Part 32 (1/2)

There was almost a sob in his voice.

”He hasn't spoken definitely as yet,” Fowler went on, ”but we know there's hardly any chance of his staying.”

”Does he give any reason?” I asked.

”Nothing specific,” said Fowler. ”It's just a sheer case of incompatibility. Meadows doesn't like us.”

He put his hand over his face and was silent.

I left very quietly a little later, without going up to the drawing-room. A few days afterwards I heard that Meadows had gone. The Ashcroft-Fowlers, I am told, are giving up in despair. They are going to take a little suite of ten rooms and four baths in the Grand Palaver Hotel, and rough it there for the winter.

Yet one must not draw a picture of the rich in colours altogether gloomy. There are cases among them of genuine, light-hearted happiness.

I have observed this is especially the case among those of the rich who have the good fortune to get ruined, absolutely and completely ruined. They may do this on the Stock Exchange or by banking or in a dozen other ways. The business side of getting ruined is not difficult.

Once the rich are ruined, they are, as far as my observation goes, all right. They can then have anything they want.

I saw this point ill.u.s.trated again just recently. I was walking with a friend of mine and a motor pa.s.sed bearing a neatly dressed young man, chatting gaily with a pretty woman. My friend raised his hat and gave it a jaunty and cheery swing in the air as if to wave goodwill and happiness.

”Poor old Edward Overjoy!” he said, as the motor moved out of sight.

”What's wrong with him?” I asked.

”Hadn't you heard?” said my friend. ”He's ruined--absolutely cleaned out--not a cent left.”

”Dear me!” I said. ”That's awfully hard. I suppose he'll have to sell that beautiful motor?”

My friend shook his head.

”Oh, no,” he said. ”He'll hardly do that. I don't think his wife would care to sell that.”

My friend was right. The Overjoys have not sold their motor. Neither have they sold their magnificent sandstone residence. They are too much attached to it, I believe, to sell it. Some people thought they would have given up their box at the opera. But it appears not. They are too musical to care to do that. Meantime it is a matter of general notoriety that the Overjoys are absolutely ruined; in fact, they haven't a single cent. You could buy Overjoy--so I am informed--for ten dollars.

But I observe that he still wears a seal-lined coat worth at least five hundred.

XVII. Humour as I See It

It is only fair that at the back of this book I should be allowed a few pages to myself to put down some things that I really think.

Until two weeks ago I might have taken my pen in hand to write about humour with the confident air of an acknowledged professional.

But that time is past. Such claim as I had has been taken from me. In fact I stand unmasked. An English reviewer writing in a literary journal, the very name of which is enough to put contradiction to sleep, has said of my writing, ”What is there, after all, in Professor Leac.o.c.k's humour but a rather ingenious mixture of hyperbole and myosis?”

The man was right. How he stumbled upon this trade secret I do not know. But I am willing to admit, since the truth is out, that it has long been my custom in preparing an article of a humorous nature to go down to the cellar and mix up half a gallon of myosis with a pint of hyperbole.

If I want to give the article a decidedly literary character, I find it well to put in about half a pint of paresis. The whole thing is amazingly simple.

But I only mention this by way of introduction and to dispel any idea that I am conceited enough to write about humour, with the professional authority of Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x writing about love, or Eva Tanguay talking about dancing.

All that I dare claim is that I have as much sense of humour as other people. And, oddly enough, I notice that everybody else makes this same claim. Any man will admit, if need be, that his sight is not good, or that he cannot swim, or shoots badly with a rifle, but to touch upon his sense of humour is to give him a mortal affront.

”No,” said a friend of mine the other day, ”I never go to Grand Opera,” and then he added with an air of pride, ”You see, I have absolutely no ear for music.”