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005 - The Exclusive Luxury of Enoch Oates · Tales of the Long Bow

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Speaker 1: Chapter five of Tales of the Longbow. This is a
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Recording by Dell de Pinoles. Tales of the Longbow by G. K. Chesterton,
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Speaker 1: Chapter five, The exclusive Luxury of enoch oats. Since the
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Speaker 1: Colonel ate his hat, the lunatic asylum has lacked a background,
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Speaker 1: the conscientious scribe cannot but be aware that the above sentence,
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Speaker 1: standing alone and without reference to previous matters, may not
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Speaker 1: entirely explain itself. Anyone trying the experiment of using that
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Speaker 1: sentence for practical social purposes, tossing that sentence lightly is
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Speaker 1: agreeing to a passer by sending that sentence as a
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Speaker 1: telegram to a total stranger, whispering that sentence hoarsely into
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Speaker 1: the ear of the nearest policeman, and so on, will
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Speaker 1: find that its insufficiency as a full and final statement
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Speaker 1: is generally felt with no morbid curiosity, with no exaggerated
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Speaker 1: appetite for omniscients. Men will want to know more about
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Speaker 1: this statement before acting on it, and the only way
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Speaker 1: of explaining it, and the unusual circumstances in which it
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Speaker 1: came to be said, is to pursue the doubling and
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Speaker 1: devious course of these narratives, and return to a date
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Speaker 1: very much earlier, when men now more than middle aged
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Speaker 1: were quite young. It was in the days when the
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Speaker 1: colonel was not the colonel, but only Jimmy Crane, a
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Speaker 1: restless youth, tossed about by every wind of adventure, but
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Speaker 1: as yet incapable of discipline as of dressing for dinner.
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Speaker 1: It was in days before Robert Owen Hood the lawyer,
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Speaker 1: had ever begun to study the law, and it only
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Speaker 1: got so far as to abolish it, coming down to
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Speaker 1: the club every night with a new plan for revolution
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Speaker 1: to turn all earthly tribunals upside down. It was in
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Speaker 1: the days before Wilding White settled down as a country parson,
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Speaker 1: returning to the creed, though not the conventions of his
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Speaker 1: class and country, when he was still ready to change
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Speaker 1: his religion once a week, turning up sometimes in the
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Speaker 1: costume of a monk, and sometimes of a mooved, and
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Speaker 1: sometimes in what he declared to be the original vestments
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Speaker 1: of a druid, whose religion was shortly to be resumed
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Speaker 1: by the whole British people. It was in days when
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Speaker 1: their young friend Hilary Pearce the Aviator was still anticipating
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Speaker 1: aviation by flying a small kite. In short, it was
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Speaker 1: early in the lives even of the elders of the
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Speaker 1: group that they had founded a small social club in
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Speaker 1: which their long friendships had flourished. The club had to
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Speaker 1: have some sort of name, and the more thoughtful and
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Speaker 1: detached among them, who saw the club steadily and saw
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Speaker 1: it whole, considered the point with ripe reflection, and finally
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Speaker 1: called their little society the lunatic Asylum. We might all
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Speaker 1: stick straws in our hair for dinner, as the Romans
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Speaker 1: crowned themselves with roses for the banquet, observed hood. It
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Speaker 1: would correspond to dressing for dinner. I don't know what
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Speaker 1: else we could do to vary the vulgar society trick
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Speaker 1: of all wearing the same sort of white waistcoats, all
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Speaker 1: wearing straight waistcoats, I suppose, said Crane. We might each
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Speaker 1: dine separately in a padded cell, if it comes to that,
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Speaker 1: said hood. But there seems to be something lacking in it.
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Speaker 1: Considered as a social evening. Here wilding white who was
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Speaker 1: then in a monastic phase, intervened eagerly. He explained that
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Speaker 1: in some monasteries a monk of particular holiness was allowed
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Speaker 1: to become a hermit in an inner cell, and proposed
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Speaker 1: a similar arrangement at the club hood. With his more
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Speaker 1: mellow rationalism intervened with a milder amendment. He suggested that
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Speaker 1: a large padded chair should represent the padded cell and
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Speaker 1: be reserved like a throne for the lostiest of the lunatics.
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Speaker 1: Do not, he said, gently and earnestly, do not let
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Speaker 1: us be divided by jealousies and petty ambitions. Do not
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Speaker 1: let us dispute among ourselves which shall be doughtiest in
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Speaker 1: the domain of the dotty. Perhaps one will appear worthier
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Speaker 1: than us, all more manifestly and magnificently weak in the head.
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Speaker 1: For him, Let the padded throne stand empty. Jimmy Craine
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Speaker 1: had said no more after his brief suggestion, but was
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Speaker 1: pacing the room like a polar bear, as he generally
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Speaker 1: did when there came upon him a periodical impulse to
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Speaker 1: go off after things like polar bears. He was the
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Speaker 1: wildest of all those wild figures, so far as the
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Speaker 1: scale of his adventures, was concerned constantly vanishing to the
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Speaker 1: ends of the earth, nobody knew why, and turning up
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Speaker 1: again nobody knew how. He had a hobby even in
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Speaker 1: his youth that made his outlook seem even stranger than
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Speaker 1: the bewildering successive philosophies of his friend White. He had
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Speaker 1: an enthusiasm for the myths of savages, and while White
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Speaker 1: was balancing the relative claims of Buddhism and Brahmanism, Crane
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Speaker 1: would boldly declare his preference for the belief that a
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Speaker 1: big fish ate the sun every night, or that the
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Speaker 1: whole cosmos was created by cutting up a giant. Moreover,
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Speaker 1: there was with all this something indefinable, but in some
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Speaker 1: way more serious, about Crane. Even in these days, there
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Speaker 1: was much that was merely boyish about the blind impetuosity
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Speaker 1: of wilding White. With his wild hair and egor aquiline face.
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Speaker 1: He was evidently one who might, as he said, learning
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Speaker 1: the secret of isis would who be quite incapable of
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Speaker 1: keeping it to himself. The long legal face of owen
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Speaker 1: hood had already learned to laugh at most things, if
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Speaker 1: not to laugh loudly. But in Crane there was something
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Speaker 1: more hard and militant, like steel. And as he proved
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Speaker 1: afterwards in the affair of the Hat, he could keep
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Speaker 1: a secret, even when it was a joke, so that
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Speaker 1: when he finally went off on a long tour around
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Speaker 1: the world with the avowed intention of studying all the
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Speaker 1: savages he could find, nobody tried to stop him. He
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Speaker 1: went off with a startlingly shabby suit, with a faded
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Speaker 1: sash instead of a waistcoat, and with no luggage in
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Speaker 1: particular except a large revolver slung round to him in
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Speaker 1: a case like a field glass, and a big green
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Speaker 1: umbrella that he flourished resolutely as he walked. Well, he'll
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Speaker 1: come back a queerer figure than he went, I suppose,
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Speaker 1: said Welding White. He couldn't, answered Hood, the lawyer, shaking
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Speaker 1: his head. I don't believe all the devil worship in
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Speaker 1: Africa could make him any matter than he is. But
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Speaker 1: he's going to America first, isn't he said the other Yes,
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Speaker 1: said Hood, He's going to America, but not to see
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Speaker 1: the Americans. He would think the Americans very dull compared
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Speaker 1: with the American Indians. Perhaps he will come back in
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Speaker 1: feathers and war paint. He'll come back scalped, I suppose,
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Speaker 1: said White, hopefully. I suppose being scalped is all the
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Speaker 1: rage in the best red Indian society. Then he's working
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Speaker 1: round by the south Sea Islands, said Hood. They'll scalp
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Speaker 1: people there, They onlyst do them in pots. He couldn't
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Speaker 1: very well come back, stewed, said White, musing do this
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Speaker 1: strike you, Owen, that we should hardly be talking nonsense
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Speaker 1: like this if we hadn't a curious faith that a
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Speaker 1: fellow like Crane will know how to look after himself. Yes,
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Speaker 1: said Hood gravely. I've got a very fixed, fundamental conviction
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Speaker 1: that Crane will turn up again, all right. But it's
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Speaker 1: true that he may look jolly queer after going to
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Speaker 1: fan Tee. For all that time, it became a sort
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Speaker 1: of pastime at the Club of the Lunatics to compete
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Speaker 1: in speculations about the guise in which the maddest of
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Speaker 1: their mad men would return after being so long lost
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Speaker 1: to civilization, and grand preparations were made as for a
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Speaker 1: sort of Walpurgis Knight of nonsense. When it was known
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Speaker 1: at last that he was really returning, Hood had received
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Speaker 1: letters from him occasionally furl of queer mythologies, and that
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Speaker 1: a rapid succession of telegrams from places nearer and nearer home,
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Speaker 1: culminating in the announcement that he would appear in the
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Speaker 1: club that night. It was about five minutes before dinner
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Speaker 1: time that the sharp knock on the door announced his arrival. Bang.
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Speaker 1: All the gungs and the tom toms cried, wielding white.
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Speaker 1: The Lord High Mumbo Jumble arrives right on the nightmare.
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Speaker 1: We'd better bring out the throne of the King of
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Speaker 1: the maniacs that hood, laughing, we may want it at last,
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Speaker 1: and he turned toward the big padded chair that still
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Speaker 1: stood at the top of the table. As he did so,
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Speaker 1: James Crane walked into the room. He was clad in
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Speaker 1: a very neat and well cut evening clothes, not too
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Speaker 1: fashionable and little formal. His hair was parted on one
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Speaker 1: side and his mustache clipped rather close. He took a
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Speaker 1: seat with a pleasant smile and began talking about the weather.
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Speaker 1: He was not allowed, however, to confine his conversation to
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Speaker 1: the weather. He had certainly succeeded in giving his old
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Speaker 1: friends the only sort of surprise that they really had
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Speaker 1: not expected. But they were two old friends for their
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Speaker 1: friend to be able to conceal from them the meaning
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Speaker 1: of such a change. It was on that festive evening
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Speaker 1: that Crane explained his position, a position which he maintained
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Speaker 1: in most things ever afterwards, and one which is the
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Speaker 1: original foundation of the affair that follows. I have lived
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Speaker 1: with the men we call savages all over the world,
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Speaker 1: he said simply, and I have found out one truth
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Speaker 1: about them. And I tell you, my friends, you may
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Speaker 1: talk about independence and individuals self expression till you burst,
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Speaker 1: but I've always found wherever I went that the man
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Speaker 1: who could really be trusted to keep his word and
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Speaker 1: to fight and to work for his family was the
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Speaker 1: man who did a war dance before the moon the
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Speaker 1: moon was worshiped, and where a nose ring in his nose,
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Speaker 1: where nose rings were worn. I have had plenty of fun,
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Speaker 1: and I won't interfere with anyone else having it. But
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Speaker 1: I believe I have seen what is the real making
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Speaker 1: of mankind, and I have come back to my tribe.
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Speaker 1: This was the first act of the drama, which ended
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Speaker 1: in the remarkable appearance and disappearance of mister enoch Oates.
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Speaker 1: And it has been necessary to narrate it briefly before
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Speaker 1: passing on to the second act. Ever since that time,
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Speaker 1: Crane had preserved at once his eccentric friends and his
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Speaker 1: own more formal customs, And there were many among the
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Speaker 1: newer members of the club who had never known him
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Speaker 1: except as the Colonel, the grizzled military gentleman, whose severe
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Speaker 1: scheme of black and white attire and strict politeness in
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Speaker 1: small things formed the one foil of sharp contrast to
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Speaker 1: that many colored bohemia. One of these was Hillary Pearce,
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Speaker 1: the young Aviator, And much as he liked the Colonel,
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Speaker 1: he never quite understood him. He had never known the
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Speaker 1: old soldier in his walk panic youth, as had hood
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Speaker 1: and white, and therefore never knew how much of the
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Speaker 1: fire remained under the rock of the snows. The singular
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Speaker 1: affair of the hat, which has been narrated to the
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Speaker 1: patient reader elsewhere, surprised him more than it did the
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Speaker 1: older men, who knew very well that the Colonel was
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Speaker 1: not so old as he looked, And the impression increased
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Speaker 1: with all the incidents which a fanatical love of truth
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Speaker 1: has forced the chronicler to relate in the same connection.
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Speaker 1: The incident of the river, and of the pigs, and
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Speaker 1: of the somewhat larger pet of mister Wilding White. There
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Speaker 1: was talk of renaming the lunatic Asylum as the League
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Speaker 1: of the Longbow, and of commemorating its performance in a
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Speaker 1: permanent ritual. The Colonel was induced to wear a crown
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Speaker 1: of cabbage on state occasions, and Pierce was gravely invited
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Speaker 1: to bring his pigs with him to dine at the club.
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Speaker 1: You could easily bring a little pig in your large pocket,
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Speaker 1: said Hood. I often wonder people do not have pigs
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Speaker 1: as pets. A pig in a poke, in fact, said Pierce. Well,
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Speaker 1: so long as you have the tact to avoid the
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Speaker 1: indelicacy of having pork for dinner that evening, I suppose
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Speaker 1: I could bring my pig in my pocket. Why did
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Speaker 1: find it rather a nuisance to bring his eleph in
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Speaker 1: his pocket? Observed the Colonel. Pierce glanced at him, and
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Speaker 1: again had the feeling of incongruity at seeing the ceremonial
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Speaker 1: cabbage adorning his comparatively venerable head. For the colonel had
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Speaker 1: just been married and was rejuvenated in an almost jaunty degree. Somehow,
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Speaker 1: the philosophical young man seemed to miss something inside. It
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Speaker 1: was then that he made the remark which is the
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Speaker 1: pivot of this precise, the laborious anecdote. Since the Colonel
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Speaker 1: ate his hat, he said, the lunatic asylum has lacked
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Speaker 1: a background. Damn your impudence, said the colonel cheerfully. Do
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Speaker 1: you mean to call me a background to my face?
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Speaker 1: A dark background, said Peerce soothingly. Do not resent my
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Speaker 1: saying a dark background. I mean a grand, mysterious background
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Speaker 1: like that of night, A sublime and even starry background.
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Speaker 1: Starry yourself, said Crane indignantly. It was against that background
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Speaker 1: of ancient Knight, went on the young man dreamily, that
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Speaker 1: the fantastic shapes and fiery colors of our carnival could
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Speaker 1: really be seen so long as he came here with
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Speaker 1: his black coat and beautiful society manners. There was a
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Speaker 1: foil to our follies. We were eccentric, but he was
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Speaker 1: our center. You cannot be eccentric without a cent. I
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Speaker 1: believe Hillary is quite right, said owen Hood earnestly. I
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Speaker 1: believe we have made a great mistake. We ought not
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Speaker 1: to have all gone mad at once. We ought to
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Speaker 1: have taken it in turns to go mad. Then I
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Speaker 1: could have been shocked at his behavior on Mondays, Wednesdays
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Speaker 1: and Fridays, and he could have been shocked at my
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Speaker 1: behavior on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. But there's no moral
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Speaker 1: value in going mad when nobody is shocked. If Crane
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Speaker 1: leaves off being shocked, what are we to do? I
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Speaker 1: know what we want, began Pierce, excitedly. So do I,
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Speaker 1: interrupted Hood. We want a sane man, not so easy
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Speaker 1: to find nowadays, said the old soldier, going to advertise.
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Speaker 1: I mean a stupid man, exclaimed owen Hood. I mean
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Speaker 1: a man who's conventional all through, not a humbug like Crane.
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Speaker 1: I mean I want a solid, serious business man, a
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Speaker 1: hard headed, practical man of affairs, a man to whom
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Speaker 1: vast commercial interests are committed. In a word, I want
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Speaker 1: a fool, some beautiful, rounded, homogeneous fool, in whose blameless
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Speaker 1: face as an around mirror all our fancies may really
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Speaker 1: be reflected and renewed. I want a very successful man,
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Speaker 1: a very wealthy man, A man I know, I know,
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Speaker 1: cried young Pierce, almost waving his arms. Enoch Oates, who
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Speaker 1: is enoch Oats? Inquired? White? Are the lords of the
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Speaker 1: world so little known, asked Hood. Enoch Oates is pork
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Speaker 1: and nearly everything else. Enoch Oats is turning civilization into
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Speaker 1: one vast sausage machine. Didn't I ever tell you how
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Speaker 1: Hilary ran into him over that pig affair. He's the
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Speaker 1: very man you want, cried Hillary Pierce enthusiastically. I know him,
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Speaker 1: and I believe I can get him. Being a millionaire,
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Speaker 1: he's entirely ignorant. Being an American, he's entirely in earnest.
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Speaker 1: He's got just that sort of negative, nonconformist conscience of
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Speaker 1: New England. The balance is the positive money getting of
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Speaker 1: New York. If we want to surprise anybody will surprise him.
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Speaker 1: Let's ask enoch Oats to dinner. I won't have any
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Speaker 1: practical jokes played on guests, said the colonel. Of course,
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Speaker 1: not replied Hood, He'll only be too pleased to take
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Speaker 1: us seriously. Did you ever know an American who didn't
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Speaker 1: like seeing the sights? And if you don't know that
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Speaker 1: you're a sight with that cabbage on your head, it's
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Speaker 1: time an American tourists taught you. Besides, there's a difference,
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Speaker 1: said Pierce. I wouldn't ask a fellow like that doctor
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Speaker 1: Horace Hunter. Sir Horace Hunter murmured hood reverently. I wouldn't
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Speaker 1: ask him because I really think him a sneak and
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Speaker 1: a snob, and my invitation could only be meant as
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Speaker 1: an insult. But Oates is not a man I hate,
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Speaker 1: nor is he hateful. That's the curious part of it.
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Speaker 1: He is a simple, sincere sort of fellow. According to
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Speaker 1: his lights, which are pretty damn He's a thief and
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Speaker 1: a robber, of course, but he doesn't know it. I'm
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Speaker 1: asking him because he's different, but I don't imagine he's
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Speaker 1: at all sorry to be different. There's no harm in
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Speaker 1: giving a man a good dinner and letting him be
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Speaker 1: a background without knowing it. When mister Enoch Goats in
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Speaker 1: due course accepted the invitation and presented himself with the club,
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Speaker 1: many were reminded of that former occasion, when a stiff
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Speaker 1: and conventional figure in evening dress had first appeared like
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Speaker 1: a rebuke to the revels. But in spite of the
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Speaker 1: stiff sameness of both those black and white costumes, there's
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Speaker 1: a great deal of difference between the old blackground and
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Speaker 1: the new background. Crane's good manners were of that casual
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Speaker 1: kind that are rather peculiarly English, and mark an aristocracty
13:59
Speaker 1: at ease in its saddle. Curiously enough, if the American
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Speaker 1: had one point in common with a continental noble of
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Speaker 1: ancient lineage, whom his daughter might have married any day,
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Speaker 1: it was that they would both be a little more
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Speaker 1: on the defensive, living in the midst of a democracy.
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Speaker 1: Mister Oates was perfectly polite, but there was something a
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Speaker 1: little rigid about him. He walked to his chair rather stiffly,
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Speaker 1: and sat down rather heavily. He was a powerful, ponderous man,
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Speaker 1: with a large, sallow face, a little suggestive of a
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Speaker 1: corpulent red Indian. He had a ruminant eye and equally
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Speaker 1: ruminant manner of chewing an unlighted cigar. These were signs
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Speaker 1: that might well have gone with the habit of silence,
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Speaker 1: but they did not. Mister Oates's conversation might not be brilliant,
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Speaker 1: but it was continuous. Pearce and his friends had begun
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Speaker 1: with some notion of dangling their own escapades before him,
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Speaker 1: like dancing dolls before a child. They told him something
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Speaker 1: of the affair of the Colonel in his cabbage, of
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Speaker 1: the Captain and his pigs, of the parson and his elephants.
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Speaker 1: But they soon found that their hearer had not come
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Speaker 1: there merely as a listener. When he thought of their
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Speaker 1: romantic buffooneries, it would be hard to say. Probably he
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Speaker 1: did not understand them. Possibly he did not even hear that. Anyhow,
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Speaker 1: his own monologue went on. He was a leisurely speaker.
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Speaker 1: They found themselves revising much that they had heard about
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Speaker 1: the snap and smartness in hurry of American talk. He
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Speaker 1: spoke without haste or embarrassment, his eye boring into space,
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Speaker 1: and he more than fulfilled mister Pierce's hopes of somebody
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Speaker 1: who would talk about business matters. His talk was a
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Speaker 1: mild torrent of facts and figures, especially figures. In fact,
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Speaker 1: the background was doing all it could to contribute the
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Speaker 1: required undertone of common commercial life. The background was justifying
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Speaker 1: all their hopes that it would be practical and prosaic.
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Speaker 1: Only the background had rather the air of having become
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Speaker 1: the foreground. When they put that up to me, I
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Speaker 1: saw it was the proposition, mister Roetz was saying. I
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Speaker 1: saw I'd got on to something better than my old
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Speaker 1: regulation turnover of eighty five thousand dollars on each branch.
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Speaker 1: I reckoned, I should save one hundred and twenty thousand
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Speaker 1: dollars in the long run by scrapping the old plant,
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Speaker 1: even if I had to drop another thirty thousand dollars
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Speaker 1: on new works where I'd get the raw material for
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Speaker 1: a red scent. I saw right away that was the
15:57
Speaker 1: point to freeze onto that I got just a chance
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Speaker 1: to sell something I didn't need to buy, something that
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Speaker 1: could sort of be given away, like gold match ends.
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Speaker 1: I figured out it would be better, by a long
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Speaker 1: chalk to let the other guys wear the stock and
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Speaker 1: sell me their refuse for next to NIX, so I
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Speaker 1: could get ahead with turning it into the goods. So
16:13
Speaker 1: I started in right away and got there at the
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Speaker 1: first go off with an increase of seven hundred and
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Speaker 1: fifty one thousand dollars. Seven hundred and fifty one thousand dollars,
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Speaker 1: murmured owen Hood, How soothing it all seems. I reckon.
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Speaker 1: Those mutts didn't get on to what they were selling me,
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Speaker 1: continued mister Oates, or didn't have the pep to use
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Speaker 1: it that way themselves. For though it was the sure
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Speaker 1: enough hot tip, it isn't everybody would have thought of
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Speaker 1: it when I was in pork. Of course I wanted
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Speaker 1: the other guys out, But just now I wasn't putting
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Speaker 1: anything on pork, but only on just that part of
16:45
Speaker 1: a peg I wanted and they didn't want. By notifying
16:48
Speaker 1: all your pig farmers, I was able to import nine
16:51
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five thousand pigs years this fall, and
16:54
Speaker 1: I guess I can get consignments all winter. Hood had
16:58
Speaker 1: some little legal experience with long Wind, did commercial witnesses,
17:01
Speaker 1: and he was listening by this time with a cocked eyebrow,
17:04
Speaker 1: an attention much sharper than the dreamy ecstasy with which
17:07
Speaker 1: the poetic Peerce was listening to the millionaire's monologue, as
17:10
Speaker 1: if to the wordless music of some ever murmuring Brook.
17:13
Speaker 1: Excuse me, said Hood earnestly. But did I understand you
17:16
Speaker 1: to say pigs ears? That is so, mister Hood, said
17:20
Speaker 1: the American, with great patience and politeness. I don't know
17:23
Speaker 1: whether I gave you a sufficiently detailed description for you
17:26
Speaker 1: to catch on to the proposition, But well, murmured Pierce wistfully,
17:31
Speaker 1: it sounded to me like a detailed description. Pardon me,
17:36
Speaker 1: said Hood, checking him with a frown. I really want
17:39
Speaker 1: to understand this proposition of mister Oates. Do I understand
17:43
Speaker 1: that you bought pigs you're cheap, when the pigs were
17:45
Speaker 1: cut up for their purposes, and that you thought you
17:47
Speaker 1: could use them for some purpose of your own. Sure,
17:50
Speaker 1: said mister Enoch Oates, nodding, And my purpose was about
17:53
Speaker 1: the biggest thing in fancy goods ever done in these states.
17:56
Speaker 1: In the publicity line. There's nothing like saying you can
17:58
Speaker 1: do what folks they can't be done, flying in the
18:01
Speaker 1: face of proverbs instead of providence. I reckon it catches
18:04
Speaker 1: on at once. We got to work and got out
18:06
Speaker 1: the first advertisement in no time. Just a blank space
18:09
Speaker 1: if we can do it in the middle, got folks
18:11
Speaker 1: wondering for a week what it was. I hope, sir,
18:15
Speaker 1: said Pierce in a low voice. They will not carry
18:17
Speaker 1: sound commercial principles so far as to keep us wondering
18:20
Speaker 1: for a week what it was, Well, said Oates. We
18:23
Speaker 1: found we could subject the pigskin and bristles to a
18:26
Speaker 1: new gelatinous process for making artificial silk, and we figured
18:29
Speaker 1: the publicity would do the rest. We came out with
18:32
Speaker 1: a second set of posters she wants it now. The
18:35
Speaker 1: most wonderful woman on earth is waiting by the old fireside,
18:38
Speaker 1: hoping you'll bring her home. A pig's whisper purse A purse,
18:42
Speaker 1: gasped Hillary. I see you're on the notion, proceeded the
18:45
Speaker 1: unmoved American. We called them pigs whisper purses after the
18:48
Speaker 1: smartest and most popular poster we ever had. There was
18:51
Speaker 1: a lady loved to swine. You know. The nursery rhyme
18:54
Speaker 1: I guess featured a slap up princess with spring in
18:56
Speaker 1: the pig's ear. I tell you there isn't a smart
18:59
Speaker 1: woman in the States now that can do without one
19:00
Speaker 1: of our pig silk purses, and all because it upsets
19:03
Speaker 1: the proverb. Why see here, Hillary Pierce had sprung wildly
19:07
Speaker 1: to his feet with a sort of stagger, and clutched
19:09
Speaker 1: at the American's arm. Found found, he cried hysterically, Oh, sir,
19:14
Speaker 1: I implore you to take the chair. Do do take the chair?
19:18
Speaker 1: Take the chair, replied the astonished millionaire, who was already
19:22
Speaker 1: almost struggling in his grasp. Really, gentlemen, I hadn't supposed
19:25
Speaker 1: the proceedings were so formal as to require a chairman,
19:28
Speaker 1: but in any case it could hardly be said, however,
19:32
Speaker 1: that the proceedings were formal. Mister Hillary Pearce had the
19:35
Speaker 1: appearance of forcibly dragging mister y knock goats in the
19:37
Speaker 1: direction of the large padded armchair that had alway stood
19:40
Speaker 1: empty at the top of the club table, uttering cries which,
19:43
Speaker 1: though incoherent, appeared to be partly apologetic. No offense, he gasped, Hope,
19:48
Speaker 1: no misunderstanding, honorous causa you, you alone are worthy of
19:52
Speaker 1: that seat. The club has found its king and justified
19:54
Speaker 1: its title. At last. Here the colonel intervened and restored order.
19:59
Speaker 1: Mister oas depart in peace. But mister Hillary Pearce was
20:02
Speaker 1: still simmering. And that is the end of our quiet
20:05
Speaker 1: ordinary business man, he cried, such is the behavior of
20:07
Speaker 1: our monochrome and an obstrusive background. His voice rose to
20:11
Speaker 1: a sort of oil. And we thought we were dotty.
20:13
Speaker 1: We deluded ourselves with the hopes that we were pretty
20:15
Speaker 1: well off. Our chump, Lord, have mercy on us. American
20:18
Speaker 1: big business rises to a rabbing idiocy, compared with which
20:22
Speaker 1: we are as sane as the beasts of the field.
20:24
Speaker 1: The modern commercial world is far matter than anything we
20:27
Speaker 1: can do to satirize it. Well, said the Colonel good humoredly.
20:31
Speaker 1: We've done some rather ridiculous things ourselves. Yes, yes, cried
20:35
Speaker 1: Pierce excitedly, But we did them to make ourselves ridiculous.
20:38
Speaker 1: That unspeakable man is wholly, serenely serious. He thinks those
20:41
Speaker 1: maniacal monkey trips are the normal life of man. Your
20:44
Speaker 1: argument really answers itself. We did the maddest things we
20:47
Speaker 1: could think of, meaning them to look mad, but they
20:49
Speaker 1: were nothing like so mad as what a modern business
20:51
Speaker 1: man does in the way of business. Perhaps it's the
20:55
Speaker 1: American business man, said White, who's too keen to see
20:58
Speaker 1: the humor of it. Nonsense, said Crane. Millions of Americans
21:02
Speaker 1: have a splendid sense of humor. Then how fortunate are we,
21:06
Speaker 1: said Pierce reverently, through whose lives these rare, this ineffable,
21:09
Speaker 1: this divine being has passed past away forever, I suppose,
21:13
Speaker 1: said Hode with a sigh, For I fear the Colonel
21:15
Speaker 1: must be our only background. Once more. Colonel Crane was
21:20
Speaker 1: frowning thoughtfully, and at the last words, has frowned deep
21:22
Speaker 1: into disapproval. He puffed at his smoldering cigar, then removing it,
21:26
Speaker 1: said abruptly, I suppose you, fellows, have forgotten how I
21:28
Speaker 1: came to be a background. I mean why, I rather
21:31
Speaker 1: approve of people being backgrounds. I remember something you said
21:35
Speaker 1: a long time ago, replied Hood. Hilary must have been
21:38
Speaker 1: in long clothes at that time. I said I had
21:40
Speaker 1: found something out by going round the world, said Crane.
21:44
Speaker 1: You young people think I'm an old Tory. Remember I'm
21:46
Speaker 1: also an old traveler. Well, it's part of the same thing.
21:49
Speaker 1: I'm a traditionalist because I'm a traveler. I told you
21:52
Speaker 1: when I came back to the club, that I'd come
21:53
Speaker 1: back to the tribe. I told you that in all
21:55
Speaker 1: the tribes of the world, the best man was the
21:57
Speaker 1: man true to his tribe. I told you that the
22:00
Speaker 1: man was the man who wore a nose ring where
22:02
Speaker 1: nose rings were worn, I remember, said Owen Hood. No,
22:06
Speaker 1: you forget, said Crane, rather gruffly. You forget it when
22:09
Speaker 1: you talk about Enoch Oates, the American I'm no politician,
22:12
Speaker 1: thank god, and I shall look on with detachment if
22:14
Speaker 1: you dynamite him for being a millionaire. As a matter
22:17
Speaker 1: of fact, he doesn't think half so much of money
22:19
Speaker 1: as old Norman towers. He think it's too sacred to
22:21
Speaker 1: talk about. But you're not dynamating him for being a millionaire.
22:25
Speaker 1: You're simply laughing at him for being an American. You're
22:27
Speaker 1: laughing at him for being national and normal, for being
22:30
Speaker 1: a good citizen, a good tribesman, for wearing a nose ring.
22:32
Speaker 1: Where nose rings are worn, I say, ku klucks, you know,
22:38
Speaker 1: remonstrated wielding wild in his hazy way, Americans wouldn't be flattered.
22:42
Speaker 1: Do you suppose you haven't got a nose ring? Cried Crane,
22:44
Speaker 1: so sharply that the clergyman started from his chance. I
22:47
Speaker 1: made a mechanical gesture, as if to feel for that feature.
22:50
Speaker 1: Do you suppose a man like you doesn't carry his
22:52
Speaker 1: nationality as plain as the nose on his face? Do
22:55
Speaker 1: you think a man as hopelessly English as you are
22:57
Speaker 1: wouldn't be laughed at in America? You can't be a
22:59
Speaker 1: good english without being a good joke. The better Englishman
23:02
Speaker 1: you are, the more of a joke you are. But
23:04
Speaker 1: it's still better to be better. Nose rings are funny
23:07
Speaker 1: to people who don't wear them. Nations are funny to
23:09
Speaker 1: people who don't belong to them. But it's better to
23:12
Speaker 1: wear a nose ring than to be a cosmopolitan crank
23:14
Speaker 1: who cuts off his nose to spite his face. This
23:17
Speaker 1: being by far the longest speech the colonel had ever
23:20
Speaker 1: delivered since the day he returned from his tropical travels
23:22
Speaker 1: long ago. His old friends looked at him with a
23:25
Speaker 1: certain curiosity. Even his old friends hardly understood how much
23:28
Speaker 1: he had been roused in defense of a guest and
23:30
Speaker 1: of his own deep delicacies about the point of hospitality,
23:34
Speaker 1: he went on with undiminished warmth. Well, it's like that
23:37
Speaker 1: with poor oats. He has, as we see, at certain disproportions,
23:41
Speaker 1: certain insensibilities, certain prejudices stand out in our eyes like deformities.
23:45
Speaker 1: They offend you, they offend me, possibly rather more than
23:48
Speaker 1: they do you. You young revolutionists think you're very liberal
23:51
Speaker 1: and universal, but the only result is that you're narrow
23:55
Speaker 1: and national. Without knowing it. We old fogies know our
23:57
Speaker 1: tastes are narrow and national, but we know they are
23:59
Speaker 1: only ten And we know at any rate, I know that, oh,
24:02
Speaker 1: it is far more likely to be an honest man,
24:04
Speaker 1: a good husband, and a good father, because he stinks
24:06
Speaker 1: of the rank as Tickrey Patch in the Middle West,
24:09
Speaker 1: than if he were some fashionable New Yorker pretending to
24:11
Speaker 1: be an English aristocrat or playing the esthete in Florence.
24:16
Speaker 1: Don't say a good husband, pleaded Pierce with a faint shudder.
24:18
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the grand slap of advertisement of
24:20
Speaker 1: the pig's whisper. How do you feel about that, my
24:23
Speaker 1: dear colonel, the most wonderful woman on earth, waiting by
24:26
Speaker 1: the old fireside. It makes my flesh creep, replied Crane.
24:29
Speaker 1: It chills me to the spine. I feel I would
24:32
Speaker 1: rather die than have anything to do with it. But
24:33
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with my point. I don't
24:36
Speaker 1: belong to the tribe who wear nose rings, nor to
24:38
Speaker 1: the tribe who talked through their noses. Well, aren't you
24:41
Speaker 1: a little thankful for that? Asked White. I'm thankful I
24:44
Speaker 1: can be fair in spite of it, answered Crane. When
24:46
Speaker 1: I put a cabbage on my head, I didn't expect
24:48
Speaker 1: people not to stare at it, And I know that
24:50
Speaker 1: each one of us in a foreign land is a
24:52
Speaker 1: foreigner and a thing to be stared at. What I
24:55
Speaker 1: don't understand about him, said Hood, is the sort of things.
24:57
Speaker 1: He doesn't mind having stared at. People tolerate all that vulgar, wreaking, gushing,
25:02
Speaker 1: commercial cant everywhere. How can I man talk about the
25:05
Speaker 1: old fireside? It's obscene. The police ought to interfere. And
25:09
Speaker 1: that's just where you're wrong, said the colonel. It's vulgar enough,
25:12
Speaker 1: and mad enough, and obscene enough if you like, but
25:14
Speaker 1: it's not can't. I have traveled among these wild tribes
25:18
Speaker 1: for years on end, and I tell you emphatically it
25:20
Speaker 1: is not can't. And if you want to know, just
25:22
Speaker 1: ask your extraordinary American friend about his own wife and
25:25
Speaker 1: his own relatively old fireside. He won't mind. That's the
25:28
Speaker 1: extraordinary part of it. What does this all really mean, colonel,
25:32
Speaker 1: asked Hillary Pierce. It means, my boy, answered the Colonel
25:36
Speaker 1: that I think you owe our guest an apology. So
25:39
Speaker 1: it came about that there was an epilogu as there
25:41
Speaker 1: had been a prolog to the drama of the Entrance
25:43
Speaker 1: and Exit of mister Enoch b Oates, an epilogue which
25:46
Speaker 1: in its term became a prolog to the later dramas
25:48
Speaker 1: of the Leak of the long Bow. For the words
25:50
Speaker 1: of the Colonel had a certain influence on the captain,
25:53
Speaker 1: and the actions of the captain had a certain influence
25:55
Speaker 1: on the American millionaire, so that the whole machinery of
25:59
Speaker 1: events was start afresh by that last movement over the
26:01
Speaker 1: nuts and wine, when Colonel Crane had stirred moodily in
26:04
Speaker 1: his seat and taken his cigar out of his mouth.
26:07
Speaker 1: Hillary Pearce was an amiable and even excessively optimistic young
26:11
Speaker 1: Mandoy temperament. In spite of his pugnacity, he would really
26:14
Speaker 1: have been the last man in the world to wish
26:16
Speaker 1: to hurt the feelings of a harmless stranger, and he
26:18
Speaker 1: had a deep and almost secret respect for the opinions
26:20
Speaker 1: of the older soldier. So, finding himself soon afterwards passing
26:24
Speaker 1: the great gilded gateways of the highly American hotel that
26:28
Speaker 1: was the London residence of the American, he paused a
26:30
Speaker 1: moment in hesitation, and then went in and gave his
26:33
Speaker 1: name to various overpowering officials in uniform. There might have
26:36
Speaker 1: been those of the German general staff. He was relieved
26:39
Speaker 1: when the large American came out to meet him with
26:42
Speaker 1: a simple and lumbering affability, and offered his large limp
26:45
Speaker 1: hand as if there had never been a shadow of misunderstanding,
26:49
Speaker 1: It was somehow borne in upon Pierce that his own
26:52
Speaker 1: rather intoxicated behavior that evening had merely been noted down,
26:55
Speaker 1: along with the architectural styles and the mellow medievalism of
26:59
Speaker 1: the Pigstye. He was part of the fantasies of a
27:01
Speaker 1: feudal land. All the antics of the lunatic assignment had
27:04
Speaker 1: left the American traveler with the impression that similar parlor
27:07
Speaker 1: games were probably being played that evening in all the
27:10
Speaker 1: parlors of England. Perhaps there was something after Awling Crane's
27:13
Speaker 1: suggestion that every nation assumes that every other nation is
27:16
Speaker 1: a sort of mild madhouse. Mister Enochoats received his guests
27:20
Speaker 1: with great hospitality, and pressed on him cocktails of various
27:23
Speaker 1: occult names and strange colors, though he himself purchocked of
27:27
Speaker 1: nothing but a regiment of tepid milk. Pearce fell into
27:31
Speaker 1: the confidence of mister Enochoats with a silent swiftness that
27:34
Speaker 1: made his brain reel with bewilderment. He was staggered like
27:37
Speaker 1: a man who had fallen suddenly through fifteen floors of
27:40
Speaker 1: a skyscraper, and foun himself in somebody's bedroom. At the
27:43
Speaker 1: lightest hint of the sort of thing to which Crane
27:45
Speaker 1: had alluded, the American opened himself with an expansiveness that
27:48
Speaker 1: was like some gigantic embrace. All the interminable tales of
27:52
Speaker 1: figures and calculations and dollars had for the moment disappeared.
27:56
Speaker 1: Yet Oates was talking in the same easy and natural
27:58
Speaker 1: nasal drawl, leisurely and in a little monotonous as he said,
28:02
Speaker 1: I'm married to the best and brightest woman God ever made,
28:05
Speaker 1: and I tell you it's her and God between them
28:07
Speaker 1: that have bade me and I reckon. She had the
28:09
Speaker 1: hardest part of it. We had nothing but a few
28:11
Speaker 1: sticks when I started, and it was the way she
28:13
Speaker 1: stood by that gave me the heart to risk even
28:15
Speaker 1: those on my own judgment of how things were going
28:18
Speaker 1: in the street, I countered on a rise in pork
28:21
Speaker 1: and if it hadn't risen, i'd been broke. And I
28:23
Speaker 1: dare say in the jug, but she's just wonderful. You
28:25
Speaker 1: should see her. He produced her photograph with a paralyzing promptitude.
28:30
Speaker 1: It represented a very regal lady dressed up to the nines,
28:32
Speaker 1: probably for the occasion, with very brilliant eyes and an
28:35
Speaker 1: elaborate load of light hair. I believe in your star, Enoch,
28:40
Speaker 1: She said, you stick to Pork, said Oates with tender reminiscence,
28:44
Speaker 1: And so we saw it through Pierce, who had been
28:47
Speaker 1: speculating with involuntary irreverence on the extreme difficulty of conducting
28:51
Speaker 1: a love affair or a sentimental conversation in which one
28:54
Speaker 1: party had to address the other, as Enoch felt quite
28:56
Speaker 1: ashamed of his cynicism when the star of pork Shan
28:59
Speaker 1: was such rad in the eyes of his new friend,
29:02
Speaker 1: it was a terrible time. But I stuck to pork sometimes,
29:05
Speaker 1: feeling she could see clearer than I could. And of
29:07
Speaker 1: course she was right, and I've never known her wrong.
29:10
Speaker 1: Then came my great chance of making the combination and
29:13
Speaker 1: freezing out competition, and I was able to give her
29:16
Speaker 1: the sort of things she ought to have and let
29:17
Speaker 1: her take the lead as she should. I don't care
29:20
Speaker 1: for society much myself, but I'm often glad on a
29:23
Speaker 1: late night at the office to bring her up and
29:25
Speaker 1: hear she's enjoying it. He spoke with a ponderous simplicity
29:29
Speaker 1: that seemed to disim and crush the criticism of a
29:31
Speaker 1: more subtled civilization. It was one of those things that
29:34
Speaker 1: are easily seen to be absurd, but even after they
29:37
Speaker 1: are seemed to be absurd, they're still there. It may be,
29:39
Speaker 1: after all that that is the definition of the great
29:41
Speaker 1: things I reckon. That's what people mean by the romance
29:45
Speaker 1: of business continued oates, and though my business got bigger
29:48
Speaker 1: and bigger, it made me feel kind of pleased there
29:50
Speaker 1: had been a romance at the heart of it. It
29:52
Speaker 1: had to get bigger because we wanted to make the
29:54
Speaker 1: combination water tight all over the world. I guess I
29:57
Speaker 1: had to fix things up a bit with your politicians,
30:00
Speaker 1: the congress manner alike, all the world over. And it
30:02
Speaker 1: didn't trouble me any. There was not an uncommon conviction
30:06
Speaker 1: among those acquainted but Captain Hillary Pearce, that that ingenious
30:10
Speaker 1: young man was cracked. He did a great many things
30:12
Speaker 1: to justify the impression, and in one sense certainly had
30:15
Speaker 1: never shown any reluctance to make a fool of himself.
30:18
Speaker 1: But if he was a lunatic, he was none the
30:20
Speaker 1: less a very English lunatic, and the notion of talking
30:23
Speaker 1: about his most intimate affection suddenly to a foreigner and hotel,
30:27
Speaker 1: merely because the conversation had taken That turn was something
30:29
Speaker 1: he found quite terrifying, and yet an instinct, an impulse,
30:33
Speaker 1: running through all these developments, told him that a moment
30:36
Speaker 1: had come and that he must seize some opportunity he
30:38
Speaker 1: hardly understood. Look here, he said, rather awkwardly. I want
30:42
Speaker 1: to tell you something. He looked down at the table
30:45
Speaker 1: as he continued. You said, just now you are married
30:48
Speaker 1: to the best woman in the world. Well, curiously enough,
30:50
Speaker 1: so am I. It's a coincidence that often happens. But
30:53
Speaker 1: it's a still more curious coincidence that, in our own
30:56
Speaker 1: quiet way, we went in for pork too. She kept
30:58
Speaker 1: pigs at the back of the little in where I
31:00
Speaker 1: met her, and at one time it looked as if
31:02
Speaker 1: the pigs might have to be given up, perhaps the
31:04
Speaker 1: inn as well, perhaps the wedding as well. We were
31:07
Speaker 1: quite poor, as poor as you were when we started,
31:09
Speaker 1: and to the poor, those extra modes of livelihood are
31:11
Speaker 1: often life. We might have been ruined. And the reason
31:14
Speaker 1: was I gather that you had gone in for pork.
31:16
Speaker 1: But after all, ours was the real pork. Pork that
31:18
Speaker 1: walked about on legs. We made the bed for the
31:20
Speaker 1: pag and filled the inside of the pig. You only
31:23
Speaker 1: bought and sold the name of the pig. You didn't
31:26
Speaker 1: go to business with a live little pig under your arm,
31:28
Speaker 1: or walked down Wall Street followed by a herd of swine.
31:30
Speaker 1: It was a phantom pig, the ghost of a pig
31:32
Speaker 1: that was able to kill our real pig, and perhaps
31:34
Speaker 1: us as well. Can you really justify the way in
31:37
Speaker 1: which your romance nearly rumined our romance? Don't you think
31:40
Speaker 1: there must be something wrong somewhere, well, said Oates, after
31:45
Speaker 1: a very long silence. That's a mighty big question, and
31:48
Speaker 1: we'll take a lot of discussing. But the end to
31:52
Speaker 1: which their discussion led must be left to reveal itself
31:54
Speaker 1: when the prostrate reader has recovered sufficient strength to support
31:57
Speaker 1: the story of the unthinkable theory of professors, which those
32:01
Speaker 1: who would endure to the end may read at some
32:03
Speaker 1: later date. End of Chapter five,