The Green Mouse

The Green Mouse, by Robert W. Chambers,

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Title: The Green Mouse
Author: Robert W. Chambers
Release Date: December 12, 2003 [eBook #10441]
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREEN MOUSE***
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[Illustration]
[Illustration: "She almost wished some fisherman might come into view."]

THE GREEN MOUSE
By
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
ILLUSTRATED IN COLOR BY
EDMUND FREDERICK
1910
TO
MY FRIEND
JOHN CORBIN
Folly and Wisdom, Heavenly twins, Sons of the god Imagination, Heirs of the Virtues--which were Sins Till Transcendental Contemplation Transmogrified their outer skins-- Friend, do you follow me? For I Have lost myself, I don't know why.
Resuming, then, this erudite And decorative Dedication,-- Accept it, John, with all your might In Cinquecentic resignation. You may not understand it, quite, But if you've followed me all through, You've done far more than I could do.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

PREFACE
To the literary, literal, and scientific mind purposeless fiction is abhorrent. Fortunately we all are literally and scientifically inclined; the doom of purposeless fiction is sounded; and it is a great comfort to believe that, in the near future, only literary and scientific works suitable for man, woman, child, and suffragette, are to adorn the lingerie-laden counters in our great department shops.
It is, then, with animation and confidence that the author politely offers to a regenerated nation this modern, moral, literary, and highly scientific work, thinly but ineffectually disguised as fiction, in deference to the prejudices of a few old-fashioned story-readers who still survive among us.
R. W. C.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

CONTENTS
I. An Idyl of the Idle
II. The Idler
III. The Green Mouse
IV. An Ideal Idol
V. Sacharissa
VI. In Wrong
VII. The Invisible Wire
VIII. "In Heaven and Earth"
IX. A Cross-town Car
X. The Lid Off
XI. Betty
XII. Sybilla
XIII. The Crown Prince
XIV. Gentlemen of the Press
XV. Drusilla
XVI. Flavilla
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"She almost wished some fisherman might come into view"
"'Those squirrels are very tame,' she observed calmly"
"'Are you not terribly impatient?' she inquired"
"The lid of the basket tilted a little.... Then a plaintive voice said 'Meow-w!'"
"'I'm afraid,' he ventured, 'that I may require that table for cutting'"
"'Perhaps,' he said, 'I had better hold your pencil again'"
[Illustration]

I
AN IDYL OF THE IDYL
In Which a Young Man Arrives at His Last Ditch and a Young Girl Jumps Over It
Utterly unequipped for anything except to ornament his environment, the crash in Steel stunned him. Dazed but polite, he remained a passive observer of the sale which followed and which apparently realized sufficient to satisfy every creditor, but not enough for an income to continue a harmlessly idle career which he had supposed was to continue indefinitely.
He had never earned a penny; he had not the vaguest idea of how people made money. To do something, however, was absolutely necessary.
He wasted some time in finding out just how much aid he might expect from his late father's friends, but when he understood the attitude of society toward a knocked-out gentleman he wisely ceased to annoy society, and turned to the business world.
Here he wasted some more time. Perhaps the time was not absolutely wasted, for during that period he learned that he could use nobody who could not use him; and as he appeared to be perfectly useless, except for ornament, and as a business house is not a kindergarten, and furthermore, as he had neither time nor money to attend any school where anybody could teach him anything, it occurred to him to take a day off for minute and thorough self-examination concerning his qualifications and even his right to occupy a few feet of space upon the earth's surface.
Four years at Harvard, two more in postgraduate courses, two more in Europe to perfect himself in electrical engineering, and a year at home attempting to invent a wireless apparatus for intercepting and transmitting psychical waves had left him pitifully unfit for wage earning.
There remained his accomplishments; but the market was overstocked with assorted time-killers.
His last asset was a trivial though unusual talent--a natural manual dexterity cultivated since childhood to amuse himself--something he never took seriously. This, and a curious control over animals, had, as the pleasant years flowed by, become an astonishing skill which was much more than sleight of hand; and he, always as good-humored as well-bred, had never refused to amuse the frivolous, of which he was also one, by picking silver dollars out of space and causing the proper card to fall fluttering from the ceiling.
Day by day, as the little money left him melted away, he continued his vigorous mental examination, until the alarming shrinkage in his funds left him