Books: Mr. Bingle
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George Barr McCutcheon >> Mr. Bingle
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"The Hooper heirs are sneezing at it, so why shouldn't I?" said Mr.
Bingle cheerily.
"I suppose you'll read that ridiculous Christmas Carol on Christmas
Eve," said Force sarcastically.
"Certainly," said Mr. Bingle. "That reminds me; I wish you'd let
Kathleen come down to see us on Christmas Eve. I think she'd enjoy the
reading."
"I'll do it, Bingle," said Force after a moment. "Since she has been
allowed to go down to see you and those kids of yours, her whole view
of life has changed. You were right, old fellow. I believe she likes
me better as time goes on. At any rate, she is quite gay and happy,
and she doesn't look at me with scared eyes any longer. She kissed me
as if she really meant it the other day when I told her she could have
Freddy up to tea. I'd like to suggest, however, that you see to it
that the flat is thoroughly aired and all the germs blown out before
she comes down again to--"
"You needn't worry, Mr. Force," said Bingle without a sign of
resentment in his manner. "We can't help airing the flat. Our greatest
problem is to keep from airing it. There isn't a minute of the day
that it isn't being aired."
Besides Mr. Force, who was a friend by circumstance and not from
choice, Bingle possessed two loyal and devoted friends in Diggs and
Watson, proprietors of the Covent Garden Consolidated Fruit Company of
Columbus Avenue, Manhattan. They would have supplied him with
vegetables and cured meats without charge if the thing could have been
accomplished without his knowledge. They came often to see him, Watson
bringing his wife, the former Miss Stokes, and many a night was made
cheerful for the little man by these good sprites from another world.
Mr. Diggs resignedly awaited the day when Mr. Bingle's maid-of-all-
work could see her way clear to become Mrs. Diggs, and the equal of
Mrs. Watson, if not her superior by virtue of the position of her
husband's name on the firm's business cards. But if Diggs was
devotedly loyal to Melissa, Melissa was equally loyal to Mr. Bingle.
Fifteen years of kindness had not been wasted on this extraordinary
servant. She was as true as she was unique in this age of
abominations.
The older children went to a public school not far away, and Melissa
looked after the young ones through the long, slow days, relieved only
from her self-imposed duties when Mr. Bingle came home from the bank.
Neither Melissa nor Mr. Bingle had had a full day off in all these
months, and neither complained. When Sunday came, he always urged her
to spend it with friends, leaving him to attend to the midday meal and
dinner, but she firmly, even arrogantly, refused to permit any one to
meddle with her kitchen. She forced him to go to the Bronx every
Sunday afternoon, whether he would or no, and demanded a staggering
decrease in wages.
"Why, Mr. Bingle," she said, "you can't expect me to work for the same
pay I was getting out at Seawood. Don't be silly, sir; wasn't I
getting more out there than the butler got? And didn't I save nearly
every cent of it for eight years and more? I was getting twenty-five
dollars a week out there, wasn't I? And Mr. Diggs was getting only a
hundred dollars a month, wasn't he? Well, how much could you afford to
pay a butler now if you had one, sir? Two dollars a week at the
outside, find himself. Well, I still feel I'm worth more to you than
any butler you could get, so I'll have to insist on three dollars a
week when convenient. I put away about eight thousand dollars while I
was working for you at Seawood. It's in the savings banks now, every
nickel of it, drawing three and a half and four per cent., or about
twenty-five dollars a month, sir. Twelve and twenty-five makes thirty-
seven a month, don't it? That's more than most girls are getting, and
it's certainly more than any of 'em is worth, judging from what I've
seen. So if you'll just consider that I'm getting thirty-seven a month
out of you, Mr. Bingle, we won't argue any longer."
"But, my dear Melissa, we must consider poor Diggs. It isn't fair to
keep him waiting. I fear I shall have to discharge you. It seems to be
the only way to make you and Diggs happy. I shall discharge you
without a recommendation, too. We can't have Diggs dying of old age
while we are discussing what is to become of him. It is your duty to
marry Diggs at once. You must remember that I do not want you in my
employ. You must not forget that I told you so six months ago and that
I even tried to lock you out. Now, you certainly do not care to work
for a man who despises you, who doesn't want you around, who is doing
his level best to get rid of you, who--"
"Oh, shucks, Mr. Bingle!" cried Melissa, with her comely grin. "Sit
down and have your breakfast now. Don't worry about Mr. Diggs. He is
having the time of his life courting me. At least, he acts as if he
is. It won't hurt him to be engaged for a couple of years."
"But see how happy Watson is."
"I see all right," she said shrewdly; "and it won't hurt Mr. Diggs to
see how happy he is, either."
"You are the most selfish girl I've ever known, Melissa," said he
quaintly. "You won't let anybody else have a thing to say about it,
will you?"
"No, sir," said Melissa. "I'm a perfect brute."
Mr. Epps was a regular visitor. He came once a month and never later
than the first. The rent was twenty-two dollars a month. Mr. Epps was
always expecting that it wouldn't be paid. He never failed to make a
point of telling Mr. Bingle that he was what you might call a soft-
hearted lummix and for that reason it always went hard with him to
evict a tenant for not paying his rent on the minute. He talked a
great deal about the people he had chucked out into the street and how
unhappy the life of a renting agent could be at times. Once he gave
Mr. Bingle a cigar.
"Sure I'm not robbing you?" said Mr. Bingle.
"No," said Mr. Epps. "I don't smoke."
There was one Broadway theatre in which it was impossible to obtain
seats unless they were applied for weeks in advance. The leading lady
in the company playing there was not so important a personage that she
could deny herself the pleasant sensation of being a real woman, and
the author of the play was not so high and mighty that one had to use
a ten-foot pole in touching him.
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Sheridan Flanders paid frequent visits to the
home of Mr. Bingle. The beautiful and popular Miss Colgate, the
sensation of the early season and a certain candidate for stellar
honours, never came to see the young Bingles without betraying a
spirit of generosity which sometimes caused Mr. Bingle to sit up half
the night treating stomach-aches of all ages and degrees. She brought
candy and cakes and fruit for the children, and flowers for Mr.
Bingle. She would have come laden with more substantial and less
pernicious presents but for the gentle objections of her old friend
and benefactor. In the face of his kindly protests, she abandoned
certain well-meant, even cherished ideas, and was often sore at heart.
Dick Flanders had found a producer after all. His hopes, considerably
dashed by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, were at a
low ebb when a practically unknown manager from the Far West concluded
that there was more to his play than the wise men of the East were
able to discern at a glance. With more sense than intelligence, the
Westerner leaped into the heart of New York with a new play by a new
author and scored a success from the opening night. Amy Colgate, an
unknown actress, became famous in a night, so to speak. After the
holidays, there would be a company playing the piece in Chicago, and
another doing the "big stands" throughout the length and breadth of
the land. So much for Mr. Flanders' play and Miss Amy Colgate.
Mr. Bingle never ceased congratulating himself and his two successful
friends on the fact that he had not invested a cent of the Hooper
fortune in the production. For, said he, if he had put a penny into
it, the Hooper heirs would now be dividing the profits with Flanders.
"Luck was with us for once, Dick," he was prone to repeat. "A week
later and we would have been desperately involved. I would have put up
the initial ten thousand dollars for the production and you would have
been saddled with Geoffrey and his sisters, perhaps for life--and I
can't imagine anything more unnecessary than that. Yes, sir, the smash
came just in the nick o' time. What at first appeared to you to be a
calamity turned out to be a God-send, my boy. The Supreme Court
behaved handsomely by you."
This always brought out a vigorous protest from Mr. and Mrs. Flanders.
They stoutly maintained that Mr. Bingle was an original partner in the
enterprise, and, when it came right down to tacks, had put quite as
much capital into the business as either of them. They contended that
he should have a share in the royalties, if not in the profits.
"As a matter of fact, Mr. Bingle, you made so many valuable
suggestions in respect to the play--dialogues, construction and so
forth--that you really ought to take some of the consequences," said
Flanders. "It isn't fair to put all the blame upon me. For instance,
who was responsible for cutting out that scene in the second act?"
"Mrs. Bingle," said the other promptly. "She thought it was too
suggestive."
"Well, it certainly was you, sir, who advised me to make more of the
scene between Deborah and the old gentleman in the last act. As you
know, it is now the great scene in the play. You will not pretend to
deny--"
"Advice is one thing, Dick, and following it is quite another. No, you
can't make me believe that I did anything toward writing that play. A
man who didn't know the difference between a cue line and a back drop
can't very well be indicted for complicity. To tell you the truth,
Mrs. Flanders, I don't know to this day what those initials, 'L. U.
E.' stand for, and a lot of other initials as well. Pride kept me from
inquiring. I didn't want to expose my ignorance about a thing that you
and Dick talked about so glibly. What does 'L. U. E.' mean?"
"'Left Upper Entrance,' Mr. Bingle," said she with a laugh.
"Well, I'm glad the mystery is revealed at last. I've laid awake
nights trying to conjure up words to fit those letters. 'R. U. E.'
means 'right,' I suppose. Dear me, how simple it seems, after all."
"Now, see here, Mr. Bingle," Flanders would say, "you went into
partnership with me last winter, that's the long and short of it. It
wasn't your fault that you couldn't put up the money according to our
agreement, but I want to say to you that if it hadn't been for your
encouragement and advice I never would have finished the play and I
certainly could not have scraped up the courage to get married when I
did. Amy and I have always looked upon you as a partner in our
success. Now, I'll tell you precisely what we've decided upon as a
fair division of the royalties that I am receiving. You are to take
the author's royalty from the number three company--the one that is to
play the 'road' for this season and next. It is to be a three cornered
arrangement. Amy helped to develop the play, so she is to have the
royalty from the Chicago company, while I shall receive all that comes
out of the New York run. This arrangement will hold good for two
seasons. After that, we'll make a new arrangement, taking in the stock
rights, moving pictures and--"
But Mr. Bingle would listen to no more. Always when Flanders got just
so far in his well-meant, earnest propositions, the object of his
concern would stop him in such a gentle, dignified manner that the
young playwright would flush with the consciousness that he had given
offence to an honest soul.
Mr. Bingle defeated every enterprise on the part of his few friends
that had the appearance of charity. He accepted their good intentions,
he delighted in their thoughtfulness and esteem, but he never
permitted them to go beyond a certain well-defined line. The argument
that he had been generous, even philanthropic, in his days of
prosperity was invariably met by the quaint contention that while the
Good Book teaches charity, the dictionary makes a point of defining
it, and "you can't spell charity, my friend, with the letters that are
allotted to generosity. So don't quote the Bible to me."
He put a stop to the cunning schemes of Diggs and Watson, who, with
Melissa's connivance, began a regular and systematic attempt to
smuggle bacon, eggs, butter and potatoes into the kitchen. This
project of theirs at first comprehended vegetables of every
description and fruits as well, but the sagacious house-maid vetoed
anything so wholesale as all that. She agreed that the accidental
delivery of a side of bacon, or a mistake in the counting of a dozen
eggs, or the overweighing and undercharging of a pound of butter, or
the perfectly natural error of sending a peck and a half of potatoes
when only a peck was ordered, might escape the keen observation of Mr.
Bingle, but that anything more noticeable would cause the good
gentleman to take his trade elsewhere. As she said to the distressed
Diggs one evening, after carefully observing that the kitchen door was
closed: "When I order a half ton of coal from you for the parlour
stove, there's no sense in you weighing it out by ounces. Guess at it,
and then after you've guessed as near right as you know how, double
the amount. Mr. Bingle isn't going to weigh the coal, you know. And
when it comes to rice and hominy and cooking apples and all such
things, just let your imagination do the measuring. If a pound of
coffee happens to look like a pound and a half to you, don't forget
the extra cups you used to have every afternoon at Seawood. And if I
should happen to send for the cheapest tea you've got in stock, don't
overlook the fact that there is an expensive kind. Once in a while you
might make ME a present of a couple of dozen oranges, some bananas and
nuts, and you might sometimes ask Mr. Bingle to sample a new brand of
smoking tobacco you're thinking of carrying."
"But we sha'n't carry tobaccos," said Mr. Diggs, who aside from being
a good soul was also British.
"All the more reason why you should be THINKING of carrying 'em, isn't
it, you stupid?"
Mr. Bingle saw the opening performance of the Flanders play and went
behind the scenes afterward. He did this, he explained, so that he
could describe his sensations to Mrs. Bingle. He was introduced to all
of the players and they were so uniformly polite that he fell into a
fine fury the next morning on reading the newspaper review in which
they were described as "unintentionally adequate."
He knew as well as every one else that it would be impossible for him
to keep the children on the salary he was receiving at the bank. He
knew that the day was not far off when he would have to give them up.
His fellow bookkeepers harangued him from morning till night. They
made themselves obnoxious with their everlasting talk about being
unable to support families one-fourth the size of his; and one or two
slyly inquired whether he hadn't "salted away" a part of the Hooper
money for a perpetual spell of rainy weather. In justice to the
children themselves it would be necessary for him, before long, to set
about finding suitable, respectable homes for them. It was this
unhappy sense of realisation that put the new furrows in his brow and
took the colour out of his cheek, the lustre from his eyes.
One day he was approached by Rouquin, volatile and cheery as in the
days of old. The sprightly Frenchman was beaming with friendliness and
good spirits. He conveyed a startling bit of personal news to Mr.
Bingle without the slighest trace of shame or embarrassment.
"Well, Mr. Bingle, I have married her," he said shrugging his
shoulders in a manner that might have signified either extreme
satisfaction with himself or lamentation over the inevitable. "The day
before yesterday. I am now a proud and happy father, old friend."
"Father?" murmured Mr. Bingle, bewildered. "You--mean bridegroom,
Rouquin."
"So I do," cried Rouquin amiably. "But you forget Napoleon--little
Napoleon," he went on gaily.
"You have married Napoleon's mother?"
"Le diable! But who else, M'sieur? The charming, adorable Mademoiselle
Vallemont. Ah, my good friend, I am so happy. I am--"
"Vallemont? But Madame Rousseau--you seem to forget that she is the
mother of Napoleon. You--"
"Nevertheless," said Rouquin, with a gay sweep of his hand before
laying it tenderly upon his heart, "I have married the mother of
Napoleon. Alas, my good friend, Madame Rousseau is no more. She died
when she was but one day old. And her excellent husband, the splendid
Jean, he also is a thing of the past. Now there is no one left but
Madame Rouquin and me and that adorable Napoleon. Vive l'Emperor!
Come, M'sieur, congratulate me. See! This cablegram provides Napoleon
with a father. But for what this little bit of paper says, the poor
enfant might have gone fatherless to his grave. See! It says here that
my wife has died. Read for yourself, M'sieur. It is in French, but
what matter? I shall translate. 'Raoul Rouquin: Blanche died to-day.
Good luck.' See, it is signed 'Pierre.' Pierre he is my brother. He
lives in Paris. Ah, so long have I waited! You may never know my
despair--never, M'sieur. But my wife she has died, so all is well. The
day before yesterday I was married. I take--"
"For heaven's sake, Rouquin," gasped Mr. Bingle; "not so fast! I don't
know what you are talking about."
"Ah, it is so simple," sighed Rouquin, looking upon Mr. Bingle with
pity in his eyes. "Can you not see? So long as my wife was alive I
could not be married. Is that not plain to you? Then she dies. Quick!
Instantly I am married. Voila! It is so simple."
Mr. Bingle comprehended at last. "I see. You have had a wife in Paris
all these years, eh?"
"Mon Dieu! Yes, all these years," groaned Rouquin, rolling his eyes.
"See! See what my brother Pierre says: 'Blanche died to-day. Good
luck.' Good luck! Mon Dieu, M'sieur, is it possible that you do not
know what 'good luck' means?"
"And you have married Madame Rous--or whatever her name is?"
"So quick as that!" cried Rouquin, snapping his fingers. "And now,
M'sieur, when may I come to take little Napoleon home to his mother?"
Thus it came about that Napoleon was the first to go. Amid great pomp
and ceremony, he departed from the home of the many Bingles on a
bright, clear day in December, shortly after banking hours, attended
by his own mother and father.
CHAPTER XVI
ANOTHER CHRISTMAS EVE
Christmas was drawing near. The Bingle children, accustomed to
manifold and expensive presents, were in a state of doubt and hope
combined. The older ones realised that while Santa would not pass them
by without a sign, there was every reason to believe that he would not
deliver the things for which they slyly petitioned, the things they
most desired. They had been brought up to receive all that they
expected and the prospect ahead for them was not reassuring from the
viewpoint their intelligence forced them to take. There were secret
lamentations and not a few surly discussions in the absence of Mr.
Bingle.
Melissa took the older boys to task for some of the things they said
about their foster father. Frederick was the chief offender. He knew
that Mr. Bingle's pocket-book was the real Santa Claus, and he wanted
a pair of skates and a hockey outfit. Something told him that he would
be compelled to accept in lieu of these necessities a silly overcoat
or a pair of shoes from the cheap department store up the street. He
was too young and no doubt too selfish to admit that he was by way of
outgrowing his clothes at least once if not twice a year, or that
there is such a spectre as wear and tear. He became sullen, irritable
and not infrequently rude to Mr. Bingle. Once when Melissa sharply
rebuked him for his ingratitude, he came back at her with an argument
that baffled her for the time being: he could not see why Mr. Bingle
had been so good to Kathleen. Why had she been given a rich, happy
home while he and all of the others were brought to a place like this?
Melissa, finding no immediate response to this, boxed his ears.
The younger members of the brood were not involved in this graceless
agitation. The complaints stopped with Guinivere. Harold, Rosemary and
Rutherford were too young to realise the state of destitution into
which the family had fallen. They were quite happy, contented and, so
far, unaware of the gravity of a situation which was more or less
apparent to their elders. Frederick, Marie Louise and Wilberforce
formed the higher group of malcontents, and their mutterings reached
the acute ears of a second and less formidable group composed of
Reginald, Henrietta and Guinivere. The influence of the three older
children, envied and imitated by the next three in order of age, was
responsible for the inclusion of this second group in the general
tendency toward unruliness and resentfulness.
Mr. Bingle sensed this unhappy condition of affairs. His soul was
sorely tried. Was he doing the right thing by these children? He was
doing his best, but was his best all that they were entitled to under
the circumstances? Was he depriving them of a bigger chance in life?
He had taken them out of the byways, but was he leading them to the
highways? The whining, peevish submission on the part of the larger
boys and girls; the unmistakable interrogation that always lurked in
their eyes; the frequent outbursts of temper; the quarrels that came
up every day among them--all of these went to prove they were sliding
back into the byways. There was no gainsaying that, he would say to
himself. Insolence, insubordination grew apace. Once Frederick, in the
heat of passion over a well-deserved rebuke, called him a "damned old
fool."
Moreover, was he doing right by Mrs. Bingle? Was it possible that she
might never come back to him who loved her more than he could have
loved even a child of his own? Would he be the one to blame?
And so it came about that he finally consented to listen to the
suggestions of the cold and unemotional Mrs. Force.
The wife of the president of the bank was the sort of person who gets
into the newspapers by all the hooks and crooks known to her sex. To
begin with, she made charity a business. As Chairman of two or three
organizations declaring for the betterment of society, high and low,
she was quoted on nearly every question that came up for discussion in
the public prints. She recognised the advantage in her day of being an
anti-suffragist. She saw the value of associating herself with the
movement to create and maintain a bureau for the distribution of high
class literature among low class readers, and she belonged to a
society which elevated the stage by giving Sunday night dress
rehearsals for the benefit of destitute millionaires. She had a
conspicuous box at the Opera, and encouraged the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals by appearing at the Horse Show in
Madison Garden without spurs.
But it was as President of the Society for the Restoration of King
Manuel to the throne of Portugal that she arose above the ordinary
multitude of publicity seekers. This was a movement so unique and so
suggestive of pomp that many of the prominent show-girls tried to
promote themselves into royal notice by joining the society. They were
almost unanimously in favour of the Restoration. Mrs. Force was
constantly being interviewed about the hopes and designs of King
Manuel, and she was always quoted as saying that the "time is not yet
ripe for the unfolding of our plans or I would be only too happy to
tell you everything--and I may be able to give you something of
interest next week if you will call me up."
Soon after the Bingle disaster, she allied herself with a Society for
the Relief of Incompetent Parents, and later on took up the cause of
Children's Rights and Wrongs. Quite palpably it was Mr. Bingle's
dilemma that inspired her to interest herself in these hitherto
neglected enterprises. She began her duties as a member and supporter
of the causes by at once declaring war upon poor Mr. Bingle. She put
him into a state of siege before he even suspected that hostilities
had begun, and then constituted herself Red Cross nurse, sanitary
expert, peace intermediary, and everything else that she could think
of at the time.
Operations began in November. She had Mr. Bingle brought into her
husband's private office at the bank, and there she explained the
motives and objects of the Society and talked unrestrainedly of the
rights of little children, calmly assuming that the astonished
bookkeeper had no rights of his own and therefore was not entitled to
a word in the shape of interruption.
"Purely as a matter of humanity, Mr. Bingle, it is necessary for the
Society to take these children away from you. We are taking children
away from their natural parents every day and finding suitable homes
for them, so it isn't reasonable for you to stand in our way,
realising, as you must, that you are not the father of a single one of
those poor innocents, all of whom are morally if not legally the
property of this or kindred societies. We do not recognise the rights
of a parent, so why should we consider those of one who attempts,
through a mistaken idea of benevolence, to direct the future, the
destiny of--ah--the destiny of--But surely you know what I mean, Mr.
Bingle. Now, I am not questioning the sincerity of your motives. I am
heartily in accord with the original inspiration which led you to take
these poor waifs into your home. But, don't you see, the idea works
both ways. Charity begins at home, to be sure, but I submit that it
all depends upon the character of the home. I do not call a four room
flat a home. It may be all right for charity to begin there, in a
small way, but it shouldn't drive out common sense, Mr. Bingle. The
Society will take these children off of your hands. It will provide
for them in every way. Come, now, give me a complete list of the
little ones and--"
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