Back Aa

Bizarre

Close

<h2>OPPRESSORS OF THE MEEK</h2> I am not afraid of bloated bondholders. I suspect that they are just humans like myself, only that they have money. But I am afraid of their servants. They are not human. No one ever saw them eat or sleep or smile. My millionaire host may overlook the fact that I am using the salad-fork for the fish; not so his English butler. This austere personage takes note of my error in silence, and, when the salad course arrives, steals up behind me like Nemesis, and lays by my plate the fork that correct form demands. I feel chastened. His eye is always upon me. I can't even take a sip of water without his calling attention to it by stealthily refilling my glass. If he didn't watch me so closely when I am helping myself, I wouldn't be so nervous. As it is, my hand trembles under his grueling stare. Just at the critical moment when my tongful of asparagus, conveyed like a hot coal, is poised in mid-air between the serving-dish[Pg 85] and my plate, I flinch, and there is a green-and-white avalanche. I make a frantic slap at it as it falls, and by good luck it lands on the plate. To be sure, some of the stalks are craning their necks perilously over the edge, but that is a small matter compared with what might have happened. I rake them into the middle of the plate, sit gasping at the thought of my narrow escape. [Pg 84] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_084.png" width-obs="300" alt="Formal dining table" /> My host may overlook the fact that I am using the salad fork for fish; not so his English butler. </div> There is an awkward pause. The bon mot I was about to utter apropos of an opera I had never heard has left my mind entirely. I can't think of anything to say. Finally, in desperation, I remark idiotically to the dowager at my left, "I love asparagus; don't you?" The next time he passes a dish, I lose my nerve. I lift my hand to help myself, and then, as I catch his eye, draw back, shaking my head. No, I won't take any chances. After that I keep to a strict diet, eating only the things that appear on my plate when it is put down in front of me. If the plate arrives naked and empty, naked and empty it remains, even though the course consist of my favorite delicacy. I suffer the pangs of Tantalus. [Pg 86] Alligator-pear salad—more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold—is offered to me. I covet it. Everything gastronomic in my nature craves it, but cowardly fear restrains me (it looks slippery), and I refuse it. I could almost weep. As the dinner proceeds and my modified hunger-strike continues, I begin to regain confidence. I feel that my abstemiousness, implying as it does a jaded palate and an aristocratic indigestion, is highly fashionable. I fancy that in refusing ambrosia I am showing a godlike superiority. I expand with self-assurance. Just watch me startle these plutocrats with my scorn of their costly food. I'll make myself the lion of the evening. "May I help you to shortcake, sir?" asks a low, ironically respectful voice. My pride collapses. The butler has seen through me to the cowardice in my heart. From his lofty pinnacle he stoops to succor me. But I rebel. "I'll help myself, thank you," I retort, for I am on my mettle now, and boldly prize[Pg 87] off a towering segment of the dessert. Would I let a menial reveal to the whole table that I was afraid to help myself? Never! Why, I'd sooner— Dizzily the creamy thing totters, keels over, and falls with a sickening flop, a mushy sound, as of the impact of a wet sponge. Juicy red berries gambol hither and thither. For a moment the shortcake lies helplessly on its side like a jellyfish that the tide has left. But only for a moment; for a wrecking-crew, made up of the butler and his assistant, comes hurrying on the scene. With emergency plate and scraper they remove the debris, while I turn purple and clutch at my collar for air. Then, after a mortifying amount of crumb-gleaning and cream-mopping, they spread a napkin before me in the presence of my swell friends, as if to shield the cloth from further depredations. I draw back to allow them to put it there, and in so doing squash a hidden strawberry against my waistcoat. As a final humiliation, a fresh piece of shortcake is brought to me already on a plate. If there is anything more formidable than[Pg 88] an English butler, it is an English valet. Somebody else's valet, I mean; for I suppose that if a person had one long enough, he could get so that he wouldn't be afraid of him. But as for a perfectly strange English valet! "Your key, please, sir," demands Hawkins upon my arrival at my friend's summer palace. He bows slightly. "What key?" I ask uneasily. "The key to your traveling-bag, sir." I am just stopping overnight on my way home from a house party in the woods, and all my spare raiment is soiled and bedraggled. "So I can unpack your things, sir," threatens the Great Mogul. "Never mind, thank you," I stammer. "I've lost the key." "Very good, sir," he replies and goes. But not permanently. When I return to my room at midnight, elated over having trounced my host in countless games of billiards, I am met at the door by my oppressor. In his hand is a small object. "I fetched a locksmith out from the city,[Pg 89] sir, and 'ad 'im make this for you, sir. It fits quite correctly, sir." And one glance about the room—from the snaggle-tooth comb on the dresser to the frayed pajamas the mussiness of which no festive laying out can hide—makes me aware of my utter ignominy. Since when I have confined my week-end visiting exclusively to lumber camps. <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 90] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2