The Patient Observer | Page 2

fear into Bowman's soul. He is habitually afraid of janitors, train-guards,
elevator-boys, barbers, bootblacks, telephone-girls, and saleswomen.
But his particular dread is of waiters. There have been times when
Bowman thought that to punish poor service and set an example to
others, he would omit the customary tip. But such a resolution,
embraced with the soup, has never lasted beyond the entrée. And, as a
matter of fact, Bowman said, such a resolution always spoils his dinner.

As long as he entertains it, he dares not look his man in the eye. He
stirs his coffee with shaking fingers. He is cravenly, horribly afraid.
Bowman is afraid even of new waiters and of waiters he never expects
to see again. Surely, it must be safe not to tip a waiter one never
expected to see again. "But no," said Bowman, "I should feel his
contemptuous gaze in the marrow of my backbone as I walked out. I
could not keep from shaking, and I should rush from that place in
agony, with the man's derisive laughter ringing in my ears."
The only one of the company who was not afraid of something concrete,
something tangible, was Williams. Now Williams is notoriously,
hopelessly shy; and when he took up the subject where Bowman had
left it, he poured out his soul with all the fervour and abandon of which
only the shy are capable. Williams was afraid of his own past. It was
not a hideously criminal one, for his life had been that of a bookworm
and recluse. But out of that past Williams would conjure up the
slightest incident--a trifling breach of manners, a mere word out of
place, a moment in which he had lost control of his emotions, and the
memory of it would put him into a cold sweat of horror and shame.
Years ago, at a small dinner party, Williams had overturned a glass of
water on the table-cloth; and whenever he thinks of that glass of water,
his heart beats furiously, his palate goes dry, and there is a horribly
empty feeling in his stomach. Once, on some similar occasion,
Williams fell into animated talk with a beautiful young woman. He
spoke so rapidly and so well that the rest of the company dropped their
chat and gathered about him. It was five minutes, perhaps, before he
was aware of what was going on. That night Williams walked the
streets in an agony of remorse. The recollection of the incident comes
back to him every now and then, and, whether he is alone at his desk,
or in the theatre, or in a Broadway crowd, he groans with pain. Take
away such memories of the past, Williams told us, and he knew of
nothing in life that he is afraid of.
Gordon's was quite a different case. The group about the table burst out
laughing when Gordon assured us that above all things else in this
world he is afraid of elephants. He agreed with Bowman that in the

latitude of New York City and under the zoölogic conditions prevailing
here, it was a preposterous fear to entertain. Gordon lives in Harlem,
and he recognises clearly enough that the only elephant-bearing jungle
in the neighbourhood is Central Park, whence an animal would be
compelled to take a Subway train to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth
Street, and lie in wait for him as he came home in the twilight. But
irrational or no, there was the fact. To be quashed into pulp under one
of those girder-like front legs, Gordon felt must be abominable. To
make matters worse, Gordon has a young son who insists on being
taken every Sunday morning to see the animals; and of all attractions in
the menagerie, the child prefers the elephant house. He loves to feed
the biggest of the elephants, and to watch him place pennies in a little
wooden box and register the deposits on a bell. What Gordon suffers at
such times, he told us, can be neither imagined nor described.
My own story was received with sympathetic attention. I told them that
the one great terror of my life is a certain man who owes me a fairly
large sum of money, borrowed some years ago. Whenever we meet he
insists on recalling the debt and reminding me of how much the favour
meant to him at the time, and how he never ceases to think of it.
Meeting him has become a torture. I do my best to avoid him, and
frequently succeed. But often he will catch sight of me across the street
and run over and grasp me by the hand and inquire after my health in so
hearty, so honest a fashion that I cannot bear to look him in the face.
And