Coffee and Repartee Page 7

  VI

  "Good-morning!" said the Idiot, cheerfully, as he entered thedining-room.

  To this remark no one but the landlady vouchsafed a reply. "I don'tthink it is," she said, shortly. "It's raining too hard to be a verygood morning."

  "That reminds me," observed the Idiot, taking his seat and helpinghimself copiously to the hominy. "A friend of mine on one of thenewspapers is preparing an article on the 'Antiquity of Modern Humor.'With your kind permission, Mrs. Smithers, I'll take down your remark andhand it over to Mr. Scribuler as a specimen of the modern antique joke.You may not be aware of the fact, but that jest is to be found in therare first edition of the _Tales of Bobbo_, an Italian humorist, whostole everything he wrote from the Greeks."

  "'READING THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS'"]

  "So?" queried the Bibliomaniac. "I never heard of Bobbo, though I had,before the auction sale of my library, a choice copy of the _Tales ofPoggio_, bound in full crushed Levant morocco, with gilt edges, and oneor two other Italian _Joe Millers_ in tree calf. I cannot at this momentrecall their names."

  "At what period did Bobbo live?" inquired the School-master.

  "I don't exactly remember," returned the Idiot, assisting the lastpotato on the table over to his plate. "I don't know exactly. It wassubsequent to B.C., I think, although I may be wrong. If it was not, youmay rest assured it was prior to B.C."

  "Do you happen to know," queried the Bibliomaniac, "the exact date ofthis rare first edition of which you speak?"

  "No; no one knows that," returned the Idiot. "And for a very goodreason. It was printed before dates were invented."

  The silence which followed this bit of information from the Idiot wasalmost insulting in its intensity. It was a silence that spoke, and whatit said was that the Idiot's idiocy was colossal, and he, accepting thestillness as a tribute, smiled sweetly.

  "What do you think, Mr. Whitechoker," he said, when he thought the timewas ripe for renewing the conversation--"what do you think of thedoctrine that every day will be Sunday by-and-by?"

  "I have only to say, sir," returned the Dominie, pouring a little hotwater into his milk, which was a bit too strong for him, "that I am afirm believer in the occurrence of a period when Sunday will be to allpractical purposes perpetual."

  "That is my belief, too," observed the School-master. "But it will beruinous to our good landlady to provide us with one of her exceptionallyfine Sunday breakfasts every morning."

  "Thank you, Mr. Pedagog," returned Mrs. Smithers, with a smile. "Can't Igive you another cup of coffee?"

  "You may," returned the School-master, pained at the lady's grammar, buttoo courteous to call attention to it save by the emphasis with which hespoke the word "may."

  "That's one view to take of it," said the Idiot. "But in case we got aSunday breakfast every day in the week, we, on the other hand, would getapproximately what we pay for. You may fill my cup too, Mrs. Smithers."

  "The coffee is all gone," returned the landlady, with a snap.

  "Then, Mary," said the Idiot, gracefully, turning to the maid, "you maygive me a glass of ice-water. It is quite as warm, after all, as thecoffee, and not quite so weak. A perpetual Sunday, though, would haveits drawbacks," he added, unconscious of the venomous glances of thelandlady. "You, Mr. Whitechoker, for instance, would be preaching allthe time, and in consequence would soon break down. Then the effect uponour eyes from habitually reading the Sunday newspapers day after daywould be extremely bad; nor must we forget that an eternity of Sundaysmeans the elimination 'from our midst,' as the novelists say, ofbaseball, of circuses, of horse-racing, and other necessities of life,unless we are prepared to cast over the Puritanical view of Sunday whichnow prevails. It would substitute Dr. Watts for 'Annie Rooney.' Weshould lose 'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay' entirely, which is a point in itsfavor."

  "I don't know about that," said the genial old gentleman. "I rather likethat song."

  "Did you ever hear me sing it?" asked the Idiot.

  "Never mind," returned the genial old gentleman, hastily. "Perhaps youare right, after all."

  BOBBO]

  The Idiot smiled, and resumed: "Our shops would be perpetually closed,and an enormous loss to the shopkeepers would be sure to follow. Mr.Pedagog's theory that we should have Sunday breakfasts every day is nottenable, for the reason that with a perpetual day of rest agriculturewould die out, food products would be killed off by unpulled weeds; infact, we should go back to that really unfortunate period when womenwere without dress-makers, and man's chief object in life was tochristen animals as he met them, and to abstain from apples, wisdom, andfull dress."

  "The Idiot is right," said the Bibliomaniac. "It would not be a verygood thing for the world if every day were Sunday. Wash-day is anecessity of life. I am willing to admit this, in the face of the factthat wash-day meals are invariably atrocious. Contracts would be void,as a rule, because Sunday is a _dies non_."

  "A what?" asked the Idiot.

  "A non-existent day in a business sense," put in the School-master.

  "Of course," said the landlady, scornfully. "Any person who knowsanything knows that."

  "Then, madame," returned the Idiot, rising from his chair, and putting ahandful of sweet crackers in his pocket--"then I must put in a claim for$104 from you, having been charged, at the rate of one dollar a day for104 _dies nons_ in the two years I have been with you."

  "Indeed!" returned the lady, sharply. "Very well. And I shall put in acounterclaim for the lunches you carry away from breakfast every morningin your pockets."

  "In that event we'll call it off, madame," returned the Idiot, as with acourtly bow and a pleasant smile he left the room.

  "Well, I call him 'off,'" was all the landlady could say, as the otherguests took their departure.

  And of course the School-master agreed with her.