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

My revenge was to read to him my one-act play.

It was one insufferable evening when the overplus of the day’s heat was being hurled quiveringly back to the heavens by every surcharged brick and stone and inch of iron in the panting town. But with the cunning of the two-legged beasts we had found an oasis where the hoofs of Apollo’s steed had not been allowed to strike. Our seats were on an ocean of cool, polished oak; the white linen of fifty deserted tables flapped like seagulls in the artificial breeze; a mile away a waiter lingered for a heliographic signal⁠—we might have roared songs there or fought a duel without molestation.

Out came Miss Loris’s photo with the coffee, and I once more praised the elegant poise of the neck, the extremely low-coiled mass of heavy hair, and the eyes that followed one, like those in an oil painting.

“She’s the greatest ever,” said Hollis, with enthusiasm. “Good as Great Northern Preferred, and a disposition built like a watch. One week more and I’ll be happy Jonny-on-the-spot. Old Tom Tolliver, my best college chum, went up there two weeks ago. He writes me that Loris doesn’t talk about anything but me. Oh, I guess Rip Van Winkle didn’t have all the good luck!”

“Yes, yes,” said I, hurriedly, pulling out my typewritten play. “She’s no doubt a charming girl. Now, here’s that little curtain-raiser you promised to listen to.”

“Ever been tried on the stage?” asked Hollis.

“Not exactly,” I answered. “I read half of it the other day to a fellow whose brother knows Robert Edeson; but he had to catch a train before I finished.”

“Go on,” said Hollis, sliding back in his chair like a good fellow. “I’m no stage carpenter, but I’ll tell you what I think of it from a first-row balcony standpoint. I’m a theatre bug during the season, and I can size up a fake play almost as quick as the gallery can. Flag the waiter once more, and then go ahead as hard as you like with it. I’ll be the dog.”

I read my little play lovingly, and, I fear, not without some elocution. There was one scene in it that I believed in greatly. The comedy swiftly rises into thrilling and unexpectedly developed drama. Capt. Marchmont suddenly becomes cognizant that his wife is an unscrupulous adventuress, who has deceived him from the day of their first meeting. The rapid and mortal duel between them from that moment⁠—she with her magnificent lies and siren charm, winding about him like a serpent, trying to recover her lost ground; he with his man’s agony and scorn and lost faith, trying to tear her from his heart. That scene I always thought was a crackerjack. When Capt. Marchmont discovers her duplicity by reading on a blotter in a mirror the impression of a note that she has written to the Count, he raises his hand to heaven and exclaims: “O God, who created woman while Adam slept, and gave her to him for a companion, take back Thy gift and return instead the sleep, though it last forever!”

“Rot,” said Hollis, rudely, when I had given those lines with proper emphasis.

“I beg your pardon!” I said, as sweetly as I could.

“Come now,” went on Hollis, “don’t be an idiot. You know very well that nobody spouts any stuff like that these days. That sketch went along all right until you rang in the skyrockets. Cut out that right-arm exercise and the Adam and Eve stunt, and make your captain talk as you or I or Bill Jones would.”

“I’ll admit,” said I, earnestly (for my theory was being touched upon), “that on all ordinary occasions all of us use commonplace language to convey our thoughts. You will remember that up to the moment when the captain makes his terrible discovery all the characters on the stage talk pretty much as they would, in real life. But I believe that I am right in allowing him lines suitable to the strong and tragic situation into which he falls.”

“Tragic, my eye!” said my friend, irreverently. “In Shakespeare’s day he might have sputtered out some high-cockalorum nonsense of that sort, because in those days they ordered ham and eggs in blank verse and discharged the cook with an epic. But not for B’way in the summer of 1905!”

“It is my opinion,” said I, “that great human emotions shake up our vocabulary and leave the words best suited to express them on top. A sudden violent grief or loss or disappointment will bring expressions out of an ordinary man as strong and solemn and dramatic as those used in fiction or on the stage to portray those emotions.”

“That’s where you fellows are wrong,” said Hollis. “Plain, everyday talk is what goes. Your captain would very likely have kicked the cat, lit a cigar, stirred up a highball, and telephoned for a lawyer, instead of getting off those Robert Mantell pyrotechnics.”

“Possibly, a little later,” I continued. “But just at the time⁠—just as the blow is delivered, if something Scriptural or theatrical and deep-tongued isn’t wrung from a man in spite of his modern and practical way of speaking, then I’m wrong.”

“Of course,” said Hollis, kindly, “you’ve got to whoop her up some degrees for the stage. The audience expects it. When the villain kidnaps little Effie you have to make her mother claw some chunks out of the atmosphere, and scream: ‘Me chee-ild, me chee-ild!’ What she would actually do would be to call up the police by phone, ring for some strong tea, and get the little darling’s photo out, ready for the reporters. When you get your villain in a corner⁠—a stage corner⁠—it’s all right for him to clap his hand to his forehead and hiss: ‘All is lost!’ Off the stage he would remark: ‘This is a conspiracy against me⁠—I refer you to my lawyers.’ ”

“I get no consolation,” said I, gloomily, “from your concession of an