Ladies and Gentlemen

“We are not speaking of names any more. Pray be coherent.”

“We are – at least I am. Speaking of names, do you know what she calls me? She calls me ‘Miss Fleeceyou,’ like that.”

“In view of the salary Anna is drawing down I’d call that a touch of subtle irony,” stated Mr. Bugbee. “But I see no reason why she should address me as ‘Mr. Clammy.’ I’m not clammy – I leave it to any impartial judge. I’ll not start complaining yet, though. I have a foreboding of worse things to follow. I foresee that when the feeling of formality wears off and we get on an easier social footing she’ll call me ‘Clam.’ I decline to be just plain Clam to Anna or anybody else. If I’ve got to be a clam I’m going to be a fancy one.”

“You drift about so! What I’ve been trying for the last five minutes to tell you was that Anna has been confiding to me that some of the older inhabitants are taking exception to us – to me, rather. It seems they’ve already found out that I smoke cigarettes. They regard that as sinful or at least highly improper. There’s been talk. She told me so.”

“I wonder how they learned of your secret vice!” mused Mr. Bugbee. “It can’t be that Anna is a gossip – heaven forbid! Have you been detected in any other shameful practice?”

“Not exactly detected – but, well, criticized. She tells me that certain persons, including one of the two ministers – the Reverend Mr. Peters is the one – have been discussing my costume.” She glanced down at her trim riding-breeches and her smart high-laced boots, which with her soft flannel shirt gave her the look of a graceful, good-looking boy. “And I thought I was dressed so appropriately!”

“I believe there is still a prejudice in certain remote districts against the human female leg,” said her husband. “Just what fault do the merry villagers find with your get-up?”

“One man at the post-office spoke of these” – she touched a slender Bedford-corded thigh – “of these as choke-bore pants. He said there ought to be a law against a woman parading the public streets with a pair of choke-bore pants on. He said it this afternoon and Anna heard about it and came right straight and told me.”

“Strong language for a minister of the Gospel to be using,” commented Mr. Bugbee. “Still, the comparison is apt. Choke-bore, eh? Not so bad for a backwoods preacher. The man has traveled and seen the world.”

“It wasn’t the minister, stupid! It was another man. At that the minister – I mean the Reverend Mr. Peters, not the other one – glared at me today as though he were thinking unutterable things. I thought then he might be miffed because I’d been to see the other minister first. He behaved so – so stand-offish and sort of hostile when I told him about our plan for having a joint Christmas tree for both Sunday Schools. But since I talked with Anna I’m pretty sure it must have been my clothes he didn’t like. I’m afraid some of these people are going to be rather difficult, really I am!”

“I’m going to be a trifle difficult myself unless those cigars get here soon,” said Mr. Bugbee. “Say, they seem to be having unusually long and silent nights up here this winter, don’t they?” he added. “I never thought I’d become so city-broke that I’d miss the plaintive call of the taxicab mooing for its first-born. Gee – it’s nearly nine o’clock. If the lights in this house aren’t turned out pretty soon some unacquainted passers-by – if any such there be – will suspect the presence of burglars on the premises.”

It was on Friday afternoon of that week that a female villager called. She had a keen and searching gaze – that was the first thing to be noticed when the door had been opened in response to her knock. And the second striking thing about her was that on taking a seat she seemed to sink into herself sectionally rather in the style of certain nautical instruments.

The collapsible-looking lady stayed on for upwards of an hour. Upon leaving, she uncoupled joint by joint, as it were, becoming again a person of above the average height. Mr. Bugbee, who after a mumbled introduction and a swift appraisal of the visitor had betaken himself to another part of the house, reentered the living-room upon her departure.

“Who,” he asked, “who is yon gentle stranger with the telescopic eye and the self-folding figure? I failed to catch the name.”

“Miss Teasdale – a Miss Henny Teasdale.”

“Did you say Henny – or do my ears deceive me?”

“Yes; it’s short for Henrietta, I think.”

“And long for Hen. I’ll think that, if you don’t mind. If I’m not too inquisitive, might I make so bold as to inquire what brought her hither?”

“She came to tell me some – well, some things. She said she felt it to be her Christian duty to walk up here and tell me these things.”

“For example, what?”

“For one thing she thinks we make a mistake in – ” Mrs. Bugbee, who appeared slightly flustered, left this sentence uncompleted and built a second one of fresh materials: “Clem, why is it that people have to be so narrow and so critical of other people’s motives and so everything?”

“I give it up. But to return to the lady whose fighting name is Henny?”

“Oh, yes! Well, she told me that quite a good many of the members of one of the congregations here rather resent the fact that the pastor of the other congregation is the chairman of my committee that’s getting up the Christmas entertainment. And they aren’t going to cooperate or let their children come either. There are two cliques, it seems, and they’re both awfully cliquey.”

“A common fault of cliques, I believe. And what else?”

“And she says some of the young people think our celebration is going to be too tame for them. So they’re planning to import special music from over at the junction and throw a jazz party, as they put it, on the same night. It seems there’s a barber over at the junction who plays the saxophone and he has an orchestra of four pieces; that’s the one they’re going to hire.”

“Every junction has a barber who plays the saxophone. But formerly the favored instrument was the guitar, though in exceptional cases the harmonica or mouth-organ might be preferred. Proceed, please; you interest me deeply.”

“And she says that there’s a good deal of curiosity —curiosity was the word she used – about our private lives. There actually seems to be a suspicion that we’re some sort of refugees or fugitives or something, and that we’re trying to ingratiate ourselves with the residents here in order to work some scheme on them later. At least she hinted that much. But this Miss Teasdale doesn’t share in this sentiment at all. She said so several times. She said she only came up as a friend to let me know what was going on. She hasn’t any ax to grind herself, she says. She doesn’t believe in all this envy and jealousy, she says.”

“I don’t believe the ax is her favorite weapon. I seem to picture her in the privacy of the home circle brewing a great jorum of poison-ivy tea. Perchance she revealed more?”

“Quite a lot more. She says we’re being imposed on shamefully in regard to the prices we’re paying for things. She says we picked the wrong people to deal with and that if we’d just come to her first she could have saved us money. She says that Anna is charging us about three times what she’d expect from a neighbor for the same services. Still, I gather that there’s a sort of feud between her and Anna, so she may be biased. And she says that this man Talbot – ”

“All of which reminds me. I had to order more firewood this morning. Due, I take it, to post-war conditions in Europe the price is now twelve dollars a cord. The egg market also shows an advance, influenced no doubt by disquieting advices from Morocco. Well, if we will meddle in world affairs we must pay the price.”

“I believe that practically was about all she said,” wound up Mrs. Bugbee. “Where’s my fur coat and muffler? I’ve got to hurry down to the Masonic Hall. I called a rehearsal for three o’clock and I’ll probably be late as it is.” Mrs. Bugbee lost her worried look. “I’m certain of one thing: I’m not going to be disappointed in my Christmas carols. Not that they have such good voices. But such enthusiasm as all eight of them show! And how they’re looking forward to midnight of Christmas Eve! And how willing they are to practice!”

As the festival drew nearer, unforeseen complications ensued. Inspired by an affection which the holiday spirit had quickened, various persons back in New York chose to disregard the advertised views of the Bugbees touching on the overworked custom of exchanging gifts. Their hiding-place was known too, as now developed. By express and by parcel-post came packages done up in gay wrappings and bearing cards and sprigs of holly and inevitably containing the conventional remembrances, the customary loving messages. The opening of each box served to enhance an atmosphere of homesickness which was beginning to fill the Rousseau bungalow.

“Well, I’ve done the best I could,” wailed Mrs. Bugbee despairingly. “Of course we have to make some return for all this.” She indicated a litter of brilliant paper and parti-colored ribbon bindings on the floor about her.

“Why do we?” he countered, he having just returned from the settlement. “Those darned fools knew how we felt about this business.”

“Because we just do, that’s why! They’d never forgive us. So while you were gone I wrote out a telegram to Aunt Bessie and telephoned it down to the junction. I gave Aunt Bessie the names of everybody who’d sent us something and told her what stores we have charge accounts at and begged her as a tremendous favor to get each one of them something, no matter what, and send it around to them. It wouldn’t have done any good to wire the stores direct – they’re too rushed to pay any attention. And poor Aunt Bessie will be up to her ears in her own Christmas shopping and of course it’s a dreadful imposition on her and of course she won’t have time to pick out suitable presents or anything. But what could I do?”

“I’ll tell you what you could have done,” said Mr. Bugbee, fixing an accusing eye upon his wife. “You could have dissuaded me from this mad folly, this wild impulse to flee to the wildwood for Christmas. Back there in October had you but done this our associates might even now be saying: ‘Poor Bugbee had a brain-storm but what did Bugbee’s little woman do? She saved him from himself, that’s what Bugbee’s little woman did!’ But no, woman-like, you fed the flames of my delusion. And now it’s too late to turn back. Madam, you have but yourself to blame, I refuse to offer you my pity. Anyhow, I need it all for personal use.”

“What else has happened now?” she asked in the resigned tone of one who is prepared for any tidings however grievous and hard to bear.

“I decline to furnish the harrowing details,” he replied. “Suffice it to say that one rift shows in the encompassing clouds. In certain local quarters our intentions may be misinterpreted, that I grant you; it would be wasting words to claim otherwise. But today, mark you, I struck the trail of at least one prospective beneficiary who’ll surely respond to our overtures with gratitude. He’s going to be our reward – perhaps our only one – for making this trip.”

“After certain recent experiences I’d love to meet him.”

“Your desire shall be gratified. Let me tell you about him: You remember that starved-looking shabby chap that we’ve seen several times plowing past here through the drifts on his way to the village or back again? And always alone?”

“Yes, I do. We were speaking of him yesterday, saying how forlorn he seemed and how solitary.”

“That’s our candidate. The name is Sisson. He came into the post-office an hour ago and I got a good look at him – at close range he’s even more melancholy than he is viewed from a distance – and after he was gone I asked a few discreet questions about him. He’s a mystery. About six weeks ago he moved into a tumble-down cabin about a mile up the mountain behind this clearing and he leads a sort of solitary hermit existence up there. Nobody ever goes to see him and he never comes to see anybody and nobody knows anything about him except that occasionally he gets an official-looking letter from Washington. The postmistress told me that much.”

“I believe I can guess.” Mrs. Bugbee’s voice warmed sympathetically. “He’s probably a poor shell-shocked veteran that has hid himself away on account of his nervous condition. And he’s been writing to the Government trying to get it to do something about his pension or his disability allowance or something – poor neglected hero! I just feel it that I’m right about him. You know yourself, Clem, how my intuition works sometimes?”

“Well, in a way I rather jumped at that conclusion too,” said Mr. Bugbee. “So I dusted out and overtook the nominee and introduced myself and walked along with him. As a matter of fact I just left him. I invited him in but he declined. He behaved as though he distrusted me, but before I quit I succeeded in getting him to promise faithfully that he’d drop in on us late on Christmas Eve. I realized that he wouldn’t care to show himself among the crowd down at the hall.”

“I think that’s a splendid arrangement,” applauded Mrs. Bugbee. “Just perfectly splendid! And the next thing is, what are we going to give him?”

“Not too much. We don’t want him to get the idea that we look on him as an object of charity. Just one timely, suitable small present – a token, if you get what I mean; that would be my notion.”

“Mine, too,” chorused Mrs. Bugbee. “But the question is, what?”

They had quite a little dispute over it. She voted first for a pair of military hair-brushes, the Herbert Ryders, of East Sixty-ninth Street, having sent Mr. Bugbee a pair and he being already the possessor of two other pairs. But as Mr. Bugbee pointed out, an offering even remotely suggestive of the military life possibly might recall unpleasant memories in the mind of one who had suffered in the Great War. So then she suggested that a box containing one-half dozen cakes of imported and scented violet soap might be acceptable; there was such a box among the gifts accumulating about the room. But, as Mr. Bugbee said, suppose he was sensitive? Suppose he took it as a personal reflection? They argued back and forth. Eventually Mr. Bugbee found an answer to the problem.

“I’m going to hand him my last full quart of old Scotch,” he announced with a gesture of broad generosity. “He’ll appreciate that, or I miss my guess.”

He had the comforting feeling of having made a self-sacrifice for the sake of a stranger. He had the redeemed feeling of one who means to go the absolute limit on behalf of his fellow man. For Mr. Bugbee had brought with him but three bottles of his treasured pre-Prohibition Scotch. And the first bottle was emptied and the second had been broached and half emptied and only the third precious survivor remained intact.

It was a lovely yet a poignant feeling to have.

On the night before Christmas it was raining. By morning probably the underfooting would be all one nice icy slickery glare but now everything was melting and running. As the Bugbees, man and wife, slopped along up the gentle slope leading from the highway to their front door they were exchanging remarks which had been uttered several times already on the homeward journey but each, with variations, was still repeating his, or as the case was, her contributions to the dialogue, just as persons will do when a subject for conversation happens to be one that lies close to the speakers’ heart.

“The little ones,” she was saying, “they almost repaid me for all the trouble we’ve been to and all the pains we’ve taken. Their glee was genuine. Sometimes, Clem, I think there ought to be a law against anybody celebrating Christmas who’s more than twelve years old – I mean celebrating it with gifts.”

“Second the motion!” His tone was grim. One might even say it was bitter.

“But some of these older ones – turning up their noses right before our eyes at the little presents that we’d bought for them. What did they expect – diamond bracelets? Do they think we’re made out of money?”

“Well, I’m not, for one. I settled Brother Talbot’s account for the past two weeks this afternoon. That man’s talents are wasted here. He ought to be operating a fleet of pirate ships.”

“There was one thing that I haven’t had the courage to tell you about yet.” She blurted the rest in a gulped staccato: “With me it was absolutely the last straw. And I’m ashamed of myself. But my heart was so set on the singing! That’s my only excuse for being so weak.”

“Go on. I’m listening.”

“Well, you know yourself, Clem, how hard I’ve worked at drilling those eight men and boys for my Christmas carols? And how I’ve explained to them over and over again about the meanings of all those beautiful Old World customs such as the English have? And I thought they’d caught the spirit – from the very first they seemed so inspired. But tonight – just a little while ago when you were busy with the tree – they took me aside. They said they wanted to tell me something. And Clem – they – they struck!”

“Struck for what?”

“For money. Said they wouldn’t sing a note unless I paid them for their back time.”

“And what did you do?”

“I paid them,” she confessed. “Five dollars apiece. That is, all but the leader. He – he got ten.”

Mr. Bugbee made no comment on this disclosure. But his silence fairly screamed at her. “Wipe your feet before you come into the house,” he said. He kicked the muddied snow off his boots and opened the door.

They entered where efforts had been made to create a showing of holiday cheer. There were greens about and a sprig of synthetic mistletoe dangled above the lintel, and on the mantel was a composition statuette of good Saint Nicholas, rotund and rosy and smiling a painted smile. In the act of crossing the threshold they were aware of the presence of a visitor. Very rigidly and rather with the air of being peevish for some reason, a lantern-jawed person stood in the middle of the floor.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Bugbee advancing to make the stranger welcome. “How do you do? It’s Mr. Sisson, isn’t it? My husband told me you were coming.”

“He said eleven o’clock.” Mr. Sisson’s voice was condemnatory. “It’s nearly twenty past.”

“I’m so sorry – we are a trifle late, aren’t we? Detained down in the Cove, you know.”

“Personally I alluz make it a point to be on time, myself.” Mr. Sisson accepted the outstretched hand of his hostess and shook it stiffly but he did not unbend. He aimed a sternly interrogative glance at Mr. Bugbee: “Whut business did you want to have with me?”

“No business,” explained that gentleman. “Pleasure, I hope. We asked you here so that we might wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

“And to offer you a small remembrance,” supplemented Mrs. Bugbee. “And here it is – with our very best compliments.” She took from a side table a longish, roundish parcel enclosed in white tissue with ribbon bindings and a bit of imitation holly caught in the bow-knot at the top. She put it in his somewhat limp grasp.

Immediately though, his clutch on the object tightened. He fingered its contours. “Feels to me sort of like a bottle,” he opined.

“It is,” said the jovial Mr. Bugbee. “Open it and see.”

The recipient opened it. He tore away the festal wrappings, and held the contents to the light. His eye seemed to kindle. “Looks to me sort of like licker,” he said.

“That’s what it is.”

Mrs. Bugbee was hovering alongside awaiting the expected outburst of gratitude, puzzled though that it should be so long delayed.

“Mind ef I taste it right here?”

“Not at all.”

“Got a corkscrew handy?”

“I think I can locate one.”

“And a glass?”

Mrs. Bugbee brought a tumbler. Mr. Bugbee found a corkscrew.

Deftly Mr. Sisson unstoppered the bottle. Into the glass he poured a taste of the liquid. He did not invite them to share with him. There was about him no suggestion that he meant to make a loving-cup of it. He sipped briefly. “That’s sufficient – I jest wanted to make sure,” he stated. “This here is a stimilent containing’ more’n one-half of one percent alcohol by volume.”

“I should say it is. That Scotch was made back in – ” He checked, for Mr. Sisson was behaving very peculiarly indeed.

Mr. Sisson was recorking the bottle and sliding it carefully into a side pocket of his overcoat. From other pockets he brought forth a revolver, a folded document of an official and formidable appearance, it having a seal upon its outermost side, and finally a clanking pair of very new looking, very shiny handcuffs. He laid these one by one upon a convenient table-top and next he cast a determined and confounding stare upon the startled faces of Mr. and Mrs. Bugbee.

The lady’s fascinated eyes were fixed for the moment upon the horrifying steeliness of those glinting cuffs, and spasmodically she thrust her hands wrist deep in her ulster pockets. It was evident that, be this daunting intruder’s purposes what they might, Mrs. Bugbee did not mean to be manacled without a struggle. But Mr. Bugbee stood unresistingly and blinked like a man coming out of a distressful trance and not sure yet that he is out.

“You’re both under arrest,” expounded Mr. Sisson. “Fur endeavorin’ to ply a third party with alcoholic stimilents.”

“But – but we gave it to you – of our own free will!” faltered Mrs. Bugbee.

“Givin’, sellin’ outright or barterin’, the law don’t recognize no difference. Anything you say further kin be used ag’inst you. Still, I guess there’s evidence aplenty to convict. Prob’ly it’ll go the worse with you fur offerin’ it to an officer of the law. That’s whut I am – an officer of the law. Here’s my credentials to prove it. And ef you don’t believe me, here’s my badge.” He flipped back a lapel to display a large and silverish decoration pinned under the flap.

“You can’t do this outrageous thing to us,” declaimed Mr. Bugbee, now fully emerging from coma. His cheeks were blazing. “It’s incredible!”

“It’s done done,” said their accuser calmly. His manner became more menacing, his tone more emphatic. “Don’t think, young man, jest because I’m kind of a new hand at this line that you kin work any bluff on me. I’ve been studyin’ to go into the detective business fur quite some time, havin’ took a full course in the Unsleepin’ Eye Correspondence Detective College, Dayton, Ohio. After I got my diplomy I came on up here to perfect myself in my callin’. Then a new notion come over me and I took it up with the Government about gittin’ onto the revenue enforcement department.” He spoke on in the proud yet unboastful way of one who is sure his hearers will be interested in following the successive steps of a brilliant career. “I been writin’ back and forth fur quite a spell with them Washington authorities.”

“Oh!” The understanding exclamation popped from Mrs. Bugbee of its own accord.

“Whut’s that?” demanded Mr. Sisson.

“I – I only just said ‘oh,’” explained Mrs. Bugbee weakly.

“I thought so.” It was as though Mr. Sisson made a mental note of this admission to be incorporated into the testimony. “But it seems like the Government force is all full up at present. So only last week I got a commission from the county to do shadderin’ and hunt down these here Prohibition violators and I been workin’ on hidden clues ever since. I’m whut they call an independent secret operative. Ez it happens, though, you’re my first case – my first two cases I should say.

“Point is that now I’ve got you I don’t know whut to do with you. Can’t git you over to the county-seat tonight, late as ’tis and the roads the way they are. And tomorrer bein’ Christmas the judge won’t want to set to hold you fur trial. Prob’ly” – he caressed the handcuffs tentatively – “prob’ly I’ll have to keep you ez prisoners right here under guard fur the next forty-eight hours or so. Prob’ly that would be the best way. Whut do you think?”

Mr. Bugbee made a sign to Mrs. Bugbee that she should withdraw. She did so with backward apprehensive glances.

“My wife’s not trying to escape,” explained Mr. Bugbee. “She’s only going into the next room for a few minutes. She’s had a shock – in fact she’s had several shocks this evening.”

He waited until the latch clicked, then to their captor he said simply: “How much?”

“Which?”

“I think you got my meaning the first time. How much?”

“Looky here,” cried Mr. Sisson indignantly, “ef you’re aimin’ to question my honor lemme tell you I got a sacred reputation at stake.”