Gullible's Travels, Etc.

Now Bess had tipped off the Wife that her and Bishop was practically engaged, but the night after Ada was the last night of her visit and Bishop hadn't never came round. So Bessie'd cried all night and tried to get him by phone before she left next day; but neither o' them two acts done her any good. It looked like he was all through. On the way to the train Bess and the Missus had ruined three or four handkerchiefs and called the bird every low-down flirt they could think of. I didn't say a word; nor did I perfume my linen with brine.

Here, though, was Bess back in town and Old Man Short makin' up to her again. And they'd been correspondin'. The second time was li'ble to take, unless outside brains come to the rescue.

If I'd thought for a minute that they'd leave us out of it and go away somewhere by themself and live – the North Side, or one o' the suburbs, or Wabash – I wouldn't of cared how many times they married each other. But I had him spotted for a loafer that couldn't earn a livin', and I knowed what the maritile nuptials between Bess and he meant – it meant that I and the Missus would have all the pleasures o' conductin' a family hotel without the pain o' makin' out receipts.

Now I always wanted a boy and a girl, but I wanted 'em to be kind o' youngish when I got 'em. I never craved addin' a married couple to my family – not even if they was crazy about rummy and paid all their bills. And when it come to Bishop and Bess, well, they was just as welcome to my home as Villa and all the little Villains.

It wasn't just Bishop, with his quaint habit o' never havin' car fare. Bess, in her way, was as much of a liability. You couldn't look at her without a slight relapse. She had two complexions – A.M. and P.M. The P.M. wasn't so bad, but she could of put the other in her vanity box for a mirror. Her nose curved a little away from the batsman and wasn't no wider than a Julienne potato, and yet it had to draw in to get between her eyes. Her teeth was real pretty and she always kept her lips ajar. But the baseball reporters named Matty's favorite delivery after her chin, and from there down the curves was taboo.

Where she made a hit with Bishop was laughin' at everything he pulled – that is, he thought she was laughin'. The fact was that she was snatchin' the chance to show more o' them teeth. They wasn't no use showin' 'em to me; so I didn't get laughs from her on my stuff, only when he or some other stranger was round. And if my stuff wasn't funnier than Bishop's I'll lay down my life for Austria.

As a general rule, I don't think a man is justified in interferin' with other people's hymeneal intentions, but it's different when the said intentions is goin' to make your own home a hell.

It was up to me to institute proceedin's that would check the flight o' these two cooin' doves before their wings took 'em to Crown Point in a yellow flivver.

And I seen my duty all the more clear when the pair come home from the ball game the day after Bessie's arrival, and not only told me that the White Sox got another trimmin' but laughed when they said it.

"Well, Bishop," I says when we set down to supper, "how many six-reelers are you turnin' out a day?"

"About one every two weeks is the limit," says Bishop.

"I'll bet it is," I says. "And who are you workin' for now?"

"The Western Film Corporation," he says. "But I'm goin' to quit 'em the first o' the month."

"What for?" I ast him.

"Better offer from the Criterion," he says.

"Better'n ten thousand a year?" says I.

"Sure!" he says.

"Twenty dollars better?" I says.

He blushed and the Wife sunk my shin with a patent-leather torpedo. Then Bishop says:

"The raise I'm gettin' would make twenty dollars look sick."

"If you'd give it to me," I says, "I'd try and nurse it back to health."

After supper the Missus called me out in the kitchen to bawl me out.

"It's rough stuff to embarrass a guest," she says.

"He's always embarrassed," says I. "But you admit now, don't you, that I was tellin' the truth about him touchin' me?"

"Yes," she says.

"Well," says I, "if he's so soiled with money, why don't he pay a little puny debt?"

"He's probably forgot it," says she.

"Did he look like he'd forgot it?" I ast her. And she had no come-back.

But when my Missus can overlook a guy stingin' me for legal tender, it means he's in pretty strong with her. And I couldn't count on no help from her, even if Bishop was a murderer, so long as Bess wanted him.

The next mornin', just to amuse myself, I called up the Criterion people and ast them if they was goin' to hire a scenario writer name Elmer Bishop.

"Never heard of him," was what they told me.

So I called up the Western.

"Elmer Bishop?" they says. "He ain't no scenario writer. He's what we call an extra. He plays small parts sometimes."

"And what pay do them extras drag down?" I ast.

"Five dollars a day, but nothin' when they don't work," was the thrillin' response.

My first idea was to slip this dope to the Wife and Bess both. But what'd be the use? They wouldn't believe it even if they called up and found out for themself; and if they did believe it, Bessie'd say a man's pay didn't make no difference where true love was concerned, and the Missus would take her part, and they'd cry a little, and wind up by sendin' for Bishop and a minister to make sure o' the ceremony comin' off before Bishop lost his five-dollar job and croaked himself.

Then I thought o' forbiddin' him the hospitality o' my abode. But that'd be just as useless. They'd meet somewheres else, and if I threatened to lock Bess out, the Wife'd come back with a counter-proposition to not give me no more stewed beets or banana soufflés. Besides that, strong-arm methods don't never kill sweet love, but act just the opposite and make the infected parties more set on gettin' each other. This here case was somethin' delicate, and if a man didn't handle it exactly right you wouldn't never get over bein' sorry.

So, instead o' me quarrelin' with the Wife and Bess, and raisin' a fuss at Bishop spendin' eight evenin's a week with us, I kept my clam closed and tried to be pleasant, even when I'd win a hand o' rummy and see this guy carelessly lose a few of his remainin' face cards under the table.

We had an awful spell o' heat in July and it wasn't no fun playin' cards or goin' to pitcher shows, or nothin'. Saturday afternoons and Sundays, I and the Missus would go over to the lake and splash. Bess only went with us a couple o' times; that was because she couldn't get Bishop to come along. He'd always say he was busy, or he had a cold and was afraid o' makin' it worse. So far as I was concerned, I managed to enjoy my baths just as much with them two stayin' away. The sight o' Bessie in a bathin' suit crabbed the exhilaratin' effects o' the swim. When she stood up in the water the minnows must of thought two people was still-fishin'.

It was one night at supper, after Bessie'd been with us about a month, when the idear come to me. Bishop was there, and I'd been lookin' at he and Bess, and wonderin' what they'd seen in each other. The Missus ast 'em if they was goin' out some place.

"No," says Bessie. "It's too hot and they ain't no place to go."

"They's lots o' places to go," says the Wife. "For one thing, they're havin' grand opera out to Ravinia Park."

"I wouldn't give a nickel to see a grand opera," says Bess, "unless it was Ada, that Elmer took us to last winter."

So they went on talkin' about somethin' else. I don't know what, because the minute she mentioned Ada I was all set.

I guess maybe I'd better tell you a little about this here opera, so's you'll see how it helped me out. A fella named Gus Verdi wrote it, and the scenes is laid along the Illinois Central, round Memphis and Cairo. Ada's a big wench, with a pretty voice, and she's the hired girl in the mayor's family. The mayor's daughter gets stuck on a fat little tenor that you can't pronounce and that should of had a lawn mower ran over his chin. The tenor likes the colored girl better than the mayor's daughter, and the mayor's daughter tries every way she can think of to bust it up and grab off the tenor for herself; but nothin' doin'! Finally the mayor has the tenor pinched for keepin' open after one o'clock, and the law's pretty strict; so, instead o' just finin' him, they lock him up in a safety-deposit vault. Well, the wench is down in the vault, too, dustin' off the papers and cleanin' the silver, and they don't know she's there; so the two o' them's locked up together and can't get out. And when they can't get away and haven't got nobody else to look at or talk to, they get so's they hate each other; and finally they can't stand it no longer and they both die. They's pretty music in it, but if old Gus had of seen the men that was goin' to be in the show he'd of laid the scenes in Beardstown instead o' Memphis.

Well, do you get the idear? If the mayor's daughter had of been smart, instead o' tryin' to keep the tenor and Ada from bein' with each other she'd of locked 'em up together a long while ago, and, first thing you know, they'd of been sick o' one another; and just before they died she could of let 'em out and had the tenor for herself without no argument.

And the same thing would work with Bishop and Bess. In all the time o' their mutual courtship they hadn't been together for more'n five or six hours at a time, and never where one o' them couldn't make a quick duck when they got tired. Make 'em stick round with each other for a day, or for two days, without no chance to separate, and it was a cinch that the alarm clock would break in on Love's Young Dream.

But, for some reason or other, I didn't have no safety-deposit vault and they wasn't no room in the flat that they couldn't get out of by jumpin' from the window.

How was I goin' to work it? I thought and thought; and figured and figured; and it wasn't till after I'd went to bed that the solution come.

A boat trip to St. Joe! I and the Missus and the two love birds. And I'd see to it that the chaperons kept their distance and let Nature take its course. We'd go over some Saturday afternoon and come back the next night. That'd give 'em eight or nine hours Saturday and from twelve to sixteen hours Sunday to get really acquainted with each other. And if they was still on speakin' terms at the end o' that time I'd pass up the case as incurable.

You see, I had it doped that Bishop was afraid o' water or else he wouldn't of turned down all our swimmin' parties. I wouldn't leave him a chance to duck out o' this because I wouldn't tell nobody where we was goin'. It'd be a surprise trip. And they was a good chance that they'd both be sick if it was the least bit rough, and that'd help a lot. I thought of Milwaukee first, but picked St. Joe because it's dry. A man might stand for Bess a whole day and more if he was a little blear-eyed from Milwaukee's favorite food.

The trip would cost me some money, but it was an investment with a good chance o' big returns. I'd of been willin' to take 'em to Palm Beach for a month if that'd been the only way to save my home.

When Bishop blew in the next evenin' I pulled it on 'em.

"Bishop," I says, "a man that does as much brain work as you ought to get more recreation."

"I guess I do work too hard," he says modestly.

"I should think," I says, "that you'd give yourself Saturday afternoons and Sundays off."

"I do, in summer," he says.

"That's good," I says. "I was thinkin' about givin' a little party this comin' week-end; and, o' course, I wanted you to be in on it."

The two girls got all excited.

"Party!" says the Missus. "What kind of a party?"

"Well," I says, "I was thinkin' about takin' you and Bishop and Bess out o' town for a little trip."

"Where to?" ast the Wife.

"That's a secret," I says. "You won't know where we're goin' till we start. All I'll tell you is that we'll be gone from Saturday afternoon till Monday mornin'."

"Oh, how grand!" says Bessie. "And think how romantic it'll be, not knowin' where we're headed!"

"I don't know if I can get away or not," says Bishop.

"I pay all expenses," says I.

"Oh, Elmer, you've just got to go!" says Bess.

"The trip's off if you don't," I says.

"If you don't say yes I'll never speak to you again," says Bessie.

For a minute I hoped he wouldn't say yes; but he did. Then I told 'em that the start would be from our house at a quarter to one Saturday, and to pack up their sporty clothes. The rest o' the evenin' was spent in them tryin' to guess where we was goin'. It got 'em nothin', because I wouldn't say aye, yes or no to none o' their guesses.

When I and the Missus was alone, she says:

"Well, what's the idear?"

"No idear at all," I says, "except that our honeymoon trip to Palm Beach was a flivver and I feel like as if I ought to make up to you for it. And besides that, Bessie's our guest and I ought to do somethin' nice for she and her friend."

"I'd think you must of been drinkin' if I didn't know better," she says.

"You never do give me credit for nothin'," says I. "To tell the truth, I'm kind of ashamed o' myself for the way I been actin' to'rd Bishop and Bess; but I'm willin' to make amends before it's too late. If Bishop's goin' to be one o' the family I and him should ought to be good friends."

"That's the way I like to hear you talk," says the Wife.

"But remember," I says, "this trip ain't only for their benefit, but for our'n too. And from the minute we start till we get home us two'll pal round together just like we was alone. We don't want them buttin' in on us and we don't want to be buttin' in on them."

"That suits me fine!" says she. "And now maybe you'll tell me where we're goin'."

"You promise not to tell?" I ast her.

"Sure!" she says.

"Well," I says, "that's one promise you'll keep."

And I buried my good ear in the feathers.

At twenty minutes to two, Saturday afternoon, I landed my entire party at the dock, foot o' Wabash Avenue.

"Goody!" says Bess. "We're goin' acrost the lake."

"If the boat stays up."

"I don't know if I ought to go or not," says Bishop. "I'd ought to be where I can keep in touch with the Criterion people."

"They got a wireless aboard," I says.

"Yes," says Bishop; "but they wouldn't know where to reach me."

"You got time to phone 'em before we sail," says I.

"No, he hasn't," says Bessie. "He ain't goin' to take no chance o' missin' this boat. He can send 'em a wireless after we start."

So that settled Bishop, and he had to walk up the gangplank with the rest of us. He looked just as pleased as if they'd lost his laundry.

I checked the baggage and sent the three o' them up on deck, sayin' I'd join 'em later. Then I ast a boy where the bar was.

"Right in there," he says, pointin'. "But you can't get nothin' till we're three miles out."

So I went back to the gangplank and started off the boat. A man about four years old, with an addin' machine in his hand, stopped me.

"Are you goin' to make the trip?" he ast me.

"What do you think I'm on here for – to borrow a match?" says I.

"Well," he says, "you can't get off."

"You're cross!" I says. "I bet your milk don't agree with you."

I started past him again, but he got in front o' me.

"You can get off, o' course," he says; "but you can't get back on. That's the rules."

"What sense is they in that?" I ast him.

"If I let people off, and on again, my count would get mixed up," he says.

"Who are you?" says I.

"I'm the government checker," he says.

"Chess?" says I. "And you count all the people that gets on?"

"That's me," he says.

"How many's on now?" I ast him.

"Eight hundred-odd," he says.

"I ast you for the number, not the description," I says. "How many's the limit?" I ast him.

"Thirteen hundred," he says.

"And would the boat sink if they was more'n that?" says I.

"I don't know if it would or wouldn't," he says, "but that's all the law allows."

For a minute I felt like offerin' him a lump sum to let seven or eight hundred more on the boat and be sure that she went down; meantime I'd be over gettin' a drink. But then I happened to think that the Missus would be among those lost; and though a man might do a whole lot better the second time, the chances was that he'd do a whole lot worse. So I passed up the idear and stayed aboard, prayin' for the time when we'd be three miles out on Lake Michigan.

It was the shortest three miles you ever seen. We hadn't got out past the Municipal Pier when I seen a steady influx goin' past the engine-room and into the great beyond. I followed 'em and got what I was after. Then I went up on deck, lookin' for my guests.

I found 'em standin' in front o' one o' the lifeboats.

"Why don't you get comfortable?" I says to Bishop. "Why don't you get chairs and enjoy the breeze?"

"That's what I been tellin' 'em," says the Missus; "but Mr. Bishop acts like he was married to this spot."

"I'm only thinkin' of your wife and Bessie," says Bishop. "If anything happened, I'd want 'em to be near a lifeboat."

"Nothin's goin' to happen," I says. "They hasn't been a wreck on this lake for over a month. And this here boat, the City o' Benton Harbor, ain't never sank in her life."

"No," says Bishop; "and the Chicora and Eastland never sank till they sunk."

"The boats that sinks," I says, "is the boats that's overloaded. I was talkin' to the government checker-player down-stairs and he tells me that you put thirteen hundred on this boat and she's perfectly safe; and they's only eight hundred aboard now."

"Then why do they have the lifeboats?" ast Bishop.

"So's you can go back if you get tired o' the trip," I says.

"I ought to be back now," says Bishop, "where the firm can reach me."

"We ain't more'n two miles out," I says. "If your firm's any good they'll drag the bottom farther out than this. Besides," I says, "if trouble comes the lifeboats would handle us."

"Yes," says Bishop; "but it's women and children first."

"Sure!" I says. "That's the proper order for drownin'. The world couldn't struggle along without us ten-thousand-dollar scenario writers."

"They couldn't be no trouble on such a lovely day as this," says Bess.

"That's where you make a big mistake," I says. "That shows you don't know nothin' about the history o' Lake Michigan."

"What do you mean?" ast Bishop.

"All the wrecks that's took place on this lake," I says, "has happened in calm weather like to-day. It's just three years ago this July," I says, "when the City of Ypsilanti left Grand Haven with about as many passengers as we got to-day. The lake was just like a billiard table and no thought o' danger. Well, it seems like they's a submerged water oak about three miles from shore that you're supposed to steer round it. But this pilot hadn't never made the trip before, and, besides that, he'd been drinkin' pretty heavy; so what does he do but run right plump into the tree, and the boat turned a turtle and all the passengers was lost except a tailor named Swanson."

"But that was just an unreliable officer," says Bessie. "He must of been crazy."

"Crazy!" says I. "They wouldn't nobody work on these boats unless they was crazy. It's bound to get 'em."

"I hope we got a reliable pilot to-day," says Bishop.

"He's only just a kid," I says; "and I noticed him staggerin' when he come aboard. But, anyway, you couldn't ask for a better bottom than they is right along in here; nice clean sand and hardly any weeds."

"What time do we get to St. Joe?" ast Bishop.

"About seven if we don't run into a squall," I says.

Then I and the Wife left 'em and went round to another part o' the deck and run into squalls of all nationalities. Their mothers had made a big mistake in bringin' 'em, because you could tell from their faces and hands that they didn't have no use for water.

"They all look just alike," says the Missus. "I don't see how the different mothers can tell which is their baby."

"It's fifty-fifty," I says. "The babies don't look no more alike than the mothers. The mothers is all named Jennie, and all perfect cubes and fond of apples, and ought to go to a dentist. Besides," I says, "suppose they did get mixed up and swap kids, none o' the parties concerned would have reasons to gloat. And the babies certainly couldn't look no more miserable under different auspices than they do now."

We walked all round the deck, threadin' our way among the banana peelin's, and lookin' our shipmates over.

"Pick out somebody you think you'd like to meet," I told the Wife, "and I'll see if I can arrange it."

"Thanks," she says; "but I'll try and not get lonesome, with my husband and my sister and my sister's beau along."

"It's nice for you to say it," says I; "but you want to remember that we're leavin' Bess and Bishop to themself, and that leaves you and I to ourself, and they ain't no two people in the world that can spend two days alone together without gettin' bored stiff. Besides, you don't want to never overlook a chance to meet high-class people."

"When I get desperately anxious to meet high-class people," she says, "I'll be sure and pick out the Saturday afternoon boat from Chicago to St. Joe."

"You can't judge people by their looks," says I. "You haven't heard 'em talk."

"No; and couldn't understand 'em if I did," she says.

"I'll bet some o' them's just as bright as we are," I says.

"I'm not lookin' for bright companionship," she says. "I want a change."

"That's just like I told you," says I. "You're bound to get tired o' one person, no matter how much they sparkle, if you live with 'em long enough."

We left the deck and went down-stairs. They was two or three people peerin' in the engine-room and the Missus made me stop there a minute.

"What for?" I ast her.

"I want to see how it works," she says.

"Well," says I, when we'd started on again, "I can drop my insurance now."

"Why?" says the Missus.

"I don't never need to worry about you starvin'," I says. "With the knowledge you just picked up there, I bet you could easy land a job as engineer on one o' these boats."

"I'd do about as good as you would at it," she says.

"Sure; because I didn't study it," I says. "What makes the boat run?" I ast her.

"Why, the wheel," she says.

"And who runs the wheel?" I ast her.

"The pilot," says she.

"And what does the engineer do?" I says.

"Why, I suppose he keeps the fire burnin'," she says.

"But in weather like this what do they want of a fire?"

"I suppose it gets colder out in the middle o' the lake," she says.

"No," says I; "but on Saturdays they got to keep a fire goin' to heat the babies' bottles."

We went in the room next to the bar. A boy set at the piano playin' Sweet Cider Time in Moonshine Valley and some Hawaiian native melodies composed by a Hungarian waiter that was too proud to fight. Three or four couple was dancin', but none o' them was wry-necked enough to get the proper pose. The girls looked pretty good and was probably members o' the Four Hundred employed in the Fair. The boys would of been handsomer if the laundry hadn't failed to bring back their other shirt in time.

A big guy in a uniform come by and went into the next room. "Is that the captain?" ast the Wife.

"No," I says, "that's the steward."

"And what does he do?" she ast me.

"He hangs round the bar," I says, "and looks after the stews."

"Have they really got a bar?" she says.

"I'll find out for sure if you'll wait here a minute," says I, and led her to a chair where she could watch 'em wrestle.

In the other room I stood next to a Greek that charged ten cents on Sundays and holidays. He was all lit up like the Municipal Pier.

"Enjoyin' the trip?" I ast him.

"Too rough; too rough!" he says, only I don't do the dialect very good.

"I bet you never got that shine at your own stand," says I.

"Too hot to work!" says he. "I don't have to work. I got the mon'."

"Yes," I says; "and the bun."

A little way off from us was four other political enemies o' J. Frank Hanly, tellin' my Greek friend in tonsorial tones that if he didn't like his Uncle Sammy he knowed what he could do.