Part 26 (1/2)
(”Isn't it a scream?” said Stefanie.) II.
O Cyst, from thine ovarial perch descended,
Poor Cyst, arrested in thy bloom and apprehended!
Once happy parasite, no longer canst thou sit
'Mongst companion entrails, where thou wert wont to flit
Poor abstracted Cyst! Ah, what fate could be sadder
Than to have to leave thy fellows-kidney, womb, and bladder!
But grimmest of all that heartless stroke, that sharp-edged blow
That cut thee from thy paramour-O woe!
Come, dry thy tears, good Cyst; in thy bitter grief take heart:
E'en the best of Cysts from his Ovary at length must part
So the G.o.ds decree. Now farewell, O wistful Cyst,
Farewell-for thou never wilt be missed.
-Euphoria Karp ”I told you she's a riot!” my companion burst out as I lifted my eyes from these unusual verses. ”She writes a lot of stuff like that. For all the big magazines. Once she did one on getting your arm broken and having to wear a sling, and once on a slipped disc. That one was an absolute howl.”
”Are all her themes surgical?” I asked, not caring to dispute this literary pa.s.sion. If Mrs. Karp's couplets were to be correctly cla.s.sified as mock heroic, then my own heroism in having read them must be acclaimed as altogether genuine.
”I guess so. But even if they're not,” said Stefanie, reluctant to disappoint, ”she's practically famous anyhow, on account of Skunk on Sundays-that's a book she did once. It's supposed to be hilarious: even Qur school library has it.”
”Writing a book doesn't necessarily make you famous,” I countered. ”My mother wrote one years ago. It was a best-seller but it didn't make her famous.”
”Except in Russia. In Russia they even write articles about your mother's book. I've heard all about that.”
”You have?” I exclaimed.
”Sure! What d'you think William's talking to Karp about? Come on, I'll show you,” and she led me away, marching gaily ahead of me with her rolled-up magazine stabbing the air like a baton and her remarkable little feet spurning the carpet beneath them.
A morose curiosity made me keep up with her. We raced past all the secretarial nooks and dashed over the threshold of the clamorous room where the festive talkers swarmed; but no sooner had we plunged into the margins of the throng than the Cabbages converged. ”Gimpy's looking for you, Fannie,” said one; ”Knell said you'd gone to the head; I told Beets no one was in there but some little coolie with a comb,” insisted another, ”and so you missed the best thing. You'll never guess!”
”You got the gin in the cooler,” Stefanie guessed.
”Lordy, you're off the track!-Hoofy found a contraband Onion!”
”No! That's nerve! Which one was it?”
”Of all people, fat little Silverpants. She came right in and walked straight up to your fiance and said she was from Miss Jewett's and her name was Sylvia Prantz and as a friend of the future bride she wanted to congratulate him-”
”What gall!” yelled half the Cabbages.
”Friend!” yelled the other half in disdain.
”-and so he actually shook hands with her,” the narrator concluded indignantly. ”Hoofy saw the whole thing from start to finish.”
”No kidding! What'd she do?”
”Quick called a war council. With everybody looking we couldn't throw her out, so Stookie said did she want some cake and old Silverpants said sure, and Stookie said well, there's none left out there and the rest's in there, through that door, come on, and bang! locked her up.”
”Locked her up!” Stefanie squealed. ”Where?”
”Right there,” said one of the meeker Cabbages, pointing to a door. ”She's been quiet as a mouse all the time. She's a good prisoner all right.”
”Last time they caught one of us was at Toodles' Christmas thing, remember? When that New Haven creep threw up?”
”You're the morbid one, Hoofy,” protested a very long Cabbage. ”They nearly tossed me out the window. If Stookie hadn't called the Fire Department they would've, too.”
”Good old Stookie!” applauded all the Cabbages together; it made a wondrous roar, into which Stefanie herself disappeared, while the room revolved its multiple head to see what it was all about; and William, who was far off under a window, turned too, and gravely took my glance.
I had to go to him, then, and made my way through Cabbages and clerks and novice lawyers and finally an unexpected puddle which the broadloom was wearily soaking up, to where solemn William glowered. ”Water in the rug,” I said with a try at a pleasantry, ”has there been an accident with the water cooler?”
”Not an accident,” he said grimly, and introduced me to his confederates.
There were three: Connelly; Professor Karp; and, thin as a crane, behind a ruffled jabot like a crane's breast, Euphoria Karp.