Books: Mr. Bingle
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George Barr McCutcheon >> Mr. Bingle
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On the morning of the sixth of July, a pompous old gentleman rang the
front doorbell at Seawood, and inquired for Mr. Bingle. He turned out
to be the principal lawyer employed by Joseph Hooper's son and
daughters in their fight for the Grimwell millions--a Mr. Hoskins by
name. He might have been designated as General Hoskins, as a matter of
fact, for he was in actual command of a small army of lawyers, now
victorious after a long and bitter warfare.
"I am authorised by my clients, Mr. Bingle," said he, "to extend to
you the customary amenities in such cases, wherein a contest ends so
disastrously for one party or the other. We are not unmindful of the
teachings of 'The Christmas Carol.' Indeed, we have all read it with
great interest. Joseph Hooper's recommendations to his children in
regard to you--"
"Just a moment, please," interrupted Mr. Bingle. "Say it straight out,
Mr. Hoskins. Have they commissioned you to make provision for my
future out of the funds they are about to acquire?"
"In a measure, yes," said Mr. Hoskins, prepared to sneer at Mr.
Bingle's gleeful acceptance of charity. "Of course, nothing can be
done in the matter until the opinion of the Court is--"
"Nothing at all can be done in the matter," said Mr. Bingle acidly. "I
shall not accept a penny from them, Mr. Hoskins. They wouldn't accept
it from me, and I'm damned if I'll accept it from them. 'The Christmas
Carol' hasn't anything to do with the case. All I ask is a little time
in which to straighten out the affairs of the estate, and not to be
hurried in my actions. I promise you that I shall be as expeditious as
possible. In a day or two my counsel and I will be able to get started
on the work. It will be quite simple so far as I am concerned. I have
only to turn over to you everything in the world except our wearing
apparel--not all of that, you may be sure--and my part of the transfer
is completed. I had nothing when Joseph Hooper's money came to me, so,
you see, it will be quite easy for me to step down and out. I have
only to walk out of the house with my wife and children, without a
cent in my pockets, and the job is done. Everything else belongs to
Geoffrey and his sisters." Mr. Hoskins was disconcerted. He had come
prepared to be generous. "My dear sir, the fortunes of war have
militated against--"
"Better say the misfortunes of war," interrupted Mr. Bingle, with a
twinkle in his eye.
"I wish you wouldn't interrupt me every time I start to speak to you,
Mr. Bingle," said the lawyer. "I'm not accustomed to being--"
"I beg your pardon," again interrupted Mr. Bingle, and, because he
said it apologetically, Mr. Hoskins was not resentful.
"My clients are disposed to be fair and--I will not say charitable--
generous in their hour of triumph. Last evening they met and discussed
the problems confronting you, sir. They realise that you devoted a
great deal of your time and much of your slender means toward securing
the comfort of their lamented father--"
"And burying him," put in Mr. Bingle. "Don't forget that I buried
him."
"--and they are prepared to settle a certain amount upon you for life,
Mr. Bingle."
"Well, that's nice of them," said Mr. Bingle.
"The amount will be decided upon at some subsequent meeting. In the
meantime, you are to accept from them the sum of one thousand dollars
for the purpose of providing yourself with--"
"I've just got to interrupt, Mr. Hoskins. I do it for your own sake.
You are wasting time and words. I shan't take a penny, as I said
before. I will not allow them to settle a certain amount upon me.
That's flat, Mr. Hoskins. I know how to be poor a blamed sight better
than I know how to be rich. It won't be a new thing to me. I'll get
along, so don't you worry. I have kept the books for this estate ever
since I came into control of it, just because I like to be busy at
something I know how to do without asking the advice of the butler or
anybody else. The books and accounts have been kept straight up to
this very day. You can put your auditors and expert accountants at
work on them to-morrow, if you like, and you'll find that they balance
to a cent. So, you see, I've not allowed myself to get rusty with
prosperity."
"Most extraordinary," said Mr. Hoskins.
"When the time comes, I shall be able to turn over the estate a good
deal better than I found it. It has increased under my management. I
could not have begun to spend the income from the investments. Your
clients will find themselves in possession of an extra million or two
apiece to recompense them for their long wait. I do not expect or
solicit thanks for managing the estate while it was under my control.
Please tell them so, Mr. Hoskins."
"My clients are not disposed to exact a complete, minute accounting
from you, Mr. Bingle," said Mr. Hoskins, somewhat at a loss for means
to meet the unexpected. "Naturally we, as their attorneys, are
expected to ascertain the condition of the estate, and all that sort
of thing. I am quite sure that we will find it--er--in excellent
order."
"Before I forget it, perhaps I'd better mention one or two
expenditures that I have made in the past twenty-four hours," said Mr.
Bingle thoughtfully. "I have taken it upon myself to pay all of my
just debts before the order of the Court takes effect. In other words,
sir, I have settled in full with my attorneys, my doctors and my
servants. They are paid up to the minute, Mr. Hoskins."
The lawyer stared. "Do you mean to say that you have paid out of the
estate the fees--undoubtedly exorbitant--of these lawyers for the ten
years' fiddling they have been--"
"My doctor's name is Fiddler, sir," interrupted Mr. Bingle, looking so
hard into Mr. Hoskins' eyes that once more the interruption passed
unresented. "I have paid them all in full, if that's what you are
trying to get at."
"Don't you know that such an act is distinctly illegal?" demanded Mr.
Hoskins.
"So my lawyers informed me."
"And yet they permitted you to hand over to them large sums of money
in the nature of fees without waiting for an order of the Court,
knowing full well that an opinion had been handed down? It is
incomprehensible!"
"It shouldn't be incomprehensible to you, Judge Hoskins," said Mr.
Bingle gently. "You are a lawyer yourself."
"Am I to infer that you--What do you mean, sir?"
"I leave that entirely to you, sir."
Mr. Hoskins coughed, although there was nothing to indicate that it
was necessary.
"It is possible, sir, for my clients to bring suit against you for a
full accounting of all monies that you have expended or misused in--"
"I wouldn't say that, if I were you, Judge Hoskins."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Bingle. For all monies that belong or have
belonged to the estate of their father. I say it is possible for them
to do so--but not likely. You should not forget that this estate
virtually has been held in trust by you for all these years, pending
the final decision--a point agreed upon by my clients and yourself in
the desire to increase the value of--"
"If they feel inclined to bring such a suit, Mr. Hoskins, I shall not
combat it," said Mr. Bingle drily. "They may take judgment by default.
They are used to waiting by this time, so it won't be anything new for
them to wait a million years for what they'd get if they sued me. By
carefully hoarding a couple of dollars a year for a million years, I
fancy I could in the end be able to take care of the judgment. But it
hardly seems worth while, does it? It is barely possible that your
clients might die before that time is up, even though I should
survive."
"I fear that you do not realise that this is no joking matter, Mr.
Bingle," said Mr. Hoskins stiffly. He was not quite so pompous as when
he entered the house.
"I fear that you did not realise it either, Mr. Hoskins, when you
spoke of suing me."
"Ahem! And now, sir, when may we arrange for a conference over the
transfer of all properties now in your hands, or under your control,
as coming from the estate of the late Joseph Hooper?"
"You may call up my attorneys by telephone this afternoon, sir, and
arrange anything you like. They are still in my employ, according to
our agreement of yesterday. I've paid them to see that I have nothing
left when they get through with me, so there's nothing to worry about.
Confer with them, Mr. Hoskins, and when you are ready I'll come down
and do whatever is necessary in the premises. In the meantime, convey
my thanks to my cousins and say that when they refused to accept a
portion of the estate from me ten years ago they made it impossible
for me to accept anything from them now. What they were too proud to
accept, I also am too proud to take. Thank you for coming out to see
me, Mr. Hoskins. I know you are a very busy man, and I know it must
seem like a prodigious waste of time to be interesting yourself in the
affairs of a poor bookkeeper without a cent to his name. For that is
what I am, Mr. Hoskins: a poor bookkeeper without a cent to his name
but still a believer in 'The Christmas Carol.'"
"But that book actually was the cause of your undoing, sir. It--"
"It doesn't matter," said Mr. Bingle wearily. "It is a good book, just
the same. If you will excuse me now, I must go to the city. I have an
appointment right after luncheon with a man who is going to show me a
flat."
Mr. Hoskins surprised himself at this juncture--undeniably surprised
himself. "If you are going to the city at once, Mr. Bingle, perhaps
you will permit me to take you up in my car."
Mr. Bingle's smile was quizzical. "You HAVE got something out of 'The
Christmas Carol' then," he said, and Mr. Hoskins eventually had the
grace to redden perceptibly. He was slow in grasping the connection,
however.
The impoverished millionaire had a busy afternoon, and some annoying
mishaps--if they may be classified as such. In the first place, he
went to the bank and delivered his resignation as vice-president and
director. He handed it to Mr. Force and at the same moment applied for
his old job as bookkeeper. Mr. Force complimented him on his
promptness in both emergencies. It appears that the newspapers had
printed columns about the Bingle affair. Mr. Force was in possession
of all the facts. He had been interviewed by all of the reporters who
had failed to see Mr. Bingle and who had to be content with a
statement prepared and delivered by Flanders.
"Your resignation comes just in time, Bingle," he said. "We have a
meeting of the board to-morrow. And as for the position, I'm happy to
say you can have it almost immediately. Ramsey is leaving. I thought
of you this morning when my secretary mentioned the fact. And, by the
way, I don't mind saying that we hope to have the Hooper heirs
continue their holdings in the bank. The account, as you know, is a
large one and we don't want to lose it. Besides, Geoffrey Hooper is
the sort of a chap who will help the bank tremendously if we put him
on the board. He stands very high socially and is hand in glove with
the richest people in town. I am to see him at three o'clock. By Jove,
it's nearly three. Excuse me, Bingle, if I appear to hurry you off,
but--"
"I just wanted to ask how Kathleen is, Mr. Force," said Mr. Bingle,
who had not been asked to sit down.
"She's all right," said Mr. Force. "Good-bye, Bingle. Tell Bashford I
said you were to have Ramsey's place. And, by the way, if I can ever
be of any service to you, Bingle, I wish you'd call on me."
"Thanks. The job will be enough, I hope, Mr. Force."
Force suddenly lowered his eyes. "I'd ask you to come and see
Kathleen, Bingle, but--but we're trying to break the child of her
homesickness, of her longing to see you. Time, of course, will do it.
You will understand, of course, that it is better for her--and for all
of us--if she doesn't see you."
Mr. Bingle's face shone. "She--she still loves me, then?" he cried
softly.
Force compressed his lips, and then admitted: "Yes, Bingle, old
fellow, she DOES love you. And, hang it all, why shouldn't she? I--I
want her to love me and not you. I can't look at you without envy in
my soul--eating my soul, do you understand?--and I could almost hate
you for the start you got of me in those long years with her. Oh,
don't laugh at me, Bingle. Don't stand there grinning like a hyena. I
suppose it will please you to hear that the poor child cries nearly
every night of her life because she--she misses you. I--"
"You can bet it DOES please me," shouted Mr. Bingle.
"Wait, Bingle! Don't go. What am I to do? How am I going to put
sunshine back into that little girl's face? Lord, man, I--I can't
stand it much longer."
Mr. Bingle pondered. Then he laid his hat upon the table and took a
notebook and pencil from his pocket. While he scribbled, Force looked
on in perplexity.
"There!" said Mr. Bingle, tearing out the sheet and handing it to the
president of the bank. "You may read it, Mr. Force. Give it to her,
and see if she doesn't brighten up a bit."
Force read the note. He read it aloud, as if that was the only way to
get the full meaning of it.
"'Dear Kathleen: Your old daddy loves you. You must always love him,
and you must make your new daddy fetch you to see him some day. Come
and see Freddie and all the other kiddies. They will be so delighted
to see you, for they all love you. And if your new daddy will fetch
you to see your old daddy once in a while, I am sure you will come to
love your new daddy as much, if not more than you love your old
"DADDY BINGLE.'"
"Give that to her, Force, and maybe she'll put her arms around your
neck and kiss you," said Mr. Bingle, and went swiftly out of the room,
leaving Force staring at the bit of paper as if fascinated.
As he hurried from the bank, he met Rouquin, the foreign exchange
manager, who evidently had been lying in wait for him.
"How do you do, Rouquin?" said he, stopping to proffer his hand to the
Frenchman.
"See here, Mr. Bingle," began Rouquin, in an agitated undertone; "I
want a word or two with you about Napoleon. What is to become of that
child, now that you are down and out? Will he be sent to some accursed
charity home or--"
"Possess your soul in peace, Rouquin," said Mr. Bingle, drawing back
to look more intently into the unfriendly eyes of the once amiable
Rouquin. "Napoleon shall have the best I can give him, no more. He is
as well with me as he could ever have been with his good-for-nothing
father, and if I choose to get rid of him later on to the best
advantage I won't be doing anything more despicable than his father
and mother did before me. Please bear that in mind."
"I shall see to it that he is taken away from you before he is a week
older," cried Rouquin angrily. "You cannot expect me to leave that
helpless child--"
"What have you got to do with it, Rouquin?" demanded Mr. Bingle
sharply.
"I am his mother's friend. I promised her that he should have a fine
home. I swore to her that he should never know want or hardship or--"
"There is only one way for you to take Napoleon away from me," said
Mr. Bingle, as Rouquin floundered for words to express himself. "And
that is to come up like a man and say that you are his father.
Whenever you can do that and whenever you can show me that you and his
mother are married to each other, I'll give him up to you, but not
before, you scum of the earth!"
Rouquin went very red in the face and then very pale, and his thin
lips set themselves in a ghastly smile.
"Good day, Rouquin," said Mr. Bingle, and went out of the bank.
Mr. Epps was annoyed because his customer kept him waiting for nearly
half-an-hour. He was exceedingly crabbed and disagreeable as they set
out to look at the flat which was to be the Bingle home, provided the
rent was paid regularly and promptly.
CHAPTER XV
DECEMBER
The proverbial church-mouse was no worse off than Mr. Bingle at the
end of the fifth month of his reduction. Indeed, it is more than
probable that the church-mouse would be conceded a distinct advantage
in many particulars. A very small nest will accommodate a very large
family of growing mice; the tighter they are packed in the nest the
better off they are in zero weather. Moreover, in a pinch, the
parental church-mouse may stave off famine by resorting to a
cannibalistic plan of economy, thereby saving its young the trouble of
growing up to become proverbial church-mice. It may devour its young
when it becomes painfully hungry, and not be held accountable to the
law. With commendable frugality, the church-mouse first eats off the
tail of its offspring. Then, if luck continues to be bad, the
remainder may be despatched with due and honest respect for the laws
of nature.
Now, with Mr. Bingle, it was quite out of the question for him to
devour even so small a morsel as Napoleon without getting into serious
trouble with the law, and it was equally impossible to obtain the same
degree of comfort for his young by packing them into a four room flat.
And then the church-mouse doesn't have to think about shoes and
stockings and mittens and ear-muffs, to say nothing of frocks and
knickerbockers. So he who speaks of another as being "as poor as a
church-mouse" does a grave injustice to a really prosperous creature,
despite the fact that it lives in a church and is employed in the
rather dubious occupation of supporting a figure of speech. Look
carefully into the present law of economics, if you please, and then
grant the church-mouse the benefit of the doubt.
Mr. Bingle's flat could be found by traversing a very mean street in
the lower east side not far removed from the Third Avenue Elevated
tracks. Discovery required the mounting of four flights of stairs by
foot, and two turns to the right in following the course of the
narrow, dark hallway which led in a round-about sort of way to a fire
escape that invited a quicker and less painful death than destruction
by flames in case one had to choose between the two means of
perishing.
Four rooms and a kitchen was all that Mr. Bingle's flat amounted to.
The four rooms contained beds; in the kitchen there was a collapsible
cot. In one of the rooms (ordinarily it would have been the parlour),
there was a somewhat futile sheet-iron stove in which soft coal or
wood could be used provided the wind was in the right direction. This
was, in fact, the parlour. The bed, by day, assumed the dignity of a
broad but saggy lounge, exceedingly comfortable if one was careful to
sit far enough forward to avoid slipping into its cavernous depths
from which there was no escape without assistance. Besides being the
parlour, it was also the library, the study-room, the dining-room and
reception hall. By night, it was the bed-chamber of Mr. Bingle.
At the beginning of the cold snap that arrived quite early in
December, it also became the sleeping place of Rutherford, Rosemary
and Harold, the tiniest of the children, who piled in with the
uncomplaining occupant and kept him awake three-fourths of the night
trying to determine whose legs were uncovered and whose were not. With
six exceedingly active little legs wriggling in as many different
directions in pitch darkness, it was no easy matter, you may be sure,
to decide whether any two belonged to the same individual, and when it
came to pass that three of them were exposed at the same time the
puzzle was indeed a difficult one.
Napoleon's crib also made its way into the parlour when the cold
weather came; and while Napoleon's legs stayed under cover pretty well
his voice, like Chanticleer's, arose before the sun. Frederick,
Wilberforce and Reginald slept in one room, Marie Louise, Henrietta
and Guinevere in another. In pleasant weather, Rosemary joined her
sisters, while Harold and Rutherford fell in with the other boys.
There never was a time, however, when Mr. Bingle did not have a bed-
fellow in the shape of one or the other of the two small boys.
The fourth room was occupied by the maid-of-all-work, and as it was
primarily intended to be the servant's bedroom it is not necessary to
state that there was space for but one full grown person inside its
four walls. The collapsible cot in the kitchen represented the
foundation of an emergency guest chamber. Up to the present it had not
been called into use, but it was always there in readiness for the
expected and unexpected.
It will be observed that no account is taken of Mrs. Bingle. The
explanation is quite simple. She went to live with her mother and
sister at Peekskill on the advice of Dr. Fiddler almost immediately
after the Supreme Court's opinion was handed down. Later on, she came
down to the city with her mother, who now received a small but
sufficient income through the death and will of a fairly well-to-do
bachelor brother. The old lady took a house in the Bronx and once a
week Mr. Bingle journeyed northward by subway and surface lines to
visit his wife. A smart little doctor from Dr. Fiddler's staff made
occasional visits to the Bronx and looked the part of a wiseacre when
Mr. Bingle appealed to him for encouragement. He smiled knowingly and
refused to commit himself beyond a more or less reassuring squint, a
pursing of the lips, and the usual statement that if nothing happened
she would be as fit as ever in the course of time.
The cot in the kitchen was for Mr. Bingle in case Mrs. Bingle decided
to come back to him in health as well as in person. He consoled
himself with the daily hope that she would come dashing in upon him,
as well as ever and in perfect sympathy with his decision to protect
the helpless children they had gathered about them in their years of
affluence.
He had stood out resolutely against all contention that the children
should be cast upon the world once more. Harsh words were used at
times by interested friends in their efforts to bring him to his
senses. They urged him to let them find homes or asylums for the
rapacious youngsters; they described them as so many Sindbads; they
spoke of them as millstones about the neck of a man who could never
get his head above water unless he cut loose from them; they argued
long and insistently about his mistaken ideas of justice,
responsibility, affection. He came back at them always with the
patient declaration that he would stand by the bargain made by himself
and his wife so long as God saw fit to give him the strength to earn a
living for their charges.
"Why, confound you, Bingle," said Mr. Force to him one day at the
bank, "one would think that you still regard yourself as a
millionaire, the way you hang onto those kids. Cut them adrift, old
fellow. Or if you won't do that, at least let some of us help you in a
pecuniary way. Don't be so infernally proud and self-satisfied. It
wouldn't be charity. It would be justice. Now, see here, I've argued
this thing with you for three months or more and I'm getting tired of
your everlasting serenity. I know you are hard put to find enough
money to clothe and feed these kids, besides buying what your wife may
need. You are beginning to look shabby and you certainly are thinner
and greyer. What you ought to do, Bingle, is to turn those kids over
to a Home of some sort and settle down to a normal way of living.
Winter is coming on. You will have a devil of a time providing for ten
small children and a sick wife on the salary you are getting here.
Now, for heaven's sake, old fellow, take my advice. Get rid of 'em.
You owe it to your wife, Bingle. She ought--"
"I owe it to my wife to take care of them alone, now that she is
unable to do her part," said Mr. Bingle simply. "We took them as
partners, so to speak. She is unable to manage her share of the
liability. Well, I'll do her part for her, Mr. Force, so long as I'm
able. The time may come when I shall have to appeal for help, or give
up the struggle altogether, but it isn't here yet. I can manage for a
while, thank you. Besides," and his face brightened, "we may have a
very mild winter, and the new tariff is just as likely as not to
reduce the cost of living, no matter what you croakers say to the
contrary. I've talked it over with Mrs. Bingle. She says she can't
come home until she is very much better, and I'll admit that the
children would be a dreadful strain upon her nerves at present. But
she says I'm to do just as I think best in regard to them. She thinks
I'm foolish--in fact, she says so--but I think I understand her better
than any one else. Down in her heart she knows I'm doing the right
thing. We'll wait, like old Micawber, for something to turn up. If it
doesn't turn up in a reasonable length of time, then I'll consider
what is best to do with the children."
"Are you considering your own health, Bingle?" demanded Force bluntly.
"No," said Mr. Bingle simply. "I've lived a decent, sensible life, so
what's the use worrying over something that can't be helped?" His
smile was cheerful, the twinkle in his eyes was as bright as though it
had never known a dim moment.
"You should accept the standing offer of the Hooper heirs," said
Force. "They are disposed to be fair and square, Bingle. Three
thousand a year isn't to be sneezed at."
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