so I believed at the time. Eventually footsteps sounded without in the paved corridor; the lock of my cell turned; the hinges grated; metal clanged. Had another day dawned? Had the executioners come to lead me forth? Nay; not so! The sickly light that streamed into my dungeon cell was not the beaming of another sunrise but the suffused radiance of the present afternoon; in fact, the hour was approximately one o'clock P. M., as I learned later.

Enframed in the door opening stood the form of my gaoler, and beside him was one of the cousins of my charge, Miss Canbee. It was the tall brunette cousin – not the slight blonde one. I was saved! I was saved!

He – the cousin in question – had been one of the officers in charge of the train which bore my charges away that morning. Meeting him on board soon after discovering that I was not included among the passengers, Miss Canbee begged him to hasten back to Abbevilliers to make search for me. He had consented; he had returned posthaste. He knew me for what I was, not for what, to the misguided perceptions of these excited citizens, I seemed, in sooth, to be.

And in this same connection I wish to add that I have ever refused to credit the malicious rumours originating among some of Miss Canbee's seminary mates, and coming to my ears after my safe arrival at Fernbridge, to the effect that this young gentleman was not Miss Canbee's cousin and nowise related to her; for, as I clearly pointed out to Miss Waddleton on the occasion when she recounted the story to me, if he were not her cousin, how could she have known him when they met in Paris and why should he have been willing to act on her intercessions? He was her cousin – I reaffirm it!

He had come. He was now here. I repeat the former declaratory exclamation – I was saved!

Mister President, the story is done. You now know all – or nearly all. With a line I dispose of the release from custody of the writer and of Zeno the Great, following suitable explanations carried on with the aid of Miss Canbee's cousin. With another line – to wit, this one – I pass over my affecting reunion that night at Calais with my eight young-lady charges; as also the details of our return to England's friendly shores, of our meeting with Miss Primleigh, of our immediate departure by steamer for our own dear land, and finally of our reception at Fernbridge, in which I was unable to participate in person by reason of the shattered state of my nerves.

And now, sir, having placed before you the facts, with all the determination of which I am capable I reiterate my earlier expressed demand for condign official retribution on the heads of the persons culpably blamable for my harrowing misadventures, whoever and wherever those persons may be. If you feel moved, also, to take up the matter with Mr. Bryan personally, you have my permission to do so.

Before concluding, I might add that a day or two since, as I casually perused the editorial columns of a daily journal published at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I chanced on a delineation of Mr. Bryan, depicting him in sweeping white robes, with a broad smile on his face, and holding in one outstretched hand a brimming cup, flagon or beaker, labelled as containing a purely nonalcoholic beverage; while on his shoulder nestled a dove, signifying Peace. I have taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of this communication to the artist responsible for that pictured tribute, in order that he, too, may know our former Secretary of State in his true light, and in the hope that he – the artist – shall in future cease to employ his talents in extolling one who so signally failed to give heed to one's appeals in the most critical period of one's existence.

I remain, sir,Your most obedient servant,Roscoe T. Fibble, D.D.

P. S.: Since penning the above, my attention has been directed to the fact that the picture in the aforesaid Philadelphia paper was intended for a caricature – or, as the cant phrase goes, a cartoon – its intent being to cast gentle ridicule on the policies of the man Bryan. I have, therefore, addressed a supplementary line to the artist, complimenting and commending him in the highest terms. Fibble.

PART THREE

Being a Series of Extracts Culled from the Diary of Dr. Fibble.

Lover's Leap

APRIL THE THIRD. – Good morning, Friend Quarto! The foregoing line, which I have but this moment inscribed in a fair hand upon the first ruled page immediately succeeding the flyleaf of this neat russet-clad volume, marks the beginning of a new and – what I trust me shall prove – a congenial enterprise. This, therefore, is in the nature of a dedication, none the less significant because privately conducted. I am to-day inaugurating a diary or, as some would say, a journal of my daily life.

For long I have contemplated such an undertaking, but in the press of other matters delayed making a start, as so often one will. Procrastination – ah, what a graceless rogue are you! But upon the eve of yesterday, shortly before evensong, as I was passing adown the main street of this quaint and quiet village of Lover's Leap, situate in the western part of the state of New Jersey, I chanced to pause before the shop of the Messrs. Bumpass Brothers, a merchandising establishment for the purveying of stationery, sweetmeats, souvenirs and such like commodities and much in favour among the student body of our beloved Fernbridge Seminary for Young Ladies. In the show window, displayed in company with other articles of varied character and description, I beheld this book, which seemed so exactly suited and devised to my purposes. Without delay, therefore, I entered in and from Mr. Selim Bumpass, the younger member of this firm of tradeworthy tradesmen, I procured it at a cost of ninety cents, and here and now I devote you, little bookling, to your future usages.

I count this an auspicious occasion, ushering, as it does, into the placid currents of my existence what at once shall be a new pleasure and a new duty. Nightly when the toils of the hour are done and darkness has drawn her curtains about the world I, seated in the cloistered seclusion of my rooms, shall enter herein a more or less complete summary of the principal events of the day that is done.

When this volume is quite filled up I shall purchase yet another, and thus it shall be in the years to come that in leisure moments I may take down from my shelves one of my accumulated store of diaries and, opening it at random, refresh the wearied faculties with memories of bygone events, past trials, half-forgotten triumphs, et cetera, et cetera. In fancy I behold myself, with the light of retrospection beaming in my eye, glancing up from the written leaf and to myself murmuring: "Fibble, upon such a date in the long ago you did thus and so, you visited this or that spot of interest, you had profitable converse with such and such a person." How inspiring the prospect; how profitable may be the outcome of the labour required!

With this brief foreword I now put you aside, little diary, meaning to seek your company again ere the hour of retiring has arrived. So be of good cheer and grow not impatient through the long hours, for anon I shall return.

Ten-forty-five P. M. of even date; to wit, April the third. – True to my promise, here I am, pen in hand and finger at brow. It augurs well that I should have launched this undertaking upon this particular day. For scarce had I left my study this morning when an occurrence came to pass which I deem to have been of more than passing interest and proper, therefore, to be set forth in some amplitude of detail. At faculty meeting, following chapel, our principal and president, Miss Waddleton, announced to us that a new member had been added to our little band. Continuing in this strain, she explained that a young person, until now a stranger to us all, had been engaged for the position of athletic instructor made vacant by the recent and regrettable resignation of Miss Eleanor Scuppers. With these words she presented Miss Scuppers' successor in the person of a Miss Hildegarde Hamm. Mutual introductions followed.

During the ceremonial I had abundant opportunity to observe this Miss Hamm with a polite but searching scrutiny. I cannot deny that she is rather of a personable aspect, but, in all charity and forbearance of final judgment, I foresee she may prove a discordant factor, a disturbing element in our little circle. I go further than that. If I may permit myself to indulge in language verging almost upon the indelicate, when employed with reference to the other or gentler sex, she has about her a certain air of hoydenish and robustious buoyancy which, I fear me, will but ill conform to the traditions of dear Fernbridge and the soothed and refining spirit ever maintained by the instructor body of our beloved seminary.

Subconsciously I felt wincingly the grasp of her hand as I exchanged with her the customary salutations the while I murmured a few words of perfunctory welcome. Her clasp was almost masculine in its firmness and pressure – much more vehement than the one which I myself exert upon occasions of greeting. But since I, as occupant of the chair of astronomy and ancient and modern history, shall probably be thrown in direct contact with our new coworker but little, I anticipate no personal embarrassments, albeit I shall endeavour to hold her at a distance, ever and always maintaining between us a barrier of courteous aloofness. It is the effect upon our institution as a whole that I regard with forebodings.

In a brief period of speech with Miss Primleigh, our mathematics teacher, which ensued in a corridor subsequent to Miss Hamm's induction into the faculty, I gathered that Miss Primleigh, who is of a most discerning turn of mind, shared with me these apprehensions. Also I gleaned from Miss Primleigh certain salient facts concerning our youthful confrère. It would seem Miss Hamm is a person of independent means. Being quite completely orphaned as a direct consequence of the death of both of her immediate parents, she resides in the household of her uncle, a Mr. Hector Hamm, who recently moved into the community from the state of Maryland. Likewise being addicted to physical exertions in their more ardent form, she has associated herself with us rather for the opportunity of exercising her tastes in this direction than for the sake of any financial honorarium or, as some would put it, remuneration of salary. At least such was Miss Primleigh's information, she volunteering the added statement that in her opinion Miss Hamm was a forward piece. From the inflection of Miss Primleigh's voice at this juncture, coupled with her manner, I am constrained to believe this term of designation is not to be taken as implying a compliment, but, on the contrary, the approximate reverse.

Good night, diary. I shall now retire.

April the Seventh. – A certain salubriousness was to-day manifest in the air, indicative of the passing of winter and the on-coming of spring. After some cogitation of the subject, I decided this morning upon arising to doff my heavier undervestments – that is, union suitings – for garments of less irksome weight and texture. This I did.

I recall nothing else of importance transpiring upon this date which is worthy of being recorded, except that, in the course of a short walk this afternoon, I came upon a half unfolded specimen of Viola cucullata– or, to use the vulgar appellation, common blue violet – pushing its way through the leafy mould and mildew of the winter's accumulation. I made this discovery in a spinney, or copse, near a small tarn some half mile to the eastward of Fernbridge's precincts. I am aware that the resident populace hereabout customarily refer to this spot as the wet woods back of Whitney's Bog, but I infinitely prefer the English phraseology as more euphonious and at the same time more poetic. With all due gentleness I uprooted Viola cucullata from its place in the boscage and, after it has been suitably pressed, I mean to add it to my collection of the fauna indigenous to the soil of Western New Jersey, not because of its rarity, for it is, poor thing, but a common enough growth, but because of its having been the first tender harbinger of the budding year which has come directly to my attention. I shall botanize extensively this year. For with me to botanize is one of the dearest of pursuits, amounting to a veritable passion.

April the Eighth. – Blank; no entries.

April the Ninth. – Also blank.

April the Tenth. – It is illness and not a disinclination to pursue my self-appointed task of preserving this repository of my thoughts and deeds which for the past two days has kept me from you, friend diary. As a consequence of venturing abroad upon the seventh instant without my heavy undergarments and likewise without galoshes, having been deceived into committing these indiscretions by a false and treacherous mildness of atmospheric conditions leading to the assumption that the vernal season had come or was impending – a circumstance already described some paragraphs back – I found myself upon the morn following to be the victim of a severe cold, complicated with quinsy or sore throat. I have ever since been confined to my room, if not to my couch, in an acutely indisposed state, endeavouring to rid myself of these impairments by recourse to a great variety of panaceas applied both internally and otherwise. Not until the present moment have I felt qualified, either mentally or bodily, to address myself to the labour of literary composition. Indeed, what with trying this vaunted cure or that – now a gargle, now a foot bath in water heated well nigh to boiling, now a hot lemonade, and again a bolus, a lotion or a liniment – I have had no time for writing, even if so inclined.