Rudyard Kipling - "Stalky & Co."

Charles Thompson - "Biography of a Slave"

Charlotte M. Yonge - "The Stokesley Secret"

Unknown - "The value of Zeta(3) to 1,000,000 decimal digits."

In the Sweet Dry and Dry

C >> Christopher Morley and Bart Haley >> In the Sweet Dry and Dry



Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

IN THE SWEET DRY AND DRY

BY CHRISTOPHER MORLEY AND BART HALEY

ILLUSTRATED BY GLUYAS WILLIAMS

DEDICATED TO G. K. CHESTERTON

MOST DELIGHTFUL OF MODERN DECANTERBURY PILGRIMS





FOREWORD

As far as this book is concerned, the public may Take It, or the
public may Let It Alone. But the authors feel it their duty to say
that no deductions as to their own private habits are to be made
from the story here offered. With its composition they have
beguiled the moments of the valley of the shadow.

Acknowledgement should be made to the Evening Public Ledger of
Philadelphia for permission to reprint the ditty included in
Chapter VI.

The public will forgive this being only a brief preface, for at
the moment of writing the time is short. Wishing you a Merry
Abstinence, and looking forward to meeting you some day in Europe,

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, BART HALEY.

Philadelphia, Ten minutes before Midnight, June 30, 1919.





TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. MYSTERY OF THE UNEXPECTED JULEP
II. THE HOUSE ON CARAWAY STREET
III. INCIDENT OF THE GOOSEBERRY BOMBS
IV. THE GREAT WAR BEGINS
V. THE TREACHERY OF MISS CHUFF
VI. DEPARTED SPIRITS
VII. THE DECANTERBURY PILGRIMS
VIII. WITH BENEFIT OF CLERGY
IX. THE ELECTION
X. E PLURIBUS UNUM
XI. IT'S A LONG WORM THAT HAS NO TURNING





IN THE SWEET DRY AND DRY





CHAPTER I

MYSTERY OF THE UNEXPECTED JULEP


Dunraven Bleak, the managing editor of The Evening Balloon, sat
at his desk in the center of the local-room, under a furious cone
of electric light. It was six o'clock of a warm summer afternoon:
he was filling his pipe and turning over the pages of the Final
edition of the paper, which had just come up from the press-room.
After the turmoil of the day the room had quieted, most of the
reporters had left, and the shaded lamps shone upon empty tables
and a floor strewn ankle-deep with papers. Nearby sat the city
editor, checking over the list of assignments for the next
morning. From an adjoining kennel issued occasional deep groans
and a strong whiff of savage shag tobacco, blown outward by the
droning gust of an electric fan. These proved that the cartoonist
(a man whose sprightly drawings were born to an obbligato of
vehement blasphemy) was at work within.

Mr. Bleak was just beginning to recuperate from the incessant
vigilance of the day's work. There was an unconscious pathos in
his lean, desiccated figure as he rose and crossed the room to the
green glass drinking-fountain. After the custom of experienced
newspapermen, he rapidly twirled a makeshift cup out of a sheet of
copy paper. He poured himself a draught of clear but rather tepid
water, and drank it without noticeable relish. His lifted head
betrayed only the automatic thankfulness of the domestic fowl.
There had been a time when six o'clock meant something better than
a paper goblet of lukewarm filtration.

He sat down at his desk again. He had loaded his pipe sedulously
with an extra fine blend which he kept in his desk drawer for
smoking during rare moments of relaxation when he had leisure to
savor it. As he reached for a match he was meditating a genial
remark to the city editor, when he discovered that there was only
one tandsticker in the box. He struck it, and the blazing head
flew off upon the cream-colored thigh of his Palm Beach suit. His
naturally placid temper, undermined by thirty years of newspaper
work and two years of prohibition, flamed up also. With a loud
scream of rage and a curse against Sweden, he leaped to his feet
and shook the glowing cinder from his person. Facing him he found
a stranger who had entered the room quietly and unobserved.

This was a huge man, clad in a sober uniform of gray cloth, with
silver buttons and silver braid. A Sam Browne belt of wide blue
leather marched across his extensive diagonal in a gentle curve.
The band of his vizored military cap showed the initials C.P.H. in
silver embroidery. His face, broad and clean-shaven, shone with a
lustre which was partly warmth and partly simple friendliness.
Save for a certain humility of bearing, he might have been taken
for the liveried door-man of a moving-picture theater or exclusive
millinery shop.

In one hand he carried a very large black leather suit-case.

"Is this Mr. Bleak?" he asked politely.

"Yes," said the editor, in surprise. His secret surmise was that
some one had died and left him a legacy which would enable him to
retire from newspaper work. (This is the unacknowledged dream that
haunts many journalists.) Mr. Bleak was wondering whether this was
the way in which legacies were announced.

The man in the gray uniform set the bag down with great care on
the large flat desk. He drew out a key and unlocked it. Before
opening it he looked round the room. The city editor and three
reporters were watching curiously. A shy gayety twinkled in his
clear blue eyes.

"Mr. Bleak," he said, "you and these other gentlemen present are
men of discretion--?"

Bleak made a gesture of reassurance.

The other leaned over the suit-case and lifted the lid.

The bag was divided into several compartments. In one, the
startled editor beheld a nest of tall glasses; in another, a
number of interesting flasks lying in a porcelain container among
chipped ice. In the lid was an array of straws, napkins, a flat
tray labeled CLOVES, and a bunch of what looked uncommonly like
mint leaves. Mr. Bleak did not speak, but his pulse was
disorderly.

The man in gray drew out five tumblers and placed them on the
desk. Rapidly several bottles caught the light: there was a
gesture of pouring, a clink of ice, and beneath the spellbound
gaze of the watchers the glasses fumed and bubbled with a volatile
potion. A glass mixing rod tinkled in the thin crystal shells, and
the man of mystery deftly thrust a clump of foliage into each. A
well known fragrance exhaled upon the tobacco-thickened air.

"Shades of the Grail!" cried Bleak. "Mint julep!"

The visitor bowed and pushed the glasses forward. "With the
compliments of the Corporation," he said.

The city editor sprang to his feet. Sagely cynical, he suspected a
ruse.

"It's a plant!" he exclaimed. "Don't touch it! It's a trick on the
part of the Department of Justice, trying to get us into trouble."

Bleak gazed angrily at the stranger. If this was indeed a federal
stratagem, what an intolerably cruel one! In front of him the
glasses sparkled alluringly: a delicate mist gathered on their
ice-chilled curves: a pungent sweetness wavered in his nostrils.

"See here!" he blurted with shrill excitement. "Are you a damned
government agent? If so, take your poison and get out."

The tall stranger in his impressive uniform stood erect and
unabashed. With affectionate care he gave the tumblers a final
musical stir.

"O ye of little faith!" he said calmly. The sadness of the
misunderstood idealist grieved his features. "Have you forgotten
the miracle of Cana?" From his pocket he took a card and laid it
on the desk.

Bleak seized it. It said:

THE CORPORATION FOR THE PERPETUATION OF HAPPINESS

1316 Caraway Street

Virgil Quimbleton, Associate Director

He stared at the pasteboard, stupefied, and handed it to the city
editor.

Meanwhile the three reporters had drawn near. Light-hearted and
irresponsible souls, unoppressed by the embittered suspicion of
their superiors, they nosed the floating aroma with candid
hilarity.

"The breath of Eden!" said one.

"It's a warm evening," remarked another, with seeming irrelevance.

The face of Virgil Quimbleton, the man in gray, relaxed again at
these marks of honest appreciation. He waved an encouraging arm
over the crystals. "With the compliments of the Corporation," he
repeated.

Bleak and the city editor looked again at the card, and at each
other. They scanned the face of their mysterious benefactor.
Bleak's hand went out to the nearest glass. He raised it to his
lips. An almost-forgotten formula recurred to him. "Down the rat-
hole!" he cried, and tilted his arm. The others followed suit, and
the associate director watched them with a glow of perfect
altruism.

The glasses were still in air when the cartoonist emerged from his
room. "Holy cat!" he cried in amazement. "What's going on?" He
seized one of the empty vessels and sniffed it.

"Treason!" he exclaimed. "Who's been robbing the mint?"

"Maybe you can have one too," said Bleak, and turned to where
Quimbleton had been standing. But the mysterious visitor had leff
the room.

"You're too late, Bill," said the city editor genially. "There was
a kind of Messiah here, but he's gone. Tough luck."

"Say, boss," suggested one of the reporters. "There's a story in
this. May I interview that guy?"

Bleak picked up the card and put it in his pocket. A heavenly
warmth pervaded his mental fabric. "A story?" he said. "Forget it!
This is no story. It's a legend of the dear dead past. I'll cover
this assignment myself."

He borrowed a match and lit his pipe. Then he put on his coat and
hat and left the office.

It was remarked by faithful readers of the Balloon that the next
day's cartoon was one of the least successful in the history of
that brilliant newspaper.





CHAPTER II

THE HOUSE ON CARAWAY STREET


After telephoning to his wife that he would not be home for
supper, Bleak set out for Caraway Street. He was in that exuberant
mood discernible in commuters unexpectedly spending an evening in
town. Instead of hurrying out to the suburbs on the 6:17 train, to
mow the lawn and admire the fireflies, here he was watching the
more dazzling fireflies of the city--the electric signs which were
already bulbed wanly against the rich orange of the falling sun.
He puffed his pipe lustily and with a jaunty condescension watched
the crowds thronging the drugstores for their dram of ice-cream
soda. In his bosom the secret julep tingled radiantly. At that
hour of the evening the shining bustle of the central streets was
drawing the life of the city to itself. In the residential by-ways
through which his route took him the pavements were nearly
deserted. A delicious sense of extravagant adventure possessed
him. As a newspaper man, he did not feel at all sure that he was
on the threshold of a printable "story"; but as a connoisseur of
juleps he felt that very possibly he was on the threshold of
another drink. Passing a line of billboards, he noticed a brightly
colored poster advertising a brand of collars. In sheer light-
heartedness he drew a soft pencil from his waistcoat and adorned
the comely young man on the collar poster with a heavy mustache.

Caraway Street, with which he had not previously been familiar,
proved to be a quaint little channel of old brick houses, leading
into the bonfire of the summer sunset. There was nothing to
distinguish number 1316 from its neighbors. He rang the bell, and
there ensued a rapid clicking in the lock, indicating that the
latch had been released by some one within. He pushed the door
open, and entered.

He had a curious sensation of having stepped into an old Flemish
painting. The hall in which he stood was cool and rather dark,
though a bright refraction of light tossed from some upper window
upon a tall mirror filled the shadow with broken spangles. Through
an open doorway at the rear was the green glimmer of a garden. In
front of him was a mahogany sideboard. On its polished top lay two
books, a box of cigars, and a cut glass decanter surrounded by
several glasses. In the decanter was a pale yellow fluid which
held a beam of light. The house was completely silent.

Somewhat abashed, he removed his hat and stood irresolute,
expecting some greeting. But nothing happened. On a rack against
the wall he saw a gray uniform coat like that which Mr. Quimbleton
had worn in the Balloon office, and a similar gray cap with the
silver monogram. He glanced at the books. One was The Rubaiyat of
Omar Khayyam, the other was a Bible, open at the second chapter of
John. He was looking curiously at the decanter when a voice
startled him.

"Dandelion wine!" it said. "Will you have a glass?"

He turned and saw an old gentleman with profuse white hair and
beard tottering into the hall.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Bleak," said the latter. "I was expecting
you."

"You are very kind," said the editor. "I fear you have the
advantage of me--I was told that Walt Whitman died in 1892--"

"Nonsense!" wheezed the other with a senile chuckle. He
straightened, ripped off his silver fringes, and appeared as the
stalwart Quimbleton himself.

"Forgive my precautions," he said. "I am surrounded by spies. I
have to be careful. Should some of my enemies learn that old Mr.
Monkbones of Caraway Street is the same as Virgil Quimbleton of
the Happiness Corporation, my life wouldn't be worth--well, a
glass of gooseberry brandy. Speaking of that, Have a little of the
dandelion wine." He pointed to the decanter.

Bleak poured himself a glass, and watched his host carefully
resume the hoary wig and whiskers. They passed into the garden, a
quiet green enclosure surrounded by brick walls and bright with
hollyhocks and other flowers. It was overlooked by a quaint jumble
of rear gables, tall chimneys and white-shuttered dormer windows.

"Do you play croquet?" asked Quimbleton, showing a neat pattern of
white hoops fixed in the shaven turf. "If so, we must have a game
after supper. It's very agreeable as a quiet relaxation."

Mr. Bleak was still trying to get his bearings. To see this robust
creature gravely counterfeiting the posture of extreme old age was
almost too much for his gravity. There was a bizarre absurdity in
the solemn way Quimbleton beamed out from his frosty and
fraudulent shrubbery. Something in the air of the garden, also,
seemed to push Bleak toward laughter. He had that sensation which
we have all experienced--an unaccountable desire to roar with
mirth, for no very definite cause. He bit his lip, and sought
rigorously for decorum.

"Upon my soul," he said, "This is the most fragrant garden I ever
smelt. What is that delicious odor in the air, that faint perfume--?"

"That subtle sweetness?" said Quimbleton, with unexpected
drollery.

"Exactly," said Bleak. "That abounding and pervasive aroma--"

"That delicate bouquet--?"

"Quite so, that breath of myrrh--"

"That balmy exhalation--?"

Bleak wondered if this was a game. He tried valiantly to continue.
"Precisely," he said, "That quintessence of--"

He could coerce himself no longer, and burst into a yell of
laughter.

"Hush!" said Quimbleton, nervously. "Some one may be watching us.
But the fragrance of the garden is something I am rather proud of.
You see, I water the flowers with champagne."

"With champagne!" echoed Bleak. "Good heavens, man, you'll get
penal servitude."

"Nonsense!" said Quimbleton. "The Eighteenth Amendment says that
intoxicating liquors may not be manufactured, sold or transported
FOR BEVERAGE PURPOSES. Nothing is said about using them to
irrigate the garden. I have a friend who makes this champagne
himself and gives me some of it for my rose-beds. If you spray the
flowers with it, and then walk round and inhale them, you get
quite a genial reaction. I do it principally to annoy Bishop
Chuff. You see, he lives next door."

"Bishop Chuff of the Pan-Antis?"

"Yes," said Quimbleton--"but don't shout! His garden adjoins this.
He has a periscope that overlooks my quarters. That's why I have
to wear this disguise in the garden. I think he's getting a bit
suspicious. I manage to cause him a good deal of suffering with
the fizz fumes from my garden. Jolly idea, isn't it?"

Bleak was aghast at the temerity of the man. Bishop Chuff, the
fanatical leader of the Anti-Everything League--jocosely known as
the Pan-Antis--was the most feared man in America. It was he whose
untiring organization had forced prohibition through the
legislatures of forty States--had closed the golf links on
Sundays--had made it a misdemeanor to be found laughing in public.
And here was this daring Quimbleton, living at the very sill of
the lion's den.

"By means of my disguise," whispered Quimbleton, "I was able to
make a pleasant impression on the Bishop. One evening I went to
call on him. I took the precaution to eat a green persimmon
beforehand, which distorted my features into such a malignant
contraction of pessimism and misanthropy that I quite won his
heart. He accepted an invitation to play croquet with me. That
afternoon I prepared the garden with a deluge of champagne. The
golden drops sparkled on every rose-petal: the lawn was drenched
with it. After playing one round the Bishop was gloriously
inflamed. He had to be carried home, roaring the most unseemly
ditties. Since then, as I say, he has grown (I fear) a trifle
suspicious. But let us have a bite of supper."

More than once, as they sat under a thickly leafy grape arbor in
the quiet green enclosure, Bleak had to pinch himself to confirm
the witness of his senses. A table was delicately spread with an
agreeable repast of cold salmon, asparagus salad, fruits, jellies,
and whipped creams. The flagon of dandelion vintage played its due
part in the repast, and Mr. Bleak began to entertain a new respect
for this common flower of which he had been unduly inappreciative.
Although the trellis screened them from observation, Quimbleton
seemed ill at ease. He kept an alert gaze roving about him, and
spoke only in whispers. Once, when a bird lighted in the foliage
behind them, causing a sudden stir among the leaves, his shaggy
beard whirled round with every symptom of panic. Little by little
this apprehension began to infect the journalist also. At first he
had hardly restrained his mirth at the sight of this burly athlete
framed in the bush of Santa Claus. Now he began to wonder whether
his escapade had been consummated at too great a risk.

That old-fashioned quarter of the city was incredibly still. As
the light ebbed slowly, and broad blue shadows crept across the
patch of turf, they sat in a silence broken only by the wiry cheep
of sparrows and the distant moan of trolley cars. The arrows of
the decumbent sun gilded the ripening grapes above them. Suddenly
there were two loud bangs and a vicious whistle sang through the
arbor. Broken twigs eddied down upon the table cloth.

"Spotted mackerel!" cried Bleak. "Is some one shooting at us?"

Quimbleton reappeared presently from under the table. "All
serene," he said. "We're safe now. That was only Chuff. Every
night about this time he comes out on his back gallery and enjoys
a little sharp-shooting. He's a very good shot, and picks off the
grapes that have ripened during the day. There were only two that
were really purple this evening, so now we can go ahead. Unless he
should send over a raiding party, we're all right."

The editor solaced himself with another beaker of the dandelion
wine and they finished their meal in thoughtful silence.

"Mr. Bleak," said the other at last, "it was something more than
mere desire to give you a pleasant surprise that led me to your
office this afternoon. Have you leisure to listen? Good! Please
try one of these cigars. If, while I am talking, you should hear
any one moving in the garden, just tap quietly on the table. Tell
me, have you, before to-day, ever heard of the Corporation for the
Perpetuation of Happiness?"

"Never," replied Bleak, kindling a magnifico of remarkably rich,
mild flavor.

"That is as I expected," rejoined Quimbleton. "We have campaigned
incognito, partly by choice and partly (let me be candid) by
necessity. But the time is come when we shall have to appear in
the open. The last great struggle is on, and it can no longer be
conducted in the dark. In the course of my remarks I may be
tempted to forget our present perils. I beg of you, if you hear
any sounds that seem suspicious, to notify me instantly."

"Pardon me," said Bleak, a little uneasily; "it was my intention
to catch the 9.30 train for Mandrake Park."

The fantastic cascade of false white hair wagged gravely in the
dusk.

"My dear sir," said Quimbleton solemnly, "I fancy you are to be
gratified by a far higher destiny than catching the 9.30. Do me
the honor of filling your glass. But be careful not to clink the
decanter against the tumbler. There is every probability that
vigilant ears are on the alert."

There was a brief silence, and Bleak wondered (a trifle wildly) if
he were dreaming. The cigar on the opposite side of the little
table glowed rosily several times, and then Quimbleton's voice
resumed, in a deep undertone.

"It is necessary to tell you," he said, "that the Corporation was
founded a number of years ago, long before the events of the fatal
year 1919 and the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The
incident of this afternoon may have caused you to think that what
is vulgarly called booze is the chief preoccupation of our
society. That is not so. We were organized at first simply to
bring merriment and good cheer into the lives of those who have
found the vexations of modern life too trying. In our early days
we carried on an excellent (though unsystematic) guerilla warfare
against human suffering.

"In this (let me admit it frankly) we were to a great degree
selfish. As you are aware, the essence of humor is surprise: we
found a delicious humor in our campaign of surprising woebegone
humanity in moments of crisis. For instance, we used to picket the
railway terminals to console commuters who had just missed their
trains. We found it uproariously funny to approach a perspiring
suburbanite, who had missed the train (let us say) to Mandrake
Park, and to press upon him, with the compliments of the
Corporation, some consolatory souvenir--a box of cigars, perhaps,
or a basket of rare fruit. Housewives, groaning over their endless
routine of bathing the baby, ordering the meals, sweeping the
floors and so on, would be amazed by the sudden appearance of one
of our deputies, in the service uniform of gray and silver,
equipped with vacuum cleaner and electric baby-washing machine, to
take over the domestic chores for one day. The troubles of lovers
were under our special care. We saw how much anguish is caused by
the passion of jealousy. Many an engaged damsel, tempted to mild
escapade in some perfumed conservatory, found her heart chilled by
the stern eye of a uniformed C.P.H. agent lurking behind a potted
hydrangea. We hired bands of urchins to make faces at evil old men
who plate-glass themselves in the windows of clubs. Many a
husband, wondering desperately which hat or which tie to select,
has been surprised by the appearance of one of our staff at his
elbow, tactfully pointing out which article would best harmonize
with his complexion and station in life. Ladies who insisted on
overpowdering their noses were quietly waylaid by one of our
matrons, and the excess of rice-dust removed. A whole shipload of
people who persisted in eating onions were gathered (without any
publicity) into a concentration camp, and in company with several
popular comedians, deported to a coral atoll. I could enumerate
thousands of such instances. For several years we worked in this
unassuming way, trying to add to the sum of human happiness."

Quimbleton's white beard shone with a pinkish brightness as he
inhaled heavily on his cigar.

"Now, Mr. Bleak," he went on, "I come to you because we need your
help. We can no longer maintain a light-hearted sniping campaign
on the enemies of human happiness. This is a death struggle. You
are aware that Chuff and his legions are planning a tremendous
parade for to-morrow. You know that it will be the most startling
demonstration of its kind ever arranged. One hundred thousand pan-
antis will parade on the Boulevard, with a hundred brass bands,
led by the Bishop himself on his coal black horse. Do you know the
purpose of the parade?"

"In a general way," said Bleak, "I suppose it is to give publicity
to the prohibition cause."

"They have kept their malign scheme entirely secret," said
Quimbleton. "You, as a newspaper man, should know it. Does the
(so-called) cause of prohibition require publicity? Nonsense!
Prohibition is already in effect. The purpose of the parade is to
undermine the splendid work our Corporation has been doing for the
past two years. As soon as the fatal amendment was passed we set
to work to teach people how to brew beverages of their own, in
their own homes. As you know, very delicious wine may be made from
almost every vegetable and fruit. Potatoes, tomatoes, rhubarb,
currants, blackberries, gooseberries, raisins, apples--all these
are susceptible of fermentation, transforming their juices into
desirable vintages. We specialized on such beverages. We printed
and distributed millions of recipes. Chuff countered by passing
laws that no printed recipes could circulate through the mails. We
had motion pictures filmed, showing the eager public how to
perform these simple and cheering processes. Chuff thereupon had
motion pictures banned. He would abolish the principle of
fermentation itself if he could.

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.