The Green Mouse | Page 5

him a hearing on account of
former obligations or his social position. Everybody knew he had gone
to smash; everybody, he very soon discovered, was naturally afraid of
being bothered by him. The dread of the overfed that an underfed
member of the community may request a seat at the table he now

understood perfectly. He was learning.
So he solicited aid from nobody whom he had known in former days;
neither from those who had aided him when he needed no aid, nor
those who owed their comfortable position to the generosity of his
father--a gentleman notorious for making fortunes for his friends.
Therefore he wrote to strangers on a purely business basis--to amazing
types lately emerged from the submerged, bulging with coal money,
steel money, copper money, wheat money, stockyard money--types that
galloped for Fifth Avenue to build town houses; that shook their long
cars and frisked into the country and built "cottages." And this was how
he put it:
"Madam: In case you desire to entertain guests with the professional
services of a magician it would give me pleasure to place my very
unusual accomplishments at your disposal."
And signed his name.
It was a dreadful drain on his bank account to send several thousand
engraved cards about town and fashionable resorts. No replies came.
Day after day, exhausted with the practice drill of his profession, he
walked to the Park and took his seat on the bench by the bridle path.
Sometimes he saw her cantering past; she always acknowledged his
salute, but never drew bridle. At times, too, he passed her in the hall;
her colorless "Good morning" never varied except when she said
"Good evening." And all this time he never inquired her name from the
hall servant; he was that sort of man--decent through instinct; for even
breeding sometimes permits sentiment to snoop.
For a week he had been airily dispensing with more than one meal a
day; to keep clothing and boots immaculate required a sacrifice of
breakfast and luncheon--besides, he had various small pensioners to
feed, white rabbits with foolish pink eyes, canary birds, cats, albino
mice, goldfish, and other collaborateurs in his profession. He was
obliged to bribe the janitor, too, because the laws of the house
permitted neither animals nor babies within its precincts. This extra

honorarium deprived him of tobacco, and he became a pessimist.
Besides, doubts as to his own ability arose within him; it was all very
well to practice his magic there alone, but he had not yet tried it on
anybody except the janitor; and when he had begun by discovering
several red-eyed rabbits in the janitor's pockets that intemperate
functionary fled with a despondent yell that brought a policeman to the
area gate with a threat to pull the place.
At length, however, a letter came engaging him for one evening. He
was quite incredulous at first, then modestly scared, perplexed, exultant
and depressed by turns. Here was an opening--the first. And because it
was the first its success or failure meant future engagements or
consignments to the street, perhaps as a white-wing. There must be no
faltering now, no bungling, no mistakes, no amateurish hesitation. It is
the empty- headed who most strenuously demand intelligence in others.
One yawn from such an audience meant his professional damnation--he
knew that; every second must break like froth in a wine glass; an
instant's perplexity, a slackening of the tension, and those flaccid
intellects would relax into native inertia. Incapable of self-amusement,
depending utterly upon superior minds for a respite from ennui, their
caprice controlled his fate; and he knew it.
Sitting there by the sunny window with a pair of magnificent white
Persian cats purring on either knee, he read and reread the letter
summoning him on the morrow to Seabright. He knew who his hostess
was--a large lady lately emerged from a corner in lard, dragging with
her some assorted relatives of atrophied intellects and a husband whose
only mental pleasure depended upon the speed attained by his racing
car--the most exacting audience he could dare to confront.
Like the White Knight he had had plenty of practice, but he feared that
warrior's fate; and as he sat there he picked up a bunch of silver hoops,
tossed them up separately so that they descended linked in a glittering
chain, looped them and unlooped them, and, tiring, thoughtfully tossed
them toward the ceiling again, where they vanished one by one in
mid-air.

The cats purred; he picked up one, molded her carefully in his
handsome hands; and presently, under the agreeable massage, her
purring increased while she dwindled and dwindled to the size of a
small, fluffy kitten, then vanished entirely, leaving in his hand a tiny
white mouse. This mouse he tossed into the air,