More Jonathan Papers | Page 5

I said, "and put it in your pocket."
"Where is it?" he asked.
"In the little medicine cupboard over the fireplace in the orchard room,
standing up at the side of the first shelf."
"Why not on your desk?" he asked.
"Because I was writing tags in there, and set it up so it would be out of
the way."
"And it was out of the way. All right. I'll collect it."
He went, and on his return I met him with eager hand--"My pen!"
"I'm sorry," he began.
"You didn't forget!" I exclaimed.
"No. But it wasn't there."
"But--did you look?"
"Yes, I looked."
"Thoroughly?"
"Yes. I lit three matches."
"Matches! Then you didn't get it when you first got there!"
"Why--no--I had the dog to attend to--and--but I had plenty of time
when I got back, and it wasn't there."

"Well--Dear me! Did you look anywhere else? I suppose I may be
mistaken. Perhaps I did take it back to the desk."
"That's just what I thought myself," said Jonathan. "So I went there,
and looked, and then I looked on all the mantelpieces and your bureau.
You must have put it in your bag the last minute--bet it's there now!"
"Bet it isn't."
It wasn't. For two weeks more I was driven to using other pens--strange
and distracting to the fingers and the eyes and the mind. Then Jonathan
was to go up again.
"Please look once more," I begged, "and don't expect not to see it. I can
fairly see it myself, this minute, standing up there on the right-hand
side, just behind the machine oil can."
"Oh, I'll look," he promised. "If it's there, I'll find it."
He returned penless. I considered buying another. But we were
planning to go up together the last week of the hunting season, and I
thought I would wait on the chance.
We got off at the little station and hunted our way up, making great
sweeps and jogs, as hunters must, to take in certain spots we thought
promising--certain ravines and swamp edges where we are always sure
of hearing the thunderous whir of partridge wings, or the soft, shrill
whistle of woodcock. At noon we broiled chops and rested in the lee of
the wood edge, where, even in the late fall, one can usually find spots
that are warm and still. It was dusk by the time we came over the crest
of the farm ledges and saw the huddle of the home buildings below us,
and quite dark when we reached the house. Fires had been made and
coals smouldered on the hearth in the sitting-room.
"You light the lamp," I said, "and I'll just take a match and go through
to see if that pen should happen to be there."
"No use doing anything to-night," said Jonathan. "To-morrow morning

you can have a thorough hunt."
But I took my match, felt my way into the next room, past the fireplace,
up to the cupboard, then struck my match. In its first flare-up I glanced
in. Then I chuckled.
Jonathan had gone out to the dining-room, but he has perfectly good
ears.
"NO!" he roared, and his tone of dismay, incredulity, rage, sent me off
into gales of unscrupulous laughter. He was striding in, candle in hand,
shouting, "It was not there!"
"Look yourself," I managed to gasp.
This time, somehow, he could see it.
"You planted it! You brought it up and planted it!"
"I never! Oh, dear me! It pays for going without it for weeks!"
"Nothing will ever make me believe that that pen was standing there
when I looked for it!" said Jonathan, with vehement finality.
"All right," I sighed happily. "You don't have to believe it."
But in his heart perhaps he does believe it. At any rate, since that time
he has adopted a new formula: "My dear, it may be there, of course, but
I don't see it." And this position I regard as unassailable.
One triumph he has had. I wanted something that was stored away in
the shut-up town house.
"Do you suppose you could find it?" I said, as gently as possible.
"I can try," he said.
"I think it is in a box about this shape--see?--a gray box, in the attic
closet, the farthest-in corner."

"Are you sure it's in the house? If it's in the house, I think I can find it."
"Yes, I'm sure of that."
When he returned that night, his face wore a look of satisfaction very
imperfectly concealed beneath a mask of nonchalance.
"Good for you! Was it where I said?"
"No."
"Was it in a different corner?"
"No."
"Where was it?"
"It wasn't in a corner at all. It wasn't in that closet."
"It wasn't! Where, then?"
"Downstairs in the hall