Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

of fern leaves touched her knee; she was like a hummingbird⁠—green and golden and purple.

And then she danced a fluttering, fantastic dance, so agile and light and mazy in her steps that the other three members of the Carroll Comedy Company broke into applause at the art of it.

And at the proper time Delmars leaped out at her side, mimicking the uncouth, hideous bounds of the gorilla so funnily that the grizzled sergeant himself gave a short laugh like the closing of a padlock. They danced together the gorilla dance, and won a hand from all.

Then began the most fantastic part of the scene⁠—the wooing of the nymph by the gorilla. It was a kind of dance itself⁠—eccentric and prankish, with the nymph in coquettish and seductive retreat, followed by the gorilla as he sang “I’ll Woo Thee to My Sylvan Home.”

The song was a lyric of merit. The words were nonsense, as befitted the play, but the music was worthy of something better. Delmars struck into it in a rich tenor that owned a quality that shamed the flippant words.

During one verse of the song the wood nymph performed the grotesque evolutions designed for the scene. At the middle of the second verse she stood still, with a strange look on her face, seeming to gaze dreamily into the depths of the scenic forest. The gorilla’s last leap had brought him to her feet, and there he knelt, holding her hand, until he had finished the haunting-lyric that was set in the absurd comedy like a diamond in a piece of putty.

When Delmars ceased Miss Carroll started, and covered a sudden flow of tears with both hands.

“There!” cried the playwright, gesticulating with violence; “there you have it, sergeant. For two weeks she has spoiled that scene in just that manner at every performance. I have begged her to consider that it is not Ophelia or Juliet that she is playing. Do you wonder now at our impatience? Tears for the gorilla song! The play is lost!”

Out of her bewitchment, whatever it was, the wood nymph flared suddenly, and pointed a desperate finger at Delmars.

“It is you⁠—you who have done this,” she cried wildly. “You never sang that song that way until lately. It is your doing.”

“I give it up,” said the sergeant.

And then the gray-haired matron of the police station came forward from behind the sergeant’s chair.

“Must an old woman teach you all?” she said. She went up to Miss Carroll and took her hand.

“The man’s wearing his heart out for you, my dear. Couldn’t you tell it the first note you heard him sing? All of his monkey flip-flops wouldn’t have kept it from me. Must you be deaf as well as blind? That’s why you couldn’t act your part, child. Do you love him or must he be a gorilla for the rest of his days?”

Miss Carroll whirled around and caught Delmars with a lightning glance of her eye. He came toward her, melancholy.

“Did you hear, Mr. Delmars?” she asked, with a catching breath.

“I did,” said the comedian. “It is true. I didn’t think there was any use. I tried to let you know with the song.”

“Silly!” said the matron; “why didn’t you speak?”

“No, no,” cried the wood nymph, “his way was the best. I didn’t know, but⁠—it was just what I wanted, Bobby.”

She sprang like a green grasshopper; and the comedian opened his arms, and⁠—smiled.

“Get out of this,” roared the desk sergeant to the waiting waiter from the restaurant. “There’s nothing doing here for you.”

Man About Town

There were two or three things that I wanted to know. I do not care about a mystery. So I began to inquire.

It took me two weeks to find out what women carry in dress suitcases. And then I began to ask why a mattress is made in two pieces. This serious query was at first received with suspicion because it sounded like a conundrum. I was at last assured that its double form of construction was designed to make lighter the burden of woman, who makes up beds. I was so foolish as to persist, begging to know why, then, they were not made in two equal pieces; whereupon I was shunned.

The third draught that I craved from the fount of knowledge was enlightenment concerning the character known as A Man About Town. He was more vague in my mind than a type should be. We must have a concrete idea of anything, even if it be an imaginary idea, before we can comprehend it. Now, I have a mental picture of John Doe that is as clear as a steel engraving. His eyes are weak blue; he wears a brown vest and a shiny black serge coat. He stands always in the sunshine chewing something; and he keeps half-shutting his pocket knife and opening it again with his thumb. And, if the Man Higher Up is ever found, take my assurance for it, he will be a large, pale man with blue wristlets showing under his cuffs, and he will be sitting to have his shoes polished within sound of a bowling alley, and there will be somewhere about him turquoises.

But the canvas of my imagination, when it came to limning the Man About Town, was blank. I fancied that he had a detachable sneer (like the smile of the Cheshire cat) and attached cuffs; and that was all. Whereupon I asked a newspaper reporter about him.

“Why,” said he, “a ‘Man About Town’ is something between a ‘rounder’ and a ‘clubman.’ He isn’t exactly⁠—well, he fits in between Mrs. Fish’s receptions and private boxing bouts. He doesn’t⁠—well, he doesn’t belong either to the Lotus Club or to the Jerry McGeogheghan Galvanised Iron Workers’ Apprentices’ Left Hook Chowder Association. I don’t exactly know how to describe him to you. You’ll see him everywhere there’s anything doing. Yes, I suppose he’s a type. Dress clothes every evening; knows the ropes; calls every policeman and waiter in town